A Reddit user purchased a used crypto mining rig from a garage via the Russian classifieds site Avito for $35. The system features multiple Nvidia P106-100 GPUs, which are Pascal-generation cards with 6GB of GDDR5 memory each, originally released around mid-2017.
The rig provides a total of 54GB of VRAM, resulting in a cost of approximately 65 cents per GB. The buyer tested the setup by running a 35B parameter mixture-of-experts AI model, achieving speeds of over 30 tokens per second using Ollama.
While the hardware is limited by PCIe 2.0 x1 slots and older CUDA support, it can run MoE models that fit within the available VRAM. The owner plans to upgrade the system with a new case, an i7-7700K CPU, and 32GB of RAM to accommodate up to 12 GPUs.
The combined TDP of the current GPU setup is estimated at 1,080W. Despite the power consumption, the owner notes that electricity costs are low, making the repurposing of this legacy mining hardware a viable method for hosting AI models locally.
