Question Jen Sung makes questionable decision? [RUMOR] NVidia tries to disable GPU mining?

[VirtualLarry]

So now, not only is Nvidia's chairman selling GPUs that can be used for Compute (*formerly called GPGPU - "General Purpose"), he's rum0ored to be attempting to effectively regulate WHAT PROGRAMS are ALLOWED to be run on the GPUs that they mfg?

Imaging if Intel decided to decree, that their CPUs, could no longer be used for searching for prime numbers.

This whole idea is a slippery slope that I am NOT willing to go down.

And to think, this is all just an (alleged) stupid band-aid, over their mfg and supply-chain issues.

If Nvidia could effectively supply all of their GPU markets with product, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Edit: If this rumor turns out to be true, expect class-action lawsuits against NVidia, much like what happened to Sony with the PS3 losing functionality (running Linux) after people purchased them.

Now, ALL NVIDIA RETAILERS will be forced to post a prominent disclaimer of the software that is NOT ALLOWED to be run on these GPUs, or they will get sued as well.

Update:
NVidia to phase out all existing Ampere PCI device-ids, phase in EtH mining "block" across ALL new Ampere line-up!

 

[MrTeal]

Proof of Work (PoW) is generally wasteful since existing algorithms have no practical way to limit overall hashpower. Mining was never really a problem when the farms were small and the power usage was relatively low. Running some homebrew rigs cobbled together from used Hawaii cards (and a Pitcairn, lol) on AM2/AM2+ board with 1000W+ power supplies was also a hoot. Realistically-speaking, though, the time has come for PoW to die. At least Ethereum is moving to Proof of Stake (PoS), so those of you cursing ETH's name can calm down a little.

The forward-thinking thing for nVidia to do would be to encourage hash-limited PoW or a transition to PoS in as many crypto projects as possible. Limiting the GPGPU functionality of their consumer video cards seems undesirable and presages a cat-and-mouse game in which developers find ways to defeat NV's curbs on mining software.

I think it's a war Nvidia won't be able to win without it being a Pyrrhic victory. Nvidia is a massively funded company, but miners as a whole have millions to devote to software dev to work around any restrictions that are put in place. Researchers and devs who get caught in the crossfire much less so. Their CUDA ecosystem is a billion dollar business, they don't want to risk undermining trust in it to chase away miners. Pushing PoS would be a good idea, though I'm not sure how well the average crypto enthusiast would respond to a company like Nvidia pushing that.

It is definitely a potential risk for them though. They don't want to keep pushing out 30 series cards until all the pent up gaming demand is sated only for the bottom to fall out of mining on the eve of the 4000 series launch and all of a sudden there are a million 3080s hitting the used market.

 

[simas]

I think it's a war Nvidia won't be able to win without it being a Pyrrhic victory. Nvidia is a massively funded company, but miners as a whole have millions to devote to software dev to work around any restrictions that are put in place. Researchers and devs who get caught in the crossfire much less so. Their CUDA ecosystem is a billion dollar business, they don't want to risk undermining trust in it to chase away miners. Pushing PoS would be a good idea, though I'm not sure how well the average crypto enthusiast would respond to a company like Nvidia pushing that.

It is definitely a potential risk for them though. They don't want to keep pushing out 30 series cards until all the pent up gaming demand is sated only for the bottom to fall out of mining on the eve of the 4000 series launch and all of a sudden there are a million 3080s hitting the used market.

It is about letting customers actually use your products and not destroying your brand. You want to run professional calculations -> go buy 'professional' cards which NVIDIA does produce. Replace GPUs with toilet papers and think there are "toilet miners" who are going about buying up all toilet paper so they can build whatever vaporware they want. How did we deal with that as society? We laughed at them, we discouraged gouging , we limited how much you can buy at once ,etc. Why is this different? Why do people who essentially steal product from folks it was intended to and what it was intended for should get a pass? Especially since they produce zero societal value and this is pure greed and nothing beyond greed. Screw them.

 

[MrTeal]

It is about letting customers actually use your products and not destroying your brand. You want to run professional calculations -> go buy 'professional' cards which NVIDIA does produce. Replace GPUs with toilet papers and think there are "toilet miners" who are going about buying up all toilet paper so they can build whatever vaporware they want. How did we deal with that as society? We laughed at them, we discouraged gouging , we limited how much you can buy at once ,etc. Why is this different? Why do people who essentially steal product from folks it was intended to and what it was intended for should get a pass? Especially since they produce zero societal value and this is pure greed and nothing beyond greed. Screw them.

Nvidia's model for GPGPU for years has been that you can develop for it on any product. Speed might be limited, but you can still develop, test and debug on relatively modest hardware. If all of a sudden every computer than wants to use CUDA on needs a Quadro card, you'll see how quickly OpenCL code paths start being optimized.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It is about letting customers actually use your products and not destroying your brand.

Then Nvidia should not limit CUDA support in any way. Otherwise the CUDA brand will be destroyed.

You want to run professional calculations -> go buy 'professional' cards which NVIDIA does produce. Replace GPUs with toilet papers and think there are "toilet miners" who are going about buying up all toilet paper so they can build whatever vaporware they want. How did we deal with that as society? We laughed at them, we discouraged gouging , we limited how much you can buy at once ,etc. Why is this different? Why do people who essentially steal product from folks it was intended to and what it was intended for should get a pass?

I see this, as evidence that "Gamer Nerds" are getting a dose of harsh reality, and they don't like it.

They used to have these pretty-exclusive gamer nerd "clubs", that the price of admittance was a GPU.

But then, thanks to Crypto, a new type of nerd crashed their little club - "crypto baller nerds". Flush with REAL-WORLD money, rather than just WoW Gold.

And they started stealing all the women (GPUs) from the gamer nerds.

Now, instead of having the gamer nerd BECOME crypto baller nerds themselves, they sit around in their basements whining about the crypto baller nerds, like a bunch of incels.

THAT's what that [BYTESiZETECH] video was about.

Especially since they produce zero societal value and this is pure greed and nothing beyond greed. Screw them.

The same could be said about gamers, who largely only "consume" entertainment (games).

Edit: BTW, why are gamers who GPUs were "intended to"? Isn't Nvidia a for-profit corporation? Aren't their products marketed for CUDA usage as well? Don't miners have more of that real-world cash that corporations want? Sucks to be you, gamers, unless you can pony up the dough. Stop whining and start mining. THAT's what the [bytesizetech] video was about.

 

[simas]

Nvidia's model for GPGPU for years has been that you can develop for it on any product. Speed might be limited, but you can still develop, test and debug on relatively modest hardware. If all of a sudden every computer than wants to use CUDA on needs a Quadro card, you'll see how quickly OpenCL code paths start being optimized.

And that is a problem how? Those who need calculations (universities, professional users) will continue to get hardware intended for them, gaming hardware will reach the users it was intended to, and open standard gets a boost. win -win-win.

 

[MrTeal]

And that is a problem how? Those who need calculations (universities, professional users) will continue to get hardware intended for them, gaming hardware will reach the users it was intended to, and open standard gets a boost. win -win-win.

You think CUDA bleeding market share to open standards is a win for Nvidia?
Ok

 

[VirtualLarry]

And that is a problem how? Those who need calculations (universities, professional users) will continue to get hardware intended for them, gaming hardware will reach the users it was intended to, and open standard gets a boost. win -win-win.

You're essentially arguing that NVidia should destroy one of their businesses' market competitiveness (CUDA users), to please a bunch of whiny internet gamer nerds that feel entitled to something, without being willing to pay "market price" for it.

Edit: And trying to analogously equate GPUs with toilet paper is horse----, and shows how far detached from reality these gamer nerds have become.

 

[simas]

You're essentially arguing that NVidia should destroy one of their businesses' market competitiveness (CUDA users), to please a bunch of whiny internet gamer nerds that feel entitled to something, without being willing to pay "market price" for it.

Edit: And trying to analogously equate GPUs with toilet paper is horse----, and shows how far detached from reality these gamer nerds have become.

Larry, I understand you are ashamed and being defensive of being the " dirty miner" but that is ok ,cry a little and move on . There are worse sins than yours, you will still have a chance to repent - there is no need to jump at anyone who questions your greed..

those who use CUDA professionally , will continue to do so and will not use hacks for it. changes NVIDIA would do on gaming cards are mostly irrelevant to people who are not using gaming cards to begin with.

question was on how would you feel if manufacturer (in this case NVIDIA) would further separate gaming from non-gaming markets by limiting misuse of hardware, we got it already that you will not support it (since it take bread off your table, reduce you consumption, make your feel ashamed of yourself, whatever ). Now we learned of your passionate position , we can continue to ignore it. *yawn*

 

[VirtualLarry]

Larry, I understand you are ashamed and being defensive of being the " dirty miner" but that is ok ,cry a little and move on . There are worse sins than yours, you will still have a chance to repent - there is no need to jump at anyone who questions your greed..

Heh, someone who discovers that they can make a legit hobby income from their PC, is now "greed"? I'm not ashamed, it puts food on my table, gets me tech toys, etc.

those who use CUDA professionally , will continue to do so and will not use hacks for it. changes NVIDIA would do on gaming cards are mostly irrelevant to people who are not using gaming cards to begin with.

question was on how would you feel if manufacturer (in this case NVIDIA) would further separate gaming from non-gaming markets by limiting misuse of hardware, we got it already that you will not support it (since it take bread off your table, reduce you consumption, make your feel ashamed of yourself, whatever ). Now we learned of your passionate position , we can continue to ignore it. *yawn*

You claim that I'm biased,. yet you consider a valid CUDA-using application (that happens to "make money" - not unlike "Creatives" using CUDA for 4K video-editing and rendering acceleration) "misuse of hardware". Should YouTubers that buy "consumer" video cards to use CUDA-accelerated video-editing and make money with consumer hardware, likewise be restricted by Nvidia, from making money with consumer cards, and be forced to shell out $5000 per GPU generation, just to spend less time editing their YouTube videos?

Or is it really your hatred for "dirty miners" that makes you want to see Nvidia implement restrictions.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I won't mince words. Destroying Nvidia's CUDA API and hardware hegemony at the altar of gamer nerd whining, could literally bankrupt NVidia.

Remember, Nvidia controls CUDA. It's their big cash cow. They don't control DirectX/3D.

 

[Hitman928]

I won't mince words. Destroying Nvidia's CUDA API and hardware hegemony at the altar of gamer nerd whining, could literally bankrupt NVidia.

Extremely doubtful. They also wouldn't have to completely disable mining, just slow it down to the point that it is not worth it to mine on their gaming cards and push people to use their professional line. This is the same approach they've used for other CUDA enabled applications.

 

[CP5670]

They can't really do anything about current cards, but they may make some hardware-level change to the cards produced going forward to make mining less efficient. They have done this in the past to prevent softmodding Geforce cards into Quadros. There are already artificial restrictions on CUDA (accumulate operations are gimped on the 3090, so its neural network training is much slower than it should be) and require the Quadro/Tesla cards for any business or server use. Not saying that this is good or bad, but that they already do such things.

 

[nurturedhate]

Miner lambasts gamers who just want to game for wanting cards to game on. Miner says they just want to make money. Miner threatens "literal bankruptcy" for Nvidia if they choose to make money by making miners buy business class cards for their money making business...

 

[dr1337]

limiting misuse of hardware

Haha, who are you to say how people should be using their own hardware? If I buy something I should be able to do whatever I want with it. Sure supporting CUDA is one thing, but a hard limit on compute functionality is insane and really dumb... I can already see ways of getting around it like wrapping miners in a game engine to fool the GPU/DRM. Using the hardware in a way that its 100% designed for is not misuse in any world.

 

[simas]

Haha, who are you to say how people should be using their own hardware? If I buy something I should be able to do whatever I want with it. Sure supporting CUDA is one thing, but a hard limit on compute functionality is insane and really dumb... I can already see ways of getting around it like wrapping miners in a game engine to fool the GPU/DRM. Using the hardware in a way that its 100% designed for is not misuse in any world.

I think back to console generation and things like 'linux on PS3' - yes, you may have bought the hardware however manufacturer (in this case Sony) can and will determine what you can or can not do with it. I think i remember stories of various organizations deciding to be 'smart' and buying loads of PS3 and arranging them in wolfpack clusters (Air Force I think was one of them) thinking how clever they are. Well, Sony removed it and told such clever boys to get lost and that was even if they did not get a replacement product PS3 for AI or PS3 for massively parallel compute or whatever. In this case Nvidia is offering various 'AI accelerators' or other special hardware for special tasks and needs , why sabotage their own high margins by allowing things not indented to run it to replace their high margin stuff? also , why piss off the very product audience you are targeting by allowing someone else to gorge on inventory because of their greed? Not good corporate strategy and i dont think NVIDIA is stupid (greedy they are but not stupid).

Same applies on modern consoles. you can take your 'their own hardware' attitude and shove it , deep . Vendor can and will control what you do with it. Yes, there are ways around it and more will come over time, however manufacturer/vendor does not need to block all of the attempts, just needs to make it painful enough to discourage vast majority of 'me too miners' . So yes, they can easily gimp the mining performance of their gaming cards. Will they? Only if they believe it would make them more money ..

In case of consoles, Microsoft and Sony also make money on licenses from each game and on subscriptions. 1 million people each buying a console (and subscribing to things like GamePass) or 10k people each buying 100 consoles to run some crazy mining farms is absolutely not the same for them in terms of total revenue it generates (even if hardware sales are the same), they have real interest to limit that. for Nvidia, question is how much of their money is hardware alone with services and whether it is enough to move the needle. If it is enough, capitalism would win once again and they will move in their self interest IMHO

 

[DrMrLordX]

Pushing PoS would be a good idea, though I'm not sure how well the average crypto enthusiast would respond to a company like Nvidia pushing that.

NV, for the most part, comes across as tone-deaf and unsympathetic to pretty-much everyone. The only reason why people like NV is that their hardware has been and usually is the fastest in any given application, whether it's ML or gaming. Reaching out to the major crypto projects that rely on GPGPU PoW and saying "hey, can we help you grow out of your mining phase?" would at least show that they're interested in serving the needs of their customers without being heavy-handed.

Rest assured that the idea of restricting mining to professional cards isn't about saving gamers from any troubles. NV just wants to sell more pro cards.

 

[dr1337]

you can take your 'their own hardware' attitude and shove it , deep

I think back to console generation and things like 'linux on PS3'

Try thinking about right now, you know sony got sued and lost the lawsuit because they retroactively took away features right? And yeah new consoles are different in the fact that they aren't made or marketed to run any sort of workload on them. Nvidia can try to consoleize GPUS but again, it just goes against the very nature of what a GPU is. Its going to be almost impossible to actually lock down mining on add in boards considering the very nature of PC operating systems, nobody HAS to use nvidias drivers let alone a specific one, firmware is changeable too.

You've been on the internet long enough to remember DRM has almost always failed/caused less sales whenever its implemented in such a sweeping way. Nvidia doesn't have to support mining themselves, and thats okay. But its way different than actually actively locking out mining from being done.

 

[Mopetar]

Ultimately Nvidia can't really do anything to stop it because there really isn't anything preventing a crytpocurrency from using algorithms that are largely the same as the kind of computations that are necessary for running games. One of the major upsides of a cryptocurrency is the decentralized nature of it and millions of people with computational resources are a big factor in enabling that. I suppose they can try to play whack-a-mole all they want, but I have a feeling it won't be very successful.

 

[_Rick_]

Here's the easy fix: petition for more green electricity and better transmission infrastructure, more electric vehicle charge points.. Ask for a CO2 emission tax being tacked to electricity bills, particularly for business use. This will be both beneficial to the environment, and make GPUs as space heaters less attractive.
At scale, mining only makes sense, if you have close to free electricity. Abuse green policies to take away their margin.

Also, spread more FUD about so called "crypto currencies", sell your Tesla stock (or go short), and do anything to make crypto currencies crash in price. Buy doge coin, so that the cold turkey from that even harder crash will get people out of crypto.
Rat our your local drug dealer or other major Bitcoin user, so that even more Bitcoin will be seized/lost, and less Bitcoin will be used.

The best thing nvidia can do here is to slow down some of the int logic when used by GPGPU logic. This may happen for the next major release, don't expect anything for the 3000 series...

 

[amenx]

This would not be a problem if there were fabs with sufficient capacity to satisfy demand for both miners and gamers. But at the moment its an either/or situation, and gamers are a far more important strategic market for Nvidia than the volatile mining market. Nvidia stands to lose the gaming market to consoles if customers cant get their GPUs. Simple as that.

 

[DeathReborn]

Internet Cafes Are Turning To Cryptocurrency Mining As "Profits are Higher"

An internet cafe in Vietnam has turned to mining cryptocurrency as the pandemic has affected their business. Internet cafes have been ordered to close to limit the spread of COVID-19 forcing the owners to find an alternative use for their computer hardware. The owner of Star Computer computer...

www.techpowerup.com

A store with a internet cafe has loads of GPU's to mine with instead of selling to people... my level of dislike for miners is skyrocketing.

 

[Mopetar]

Here's the easy fix: petition for more green electricity and better transmission infrastructure, more electric vehicle charge points. Ask for a CO2 emission tax being tacked to electricity bills, particularly for business use. This will be both beneficial to the environment, and make GPUs as space heaters less attractive.

Most of these are good suggestions in and of themselves and can or should be done regardless. However, they don't make GPUs or GPU-mining any less attractive since running them is only more expensive if the electricity from renewable sources is more expensive to generate. In some cases it is, but in others it's less expensive and is generally trending in that direction. GPU as a space heater is always a good idea if you're relying on electrical heat anyways since the GPU actually does some kind of meaningful work with the electricity and the waste heat is actually beneficial.

At scale, mining only makes sense, if you have close to free electricity. Abuse green policies to take away their margin.

This implies that green energy necessarily has to be more expensive than conventional electricity. This isn't always the case and mining (at scale or not) makes only as much sense as the expected return outweighs the cost of electricity. Increasing the costs of electricity doesn't even mean that mining will go away, just like price increases in milk, gasoline, Xbox live memberships, or anything else for that matter didn't stop people from purchasing those things. Many businesses like grocery stores already operate on extremely thin margins, so even reducing a margin won't stop it.

Also, spread more FUD about so called "crypto currencies", sell your Tesla stock (or go short), and do anything to make crypto currencies crash in price. Buy doge coin, so that the cold turkey from that even harder crash will get people out of crypto.

I'm not sure that lying about a thing is a good idea. Perhaps it works in the short term, but people just lose trust in you. Asking people to make potentially foolish financial decisions isn't any better. I'm not really sure what buying Dogecoin does in this case, but my understanding is that it's another cryptocurrency, so you're essentially asking people to fight against this by actively participating in it which makes little sense unless there's something about this particular currency that I'm missing.

Rat our your local drug dealer or other major Bitcoin user, so that even more Bitcoin will be seized/lost, and less Bitcoin will be used.

Now you've just gone from bad financial advise to advise that could potentially get you killed. If you know who your local drug dealer is without being a customer, odds are the police already know as well. History has shown that removing this people just creates additional incentives for a different drug dealer to take over. Removing supply does not remove the demand for it. In most jurisdictions owning Bitcoin isn't illegal, so trying to report people is just wasting the time of law enforcement. Even if it were illegal in that jurisdiction, you're essentially reporting what amounts of victimless crime and starting to push towards a territory that resembles some of the worst that humanity has seen. I also seriously doubt you'd appreciate any neighbor that decided to rat you out to local authorities for similar infractions that aren't hurting anyone.

The best thing nvidia can do here is to slow down some of the int logic when used by GPGPU logic. This may happen for the next major release, don't expect anything for the 3000 series...

Why should they cripple their cards just because they can be used for things you don't like?

 

[Mopetar]

This would not be a problem if there were fabs with sufficient capacity to satisfy demand for both miners and gamers. But at the moment its an either/or situation, and gamers are a far more important strategic market for Nvidia than the volatile mining market. Nvidia stands to lose the gaming market to consoles if customers cant get their GPUs. Simple as that.

I really doubt PC gamers are going to switch to consoles. Depending on the games you like to play they aren't even available for consoles, never mind the list of other reasons a person wouldn't want to game on a console.

Internet Cafes Are Turning To Cryptocurrency Mining As "Profits are Higher"

An internet cafe in Vietnam has turned to mining cryptocurrency as the pandemic has affected their business. Internet cafes have been ordered to close to limit the spread of COVID-19 forcing the owners to find an alternative use for their computer hardware. The owner of Star Computer computer...

www.techpowerup.com

A store with a internet cafe has loads of GPU's to mine with instead of selling to people... my level of dislike for miners is skyrocketing.

Many of those machines would have been built prior to using them from mining and likely wouldn't be if the internet cafes would have remained open for business. The article mentions that 3080s are being used to mine now, but it's entirely likely that the purchasing for those would have been planned well in advance and as part of a typical upgrade cycle. I actually think it's nice that these businesses have found an alternative revenue stream that will allow them to stay afloat during the pandemic. Remember that this business is someone's livelihood.

If they've found a new way to generate more revenue while machines aren't being used, that's even better for their business.

 

[_Rick_]

The Doge coin thing is a bit obtuse, I admit. But if you buy now, you feed a short-lived fad, so the crash once people start cashing out (which will come) on it will be more significant, and have more of a chilling effect on crypto currency in general, as it will be seen as more of the pyramid scheme /pump-and-dump-o-mat that it has become.

Oh, and the drug dealer thing: Bitcoin isn't illegal - but it's conveniently used, when you need to move illegally obtained wealth in an organized structure. So if you weaken the Mafia, you weaken one of the most invested users of Bitcoin, depressing the valuation. This is completely independent of the legality of Bitcoin. It will still be seized by the investigative agency, as will be cash, bank accounts, vehicles, etc., when a contraband dealer/slaver/trafficker is busted.

Also, I wasn't particularly trying to be practical, but rather pointing out more plausible approaches towards reducing incentives for GPU miners. While I am looking for a GPU since mine died, and I now have a reasonably new computer without a card lying around - I don't personally care about it. But the approaches are still more likely to have an actual impact, than hoping that nVidia will do anything about it

 

[Mopetar]

The Doge coin thing is a bit obtuse, I admit. But if you buy now, you feed a short-lived fad, so the crash once people start cashing out (which will come) on it will be more significant, and have more of a chilling effect on crypto currency in general, as it will be seen as more of the pyramid scheme /pump-and-dump-o-mat that it has become.

If you're encouraging people to die it with the specific intention to try to treat it like a pump and dump scheme you're basically asking a lot of people to potentially get caught holding the bag to somehow punish everyone else or warn them off of it which won't work because getting everyone to start buying it up now means everyone who was using it before would make money off of the rest of you. I'm not really sure you've thought out what you're doing because it sounds like horrible advice and won't work anyway since I'm pretty sure Dogecoin is it bit of a meme by intention and won't be taken seriously.

Oh, and the drug dealer thing: Bitcoin isn't illegal - but it's conveniently used, when you need to move illegally obtained wealth in an organized structure.

I would imagine that US dollars is used in greater volume than BitCoin for all manner of illicit dollars. Bad people using something doesn't make it inherently bad. Bank robbers use cars as getaway vehicles, which are conveniently used when they need to move their illegally obtained wealth.

So if you weaken the Mafia, you weaken one of the most invested users of Bitcoin, depressing the valuation.

I'm sure that the government and all of its agencies which have been trying to weaken organized criminal enterprises for decades upon decades now will finally be able to deal a crippling blow to those organizations now that a few disgruntled PC gamers are on the case. Assuming you even know any of these people at all, you've completely held off on reporting information to law enforcement right up until you've drawn some tenuous connection between them and your inability to buy a GPU at a price you want. This doesn't make you come off as a particularly good person.

Also, I wasn't particularly trying to be practical, but rather pointing out more plausible approaches towards reducing incentives for GPU miners.

I don't think you've been successful in that regard and I don't think any of the things you've posted are plausible because they aren't practical for any person to do. Realistically if you want a GPU your best bet is to just fork over the extra cost right now with the idea that you can use it to mine some cryptocurrency that you can sell for your local currency until you make up the difference between what you paid for the card and what you wanted to pay. At that point you can quit mining and you've essentially broken even financially. It actually gets you what you want and is incredibly practical.