Linus tech tips had covered last year that there is a barrage of p106 nvidia video card in the market that are pretty much considered useless since the bitcoin collapse of 2 years ago:
In short the card can be used for gaming provided certain things are "just right" with your setup and you can go off to the races. The performance is about the same as an nvidia 1060 6gb but of course there is no official support.
It got me curious enough to venture into TAOBAO myself recently and after a bunch of hoops receiving a card myself from china.
WARNING: THIS IS NOT A TUTORIAL AND I DO NOT ADVISE BEGINNERS TO GO THIS ROUTE FOR PC GAMING. YOU HAVE TO BE PRETTY CRAZY TO VENTURE INTO THIS AS ITS PAIN CITY WHEN IT COMES TO TROUBLESHOOTING.
after receiving it, the card was filthy as hell. from the side it looked like it had been sitting in some poor warehouse mining its poor soul away prior to getting to me. So it was time to give it a nice little make up before i started fiddling with it.
filthy as flip flop as you can see also the bracket was starting rust. The artic silver had miraculously not completely dried up but it looked like it had been applied like crap.
first order of the day was to clean the mess:
Alcohol would have worked just as well, but thermal compound removal solution worked nicely. Next step was to remove and clean up the old thermal pads:
Now this was starting to look like a video card i would use! Thermal paste applied in a more sane manner was well. however I was not done yet. A rusted bracket is just... sad. So it was time to use some magic eraser to scrub it after letting the bracket sit on white vinegar for 30 minutes...
Before:
After:
not perfect but a vast improvement. I wish i had taken pictures of the shroud prior to cleaning it... but trust me... it was disgusting. The final product though:
its finally ready to see some use at this point. i have an i5 4th generation mobo and cpu coming in later this week and it can hopefully see some good use. I will probably do a follow up post once i start playing around with it more in depth.
In short the card can be used for gaming provided certain things are "just right" with your setup and you can go off to the races. The performance is about the same as an nvidia 1060 6gb but of course there is no official support.
It got me curious enough to venture into TAOBAO myself recently and after a bunch of hoops receiving a card myself from china.
WARNING: THIS IS NOT A TUTORIAL AND I DO NOT ADVISE BEGINNERS TO GO THIS ROUTE FOR PC GAMING. YOU HAVE TO BE PRETTY CRAZY TO VENTURE INTO THIS AS ITS PAIN CITY WHEN IT COMES TO TROUBLESHOOTING.
after receiving it, the card was filthy as hell. from the side it looked like it had been sitting in some poor warehouse mining its poor soul away prior to getting to me. So it was time to give it a nice little make up before i started fiddling with it.
filthy as flip flop as you can see also the bracket was starting rust. The artic silver had miraculously not completely dried up but it looked like it had been applied like crap.
first order of the day was to clean the mess:
Alcohol would have worked just as well, but thermal compound removal solution worked nicely. Next step was to remove and clean up the old thermal pads:
Now this was starting to look like a video card i would use! Thermal paste applied in a more sane manner was well. however I was not done yet. A rusted bracket is just... sad. So it was time to use some magic eraser to scrub it after letting the bracket sit on white vinegar for 30 minutes...
Before:
After:
not perfect but a vast improvement. I wish i had taken pictures of the shroud prior to cleaning it... but trust me... it was disgusting. The final product though:
its finally ready to see some use at this point. i have an i5 4th generation mobo and cpu coming in later this week and it can hopefully see some good use. I will probably do a follow up post once i start playing around with it more in depth.
