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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

#52
post #15

Can't drive people to the mining cards they've released if you have everyone using the consumer hardware. As someone who really likes the performance and ecosystem around NVIDIA cards this makes me happy, because I'll probably be able to own one sometime before the heat death of the universe if trends like this continue. But, "To help get GeForce GPUs in the hands of gamers," Is a load of crock. They have a new minin…

Their stated purpose is still true. They want to get these GPUs to gamers and their mining GPUs to miners.

I think there are better ways than intentionally crippling a general purpose compute platform.

On the surface, the easiest, cheapest way to alleviate the situation would be to require government ID for purchases and limit it to 1 GPU per person, and relax the limitations for educational institutions doing ML research.

A more serious way to do it would be to administer a test that you take in person (similar to the DMV); you pick either a gaming skill test or a machine learning test, and if you pass, you get to buy 1 GPU. This takes a bit more resources though, logistically, and although it sounds silly I think it would work.

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

#53

Total hardware noob here. How do they do it? Is there a particular instruction that ETH needs to be "efficient" but games can live with throttled? Or perhaps a sequence of instructions that's signature to ETH?

Going to be a fun future game of cat-and-mouse as miners figure out how to disable/bypass nvidia’s electronic countermeasures.

Hacks that re-enable mining likely won't be showing up on tpb anytime soon! A bypass will be worth quite a bit of money for large miners that can get hold of the cards.

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

#54
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…

You can still buy unlocked GPUs. What is wrong with creating a new product people want? I want a gaming GPU that is powerful and reasonably priced and actually available to be purchased. Unless Nvidia does this, how else can they provide that product for me?

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

#55
I'm not sure this really is all that good for gamers. It'll solve the short term problem of lack of supply, sure, but in a years time we'll instead have a whole bunch of e-waste mining cards and a very thin second-hand market for gaming cards. All upside for Nvidia though!

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

#56
A major bad point with this is when the mining cards become obsolete, they won't be able to be used as a graphics card in a computer due to it not being able to output to a display. So realistically it will decrease avaliable graphic card supply to gamers in the future who are maybe looking for a cheap used graphics card (therefore pushing people to buy a new card instead). Short term fix, long term problem.

I was thinking they could maybe get a second use in industry however they mostly buy new cards (from my limited knowledge on it).

Nvidia knows the strats to make $$$ in the long term under the guise of the good guy.

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

#57
post #15

Can't drive people to the mining cards they've released if you have everyone using the consumer hardware. As someone who really likes the performance and ecosystem around NVIDIA cards this makes me happy, because I'll probably be able to own one sometime before the heat death of the universe if trends like this continue. But, "To help get GeForce GPUs in the hands of gamers," Is a load of crock. They have a new minin…

It really isn't a load of crock. For whatever reason NVIDIA has a real interest in making gamers happy. You hear this as being a serious motivation for them even from employees not on the record. The most cynical take on it would be that they want to do this for long term growth. Which if so, is fine. An example of capitalism working.

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

#58
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we didn’t have such a dire chip shortage I would be upset on principle, but I see this as a move that’s supposed to help long time customers get a hand at a Graphics card at a reasonable price. Once mining will ebb off, those customers are unlikely to keep buying Nvidia products so it’s entirely understandable why they would do this. Also, it’s not like on iOS where the company whitelists apps, this is a very spec…

"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…

> What worth is a principle if you don't still have it when it get challenged?

Huh? To me, refusing to even acknowledge or entertain criticism for one’s principles is one of the worst things I can imagine. Principles ought to be routinely subjected to criticism, no different than scientific theories.

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

#59
post #32

I find the prospect of being able to add more overhead and potential bugs into a product to remove a niche functionality in a move that reeks of PR marketing driven solution, too be of bad taste. Whilst the overhead will be so small I doubt it will be measurable, it still is not zero and only adds the possibility that some workloads of non crypto currency origins fall foul of this in ways that may not be easy to disc…

I'm not sure its niche.

ETH is the 2nd most popular crypto with a $394,657,267,540 market cap at $3,403.15 per as of the timestamp.

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

#60
post #32

I find the prospect of being able to add more overhead and potential bugs into a product to remove a niche functionality in a move that reeks of PR marketing driven solution, too be of bad taste. Whilst the overhead will be so small I doubt it will be measurable, it still is not zero and only adds the possibility that some workloads of non crypto currency origins fall foul of this in ways that may not be easy to disc…

> a niche functionality

That's kind of a bullcrap, since this 'niche' functionality completely crippled graphic card sales, and negative effects will ripple through PC gaming markets for quite some time. Every gamer that didn't manage to snatch one before is pissed beyond funny.

Imagine a gaming studio that is deciding to develop a next-gen game - why would they try hard to go for / optimize for PC version if there are very few actual owners of good cards? Produce either generic all-platform-compatible stuff or abandon PC market altogether.

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