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If this works (spoiler: it won't, it will be cracked within a month), it will create more e-Waste as miners will toss their no-video-output-mining-only cards af

If this works (spoiler: it won't, it will be cracked within a month), it will create more e-Waste as miners will toss their no-video-output-mining-only cards after they're no longer the latest tech, instead of being able to resell them to gamers, thinning the used graphics card market, forcing more gamers to buy new from nVidia instead of rebuying old cards online. That makes me angry, it should make you angry too.

luma 5y ago
They are clearly marking the new models with a new suffix on the model number. As someone who has been trying for months to buy a 3080 and has zero interest in crypto, this is fantastic news... IFF it means I can actually purchase a card. This doesn't make me angry, and I don't think it should make you angry either.
- akersten 5y ago
  The e-Waste part is what should collectively anger us, but I'm glad you're able to buy your card.
  - joshuahaglund 5y ago
    I'm personally angry that this whole crypto ponzi scheme has gotten so big. That miners are producing e-Waste is the least of its environmental impact.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      The amount of e-waste seems like worrying about the trash created from discarded plastic bottles of windshield washer fluid as the environmental impact of cars.
    - christkv 5y ago
      Not to mention the massive amount of electrical power consumed to perform the calculations.
      - at-fates-hands 5y ago
        You aren't joking! From March 2018: Today, a half-megawatt mine, Miehe says, “is nothing.” The commercial miners now pouring into the valley are building sites with tens of thousands of servers and electrical loads of as much as 30 megawatts, or enough to power a neighborhood of 13,000 homes. And in the arms race that cryptocurrency mining has become, even these operations will soon be considered small-scale. For people clamoring for renewable energy, this is an obscene amount of energy needed to do a single task - mine bitcoin. Which should make it even more obscene that all of that energy is being used for what? The benefit of a few people. Staggering to think how common this is and the article even states a 30 megawatt system is small compared to some of the other sites that are out there. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/bitcoin-mining-energy-prices-smalltown-feature-217230 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/bitcoin-m...
    - randomhodler84 5y ago
      Keep being angry. It will be much larger in future, and use magnitudes more energy. Either make peace (with the drumbeat of human progression), or spend your days being angry at something you don’t understand. Your choice!
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - joshuahaglund 5y ago
        randomhodler84, have you heard the phrase "last man holding the bag?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagholder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagholder This crypt ponzi scheme turned the natural progression of itself into a meme that reinforces itself. But GME is at $180, so you could be right. Stupidity could yet win and our future could be doomed to feed an ever increasing amount of resources into accounting. I hope it's just mania and we can go back to regular low energy databases to keep track of funds.
        randomhodler84 5y ago
        Yes, and also yes, it is a meme. Money itself is just a meme, we just don’t all agree to its definition. Bitcoin as a meme is self reinforcing, incentivizing meme, with so many self defense mechanisms — it’s crazy. Highly contagious too! Groundbreaking and game changing in its very existence. What I wonder about constantly “is it the greatest meme”? Bitcoin consumes the lives and speech patterns of its advocates far stronger than any religion. It’s easy from the outside to say “that’s not rational”. Can we ever go back to less? Argument: money is a meme. Bitcoin could be the strongest meme ever, as demonstrated by its consumption of energy, a proxy for human perceived value. Arguing over energy is just arguing over human preference.
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      Has anybody written about the opportunity cost to society of technological resources going to crypto mining instead of to consumers, creators, and scientists? I'd be interested in reading such an analysis of cost/benefit of crypto vs. creation with the limited supply of hardware and electricity.
  - lstamour 5y ago
    What about the electricity cost for powering the card. Doesn’t that outweigh the e-waste part by a significant margin? Just because a card can’t be used by gamers doesn’t mean the card must be tossed, there are plenty of non-gaming uses such as AI. You’ll probably see an aftermarket for both types of cards. Also, like regular graphics cards, newer versions are highly prized so one might say that graphics cards as an industry is already all about e-waste. Unless you’d like to buy my Radeon 9800 or my GTX 1070? They’re still perfectly good for gaming… except everybody wants the new RTX ray tracing etc.
    - zaptrem 5y ago
      I sold a very used GTX 1070 on eBay for $325 only three months ago.
    - stormbeta 5y ago
      > Also, like regular graphics cards, newer versions are highly prized so one might say that graphics cards as an industry is already all about e-waste. Unless you’d like to buy my Radeon 9800 or my GTX 1070? They’re still perfectly good for gaming… except everybody wants the new RTX ray tracing etc. This is highly inaccurate, particularly on the used market. People want cards that can handle whatever games they play within their budget. A lot of older cards run tons of games quite well still, especially if you accept lower framerates / resolutions. RTX in particular isn't actually that coveted by gamers from what I've seen. It's seen as a nice-to-have at best.
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      >Unless you’d like to buy my Radeon 9800 or my GTX 1070? They’re still perfectly good for gaming… except everybody wants the new RTX ray tracing etc. Or to run higher resolutions, or to play flight simulator at reasonable refresh rates, etc etc.
- k12sosse 5y ago
  I got mine after a 6 months wait on EVGA.com. Worth the wait. Best of luck
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
earthtolazlo 5y ago
Proof of work makes me angry. I have a difficult time getting too upset over any attempt to curtail it.
- mrgordon 5y ago
  I’m not sure it curtails it rather than just generating new card types that can only mine coins and then are garbage
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  Don’t be angry. Just try to understand it. It’s all we can ask.
joe_the_user 5y ago
I don't like Nvidia's approach for other reasons (mostly 'cause market segmentation raises prices in the end imo). But I'm pretty sure miners very price oriented. They'd sell rather than trash whatever cards they have. And it seems unlikely they'd be using any unsellable cards since those are energy inefficient. There's a shortage of Nvidia card/chips after all. Edit: Now I read the article, this is literally only being added to new cards and with a warning.
- slownews45 5y ago
  Right - old cards will still work. And they would DEF sell 1,000 cards at $500/card even if that's a fraction of retail.
slownews45 5y ago
Being angry / outraged / upset is somewhat newer on HN. Not discounting it, but I tend to be more interested in the . well . interesting conversations and questions then to go down the angry / upset / outraged path. The no video out cards used in mining are already out of gamers hands. If they throw them away (they won't - existing product is working fine) they would no need to buy non-gaming product. Finally, I think you underestimate the value of the existing product, if they did want to resell into gaming market they would probably find success.
eropple 5y ago
This can be just as easier, and probably more truthfully, read as "miners can no longer make the used market a minefield by selling overtaxed consumer cards without disclosing their provenance." Because, yeah, having ex-miner cards burn out is a pretty common thing on the used market. Great! Cryptocurrencies are not inherently good or valuable and cryptocurrency people aren't special and their world-burning habits and desires need not be privileged.
- dijit 5y ago
  > Because, yeah, having ex-miner cards burn out is a pretty common thing on the used market. This is mostly a myth, miners cards are usually undervolted, and only a subset of the card is used. If your CPU only used it's floating point unit then it wouldn't be as intense as if you were using the whole thing. The only potential issue is thermal damage, but that's hard to place and has to be close to, or in excess of 90-110c.
  - eropple 5y ago
    It's not a myth. These things get racked in stacks of GPUs in what may or may not be actually-cooled data centers. Undervolted or not, when you couple that with constant load you're stressing devices manufactured to consumer specs. The excusemaking is pernicious.
    - corndoge 5y ago
      None of this disproves GP's claims.
  - krapht 5y ago
    ? My CPU actually underclocks itself if I am running a heavy AVX-512 workload. Actually, back when I had it in a cheaper motherboard, my system would crash because the MB couldn't deliver enough power to the CPU. But I agree with the first sentence. Lots of miner cards are undervolted because what matters is performance per watt, just like many server cpus.
skjoldr 5y ago
...Why would you toss a perfectly working piece of equipment that brings you profit? If anything, there is a second hand market for mining cards for those who want to set up a mining farm for cheaper with a bit more risk.
paulmd 5y ago
there's no such thing as a "mining-only" card, they are still good for compute tasks like grid compute. what you are looking at is a future that is very, very bright for BOINC and folding@home scores. the cards will never be worthless, if nothing else someone will buy them up for 25 bucks and store them until the (inevitable) next mining crisis, and any reasonable miner is going to chose 25 bucks versus having to pay to dispose of them properly (ahahah, sorry, we all know if it comes to that they're going in the nearest creek). anyway you get the point though, the value is never going to actual zero, people will buy them for development work, for grid compute, or just as a bet on the next mining crisis. A hundred bucks for a card is better than nothing.

luma 5y ago

They are clearly marking the new models with a new suffix on the model number. As someone who has been trying for months to buy a 3080 and has zero interest in crypto, this is fantastic news... IFF it means I can actually purchase a card. This doesn't make me angry, and I don't think it should make you angry either.

akersten 5y ago
The e-Waste part is what should collectively anger us, but I'm glad you're able to buy your card.
- joshuahaglund 5y ago
  I'm personally angry that this whole crypto ponzi scheme has gotten so big. That miners are producing e-Waste is the least of its environmental impact.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    The amount of e-waste seems like worrying about the trash created from discarded plastic bottles of windshield washer fluid as the environmental impact of cars.
  - christkv 5y ago
    Not to mention the massive amount of electrical power consumed to perform the calculations.
    - at-fates-hands 5y ago
      You aren't joking! From March 2018: Today, a half-megawatt mine, Miehe says, “is nothing.” The commercial miners now pouring into the valley are building sites with tens of thousands of servers and electrical loads of as much as 30 megawatts, or enough to power a neighborhood of 13,000 homes. And in the arms race that cryptocurrency mining has become, even these operations will soon be considered small-scale. For people clamoring for renewable energy, this is an obscene amount of energy needed to do a single task - mine bitcoin. Which should make it even more obscene that all of that energy is being used for what? The benefit of a few people. Staggering to think how common this is and the article even states a 30 megawatt system is small compared to some of the other sites that are out there. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/bitcoin-mining-energy-prices-smalltown-feature-217230 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/bitcoin-m...
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    Keep being angry. It will be much larger in future, and use magnitudes more energy. Either make peace (with the drumbeat of human progression), or spend your days being angry at something you don’t understand. Your choice!
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - joshuahaglund 5y ago
      randomhodler84, have you heard the phrase "last man holding the bag?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagholder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagholder This crypt ponzi scheme turned the natural progression of itself into a meme that reinforces itself. But GME is at $180, so you could be right. Stupidity could yet win and our future could be doomed to feed an ever increasing amount of resources into accounting. I hope it's just mania and we can go back to regular low energy databases to keep track of funds.
      - randomhodler84 5y ago
        Yes, and also yes, it is a meme. Money itself is just a meme, we just don’t all agree to its definition. Bitcoin as a meme is self reinforcing, incentivizing meme, with so many self defense mechanisms — it’s crazy. Highly contagious too! Groundbreaking and game changing in its very existence. What I wonder about constantly “is it the greatest meme”? Bitcoin consumes the lives and speech patterns of its advocates far stronger than any religion. It’s easy from the outside to say “that’s not rational”. Can we ever go back to less? Argument: money is a meme. Bitcoin could be the strongest meme ever, as demonstrated by its consumption of energy, a proxy for human perceived value. Arguing over energy is just arguing over human preference.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    Has anybody written about the opportunity cost to society of technological resources going to crypto mining instead of to consumers, creators, and scientists? I'd be interested in reading such an analysis of cost/benefit of crypto vs. creation with the limited supply of hardware and electricity.
- lstamour 5y ago
  What about the electricity cost for powering the card. Doesn’t that outweigh the e-waste part by a significant margin? Just because a card can’t be used by gamers doesn’t mean the card must be tossed, there are plenty of non-gaming uses such as AI. You’ll probably see an aftermarket for both types of cards. Also, like regular graphics cards, newer versions are highly prized so one might say that graphics cards as an industry is already all about e-waste. Unless you’d like to buy my Radeon 9800 or my GTX 1070? They’re still perfectly good for gaming… except everybody wants the new RTX ray tracing etc.
  - zaptrem 5y ago
    I sold a very used GTX 1070 on eBay for $325 only three months ago.
  - stormbeta 5y ago
    > Also, like regular graphics cards, newer versions are highly prized so one might say that graphics cards as an industry is already all about e-waste. Unless you’d like to buy my Radeon 9800 or my GTX 1070? They’re still perfectly good for gaming… except everybody wants the new RTX ray tracing etc. This is highly inaccurate, particularly on the used market. People want cards that can handle whatever games they play within their budget. A lot of older cards run tons of games quite well still, especially if you accept lower framerates / resolutions. RTX in particular isn't actually that coveted by gamers from what I've seen. It's seen as a nice-to-have at best.
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    >Unless you’d like to buy my Radeon 9800 or my GTX 1070? They’re still perfectly good for gaming… except everybody wants the new RTX ray tracing etc. Or to run higher resolutions, or to play flight simulator at reasonable refresh rates, etc etc.
k12sosse 5y ago
I got mine after a 6 months wait on EVGA.com. Worth the wait. Best of luck

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

earthtolazlo 5y ago

Proof of work makes me angry. I have a difficult time getting too upset over any attempt to curtail it.

mrgordon 5y ago
I’m not sure it curtails it rather than just generating new card types that can only mine coins and then are garbage
randomhodler84 5y ago
Don’t be angry. Just try to understand it. It’s all we can ask.

joe_the_user 5y ago

I don't like Nvidia's approach for other reasons (mostly 'cause market segmentation raises prices in the end imo). But I'm pretty sure miners very price oriented. They'd sell rather than trash whatever cards they have. And it seems unlikely they'd be using any unsellable cards since those are energy inefficient. There's a shortage of Nvidia card/chips after all. Edit: Now I read the article, this is literally only being added to new cards and with a warning.

slownews45 5y ago
Right - old cards will still work. And they would DEF sell 1,000 cards at $500/card even if that's a fraction of retail.

slownews45 5y ago

Being angry / outraged / upset is somewhat newer on HN. Not discounting it, but I tend to be more interested in the . well . interesting conversations and questions then to go down the angry / upset / outraged path. The no video out cards used in mining are already out of gamers hands. If they throw them away (they won't - existing product is working fine) they would no need to buy non-gaming product. Finally, I think you underestimate the value of the existing product, if they did want to resell into gaming market they would probably find success.

eropple 5y ago

This can be just as easier, and probably more truthfully, read as "miners can no longer make the used market a minefield by selling overtaxed consumer cards without disclosing their provenance." Because, yeah, having ex-miner cards burn out is a pretty common thing on the used market. Great! Cryptocurrencies are not inherently good or valuable and cryptocurrency people aren't special and their world-burning habits and desires need not be privileged.

dijit 5y ago
> Because, yeah, having ex-miner cards burn out is a pretty common thing on the used market. This is mostly a myth, miners cards are usually undervolted, and only a subset of the card is used. If your CPU only used it's floating point unit then it wouldn't be as intense as if you were using the whole thing. The only potential issue is thermal damage, but that's hard to place and has to be close to, or in excess of 90-110c.
- eropple 5y ago
  It's not a myth. These things get racked in stacks of GPUs in what may or may not be actually-cooled data centers. Undervolted or not, when you couple that with constant load you're stressing devices manufactured to consumer specs. The excusemaking is pernicious.
  - corndoge 5y ago
    None of this disproves GP's claims.
- krapht 5y ago
  ? My CPU actually underclocks itself if I am running a heavy AVX-512 workload. Actually, back when I had it in a cheaper motherboard, my system would crash because the MB couldn't deliver enough power to the CPU. But I agree with the first sentence. Lots of miner cards are undervolted because what matters is performance per watt, just like many server cpus.

skjoldr 5y ago

...Why would you toss a perfectly working piece of equipment that brings you profit? If anything, there is a second hand market for mining cards for those who want to set up a mining farm for cheaper with a bit more risk.

paulmd 5y ago

there's no such thing as a "mining-only" card, they are still good for compute tasks like grid compute. what you are looking at is a future that is very, very bright for BOINC and folding@home scores. the cards will never be worthless, if nothing else someone will buy them up for 25 bucks and store them until the (inevitable) next mining crisis, and any reasonable miner is going to chose 25 bucks versus having to pay to dispose of them properly (ahahah, sorry, we all know if it comes to that they're going in the nearest creek). anyway you get the point though, the value is never going to actual zero, people will buy them for development work, for grid compute, or just as a bet on the next mining crisis. A hundred bucks for a card is better than nothing.