When are "mining inflated" prices going to drop?

[aaronking]

Looking to buy a new video card, but would like to wait if these artificially inflated prices are going to drop soon. Anyone have an educated guess they would like to share?

 

[geokilla]

Never. At least not until supply meets demand. And even if it does, this craze right now allows AMD, NVIDIA, and all the retailers to make some crazy profits.

 

[Gloomy]

Never. Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and both AMD and Nvidia will cater to it just like they do every other market.

 

[Abwx]

You can always try to buy from the EU where prices are not inflated,
by there , in France , a 290 reference is about 350-360€ with 20%
VAT included wich put the export price at 295€, about 400$.

 

[Shmee]

You can always try to buy from the EU where prices are not inflated,
by there , in France , a 290 reference is about 350-360€ with 20%
VAT included wich put the export price at 295€, about 400$.

This is a good point. I should figure out how to do that

 

[McLovin42]

Looking to buy a new video card, but would like to wait if these artificially inflated prices are going to drop soon. Anyone have an educated guess they would like to share?

As long as people think that spending hundreds of dollars to buy video cards and related gear, plus the cost of running electricity of these rigs near max for 24/7 will in reality not gain them any real world profits. The "mining" trend as it is is already over saturated and is not economically worthwhile in reality from what Ive seen.

The prices only affect AMD though thankfully. Nvidia products have not increased. Glad they aren't as good for mining..........

 

[Abwx]

This is a good point. I should figure out how to do that

500 in the US but Newegg are not the only retailer , quite possible that they are the most expensive one and that the cards can be found at normal prices elsewhere.

 

[KingFatty]

A remote possibility is that crypto currency mining is accepted as permanent, and vendors like AMD and NVidia cater to that established market by providing a 'mining enhanced' version of video cards that have a high price but that are a good purchase for mining efficiency.

Pretty much just come out with a video card that totally dominates at mining compared to a regular video card that does great by today's standards.

but I just can't see this happening until crypto mining is permanent and accepted. I mean, right now the only people willing to take such a risk are the ASIC vendors and whoever else, because I'm sure AMD and NVidia sees it as too risky or just a temporary effect.

Maybe we could discuss how in the world it could come about that crypto mining would be a temporary thing?

I mean, so far, all coins that are based on scrypt and mined by GPUs are still profitable enough to make far more profit than the electricity cost to mine. This will ensure that people who already bought video cards will have a strong incentive to continue making money with them.

Even if a given coin/currency becomes 'dead' or abandoned, I think speculators and miners will want to just move on to the next coin. New coin comes out, miners mine it, speculators move in and toss real cash at the coin, miners profit, the coin dies, and then repeat with a new coin.

I don't see this stopping. People won't sell their cards on ebay or craigslist unless it's financially worth it. Why would I sell off the golden goose that lays the golden eggs, when i can instead just sell the eggs and make money forever?

 

[geokilla]

NVIDIA and AMD won't release these "mining" cards because ASICs either already exist or are in production and testing. I myself hope ASICs never come but we all know that's not going to happen. Maybe another algorithm will show up to let people GPU mine?

 

[SlowSpyder]

The good thing about mining is, even at an inflated price for your video card, you'll make that money back. I wouldn't consider mining 'artificial' demand. Just like people used to buy Nvidia cards because they were better at folding, people buy AMD cards for mining. Modern GPU's are supercomputers on an add-on card, not just pixel pushers anymore.

 

[KingFatty]

NVIDIA and AMD won't release these "mining" cards because ASICs either already exist or are in production and testing.

I'm thinking that if there is enough justification for someone else to make ASICs, maybe there would be a valid case for AMD or Nvidia to as well.

Put another way, I'm not sure there is any other reason besides "risk aversion" that is preventing AMD or Nvidia from doing their own super-efficient mining card. If you can eliminate the risk, where AMD or Nvidia thinks mining is here to stay, then maybe they would be willing to make it?

 

[Midwayman]

Never. Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and both AMD and Nvidia will cater to it just like they do every other market.

Only if there is a unending parade of cryptocurrencies. They will all migrate off GPU compute eventually. Mining with a GPU is like panning for gold vs a big commercial operation.

 

[Stuka87]

To those above saying nVidia cards are being inflated, why? Currently AMD cards blow them out of the water when it comes to mining. Are people actually buying nVidia cards for mining despite this fact?

 

[njdevilsfan87]

DOGE just exploded. I think we can almost just forget about seeing reasonable prices on AMD cards this generation. Maybe whatever AMD counters Maxwell with later this year.

 

[robvp]

I don't think this affects nvidia cards at all, if you already have a 780 you can do close to 7950 performance but the card is very expensive compared to the competition for anyone to want one just for mining, the newer version of cudaminer helps it get close to 700kh/s

 

[DooKey]

Read a rumor over at the [H] that Kyle was told by AMD they are increasing MSRP by $100 for 290/x

 

[bononos]

You can always try to buy from the EU where prices are not inflated,
by there , in France , a 290 reference is about 350-360€ with 20%
VAT included wich put the export price at 295€, about 400$.

Is that because of higher energy prices so mining isn't popular?

 

[KingFatty]

I don't think this affects nvidia cards at all, if you already have a 780 you can do close to 7950 performance but the card is very expensive compared to the competition for anyone to want one just for mining, the newer version of cudaminer helps it get close to 700kh/s

I think that Nvidia is selling more video cards now. The reason is that AMD cards sell out to miners, and then someone wants a new video card, his only option is Nvidia, so he becomes a new Nvidia customer. So demand for Nvidia cards also will go up, because of AMD miners. When there is higher demand, the price should also go higher. So I think Nvidia cards are also affected.

Put another way, Nvidia doesn't have any competition here, so price should not fall on their cards. If you are a gamer who wants to buy a video card, you buy Nvidia.

 

[robvp]

I think that Nvidia is selling more video cards now. The reason is that AMD cards sell out to miners, and then someone wants a new video card, his only option is Nvidia, so he becomes a new Nvidia customer. So demand for Nvidia cards also will go up, because of AMD miners. When there is higher demand, the price should also go higher. So I think Nvidia cards are also affected.

Put another way, Nvidia doesn't have any competition here, so price should not fall on their cards. If you are a gamer who wants to buy a video card, you buy Nvidia.

which is why i bought a 580, but the mining bug bit me and i bought a used 6950 as well D: gonna see if i can make that money back

 

[Abwx]

Is that because of higher energy prices so mining isn't popular?

Rather a cultural reason, in France one KWh is 0.11-0.13€
depending on your contract and comsumption, so not expensive,
other european countries can have hefty prices , about 0.25€
in Germany and IIRC as much as 0.3-0.35€ in Denmark.

 

[ultimatebob]

The price of AMD video cards will drop when either one of these two things happen:

The "optimistic" scenario: Someone develops an ASIC for cryptocoins using the script algorithm (like Litecoin, Dogecoin, and all of the other annoying Litecoin clones out there). Difficulty skyrockets, and it no longer becomes profitable to mine them with an AMD video card. This scenario has already played out for Bitcoin.

The "pessimistic" scenario: A bunch of large countries outlaw the exchange of Bitcoin into government backed currency due to new money laundering and drug trafficking laws. The value of Bitcoin plummets, taking Litecoin and all of the other cryptocurrencies with it. Mining coins is no longer profitable, so most people stop doing it. This scenario is already playing out in places like China and Thailand.

In both scenarios, you'll see a ton of overworked AMD video cards being dumped on eBay. I wouldn't buy them, as many of them will have been running overclocked 24/7 for months and will likely experience fan problems in the near future.

 

[Abwx]

The "optimistic" scenario: Someone develops an ASIC for cryptocoins using the script algorithm (like Litecoin, Dogecoin, and all of the other annoying Litecoin clones out there). Difficulty skyrockets, and it no longer becomes profitable to mine them with an AMD video card. This scenario has already played out for Bitcoin.

An ASIC that would be good enough to yield the same
throughput as a herd of stream processors seems to me dubious,
it will cost more than GPUs given the latters huge transistors budgets
and the fact that they are used in massively parralel computations.

 

[Wall Street]

The "pessimistic" scenario: A bunch of large countries outlaw the exchange of Bitcoin into government backed currency due to new money laundering and drug trafficking laws. The value of Bitcoin plummets, taking Litecoin and all of the other cryptocurrencies with it. Mining coins is no longer profitable, so most people stop doing it. This scenario is already playing out in places like China and Thailand.

Nobody even has to outlaw anything. There have been several times when the value of one bitcoin has fallen by more than 50%. There have also been several times when mining difficulty has doubled over a short period. If certain combinations of bitcoin price and mining difficult becomes the norm the mining will stop.

For example, ASICs have made GPU mining much harder but the move from Bitcoin to Litecoin also made GPU mining for Litecoin more viable. If a Litecoin ASIC is made, that makes Litecoin less attractive. Or cryptocoins could take another one of their speculative price downswings because the prices of these things aren't really rooted in any measureable way so they can fluctuate wildly in both directions.

Low enough prices prices with high enough difficultly and the miners will stop buying new hardware. If this situation persists for a few months the miners will strip their rigs and sell the components rather than lose the money.

 

[Bateluer]

Nobody even has to outlaw anything. There have been several times when the value of one bitcoin has fallen by more than 50%. There have also been several times when mining difficulty has doubled over a short period. If certain combinations of bitcoin price and mining difficult becomes the norm the mining will stop.

For example, ASICs have made GPU mining much harder but the move from Bitcoin to Litecoin also made GPU mining for Litecoin more viable. If a Litecoin ASIC is made, that makes Litecoin less attractive. Or cryptocoins could take another one of their speculative price downswings because the prices of these things aren't really rooted in any measureable way so they can fluctuate wildly in both directions.

Low enough prices prices with high enough difficultly and the miners will stop buying new hardware. If this situation persists for a few months the miners will strip their rigs and sell the components rather than lose the money.

This. Even for GPU mined coins, Doge, Lite, etc, once difficulty gets high enough to render GPU mining unprofitable or ASICSs arrive, pricing on GPUs will go back down to normal. Might even be a surplus of used mining cards on the market as miners strip their machines.

The way Ltc is increasing in difficulty, thats not too far off either.

 

[Wall Street]

An ASIC that would be good enough to yield the same
throughput as a herd of stream processors seems to me dubious,
it will cost more than GPUs given the latters huge transistors budgets
and the fact that they are used in massively parralel computations.

The ASICs are much more efficient. The GPUs are based around a programmable pipeline that can perform a wide range of calculations. The programability makes them able to do a lot of things, but not the fastest at any of them. The ASICs have a fixed pipeline that is optimized to perform the hashing function for mining precisely in the quickest and most efficient way.