How can I avoid getting scammed when I purchase a GPU?

[tazarbm]

Hey fellas!

I'm looking around for a GPU for my new desktop PC build, and I found some offers on one of the classified sites here in my country (Romania), that are WAY too good to be true. I am talking about insanely good offers, and this smells fishy to me, but not having enough knowledge or inclinations towards technology I don't know what checks to run, or what to ask the seller of these GPUs in order to catch him off-guard (so I can expose him as a scammer) and to avoid getting scammed.

There are several listings at absolutely the exact same price (350 RON, which is $74-75, give or take) for GPUs that I - with my simplistic and unknowledgeable brain - consider to be incredibly powerful, such as:

- Sapphire NITRO+ RADEON RX 570, 8GB GDDR5, 256-bit
- RX580 8gb Msi Armor
- Sapphire Radeon RX480 NITRO+EDITION 8 Gb DDR5 256 bit

As you can see, all of these GPUs tick the (arguably) 2 most important aspects of a good GPU (the quantity of GDDR and the size of the BUS), which - for this price (by, the way, all of these GPUs are indeed sold as "used") I find to be incredibly cheap when 2-3x worse GPUs that are being sold as new are 4-5x this price on some sites...

So, my question (and favor) to you is: can you please give me some tips or questions that I could ask the seller of these GPUs in order to catch him selling rotten eggs (if this IS the case, of course, because it's still possible that the GPUs are legit)?

I am looking to buy one of these GPUs for my gaming needs and, while I'm not fussy about it (I don't want the latest and greatest stuff on the market, I just want the thing to simply work), I do care about frames and being able to play all games in 1080 @75 MHz refresh rate (that's the highest rate that my computer monitor can have) and at their highest specs. And to meet these 3 conditions I thought that a GPU with 256-bit BUS and 8GB of GDDR5 is more than enough. But then I saw the price and I immediately went like "is this a joke, or what the hell is going on here?"

So, can one of you, help me with a tip or two about what I should look out for / ask the seller before purchasing one of these just to see that it doesn't work? How would you approach this if you were me? Please let me know as I can't hold it any longer, I'm making huge efforts not to bite the bullet and risk losing these GPUs to someone else / scalpers. I nearly placed the order for one of these, moments before deciding to come here and ask for advice, so I'm in a hot seat right now

Looking forward to hearing your advice. Thanks!

 

[AceHard]

If it's too good to be true, do not buy it. There are lots of fake or scam ads on social media. You go to your pc shop and check for pricing and compare diligently.

 

[Salamouna]

There is no question or test that will save you from getting scammed
The only way is to test it on the pc and put it on heavy test
It can work for one hour then will stop
So it will need long test

 

[tazarbm]

If it's too good to be true, do not buy it. There are lots of fake or scam ads on social media. You go to your pc shop and check for pricing and compare diligently.

one way or another I will have to buy a GPU because otherwise I won't be able to use my computer since the CPU doesn't have IGP either. So this is not an option.

I'll wait for more replies...

There is no question or test that will save you from getting scammed
The only way is to test it on the pc and put it on heavy test
It can work for one hour then will stop
So it will need long test

I thought that this might be the way to go about it, dang it!

 

[Beklink]

These gpu were probably used to mine cryptocurrency thats the reason why they sell them for a cheap price. Is by any chance the same seller selling like 10 or more of the same gpu? If yes, 90% these were used for mining

 

[tazarbm]

These gpu were probably used to mine cryptocurrency thats the reason why they sell them for a cheap price

that's what I thought, too...

Is by any chance the same seller selling like 10 or more of the same gpu?

they're different users (and they've signed up 2009, 2013, and 2017 respectively)... and one of them is a company, too... So they don't like like the same person

 

[SenkuOG]

do yourself a favor and buy a gpu new and from a official reseller/store. Most of the time used gpu are already near dead and heavy abused in mining or just simple a scam.

 

[tazarbm]

do yourself a favor and buy a gpu new and from a official reseller/store. Most of the time used gpu are already near dead and heavy abused in mining or just simple a scam.

that's not an option. A new one would cost me 60-70% of what I'm paying for all other components combined, which would almost double the budget that I have for this PC, that's why I'm looking at used GPUs.

 

[SenkuOG]

that's not an option. A new one would cost me 60-70% of what I'm paying for all other components combined, which would almost double the budget that I have for this PC, that's why I'm looking at used GPUs.

do you have any shops that sell tested used gpus? maybe even with some art of guarantee. Because in my country the chances a very high to get scammed in the gpu market. Fake gpu, already near dead gpus, overused mining gpus and so on.

 

[tazarbm]

do you have any shops that sell tested used gpus?

I didn't even know that this is a thing... But it's an interesting idea and I'm going to searching for this today, thanks for the tip!

Because in my country the chances a very high to get scammed in the gpu market. Fake gpu, already near dead gpus, overused mining gpus and so on.

this happens everywhere I think, the crypto madness has really screwed things for all of us... I know that it's easy to get scammed when buying used GPUs, I can barely understand the functionalities of new GPUs, I'm pretty sure I haven't got the slightest clue how to spot broken / bad ones, which is actually why I'm asking for tips here...

Oh well, I'll keep searching... but those offers seem so good, I just can't stop thinking about them