Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

bleepingcomputer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 818 posts

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

#511

Post by toomuchtodo »

cle wrote: post #506
creato wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the issues people have mentioned in this thread is that cards sold by miners are often burnt out or nearly burnt out. In that case, it seems like cutting off miners from the secondary market would be an improvement for the secondary market.

I don't know much about GPUs and am curious how this "burn out" happens, do you have a link for those of us who'd like to read more about this?

If your GPUs run too long hot, the board literally starts to melt (the plastics, solder, etc).

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

#512

Post by kyboren »

caconym_ wrote: post #165
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…

My next GPU is going to be one that a) supports the features I want, and b) that I can actually go out and buy without putting hundreds or thousands of dollars into some economic parasite’s pocket. It’s not just “hard” to buy high-end GPUs right now—it’s impossible unless you make a lifestyle out of chasing them down. If this has any effect on anybody who isn’t a crypto miner, it’s going to be to open up possibilitie…

They are not economic parasites. They are the physical manifestation of the Invisible Hand. These are people doing God's work making an efficient market. If you don't want arbitrageurs to capture that value, maybe NVidia should start pricing their products correctly so that they capture the value. This isn't rocket science.

> If this has any effect on anybody who isn’t a crypto miner, it’s going to be to open up possibilities and/or save them money. I have trouble finding fault with that, and we’re surrounded by far more egregious erosions of our “right” to buy and use general-purpose computers.

This is a wildly short-sighted take.

First they came for mobile users, and I did not speak out-- Because I like Daddy Cook telling me what math I can do.

Then they came for the cryptocurrency miners, and I did not speak out-- Because I deserve a subsidy for my video gaming habit.

Then they came for unlicensed cryptographers, and I did not speak out-- Because I have nothing to hide and if this has an effect on anybody besides them it's just going to be to make their skills more valuable.

Then they came for the debuggers-- But I still didn't speak out, because we're already surrounded by egregious erosions of our right to buy and use general-purpose computers, so what's the point, amirite?

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

#513

Post by andechs »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #500
kbenson wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scalpers hurt literally everyone. Not entirely true, and also not accepting that one person's "scalper" is another person's "bought this but decided I would rather have the money it seems to be worth now that I see how much this is". Secondary markets provide liquidity, allow for original sellers to trade money for time, provide reputational protection based on societal perceptions (this one is a bit weird, and may…

Yeah I always find it interesting that statements like that ("scalpers hurt literally everyone") can just be made and treated as gospel by most people. Not only is the statement not self-evident, but to your point, just a small amount of thought on the issue makes it obvious what the value is. People love to get mad at a scapegoat rather than a root cause. So you blame the scalper rather than realizing that the conce…

> moral but are actively ineffective at their stated purpose; they just lead to the hypothetical price-gouge transaction never occurring. If you drive across state lines to bring HAM radios or water filters or what-have-you during hurricane katrina, and try to sell at above market rate, you'll be tossed in jail and your goods will be seized by the police, rather than making it out to the people who actually need them and are willing to pay 2x or 3x the usual price.

The reason is they don't want private individuals entering danger zones just to make a buck - a profiteer could easily end up a victim from the dangerous situation.

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

#514

Post by paulmd »

akersten wrote: post #133
542458 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPUs have been doing this forever. This is exactly the same as some features being enabled on quadros that don’t exist on RTX/GTX/GT cards. That’s (mostly) not silicon, that’s just firmware. This isn’t covering any supply chain failures (despite what nvidia says, the number of available GPUs remains approximately fixed), it’s just more market segmentation to minimize the secondhand mining GPU market and capture more…

> GPUs have been doing this forever though. This is exactly the same as some features being enabled on quadros that don’t exist on RTX/GTX/GT cards. No, I think this is the first time a GPU has been heuristically trying to detect what you're doing and self-limiting in response. How is that equivalent to features just being literally off? There's no special "mine-crypto" instruction in the CUDA ISA. > there have been…

> No, I think this is the first time a GPU has been heuristically trying to detect what you're doing and self-limiting in response

nah, remember when NVIDIA decided that Titans were now prosumer cards and would get Quadro series drivers, and then performance tripled in CAD applications once the limiters were removed?

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-titan-xp-titan-x-385-12-driver-u...

The distinction between a Quadro and a GeForce has literally always been drivers and firmware. NVIDIA would have the card look at the specific API calls being made and if it decided you were a CAD application then it'd slow itself down on GeForce cards, while running normally on Quadro.

AMD does the same thing with Radeon Pro, and Frontier Edition cards, and so on.

You literally don't understand that this has been the norm for a decade now. Miners are just crying because they're finally being asked to purchase a business segmented product for their business venture.

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

#515

Post by op00to »

cle wrote: post #506
creato wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the issues people have mentioned in this thread is that cards sold by miners are often burnt out or nearly burnt out. In that case, it seems like cutting off miners from the secondary market would be an improvement for the secondary market.

I don't know much about GPUs and am curious how this "burn out" happens, do you have a link for those of us who'd like to read more about this?

Too much heat causes flex and movement that can break solder traces, and makes it easier to let the magic smoke out.

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

#516

Post by delfinom »

RhysU wrote: post #507
actually_a_dog wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

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

Just don't give them ideas about Cisco's current solution of moving to subscription based licensing network switches

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

#517

Post by Dylan16807 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #511
cle wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about GPUs and am curious how this "burn out" happens, do you have a link for those of us who'd like to read more about this?

If your GPUs run too long hot, the board literally starts to melt (the plastics, solder, etc).

Miners care enough about power efficiency and longevity; they don't run cards super hot.

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

#518

Post by lvl100 »

akelly wrote: post #441

This won't really do anything for availability or reducing scalper pricing. Miners are a sizeable proportion of sales but far from the majority. Gamers will be able to buy more of these GPUs but less of the non-LHR or AMD GPU's. GPU prices won't actually change. 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 o…

This is what they said in 2018. Turned out miners WERE primary driver of growth not gamers.

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

#519

Post by SrslyJosh »

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…

> this seems like such an attack on general purpose computing.

An attack on general purpose computing that only affects the people who've completely fucked up the GPU market in service of one narrow, non-graphics use case?

Cool story, bro.

Post reply on HN