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> The real reason Nvidia is doing this is that when mining profitability inevitably drops, either because of a crypto price crash or Ethereum moving to Proof of

> The real reason Nvidia is doing this is that when mining profitability inevitably drops, either because of a crypto price crash or Ethereum moving to Proof of Stake, the miners will flood the used market and ruin Nvidia's profits for a few quarters. Nvidia is trying to get miners to buy mining-only cards, because those can't be sold to gamers down the line. They'd rather mining cards become e-waste in a few years than get resold. Great commentary on the unsustainability of it all. Nvidia has no incentive to make sure the GPU market operates in a sustainable way by supporting a secondary market. Thus, they have every incentive to cut the legs out from under resellers. It would also be anywhere from hard to nearly impossible to give them an incentive to allow the secondary market to operate in such a way as to increase the sustainability of their product. Edit: Aren't we a bit touchy today? (Turn showdead on and look a little down thread.)

RhysU 5y ago
Someone learned from the Cisco hardware glut in the dot com crash!
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  Learned what? How to create a bunch of junk that will be unusable in a few years? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
- delfinom 5y ago
  Just don't give them ideas about Cisco's current solution of moving to subscription based licensing network switches
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - berdario 5y ago
    That's basically GeForce Now, in this context... So, I'm afraid that they already got (and applied) the idea :p
  - kogepathic 5y ago
    > moving to subscription based licensing network switches Moving to? Cisco owns Meraki, subscription based licensing is Meraki's entire business model.
- cerved 5y ago
  can somebody explain?
  - lazide 5y ago
    Cisco and Sun were the go-to big name equipment suppliers to many startups around the dot-com days. A lot of it was stupid expensive (like 150k for a sun server with the performance of a 5k Linux box, or 20k for a basic Cisco router). Well, when the startups folded a huge amount of that equipment got sold for pennies on the dollar and Cisco basically almost went bankrupt - and Sun basically did.
    - ricktdotorg 5y ago
      the glory days of just bonkers sun servers! as a young pup consultant fresh in the USA, i was lucky enough to help setup a fully loaded sun enterprise e10000, gigantic (for the time) external disk arrays and a room-sized storagetek powderhorn[0]. it was in dallas for an insurance company ~1997. all in-house apps, crunching credit card risk stuff i think? an interesting quirk is that they were an almost all-X11 shop! they had a really sweet custom CDE setup. not what you'd expect at that type of firm. would love to know what that e10k eventually sold for. [0] https://iscgroupllc.com/en/supported-equipment/tape-libraries/stk-sun-oracle-tape-libraries/stk-9310/ https://iscgroupllc.com/en/supported-equipment/tape-librarie...
- PartiallyTyped 5y ago
  They also learned from the previous crypto crash where they were stuck with a huge stash of 1060s.
sawjet 5y ago
What is unsustainable about Bitcoin?
- Clewza313 5y ago
  Is there anything sustainable about Bitcoin? But getting back on topic, Bitcoin miners long since moved to custom ASICs, you can't make a profit with GPUs any more.
  - irq 5y ago
    I make $7-8 per day, after electrical costs, letting my 2080ti (normally used for flight sim, but when not in use…) run nicehash’s miner software. My electricity costs $0.0816 per kWh. Not a ton of money but it adds up after a month and the GPU was a sunk cost since I got it for gaming. It literally is profitable, for my situation anyway.
    - Clewza313 5y ago
      So at around $2500 a pop, you'd be looking at a year just to amortize your costs, and that's assuming BTC stays at its current insane levels. (A mighty assumption, since it's dropped 30% in the last week.)
      - parineum 5y ago
        As long as it's taking a year to pay for itself, have a look at bitcoin's change in value over any recent 12 month period. I'm not really a crypto guy but mining in your downtime on a decent gpu is a pretty good gamble.
      - cableshaft 5y ago
        He bought it for Flight Sim it sounds like, the mining is just a bonus. And Flight Simulator 2020 needs crazy specs if you want the pretty graphics at decent frame rates. I was planning on doing the mining on the side just to reduce how much it cost, but I'm mainly getting it for the pretty Flight Sim graphics.
Reason077 5y ago
> ”Nvidia has no incentive to make sure the GPU market operates in a sustainable way by supporting a secondary market.” They do in the sense that buyers often consider future resale values when making primary purchase decisions. It’s much easier to justify purchasing a $2500 “enthusiast” graphics card if you’re confident you can get a decent chunk of that back when you sell it in 6-12 months. Similarly, car makers are incentivised to try to ensure their vehicles have decent resale value. Expected future residuals affect financing and purchase decisions today.
- chme 5y ago
  I would really like to see some data on how much resale value factors in for purchase decisions in regards to gaming equipment in average.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    Some anecdata, I buy midrange cards and never try to sell them. They usually end up in the machines of friends or family. The purchase price is what I am willing to spend on the device and it's usage, and a healthy dose of pragmatism about what is actually necessary. I also overclock to stretch their usefulness out but I must admit the leaps in each generation recently, as well as some fundamentally new technology capabilities mean I am not keeping up as well.
  - Nursie 5y ago
    I don't have data, but I do participate in an enthusiasts forum. It's a huge thing for a lot of them, because a top card costs quite a chunk of cash (even before the current shortage), maintaining resale value allows them to stay at the top for a relatively modest outlay every card generation. Of course right now you can sell 4 year old cards for a profit, the market is crazy.
  - robben1234 5y ago
    No real data, but in my decades of gaming I didn't really hear of people buying the top card in hopes to resell it later and make it affordable. In my experience people buy what they can afford. So mostly *60/*70 (Ti) Nvidia cards. Few people who I know bought the 1080 are still using it. The second life for gaming GPUs mostly is to serve friends/relatives who ask to help building a PC for them.
freeflight 5y ago
> Nvidia is trying to get miners to buy mining-only cards, because those can't be sold to gamers down the line. Afaik Nvidia already tried that [0] but miners didn't really bite because the lack of resale value for those cards cut too much into their profits. [0] https://youtu.be/TY4s35uULg4 https://youtu.be/TY4s35uULg4

RhysU 5y ago

Someone learned from the Cisco hardware glut in the dot com crash!

actually_a_dog 5y ago
Learned what? How to create a bunch of junk that will be unusable in a few years? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
delfinom 5y ago
Just don't give them ideas about Cisco's current solution of moving to subscription based licensing network switches
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- berdario 5y ago
  That's basically GeForce Now, in this context... So, I'm afraid that they already got (and applied) the idea :p
- kogepathic 5y ago
  > moving to subscription based licensing network switches Moving to? Cisco owns Meraki, subscription based licensing is Meraki's entire business model.
cerved 5y ago
can somebody explain?
- lazide 5y ago
  Cisco and Sun were the go-to big name equipment suppliers to many startups around the dot-com days. A lot of it was stupid expensive (like 150k for a sun server with the performance of a 5k Linux box, or 20k for a basic Cisco router). Well, when the startups folded a huge amount of that equipment got sold for pennies on the dollar and Cisco basically almost went bankrupt - and Sun basically did.
  - ricktdotorg 5y ago
    the glory days of just bonkers sun servers! as a young pup consultant fresh in the USA, i was lucky enough to help setup a fully loaded sun enterprise e10000, gigantic (for the time) external disk arrays and a room-sized storagetek powderhorn[0]. it was in dallas for an insurance company ~1997. all in-house apps, crunching credit card risk stuff i think? an interesting quirk is that they were an almost all-X11 shop! they had a really sweet custom CDE setup. not what you'd expect at that type of firm. would love to know what that e10k eventually sold for. [0] https://iscgroupllc.com/en/supported-equipment/tape-libraries/stk-sun-oracle-tape-libraries/stk-9310/ https://iscgroupllc.com/en/supported-equipment/tape-librarie...
PartiallyTyped 5y ago
They also learned from the previous crypto crash where they were stuck with a huge stash of 1060s.

sawjet 5y ago

What is unsustainable about Bitcoin?

Clewza313 5y ago
Is there anything sustainable about Bitcoin? But getting back on topic, Bitcoin miners long since moved to custom ASICs, you can't make a profit with GPUs any more.
- irq 5y ago
  I make $7-8 per day, after electrical costs, letting my 2080ti (normally used for flight sim, but when not in use…) run nicehash’s miner software. My electricity costs $0.0816 per kWh. Not a ton of money but it adds up after a month and the GPU was a sunk cost since I got it for gaming. It literally is profitable, for my situation anyway.
  - Clewza313 5y ago
    So at around $2500 a pop, you'd be looking at a year just to amortize your costs, and that's assuming BTC stays at its current insane levels. (A mighty assumption, since it's dropped 30% in the last week.)
    - parineum 5y ago
      As long as it's taking a year to pay for itself, have a look at bitcoin's change in value over any recent 12 month period. I'm not really a crypto guy but mining in your downtime on a decent gpu is a pretty good gamble.
    - cableshaft 5y ago
      He bought it for Flight Sim it sounds like, the mining is just a bonus. And Flight Simulator 2020 needs crazy specs if you want the pretty graphics at decent frame rates. I was planning on doing the mining on the side just to reduce how much it cost, but I'm mainly getting it for the pretty Flight Sim graphics.

Reason077 5y ago

> ”Nvidia has no incentive to make sure the GPU market operates in a sustainable way by supporting a secondary market.” They do in the sense that buyers often consider future resale values when making primary purchase decisions. It’s much easier to justify purchasing a $2500 “enthusiast” graphics card if you’re confident you can get a decent chunk of that back when you sell it in 6-12 months. Similarly, car makers are incentivised to try to ensure their vehicles have decent resale value. Expected future residuals affect financing and purchase decisions today.

chme 5y ago
I would really like to see some data on how much resale value factors in for purchase decisions in regards to gaming equipment in average.
- ehnto 5y ago
  Some anecdata, I buy midrange cards and never try to sell them. They usually end up in the machines of friends or family. The purchase price is what I am willing to spend on the device and it's usage, and a healthy dose of pragmatism about what is actually necessary. I also overclock to stretch their usefulness out but I must admit the leaps in each generation recently, as well as some fundamentally new technology capabilities mean I am not keeping up as well.
- Nursie 5y ago
  I don't have data, but I do participate in an enthusiasts forum. It's a huge thing for a lot of them, because a top card costs quite a chunk of cash (even before the current shortage), maintaining resale value allows them to stay at the top for a relatively modest outlay every card generation. Of course right now you can sell 4 year old cards for a profit, the market is crazy.
- robben1234 5y ago
  No real data, but in my decades of gaming I didn't really hear of people buying the top card in hopes to resell it later and make it affordable. In my experience people buy what they can afford. So mostly *60/*70 (Ti) Nvidia cards. Few people who I know bought the 1080 are still using it. The second life for gaming GPUs mostly is to serve friends/relatives who ask to help building a PC for them.

freeflight 5y ago

> Nvidia is trying to get miners to buy mining-only cards, because those can't be sold to gamers down the line. Afaik Nvidia already tried that [0] but miners didn't really bite because the lack of resale value for those cards cut too much into their profits. [0] https://youtu.be/TY4s35uULg4 https://youtu.be/TY4s35uULg4