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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

#341

Post by wpietri »

Corazoor wrote: post #324

I find the argument for this move unconvincing: Nvidias failure to meet demand is somehow the fault of... the customers? But since there are morally aprehensible workloads, it is totally fine to... throttle them? Not prevent or contractually prohibit, as one might expect... And of course it is Nvidia who decicdes on the morals of your workload. I mean, seriously, how can anyone be ok with that?

You realize you're making a moral argument against moral arguments, right?

If you'd like to know how people are ok with this, it's been explained plenty already, right here in this discussion.

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

#342

Post by gsich »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #286
savant_penguin wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that miners will simply workaround the downgrade software (as they did in the past) and regular consumers will be the only ones with crippled hardware

Reading the Nvidia announcement it's not a software upgrade, but a change in hardware. It only affects cards made after late May.

They said that previously. Then they released an unlocked BIOS by "accident".

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

#343

Post by skjoldr »

Corazoor wrote: post #324

I find the argument for this move unconvincing: Nvidias failure to meet demand is somehow the fault of... the customers? But since there are morally aprehensible workloads, it is totally fine to... throttle them? Not prevent or contractually prohibit, as one might expect... And of course it is Nvidia who decicdes on the morals of your workload. I mean, seriously, how can anyone be ok with that?

They can't improve the supply any longer, so they are cutting demand instead.

Why would you prevent mining if some gamers do want to utilize their idle GPU power? Mining is supposed to be for everyone.

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

#344

Post by just-ok »

renewiltord wrote: post #240
capableweb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If we didn’t have such a dire X I would be upset on principle, but I see this as a move that’s supposed to help ..." What worth is a principle if you don't still have it when it get challenged? Then it's just a opinion, which is fine by itself and it's ok to change opinion, smart people do it all the time. But don't call it a principle. Unlikely that mining will disappear because NVIDIA limits a specific algoritm/cl…

A principle is a moral heuristic so you don't have to scan to root of your moral argument tree on every moral question. As a heuristic, it attempts to compress the moral space down and will naturally have exceptions. As a compressed form of your moral judgment, it is also useful for you to quickly communicate your position on the moral space, and it is up to participants in social interactions to decide whether or no…

I think your loose definition of “principle” does not meet many others’: it’s definitely intended to be stricter than a heuristic.

Of course even though you can have relaxed principles, e.g. “I usually don’t lie” vs. “I don’t lie,” I think the point here is that if you believe or preach a particular “principle,” but then adjust it for yourself when it’s convenient (for example a “just this once” scenario), it was never a principle to begin with.

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

#345

Post by joshuahaglund »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #282
joshuahaglund wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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!

randomhodler84, have you heard the phrase "last man holding the bag?" 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.

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

#346

Post by throwaway879 »

Using a made up but probably good enough analogy, if scientist created a blackhole in the lab that could end up sucking in the entire planet and the solar system, would it be OK for someone to jam the mechanism that sustains it? I think of PoW gambling casinos slash Ponzi schemes (Bitcoin) in the same way. If the governments don't have any motivation to stop the mayhem, then the company whose products are being used to create that blackhole should step in. I never liked Nvidia, but this is a necessary decision.

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

#347

Post by knz_ »

munk-a wrote: post #327
knz_ wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 laun…

I don't know how you think that if GPUs were cheaper then miners would be buying less of them. Miners are a black hole for computing power - they can absorb near infinite amounts of processors since they know (or strongly believe at least) that they'll pay for themselves pretty quickly. I think Nvidia has some problems and their chips should be cheaper - but if that were the case then this solution (splitting the mar…

> I don't know how you think that if GPUs were cheaper then miners would be buying less of them.

It would increase supply by forcing fabs to scale (would take years anyway, but should happen sooner rather than later).

> Miners are a black hole for computing power - they can absorb near infinite amounts of processors since they know (or strongly believe at least) that they'll pay for themselves pretty quickly.

And that isn't going to change even with these limited GPUs. Mining with ethash is still profitable even with the halved hashrate, and other algorithms like kawpow and cn-gpu are not limited at all.

The only thing that's going to get rid of PoW mining is the entire shitcoin market tanking. As long as the bubble continues there's going to be idiots spending money on scalped GPUs.

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

#348

Post by krastanov »

godelski wrote: post #306
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…

> 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.

Pretty much the only non-native games I can not run on my Linux computer are the ones that incorporate anticheat detection. I just use Proton, as it is built in to Steam. Origin games do cause some headaches, but usually because of the origin client, not because of the game. Examples of "heavier" games that run fine for me at highest settings (radeon 580): subnautica, tomb rader, mass effect (andromeda), alyx, population one.

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

#349

Post by katbyte »

imbnwa wrote: post #233
behringer wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a gamer, I'd much rather they take miner's money for miner's uses and leave me able to play games in my spare time.

I can't believe this is so downvoted. So I, a gaming consumer, have to compete with bots every release because there's so much money in accommodating miner demand for the same cards? That's ridiculous

It’s how I feel about getting a ps5, scalpers grab your all the inventory and I refuse to buy one from them so here I am just given up on a next gen consolfor the near future

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

#350

Post by michaelmrose »

_vertigo wrote: post #145
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 honestly pretty surprising to me to see how many people on here are supporting this move. That's not what I would expect, I would expect people on HN to object to this move on principle. Maybe my prediction in where most HN commenters stand in principle on this issue is wrong, or just maybe, this is a rare example of a time when the principle (hardware should be free to run at their max capability, not deliberat…

The free market and personal liberty aren't magical tools that when combined produce a functional system. From the outside the GPU market is probably unfixably broken. Capacity to manufacture is an extremely expensive investment that will be wasted if cryptomining on GPUs becomes merely somewhat less effective. Meanwhile GPUs are being driven out of the price range where their natural market can actually afford them.

Imagine if it were so profitable to haul small trailers of goods around for amazon that basic passenger cars went from 20k to 70k and nobody was interested in expanding car manufacturing to meet the new demand because the capacity might well go to waste next year. It would be untenable.

If car manufacturers started selling cars that were deliberately shitty at towing but still worked great for moving people from A to B I think they can be forgiven.

We want freedom to use our hardware but we need to have a functional market as well and this one has been broken for years with no sure end date.

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