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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

#731

Post by ppf »

Reason077 wrote: post #636
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…

> ”Nvidia has no incentive to make sure the GPU market operates in a sustainable way by supporting a secondary market.” They do in the sense that buyers often consider future resale values when making primary purchase decisions. It’s much easier to justify purchasing a $2500 “enthusiast” graphics card if you’re confident you can get a decent chunk of that back when you sell it in 6-12 months. Similarly, car makers ar…

>car makers are incentivised to try to ensure their vehicles have decent resale value

Why? They are only incentivised to make more profit, and selling high-tech expensive cars that break after 10 years is great for that. The ones that will bear the cost of that will be either the financing companies (and it would be fun to see the market collapse as the current crop of shiny German cars hits the 2nd hand market and no-one is dumb enough to buy one), or those poor souls who insist on buying old-ish cars instead of leasing like everyone else.

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

#732

Post by knorker »

arthurcolle wrote: post #292
knorker wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say the same if you could mine bitcoin by buying up as much medicine as you could, and burning it? Because if you think the above behavior isn't "earning income" clearly better than "play video games", then your argument falls completely flat.

this is a total false equivalence. you’re really comparing computing hashes to buying medicine and destroying it?

I'm comparing taking a useful resource and deliberately destroying it in order to "prove work".

It's a very accurate comparison.

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

#733

Post by capableweb »

emsy wrote: post #76
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…

I think your criticism is valid, but I don’t think it’s sensible to adhere to principles in a black and white way. For me, the minor restriction put in place by Nvidia is the lesser evil when you consider that they could just as well sell out to the miners and drastically increase their margins. In fact, I think it’s a very sympathetic move. I don’t think “it will be broken” is a good argument, because the intent dis…

> but I don’t think it’s sensible to adhere to principles in a black and white way

I agree with you, you should for sure listen to criticism against your principles, and challenge them yourself too. But if they change because "if we didn’t have such a dire X", I wouldn't call it a "principle" anymore. A principle (for me) would mean that you don't compromise on it "in emergency" but rather that it's something fundamental you believe in, without much reason in many cases.

> because the intent displayed by Nvidia does matter

Yeah, agree again that it matters, but as a gamer myself, I'm afraid it doesn't solve the problem for me. I want to be able to buy graphic cards myself too, and these "fixes" from NVIDIA looks (to me) like posturing without actually try to address the core problem (low supply). I'd love for them to come up with a real solution, that doesn't try to decide how people use their computers, even though I don't want to mine anything myself.

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

#734

Post by mrkramer »

Tepix wrote: post #700
mrkramer wrote: post #256

Like I said for electricity, aren't you free to do with your GPU whatever you want?! This is anti-consumer they should be sued. Just like ISPs wanted to slow your traffic for services they don't like and didn't succeed hardware producers can not limit what you do with your purchased hardware.

It's not like nVidia is keeping it a secret. They are telling you ahead of the time that they are limiting the hashrate. If you don't like it, buy something else.

It's still anti-consumer, imagine situation in which self driving car manufacturer hardcodes rules according to which car not drive to certain places because reasons.

Products even if specialized can always be used for general purpose that's the beauty of computers and "hacking" after all.

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

#735

Post by dreen »

celticninja wrote: post #727
dreen wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbf I wouldn't buy a cheaper used gaming card from a miner, because of potential ware. Electronics ware off, and a mining card would have been taxed much more than any card used for gaming.

probably not, read this thread for details, but miners underclock and undervolt for efficiency. Gamers overclock for performance.

I have and the truth seems to be that if the miner took good care of the card it will probably be fine. Thats why I said "potential". This is not an acceptable risk when Im spending big on gaming hardware.

edit: just to be clear, I dont have the expertise to check the wear, so it just seems like a bad gamble to me

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

#736

Post by Danieru »

Joker_vD wrote: post #728
Reason077 wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”Nvidia has no incentive to make sure the GPU market operates in a sustainable way by supporting a secondary market.” They do in the sense that buyers often consider future resale values when making primary purchase decisions. It’s much easier to justify purchasing a $2500 “enthusiast” graphics card if you’re confident you can get a decent chunk of that back when you sell it in 6-12 months. Similarly, car makers ar…

> car makers are incentivised to try to ensure their vehicles have decent resale value Is this actually true or merely a theoretical thought? Because it would seem that car makers are incentivised to ensure their vehicles annihilate a couple days after their warranty expires and/or after a couple of miles after their guaranteed mileage is driven, and comparing e.g. reputation of second-hand cars manufactured in 80es/…

One of the tactics Nissan ran into big trouble with was their extreme reliance on fleet sales. Fleet sales juiced the profits but killed the used market, thus pushing Nissan's cars down market thanks to reduced resale value. This was an active criticism by investors and journalists during the Nissan down turn.

Meanwhile Toyota is able to charge a meaningful premium because their cars retain value. So I do think it is safe to conclude in the case of cars the effect is real.

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

#737

Post by Siira »

michaelmrose wrote: post #307
Siira wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 or…

Who knows about 10 years in the future; Perhaps crypto '10x's, and gamers move to cloud platforms. If the prices should be raised, after some years, the added margin will add competitors and increase the efficiency, thus making chips cheaper in the long-term. Anyhow, makes more sense to advocate for silicon subsidies, which helps with national geopolitics as well.

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

#738

Post by Siira »

TheRealSteel wrote: post #669
Siira wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So, you think poor people shouldn't be allowed to play games?

I haven't had a good GPU myself once in my life. I still could play plenty of older games. You're just selfish and entitled.

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

#739

Post by MaxBarraclough »

stale2002 wrote: post #260
ALittleLight wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their intent is to limit what people can do with their hardware. That strikes me as almost morally wrong. I tell the computer what to do. It doesn't tell me what to do. I think cryptocurrency is a scam and I'll be glad if/when it goes away and graphics cards become cheap again. However, I will never support hardware manufacturers infringing on the idea of general purpose computing for the sake of their business model…

> Their intent is to limit what people can do with their hardware. Not really. The intent is to get graphics cards in the hands of gamers and professionals, instead of in the hands of crypto miners. That is the end goal here. If you have a better solution, of how to do this without people getting around it via reselling, ect , please suggest it.

> Not really. The intent is to get graphics cards in the hands of gamers and professionals, instead of in the hands of crypto miners.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why doesn't nVidia just make the best cards they can, and sell them for the highest price they can? What does nVidia care if their customers are using their cards for gaming or mining?

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

#740

Post by lobocinza »

akelly wrote: post #546
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?

There's three main ways GPUs wear out, silicon electromigration, electrolytic capacitor dryout, and fan bearing failure. And the first two happen much faster at higher temperatures. Temperatures are similar between gaming and mining, but miners run 24/7 compared to gaming 1-2 hrs/day, so the GPUs age like 10x faster. But still, GPU failures are pretty rare, I think the concern is overblown.

Anedoctal but my two last GPUs burnt out after a few years. Bought new GPUs from reputable suppliers. Never mined or overclocked besides factory overclock (which for most of the time I had disabled). I was playing a lot more than 1-2 hrs/day. I guess it was the worse of both worlds. Heavy usage + cycling.
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