One of the craziest videos I saw last year was a mob of people rushing a Micro Center to get their hands on a 3080 TI: https://youtu.be/UNcx9JdC9VM?t=239
Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
101–110 of 352 posts
Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
#102ETH Hashrate has tripled in the past year alone, adding 600 TH/s. A 3080 does about 100 MH/s. That's about 6 million 3080s.
In addition, it looks like 9.25 million 1000 series cards (1060, 1080, etc.) sold in the first quarter in which they were released, which we can extrapolate out to about 30-40 million in the first year.
It would be interesting to see what percentage of manufacturing capacity NVIDIA is at, as 25%-50% would put ETH GPU mining at the majority of sales. Especially considering that supposedly higher volume cards such as the 3060 do a quarter of the hashrate of a 3080, which would be about 24 million cards. Of course, AMD is also part of the conversation as well, but I believe that they are quite a bit less volume than NVIDIA. Then of course, not all GPU miners are mining ETH necessarily and so on.
Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
#103Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
#104Alternate answer: No, the manifacturing cost of the gpu stays relatively the same, greedy sellers increase price because of the increased demand. It's not like they wouldn't make profit on regular prices.
> greedy sellers increase price because of the increased demand
The way supply and demand works can be more subtle than that. Imagine two sellers selling the same widget, one has 50 units and is selling at $100, the other has 60 units and is selling at $120. As long as the demand is below 50 units, buyers will prefer the first seller, and the price will be $100. Once the demand gets above 50 units, the first seller has no more units, and the price is now $120 since buyers have no choice other than buy from the second seller. Notice that at no moment did any of the sellers increase their price. And the reason for the second seller starting with a higher price is most probably not greed, but higher costs (for instance, their store being in a place with a higher rent).
Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just don't get why people hide behind their finger. This is capitalism 101. You either like it and go by it or dislike it and try to change it. For some reason X the demand for product Y has increased which leads to price bump. If you are pro capitalist economy then you just accept it for what it is. If you don't like it then discuss alternate economies. The rules of the economy are the ones to blame, not the peopl…
It probably has something to do with the fact that crypto is perceived as having no social value, and therefore people are less inclined to accept negative consequences that may result from such an activity.
Yes this is probably it. But if we walk down that route, what prevents anyone from having a say into what everybody else does with their products. Eg: If think there is no social value in crafting wooden cups, do I have a say in what you do with your purchased wood?
Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
#106> Bitcoin miners rarely use GPUs anymore, but ASICs Seeing the title and the conclusions, how can this be the case? Computationally they're not much behind ASICs per $, are much more broadly available to buy and are easier to sell when needed.
Anyone who buys a GPU second-hand is an idiot. They would have been running at maximum silicon temperature 24/7 with the result of massive wear.
[deleted]
Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
#107Alternate answer: No, the manifacturing cost of the gpu stays relatively the same, greedy sellers increase price because of the increased demand. It's not like they wouldn't make profit on regular prices.
So your theory is that sellers weren’t greedy before?
No, my theory is that this the true core of the disscussion here should be how the economy works in general, rather than a specific case of supply and demand.
Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
#108The article only attempts to show there's correlation, and ends up by saying "correlation doesn't imply causation, but maybe there's causation". So basically, we don't know. I'm not blaming the author, because determining causation is hard, and checking there's correlation between two variables can still be interesting, but the article falls short of answering the question.
Correlation is correlated with causation, so I think this sort of exploration of a question is still valuable.
Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
#109Does increased demand raise prices?
For some reason, only secondary markets follow the law of supply and demand. On the primary market, price is fixed so you just get shortages.
Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
#110Alternate answer: No, the manifacturing cost of the gpu stays relatively the same, greedy sellers increase price because of the increased demand. It's not like they wouldn't make profit on regular prices.
> greedy sellers increase price because of the increased demand The way supply and demand works can be more subtle than that. Imagine two sellers selling the same widget, one has 50 units and is selling at $100, the other has 60 units and is selling at $120. As long as the demand is below 50 units, buyers will prefer the first seller, and the price will be $100. Once the demand gets above 50 units, the first seller h…
I get your point but I am not sure the price gaps we're dealing with right here fall into these cases.