The environmental obsession will not take long to appear on our computers and among the topics will appear the treatment of waste and the use of resources. well, the graphics card recycling It will be one of the things that we will see the most in the coming years. What will it consist of? Will it result in cost overruns for end users? Let’s see.
Graphics cards can be found in various types of computers, from those integrated into the chip of our mobile phone to several of them installed in a high-powered server or even a supercomputer. However, as time passes, their Memento Morí approaches, either due to breakage or replacement, they will stop working. Of course, they will never disappear and become waste that must be treated, either through recycling or giving these products a second life.
How is the recycling of graphics cards?
There are several things that can be done when a graphics card is out of date in order to avoid environmental impact. For example, one of the most common is to give the equipment that for us no longer performs and is outdated for those who are good enough. Especially schools, public administration and even NGOs of different kinds if we are cooperating. However, it is not the only thing that is done. Of course, the solutions that go further are at an industrial level with a view to making use of resources and can be replicated from home, however, these have not been fully applied for the moment.
The first method is to take faulty graphics cards to the store to see if they can be reused with some complex parts swap repair. These models will be sold as refurbished in stores. However, as recycling regulations become more stringent, we will see an additional step in component recycling. Since these will be scrapped and given a new life. Either as memory in one model or the GPU will be used again. Perhaps the graphics card from a gaming laptop has served a while in a desktop graphics card.
Obviously, manufacturers will have to have methodologies to check the quality levels of used parts and whether they can be given a second life in a new product. As you will understand, we are not talking about pieces that have been forced to extreme overclocking outside of what is natural for them. However, it has been shown that a well cared for component can last for decades without problems.
Could it be the end of the low ranges?
Well yes, since it is possible that in a while we will stop seeing this segment in the graphics card market, since these do not give many margins and even more so with inflation. The performance of these models is too high for those who want something simple and for the rest it is the other way around. The best solution? Take advantage of old hardware for the input ranges, since they do not need more in terms of power.
In this way, manufacturers save on creating a graphics chip with few margins and that will give them little money, and a second life is given to models that are not competitive to play with. Although part of these end up in the trash, at least we have saved ourselves from manufacturing more than necessary and consuming fewer resources thanks to this recycling of graphics cards.
