I have no sympathy for miners, but purely from software freedom perspective this is maximally evil: closed-source software that decides what you can use your hardware for. The CMP version is a straight-to-landfill product. As soon as it stops being profitable for mining it will have zero resale value, and become e-waste.
>As soon as it stops being profitable for mining it will have zero resale value, and become e-waste.
There's lots of old graphics cards no one sells or buys as well
Imagine the PlayStation was able to be used to mine crypto. Game developers depend on gamers to actually play their games, what would you have Sony do? Encourage it or do nothing? Pretty sure their obligations to any shareholders would be to limit it so more gamers can play and buy games for it.
They literally did that with the PS3 for clusters (though not for crypto mining) and shut down the ability to do it.
And were sued for doing so. Removing functionality from an existing product is not acceptable.
Imagine the PlayStation was able to be used to mine crypto. Game developers depend on gamers to actually play their games, what would you have Sony do? Encourage it or do nothing? Pretty sure their obligations to any shareholders would be to limit it so more gamers can play and buy games for it.
>Pretty sure their obligations to any shareholders would be to limit it so more gamers can play and buy games for it. It's not really the same because playstations are sold at break-even or at a loss with the expectation that follow-up revenue would make up for it. On the other hand no such dynamic exists for nvidia. For them, sale to a miner is the same as a sale to gamer.
I thought this was long ago disproven. That at very early stages yes breakeven or small loss happens. But rapidly becomes mildly profitable per unit
It can be. NVDA's stance is utter bull. It is entirely possible to render video games and stream them to another display [1,2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY4s35uULg4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1nok2VlF1M [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfIibTBaoMM
I am may be off base here, but isn't this how the Nvidia Geforce Now service work? Rendering on their systems and streaming to a dedicated client? I have used this service to play a few different games which I have licenses too where the developer no longer supports Mac; oddly this seems to have gotten worse with M1 chips.
> oddly this seems to have gotten worse with M1 chips.
If a developer wasn't around or willing to recompile and test their game on x64 to support Catalina (which dropped support for 32-bit apps), then it's not surprising to me that they are also unable or unwilling to recompile and test and support the game on M1 ARM chips.
I'm probably going to be downvoted into oblivion but I'm genuinely curious: Does anybody else think that the "mining is bad for the environment and gamers can't buy the cards" argument is a bit weird? After all, if all these cards weren't used for mining but for gaming, wouldn't the environmental outcome be the same? I mean, is there any inherent upside to burning tons of energy for games vs burning it for a cryptocu…
Gamers use only 1-2 cards at a time and keep them for years, they don't build entire farms running 24/7 that burn out the cards in a short time.
Absolutely, it's materials science. Most electronics like this aren't meant to be run full-tilt 24/7, especially not under the conditions that crypto mining typically occurs. Subpar cooling, potentially dirty air - so lots of dust and particulate. Not to mention crypto miners will often have the GPUs overclocked on top of running full tilt to get every last hash out of it. It's about as brutal of a situation as you c…
>Not to mention crypto miners will often have the GPUs overclocked on top of running full tilt to get every last hash out of it. It's about as brutal of a situation as you can get for a GPU. This is false because miners often undervolt to achieve better efficiency. The popular GPU mining algorithms are all memory-bound, so you can undervolt your core clocks quite a bit and still get >95% of the original performance.
That depends on how valuable the last 5% of your hash rate is and local electricity prices. Running an OC especially for memory can objectively be the correct choice.
For collage dorms for example rarely charge based on electricity use. Some apartment complexes also include electricity as part of the rent.
I have no sympathy for miners, but purely from software freedom perspective this is maximally evil: closed-source software that decides what you can use your hardware for. The CMP version is a straight-to-landfill product. As soon as it stops being profitable for mining it will have zero resale value, and become e-waste.
>As soon as it stops being profitable for mining it will have zero resale value, and become e-waste. There's lots of old graphics cards no one sells or buys as well
There are, but these could be thrown put in a matter of weeks. As soon as bitcoin prices crash again, these cards are junk. By the time the next boom happens there will be a new generation of cards and these will be unprofitable. Nvidia is simply leveraging this predictable boom-bust cycle to make a quick buck selling a polluting product. This is Captain Planet-style environmental arrogance.
Because cryptocurrency mining is now one of the biggest contributors to climate change. It is killing the planet. It is a moral imperiative to shut it down by any means necessary.
'One of the biggest contributors to climate change' - this is so far from being even remotely true
Perhaps overstated, but it is a noticeable percentage of global electricity use spent on what is at best an enabling technology for the somewhat quixotic pursuits of a tiny fraction of the population.
You should of course make your own judgments, but many people do not consider that a good tradeoff.