Please take into consideration that this will be the same naive, impressionable "market segment" that repeatedly pre-orders new games, even though there is no real reason to do so, as the games are digital copies, so there is no scarcity. The same market segment also rewards shitty game companies, producing half-finished, barely working product, with their money again and again. All because of a combination of deviously good marketing and FOMO.

So yes, I fully expect those soon-to-break GPUs to sell like hotcakes, and a lot of crying soon thereafter.

PC's have limited/collector's editions too, despite the actual game ultimately being a digital code.

https://www.gamestop.com/video-games/pc-gaming/games/product...

It's not like pre-orders are objectively useless like some people may paint it.

> The same market segment also rewards shitty game companies, producing half-finished, barely working product, with their money again and again

Most people buying PC games aren't the ones buying top of the line dedicated GPU's for their gaming rigs. They also aren't ones who will scrutinize super technical details (nor even gameplay elements) as if they are Digital Foundry. Lotta weird generalizations here.

I'd rather buy a used card from a professional miner than from an enthusiast gamer. The former card will have run at very stable thermals, while the latter will probably have gone through a lot of thermal stress resulting from heating up and cooling down, and component stress from power on/offs.

Professional miners usually underclock and undervolt their cards. A constant load is also less stressful on the die and pcb than repeated heating and cooling cycles. The one thing you might have to replace on well kept GPUs are the fans.