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Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

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Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#301

Post by navaati »

endgame wrote: post #126
outworlder wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am pretty sure my next GPU is going to be AMD due to this behavior by Nvidia. I was thinking about buying NVIDIA for the next GPU based on performance numbers alone. However, against it there's: 1) Terrible Linux support(and history). This is specially important now that most of Steam's library runs on Linux without issues. It was eye-opening to see Cyberpunk running almost perfectly on DAY ONE with the same perf…

4) Crippling the ability to GPU passthrough (subpoint of (2), I suppose)

To give them credit when it’s due, they recently lifted this limitation.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#302

Post by eropple »

akersten wrote: post #123
slownews45 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thrilled by this. This has been a common approach in I think almost every industry. What nvidia is doing is recognizing that the needs of existing long time consumers / clients / partners are not being met by the current situation. Yes, it inflates short term profits and increases their pricing power, but long run if you can't buy nvidia for your dev box, your game box etc, this reduces the long run nvidia ecosys…

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.

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.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#303

Post by barrkel »

wbraun wrote: post #2

Does this behavior anger anyone else on a deep level? I get that its hard to buy GPUs right now, but this seems like such an attack on general purpose computing. Hardware manufactures already segment features between consumer and busness grade parts that the silicon itself is capable of, such as virtualization, but restricting what algorithms one can run is a whole new level. I am pretty sure my next GPU is going to…

It's market segmentation, and it's not a new strategy.

The market is bimodal. There's the crypto miners and there's the gamers. Right now, gamers are getting starved out and middlemen are pocketing the surplus selling gaming cards to crypto miners.

Nvidia want to capture more of that surplus for themselves, while also taking money from the gamers. Satisfy both markets with different products at different prices, prices that leave less money on the table.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#304

Post by knz_ »

Justsignedup wrote: post #254
slownews45 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thrilled by this. This has been a common approach in I think almost every industry. What nvidia is doing is recognizing that the needs of existing long time consumers / clients / partners are not being met by the current situation. Yes, it inflates short term profits and increases their pricing power, but long run if you can't buy nvidia for your dev box, your game box etc, this reduces the long run nvidia ecosys…

To add on: none of it is malicious. its just the market stabalization problem a) let's keep consumer grade stuff stable in price b) let's charge miners 3x, because they willing to pay 3x, and destroy the scalping market which is VERY anti everything. Scalpers hurt literally everyone. c) let's not de-stabalize nvidia's income again when eth drops in value. They don't want to be beholden to a coin's gamble either. Basi…

> a) let's keep consumer grade stuff stable in price

Consumer GPUs had far from a 'stable price' before the mining boom.

GPUs have more than tripled in MSRP once you factor in that NVIDIA has moved lower-tier chips that previously only featured in their lowest end x50 and x60 tier GPUs up the stack and started selling them for $400+ MSRP. Look at the GTX960, which launched at $150 in 2014, against the 3060 which launched at an MSRP of $330.

It's even worse at the high end. Flagship GPUs like the 980ti and 1080ti launched at MSRPs of $650 and $700 respectively, now the high end GPUs are $1200 (2080ti) and $1500 (3090).

> none of it is malicious.

It absolutely is malicious. NVIDIA is trying to stop a strong second hand market from being formed so that they can continue to charge ridiculous prices for GPUs that should be 1/2 to 1/3 their current price if the market was healthy.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#305

Post by bb88 »

wbraun wrote: post #2

Does this behavior anger anyone else on a deep level? I get that its hard to buy GPUs right now, but this seems like such an attack on general purpose computing. Hardware manufactures already segment features between consumer and busness grade parts that the silicon itself is capable of, such as virtualization, but restricting what algorithms one can run is a whole new level. I am pretty sure my next GPU is going to…

If I were a chip manufacturer like NVDA, I would pursue the crypto market with a special chips for each different crypto, to move the crypto market off their gamer line.

Then let the crypto people pay 6x for 4x performance using half the power, e.g, meanwhile using that income to fund the research for the the 3nm, 2nm, 1nm production lines.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#306

Post by godelski »

outworlder wrote: post #102
wbraun wrote: post #2

Does this behavior anger anyone else on a deep level? I get that its hard to buy GPUs right now, but this seems like such an attack on general purpose computing. Hardware manufactures already segment features between consumer and busness grade parts that the silicon itself is capable of, such as virtualization, but restricting what algorithms one can run is a whole new level. I am pretty sure my next GPU is going to…

> I am pretty sure my next GPU is going to be AMD due to this behavior by Nvidia. I was thinking about buying NVIDIA for the next GPU based on performance numbers alone. However, against it there's: 1) Terrible Linux support(and history). This is specially important now that most of Steam's library runs on Linux without issues. It was eye-opening to see Cyberpunk running almost perfectly on DAY ONE with the same perf…

> It was eye-opening to see Cyberpunk running almost perfectly on DAY ONE with the same performance as Windows.

I'm looking at Cyberpunk right now (because it is on sale) and Steam says it is windows only. Most of my Steam library doesn't work on linux, what are you running differently? I'm only just getting back into games after a long hiatus.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#307

Post by michaelmrose »

Siira wrote: post #81
optymizer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I woke up early back on launch day in October 2020 to buy a 3080 when they said it would be available. Couldn't get one. Periodically I'd check newegg and other sites to see if the shortage is gone. Nope, on 05/18 it's still out of stock everywhere. Throwing $750 on a piece of hardware to play games shouldn't be this horrendous of an experience. I for one am glad nVidia is doing something about it.

They should just raise the prices. Supply and demand, you know?

I don't think PC gaming should require you to be part of the top 10% in order to fairly price computer hardware between mostly foreign miners buying scores of chips whose primary contribution to society is using 129 TW hours annually and individual users buying a single GPU.

As a selfish American I would rather we arrange for GPUs to be useless to a small number of users buying a large number of GPUS for mining in order for the much larger group of users to be able to afford one GPU.

If this strategy is successful and AMD doesn't follow suit nvidia GPUs will basically be the only ones most people can afford and if mining collapses years later AMD wont have any marketshare left to lose in the consumer space.

The only other way to still get their hardware in front of people who they want to keep a relationship going with will be via privileging OEMs over selling individual GPUs but in fact people are actually buying machines for the GPU and turning over the remaining GPU less machine in the consumer market.

As it stands the whole situation is broken for the only buyers that are sure to be here in 10 years and I would rather it move towards sanity sooner rather than later.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#309

Post by fastball »

shagie wrote: post #70
fastball wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you're only mining with renewables? And I'd actually like to see a study on the positive mental health benefit of gaming, because I'm skeptical. Also the idea that you need a primo GPU in order to game is a bit silly. And if you're the kind of person that absolutely needs the best graphics in order to enjoy gaming, please see my point no. 2 about mental health.

> What if you're only mining with renewables? The issue isn't the "we're using renewable energy - see, this doesn't make things worse." It also doesn't make things better. Whats more, its increasing the consumption of energy which is at the core of the problem. It would have been even better to push that renewable energy out onto the grid (and also not increase the consumption of power for crypto mining). Switching a…

It's not anyone's responsibility to make things "better" for you or anyone else.

The person I was replying to said that mining was destroying the planet. This doesn't seem particularly true to me if you're mining on renewables.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#310

Post by NortySpock »

wbraun wrote: post #2

Does this behavior anger anyone else on a deep level? I get that its hard to buy GPUs right now, but this seems like such an attack on general purpose computing. Hardware manufactures already segment features between consumer and busness grade parts that the silicon itself is capable of, such as virtualization, but restricting what algorithms one can run is a whole new level. I am pretty sure my next GPU is going to…

It looks like this is tied to the hardware, so miners should look to avoid a particular manufacturing run of a SKU.

Personally, I'm ok with this approach as it's tied to the hardware, and can be researched by everyone ahead of time to avoid "Model X, manufactured from Y to Z dates". Hopefully this can be determined from the SKU + serial number easily by a human reading the serial number.

It's not a software driver change nerfing the card remotely, which I would be absolutely against. It appears it could be eventually reverse engineered and bypassed, which I'm also ok with.

It's also not immediate e-waste as miners will avoid it anyway, and gamers can just use the card as normal regardless of the manufacturing run -- this isn't hardware that lacks video ports.

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