NVIDIA Asks Retailers To Stop Selling To Miners & Sell To Gamers Instead,(wccf)

[ultimatebob]

Just for haha's, I stopped by some local Best Buy's just to see what video cards they still had in stock. The shelves were basically empty, and anything better than a GeForce 1050 had been picked clean.

And that was AFTER they had marked the prices up to about 150% of MSRP. You know that you have a problem when you can't even keep GeForce 1060's on the shelves with a $420 dollar price tag on them.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Of course, if they're running 24 hours a day and also running hot, that's going to be an issue.

Which puzzles me even more, why the factory BIOS temp limit for my XFX RX 470 and RX 570 cards, are set to 89C! I have to set them using WattMan down to 83C manually, every time I boot.

My NVidia cards (GTX1060, and some GTX950 cards I had), have a temp limit of 80-82C by default, and they do a good job of sticking there.

 

[Riok]

I've noticed mining farms usually use PCI-e 16x to 1x slot convertor risers because the mining doesn't require any pci express bandwidth to be effective. There's a lot of mining motherboards available now that use the cheapest chipset available and have tons of 1x slots to most efficiently make this setup work.

Perhaps a better idea would be to key off of this. If the link width is to low the card could throttle making it ineffective for mining. It would suck for some esoteric custom setups that weren't mining and you'd have to consider some boards use a 4x slot of crossfire but this would require more motherboards and cpus, more space and more power usage to use these cards for mining while effectively not mattering at all to gamers who would take to large of a performance hit running at that low of a link speed anyway.

This seems a lot simpler and more targeted than my other idea, and it won't screw people who play games for 20 hours in a row.

This one sounds better. I don't know if it's possible but at least this is a real difference that doesn't affect what you do with the card. Most gamers have one card, miners have 2 or more. So a card could detect if it's alone and behave poorly otherwise.

They could sell "gaming protected" products that work properly only when one card is inserted. That would be a solution for most of us.

 

[Riok]

As far as I can see, it's an ugly situation that is only going to get uglier.

No no, this is not what we want to hear !

 

[CZroe]

That’s probably the picture I saw.

Saw it in person myself. It contradicts everything else they posted that says Limit 1.

 

[Erickem]

Puttering around on the Ibuypower builder. If you cheap out on all the computer components, but have a 1080ti you end up with not only your 1080ti, but a computer and about $100 less than just the video card.

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Sent from my cách làm kem tươi tại nhà using Nokia 1202

 

[MrTeal]

Puttering around on the Ibuypower builder. If you cheap out on all the computer components, but have a 1080ti you end up with not only your 1080ti, but a computer and about $100 less than just the video card.

Yeah, SLI systems are a good option too; you could pick up a Z370 system and two 1080 Tis for under $2600.

 

[ultimatebob]

If NVidia really wanted to promote their higher end cards to gamers, they should create a bundle that included about $500 worth of top tier games (Like Far Cry 5, Wolfenstein II, PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds, Civilization 6 with all of the expansion packs, etc) with the 1080ti and charge $1,000 for it. Call it the 1080ti Extreme Gamer edition, or something.

The miners wouldn't be all that interested in the package, because they wouldn't want to go through the hassle of selling all of the Steam download codes for each card of their multi GPU mining rig on eBay to recover costs.

 

[Pneumothorax]

If NVidia really wanted to promote their higher end cards to gamers, they should create a bundle that included about $500 worth of top tier games (Like Far Cry 5, Wolfenstein II, PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds, Civilization 6 with all of the expansion packs, etc) with the 1080ti and charge $1,000 for it. Call it the 1080ti Extreme Gamer edition, or something.

The miners wouldn't be all that interested in the package, because they wouldn't want to go through the hassle of selling all of the Steam download codes for each card of their multi GPU mining rig on eBay to recover costs.

Have you seen the ebay prices for used 1080ti's? Nvidia would have to price them at $1200 to keep them in stock. Those $1000 bundles would sell out fast...

 

[tynopik]

they should retail special miner cards with reduced memory so they can save the memory for actual gamers

this will also help them in the future when the mining craze is over, the market isn't flooded with cheap gaming cards

 

[ultimatebob]

they should retail special miner cards with reduced memory so they can save the memory for actual gamers

this will also help them in the future when the mining craze is over, the market isn't flooded with cheap gaming cards

I’m not sure if that would work. Some cryptocurrencies like Etherium are designed to load their blockchain into video memory for processing.

 

[IEC]

Excessive heat and frequent thermal cycles are by far the worst conditions for GPUs. Think RRoD for the Xbox.

60C constant in an open air rig isn't going to put nearly the same stress on the components as one used for gaming at 80C+ in a case with poor airflow. In fact, we are talking anywhere from 4x-10x difference in expected lifetime depending on the component type.



Source: Panasonic capacitor flyer - see page 3 for endurance table
https://eu.industrial.panasonic.com...er_capacitors_combi_flyer_print_blanc_web.pdf

 

[SMOGZINN]

In fact, we are talking anywhere from 4x-10x difference in expected lifetime depending on the component type.

And that expected lifetime is still well beyond the useful lifetime of the card. Who here is still gaming on a 7 year old card?

 

[PeterScott]

And that expected lifetime is still well beyond the useful lifetime of the card. Who here is still gaming on a 7 year old card?

I still play games on my ~10 year old 8800GT. Though it obviously limits me to older or lightweight titles and I was planning to have a new GPU by now, but I refuse to pay mining inflated prices.

 

[tynopik]

I’m not sure if that would work. Some cryptocurrencies like Etherium are designed to load their blockchain into video memory for processing.

that surely doesn't take 8GB

 

[Justinbaileyman]

If NVidia really wanted to promote their higher end cards to gamers, they should create a bundle that included about $500 worth of top tier games (Like Far Cry 5, Wolfenstein II, PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds, Civilization 6 with all of the expansion packs, etc) with the 1080ti and charge $1,000 for it. Call it the 1080ti Extreme Gamer edition, or something.

The miners wouldn't be all that interested in the package, because they wouldn't want to go through the hassle of selling all of the Steam download codes for each card of their multi GPU mining rig on eBay to recover costs.

I love your idea, I would play every one of those titles to!!

 

[ultimatebob]

that surely doesn't take 8GB

Ethereum is using about 3 GB of GPU memory right now. It is getting to the point where 3 GB GeForce 1060 cards are starting to have problems mining it.

This also means that the resale value of the 3 GB 1060’s is about to tank, since miners will be unloading them.

 

[Mopetar]

Ethereum is taking up around 3 GB of GPU memory right now. It is getting to the point where 3 GB GeForce 1060 cards are starting to have problems mining it.

This also means that the resale value of the 3 GB 1060’s is about to tank, since miners will be unloading them.

Should also mean that there's a decent mid-range gaming card that's available at reasonable prices soon. If all miners start dumping at the same time the price will absolutely crater for a while, possibly even pushing prices for other cards like a 1050 Ti down with it. Maybe the memory usage will grow to 4 GB by the time the next mid-range cards are being release so that NVidia and AMD can sneak out some cards that aren't of much use to miners.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yep once the DAG file hits 3GB it will make all those cards unusable for mining. Good news for gamers.

 

[PhonakV30]

There Is solution.Make card runs only at PCI-E 8x and a new driver with no more than 2 cards but AMD or Nvidia love to play with insane Price.

 

[PeterScott]

Yep once the DAG file hits 3GB it will make all those cards unusable for mining. Good news for gamers.

For Ethereum. But just like when ASICs took over for Bitcoin mining, GPU miners using 3GB or less cards will just switch to a different coin. Until the cryptocoin bubble pops, mining is going to be a problem for GPU pricing.

 

[VirtualLarry]

For Ethereum. But just like when ASICs took over for Bitcoin mining, GPU miners using 3GB or less cards will just switch to a different coin. Until the cryptocoin bubble pops, mining is going to be a problem for GPU pricing.

My 3x GT730 1GB GDDR cards, will mine blake2s using NiceHash Legacy. Makes $0.81/day. Unsure if that's even profitable. But 1GB cards can even mine.

 

[Feld]

Should also mean that there's a decent mid-range gaming card that's available at reasonable prices soon. If all miners start dumping at the same time the price will absolutely crater for a while, possibly even pushing prices for other cards like a 1050 Ti down with it. Maybe the memory usage will grow to 4 GB by the time the next mid-range cards are being release so that NVidia and AMD can sneak out some cards that aren't of much use to miners.

It's been more than a year since 2GB cards became unusable for Ethereum. It's likely Ethereum will move to proof of stake before 4GB cards are unusable.

 

[maddogmcgee]

And that expected lifetime is still well beyond the useful lifetime of the card. Who here is still gaming on a 7 year old card?

970 died and prices are silly so I am now on a 7970. release date? 2011

 

[arandomguy]

For Ethereum. But just like when ASICs took over for Bitcoin mining, GPU miners using 3GB or less cards will just switch to a different coin. Until the cryptocoin bubble pops, mining is going to be a problem for GPU pricing.

I don't feel it is that simple. If you look at the top coins by market cap I think Ethereum is only one maybe in the top 10? that can be mined via GPUs. Others are either ASIC (Bitcoin) or proof of stake. If Ethereum proceeds as currently planned and actually also moves to PoS by 2019 then that eliminates GPU mining viability for it as well.

Can all the lower coins even take such a large shift in hash rate (difficulty spike) relative to their values? I don't think its likely.

From what I can glance at while previous generation coins were designed on being ASIC resistant, new generation coins are being designed around not being GPU mined.

This is why the crypto market has added volatility for vendors and difficult for them to attack. Even if the value and uptake of crypto itself skyrockets, it may be one that isn't friendly to mining. GPU mining in particular at the moment largely hinges on one actor's decision, in this case Ethereum and when they go PoS. Or even when they firmly announce going PoS, as that would effectively set a soft deadline for ROI.