10 ms·

Just sell more GPUs. Nvidia makes more money. We get more and better GPUs. I'm not sure how this is bad.

Godel_unicode 5y ago
So I take it you haven't tried to buy a 30-series GPU for gaming, then. It's impossible*, and that's because of mining*. * Yeah, yeah, I know, supply chain this and pandemic demand that, but it's really mining that's the culprit.
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  Nvida should be able to meet market demand. You just don't like crypto maybe. If Tesla was out of Models 3s you would blame...? Or correctly assess that Tesla should ramp up production.
  - TheCowboy 5y ago
    You realize it's not simple to just build the chip production facilities to facilitate this? It requires major capital investment and planning. Looks like you also missed that the chip shortage is affecting automobiles. Many articles exist that can explain better than I can about why this isn't a quickly resolved issue.
    - leereeves 5y ago
      It's not a supply issue. By design, proof of work requires even more resources as more resources are spent on it. One might say that it expands to consume all available supply. Because of that, no matter how many cards Nvidia makes, crypto miners will want them all, as long as there is money to be made in crypto.
      - Siira 5y ago
      - vl 5y ago
        Not true at all. If enough hardware is available, pool only expands until reward covers electricity cost plus small margin. I.e. bitcoin mining electricity-cost bound for the long time now.
        eru 5y ago
        Electricity costs plus cost of capital (etc).
        paulmd 5y ago
        in practice that's not even true because some miners are willing to run negative margins because they extract value elsewhere in the process (the most prominent example is stolen electricity, but also for many miners it's a form of cash laundering. You always get less money out than you put in, but it's clean cash. In China's case they can't get money past capital controls, but you can mine at a loss and sell the bitcoins in a jurisdiction of your choice, that's worth something to them. Also, many miners are front-running exchange trades or extracting other forms of economic value.)
        eru 5y ago
        Interesting. How does running a mining operation help you front-run exchange trades?
        paulmd 5y ago
        standard front-running stuff. you can see the transactions that are in the mempool, you can either submit your own higher-fee transaction (likely to be included before theirs) or if you're a miner you can try to mine blocks with your transaction included and theirs specifically excluded so that yours goes first. that essentially tells you that the price is about to go up or down, so you can make money on the movement. https://cointelegraph.com/news/front-running-flash-bots-and-keeping-things-fair-in-the-crypto-market https://cointelegraph.com/news/front-running-flash-bots-and-... https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/miner-extractable-value-mev https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/miner-extracta...
  - HideousKojima 5y ago
    Nvidia doesn't make their own silicon, they go through TSMC's foundries, which means they're competing for a finite amount of production slots.
    - beebeepka 5y ago
      I thought their gaming line of 3000 chips is being produced at Samsung
      - Ekaros 5y ago
        Doesn't really matter. 3000 chips are on the cutting edge node and thus competiting with everything else that also wants to make chips on it. It really is multi-modal market. And demand for that node, is different from automotive woes...
  - csande17 5y ago
    If con artists convinced speculative investors to spend millions of dollars on Tesla Model 3s, light them on fire, and dump them into the ocean, I would not blame Tesla for the reduced availability of Model 3s.
    - eru 5y ago
      Tesla still got paid.
      - paulmd 5y ago
        that's irrelevant to the point about demand
        hungryforcodes 5y ago
        But thats not what he or she was responding to.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    There are limits to manufacturing capacity, especially such advanced manufacturing. I feel like if Nvidia could, they would have scaled up. Why wouldn't they want to meet demand?
    - cbozeman 5y ago
      Uh, because you can inflate MSRP into the stratosphere and blame it on crypto miners? Cryptocurrencies give NVIDIA the perfect bullshit excuse that people won't ponder too hard over, because the story of modern media is simplistic... every story must have a "good guy" and a "bad guy". It has to be dumbed down for all the idiotic plebs like us.
      - Mindwipe 5y ago
        > Uh, because you can inflate MSRP into the stratosphere and blame it on crypto miners? Cards are still selling for significantly more than MSRP, so if this was the plan they're doing a terrible job of it.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  >It's impossible There's plenty listed on sites like ebay or rakuten. It's definitely possible to buy. Else you can go buy it when it gets restocked somewhere else or go buy it at a physical store.
  - fgdfg354321 5y ago
    > There's plenty listed on sites like ebay or rakuten If you ignore the 90% to 200% mark up price from scalpers, sure. > Else you can go buy it when it gets restocked somewhere else or go buy it at a physical store. Ah yes, how to forget the mystic websites that have stock for more than 30 secs or the physical store that you don't need to line hours before and be in 10 telegram channels to know that.
- jimmydorry 5y ago
  I bought one the other day, no hassle from a local store. They had a pretty wide select of 30-series GPUs. The cost of electricity is high in Australia though, so it is certainly less economical to mine here.
  - archi42 5y ago
    Around here that's a rare story. Actually, I know nobody that did try this and succeeded. But then we don't have true offline retailers around here; those with offline stores sell most of their GPU stock in their online store at inflated prices. So I tend to chalk that up to survivorship bias ;-) That's in Germany, we have some of the most expensive electricity in the world, and then the prices exploded since about 09/2021: Previously the cheapest offer was about 0.27€/kWh or maybe even 2c less if you're lucky; now we're at 0.35 to 0.45 for new contracts, depending on the region. I haven't checked the last few months (and especially not in the last week), but when I checked in early 12/2021 mining still netted some money (IIRC in the ballpark of 3 Euro/day/GPU).
- codedokode 5y ago
  Is it so? I looked up those GPUs at Russian online stores, and they are available for order, although the prices start from $1230 for RTX 3060. If you think properly, it doesn't make sense to pay such a price just to kill some time playing games. A cheaper card would fit this purpose better. Also I cannot blame the miners. If I am not missing something, currently a GPU mines cryptocurrency worth 50% of it cost per year (in countries with cheap electricity). I doubt you can get such percent in a bank deposit or other kind of investment.
  - ARandumGuy 5y ago
    $1230 for an RTX 3060 is absolutely insane, and is in no way a fair or reasonable price for that graphics card. The 3060 is supposedly a lower-mid range card, which have traditionally sold for closer to $300-400 (which is what the MSRP of that card is supposed to be). By comparison, $1230 is over twice the MSRP of 2016's GTX 1080, which was a high end card at the time (and is roughly comparable spec-wise). It used to be that paying over $1000 for a graphics card got you the highest of the high end cards, not mid range stuff. Obviously it's not just crypto miners raising this price. The chip shortage is real, there's been quite a bit of inflation since 2016, and PC gaming is more popular as it's ever been. But crypto miners are absolutely having an effect, and there's no real way to frame it as benefiting the average graphics card consumer.
- Zpalmtree 5y ago
  No? I can buy a 3080 and get it under a week from multiple vendors. Sure, it's expensive. It's not impossible though.
- vageli 5y ago
  Seems that they are available? https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601357282 https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601357282
  - Godel_unicode 5y ago
    If you have been watching, this has literally changed in the last two weeks (also, compare those prices to MSRP). It's not a coincidence that this is happening at the same time that Ethereum moving to proof of stake has become real to people.

So I take it you haven't tried to buy a 30-series GPU for gaming, then. It's impossible*, and that's because of mining*. * Yeah, yeah, I know, supply chain this and pandemic demand that, but it's really mining that's the culprit.

hungryforcodes 5y ago
Nvida should be able to meet market demand. You just don't like crypto maybe. If Tesla was out of Models 3s you would blame...? Or correctly assess that Tesla should ramp up production.
- TheCowboy 5y ago
  You realize it's not simple to just build the chip production facilities to facilitate this? It requires major capital investment and planning. Looks like you also missed that the chip shortage is affecting automobiles. Many articles exist that can explain better than I can about why this isn't a quickly resolved issue.
  - leereeves 5y ago
    It's not a supply issue. By design, proof of work requires even more resources as more resources are spent on it. One might say that it expands to consume all available supply. Because of that, no matter how many cards Nvidia makes, crypto miners will want them all, as long as there is money to be made in crypto.
    - Siira 5y ago
    - vl 5y ago
      Not true at all. If enough hardware is available, pool only expands until reward covers electricity cost plus small margin. I.e. bitcoin mining electricity-cost bound for the long time now.
      - eru 5y ago
        Electricity costs plus cost of capital (etc).
        paulmd 5y ago
        in practice that's not even true because some miners are willing to run negative margins because they extract value elsewhere in the process (the most prominent example is stolen electricity, but also for many miners it's a form of cash laundering. You always get less money out than you put in, but it's clean cash. In China's case they can't get money past capital controls, but you can mine at a loss and sell the bitcoins in a jurisdiction of your choice, that's worth something to them. Also, many miners are front-running exchange trades or extracting other forms of economic value.)
        eru 5y ago
        Interesting. How does running a mining operation help you front-run exchange trades?
        paulmd 5y ago
        standard front-running stuff. you can see the transactions that are in the mempool, you can either submit your own higher-fee transaction (likely to be included before theirs) or if you're a miner you can try to mine blocks with your transaction included and theirs specifically excluded so that yours goes first. that essentially tells you that the price is about to go up or down, so you can make money on the movement. https://cointelegraph.com/news/front-running-flash-bots-and-keeping-things-fair-in-the-crypto-market https://cointelegraph.com/news/front-running-flash-bots-and-... https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/miner-extractable-value-mev https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/miner-extracta...
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  Nvidia doesn't make their own silicon, they go through TSMC's foundries, which means they're competing for a finite amount of production slots.
  - beebeepka 5y ago
    I thought their gaming line of 3000 chips is being produced at Samsung
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Doesn't really matter. 3000 chips are on the cutting edge node and thus competiting with everything else that also wants to make chips on it. It really is multi-modal market. And demand for that node, is different from automotive woes...
- csande17 5y ago
  If con artists convinced speculative investors to spend millions of dollars on Tesla Model 3s, light them on fire, and dump them into the ocean, I would not blame Tesla for the reduced availability of Model 3s.
  - eru 5y ago
    Tesla still got paid.
    - paulmd 5y ago
      that's irrelevant to the point about demand
      - hungryforcodes 5y ago
        But thats not what he or she was responding to.
- ehnto 5y ago
  There are limits to manufacturing capacity, especially such advanced manufacturing. I feel like if Nvidia could, they would have scaled up. Why wouldn't they want to meet demand?
  - cbozeman 5y ago
    Uh, because you can inflate MSRP into the stratosphere and blame it on crypto miners? Cryptocurrencies give NVIDIA the perfect bullshit excuse that people won't ponder too hard over, because the story of modern media is simplistic... every story must have a "good guy" and a "bad guy". It has to be dumbed down for all the idiotic plebs like us.
    - Mindwipe 5y ago
      > Uh, because you can inflate MSRP into the stratosphere and blame it on crypto miners? Cards are still selling for significantly more than MSRP, so if this was the plan they're doing a terrible job of it.
charcircuit 5y ago
>It's impossible There's plenty listed on sites like ebay or rakuten. It's definitely possible to buy. Else you can go buy it when it gets restocked somewhere else or go buy it at a physical store.
- fgdfg354321 5y ago
  > There's plenty listed on sites like ebay or rakuten If you ignore the 90% to 200% mark up price from scalpers, sure. > Else you can go buy it when it gets restocked somewhere else or go buy it at a physical store. Ah yes, how to forget the mystic websites that have stock for more than 30 secs or the physical store that you don't need to line hours before and be in 10 telegram channels to know that.
jimmydorry 5y ago
I bought one the other day, no hassle from a local store. They had a pretty wide select of 30-series GPUs. The cost of electricity is high in Australia though, so it is certainly less economical to mine here.
- archi42 5y ago
  Around here that's a rare story. Actually, I know nobody that did try this and succeeded. But then we don't have true offline retailers around here; those with offline stores sell most of their GPU stock in their online store at inflated prices. So I tend to chalk that up to survivorship bias ;-) That's in Germany, we have some of the most expensive electricity in the world, and then the prices exploded since about 09/2021: Previously the cheapest offer was about 0.27€/kWh or maybe even 2c less if you're lucky; now we're at 0.35 to 0.45 for new contracts, depending on the region. I haven't checked the last few months (and especially not in the last week), but when I checked in early 12/2021 mining still netted some money (IIRC in the ballpark of 3 Euro/day/GPU).
codedokode 5y ago
Is it so? I looked up those GPUs at Russian online stores, and they are available for order, although the prices start from $1230 for RTX 3060. If you think properly, it doesn't make sense to pay such a price just to kill some time playing games. A cheaper card would fit this purpose better. Also I cannot blame the miners. If I am not missing something, currently a GPU mines cryptocurrency worth 50% of it cost per year (in countries with cheap electricity). I doubt you can get such percent in a bank deposit or other kind of investment.
- ARandumGuy 5y ago
  $1230 for an RTX 3060 is absolutely insane, and is in no way a fair or reasonable price for that graphics card. The 3060 is supposedly a lower-mid range card, which have traditionally sold for closer to $300-400 (which is what the MSRP of that card is supposed to be). By comparison, $1230 is over twice the MSRP of 2016's GTX 1080, which was a high end card at the time (and is roughly comparable spec-wise). It used to be that paying over $1000 for a graphics card got you the highest of the high end cards, not mid range stuff. Obviously it's not just crypto miners raising this price. The chip shortage is real, there's been quite a bit of inflation since 2016, and PC gaming is more popular as it's ever been. But crypto miners are absolutely having an effect, and there's no real way to frame it as benefiting the average graphics card consumer.
Zpalmtree 5y ago
No? I can buy a 3080 and get it under a week from multiple vendors. Sure, it's expensive. It's not impossible though.
vageli 5y ago
Seems that they are available? https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601357282 https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601357282
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  If you have been watching, this has literally changed in the last two weeks (also, compare those prices to MSRP). It's not a coincidence that this is happening at the same time that Ethereum moving to proof of stake has become real to people.