A Reddit user recently discovered two abandoned cryptocurrency mining rigs in a basement, containing 12 Zotac-branded NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards. Based on current used market prices, the total value of these GPUs is approximately $3,600 (around 24,000 yuan).
According to the user, these two mining rigs were leftovers from the crypto mining boom. Having become unprofitable, they were left idle in the basement by the previous homeowner for years, who gave up on maintenance entirely and let the user take them for free.
From the photos, all components appear to be in good condition with only minor signs of wear, far better than the typical state of used mining cards.
In addition to the 12 RTX 3070 graphics cards, the setup includes an MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus motherboard, a 1000W Gold-certified Rosewill power supply, and more. Each RTX 3070 comes with 8GB of VRAM; its original launch price was 3,899 yuan, but during the mining craze, prices were hyped up to 7,000–8,000 yuan.
Some netizens suggested testing each graphics card individually by connecting it to the motherboard's primary PCIe slot, using stress tests like FurMark to check for artifacts, anomalies, or overheating issues, while also using tools like MemTestCL to verify VRAM status. The user has not yet released the complete test results.
However, the current price for a used RTX 3070 is around 1,600 yuan. If all these free graphics cards work properly, they could save nearly 20,000 yuan in build costs based on this pricing.
Even if some graphics cards are faulty, salvaging and recycling the GPU cores and VRAM chips can still recoup value. In 2026, with RTX 50 series prices soaring and VRAM costs continuing to rise, this "basement bargain" counts as one of the luckiest PC finds of the year.