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It’s no secret that now isn’t the best time to build a custom PC, with the prices of hardware going through the roof. Part of the problem is cryptocurrency miners, but now Nvidia has spoken out against retailers selling to digital miners, asking for gamers to be prioritised instead.
The world of cryptocurrency is forever rising in popularity, with businesses and savvy-minded consumers hopping in on the bandwagon with the hope of earning a profit. Graphics processing units (GPUs) are necessary to create, or better known as ‘mine’ cryptocurrency, with the chips calculating large quantities of data in a short span of time. This takes a heavy toll on the GPU, and always benefits from more than one card active.
This has prompted some graphics cards to rise over double that of their original retail price. The GTX 1060 6GB had risen from $250 to $530 at one point, while the GTX 1070 reached the original asking price of a 1080 Ti. This happened all over the world, with the GTX 1060 6GB risen to an average of £400.
Even though it’s giving everyone involved in selling the graphics cards a quick buck, Nvidia isn’t happy about the process, as the company has gone on record with ComputerBase to request retails begin limiting the amount of units they sell to non-gamer types.
“For Nvidia, gamers come first. All activities related to our GeForce product line are focused on our main audience. To ensure that GeForce gamers continue to have good GeForce graphics card availability in the current situation, we recommend that our trading partners make the appropriate arrangements to meet gamers' needs as usual,” explains Nvidia (via Google translate).
This is simply a request from Nvidia, not an instruction and therefore might not have any effect on the industry as it currently stands. And although it is a noble thing to ask, it is a question that poses many problems.
It would be difficult to determine the intention of the buyer aside from the sheer quantity that is being bought, but the real problem lies with cryptocurrency miners purchasing the majority of graphics cards at warehouse level before any of the stock manages to reach retail.
Nvidia speaking out against the practice is not the least bit surprising given that there’s no doubt that this practice is hurting Nvidia’s G-Sync market. Cryptocurrency miners have no use for the technology, meaning that buyers aren’t likely to pay for the premium over AMD’s FreeSync tech.
KitGuru Says: No matter the intention of Nvidia speaking out against the practice, it is nice to see some discussion being created by the people who can potentially change the way in which things work. I’m sceptical that it will yield any results, but the eternal optimist in me hopes for the best. Are you waiting for GPU prices to come down? What GPU have you got your eye on?
Can’t they just make more cards and meet the demands? maybe with special headless versions of GPUS with lower prices and other useless spects (for miners) cut off?
If miners can get their cards cheaper they will not bother with our cards, no?
Makes sence in principle, however I don’t think afterthought adjustments like price and just removing video ports would be enough.
It would have to be a hardware development, like if AMD and nVidia made their own ASIC-like devices using miniatures of their GPUs. After all, Bitmain’s Antminer S9 is built using 189 individual processors at around 7W each, compacted into three circuit boards. Think of something like an external 3-way SLI box, purpose built for ethash or equihash, etc and custom drivers to boot.
Plus in doing so, the unified drivers among the GeForce line would need adjustment to downrate their hash performance, to ensure miners don’t cheap out on themselves.
Imagine a GTX2080 no faster than GTX1050 Ti as a minet to protect the gaming market, while an external box has triple GV100’s, costs $3k and performs 250Mh/s ETH on its own.
The solution is not simply “make more cards”, they literally make tens of thousands every week, the issue is big mining coops getting retail trading licenses etc and buying whole containers direct from the likes of gigabyte/zotac etc.
Take a look at this for example;
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7rueyk/so_some_guy_in_surrey_canada_has_pallets_of/
They’re buying them before they even have a chance to hit the stores. If AIB partners such as Gigabyte/Zotac etc, went a bit further to verify who they’re actually sending the cards to in order to ensure it is an actual legitimate retailer, that would solve a lot of the issue.
The community driven marketplaces like craigslist and eBay are starting to be overrun by miners who are now realising that since theyre buying all the stock, they can flip on some of the cards of their own for extortionate prices. Market manipulation is a wierd thing.
Limiting sales to miners means nothing. All they have to do is order 2, then 2 to another address then 2 more and so on… there is no timeout period so chances are you can place an order for 2 then another 2 and so on… it is a terrible time to be a gamer. If this doesn’t settle soon its in danger of becoming a rich persons pastime pricing out a large percentage of the population from the simple enjoyment of playing on a PC… Chances are you will see more people buy and play no consoles rather than PCs giving a whole new meaning to PC Master Race… Sad times
This would be a good idea, the problem is, it would have to be done at a firmware level and that is something vendors can alter to sell more GPUs (to miners). Greed is a huge factor here. I would love to see AMD and Nvidia do just that, make “mining” focused products that cost a bundle but perform well in crypto mining. Mining is a rich mans endeavor anyway so rip them off, they will make back the cost eventually. Make gaming cards completely non viable for mining then make some extra money selling mining targeted products.
I couldn’t agree more about the necessity of separating mining and gaming hardware so we stop seeing this kind of thing.
I’d like to figure if vendors altered firmware without AMD’s or nVidia’s permission (since at that point they would have a blockchain specific product line), then there would be a backlash, leading to a loss of contract.
That would be the ideal, certainly. The issue is that there are plenty of tools out there that let you edit and flash firmware, altered vBIOSes are already quite common with miners so it stands to reason that they would buy the cheaper GPU then mod the BIOS to unlock mining performance, even if the vendors won’t do it. Regardless, it would still be a huge step in the right direction. Once architectures can be built to support the split things would settle once and for all.
I think they still most likely would buy gaming cards, cause those special cards wont be having other uses as mining. They wont be able to resell them after this mining thing is over, or isnt that profitable for most of them anymore, so theyll most likely get rid of them and graphic cards without ports for monitors etc. are useless except other miners. Maybe if the cards could be repurposed to be useful also as a standard graphic card, and it wouldnt cost them much or they might gain some money back by selling to companies able to somehow work their magic and make from useless gpu for gamers to a very useful and cheap alternative. I doubt it will happen. Until this lasts, theyll buy the standard/gaming gpus and will use them to mine. The only thing maybe whats possible is that the retailers will sell limited amount of graphic card to a person, like 2 max. etc. but even this is as the above text mentions futile, cause most of these miners will buy them from warehouses, so i dont know, it looks bad so far.