To Combat Shortage, Nvidia Asks Retailers To Limit Graphics Card Orders (pcmag.com)

An anonymous reader writes: If you're a PC builder -- or your aging desktop system is in dire need of some modern upgrades -- you've probably wondered why it's impossible to get a graphics card lately. You can thank the outrageous interest in cryptocurrency for all of this. Since graphics cards mine cryptocurrency much faster than CPUs, an eager community of get-rich-quick enthusiasts are scooping up graphics cards as fast as they can get them. While there isn't much major manufacturers AMD and Nvidia can do about the overwhelming demand for GPUs, Nvidia is at least trying to let retailers know that they should be holding their stock for the company's core audience: gamers, not miners. "For NVIDIA, gamers come first. All activities related to our GeForce product line are targeted at our main audience. To ensure that GeForce gamers continue to have good GeForce graphics card availability in the current situation, we recommend that our trading partners make the appropriate arrangements to meet gamers' needs as usual," reads a translated statement Nvidia's Boris Bohles. Nvidia is suggesting that retailers limit graphics card orders to just two per person, but that's just an idea -- one Nvidia can't actually enforce beyond restricting sales on its website, which it's currently doing. Further reading: It's a terrible time to buy a graphics card.

Comments

Re: Good news coming ...

[Nikkos]

The lesson here is to never buy a used GPU unless you can be sure it wasnâ(TM)t a mining GPU.

Why, exactly? The cards are run at lower wattage, at lower temps, 24/7 - minimal power cycling.

How does that make the card less valuable over time, or more likely to fail? What parts (besides the fans) are going to experience wear&tear?

Re:hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, it's very likely people buying GPU's to build mining rigs are the very ones targeted by that "no datacenter use" software license change.

I'm pretty sure the fallout is going to be one of three:
1) Cryptocurrency prices crash, horribly, because these people are deluded into thinking they will make their money back.
2) Energy costs spike, horribly, thus people start moving their mining rigs into places with the cheapest energy costs.
3) Only Intel/AMD ends up producing iGPU's at the same capacity of current gtx 1070/1080 hardware, and nVidia gets sidelined

Here's how I'd fix this, and please note that I hate the cryptocurrency fad.
a) nVidia closes all reseller orders worldwide, AMD does the same
b) Parts become OEM only, in order to build a PC with a nVidia or AMD video card separate from the iGPU, you must buy a complete PC.
c) To buy the highend parts (eg 1080/1080Ti) you can only buy those directly from the manufacturer, buying two or more ships them as married sets, which results in them only powering up if the entire set is installed in the same machine*. Put this as a sticker on the card's SLI bridge. Otherwise only one can be bought at a time, and there must be 30 days between orders to the same address or same card.

(By which I mean any card with a monitor plugged in powers up like normal to boot, but if the additional GPU's are not found in the set, it operates as a single 1050 Ti)

Optimizing for AMD

[DrYak]

And second, gamers might have a preference for nVidia today, but they will buy AMD if they can't get nVidia cards for a reasonable price. If the gaming market suddenly gets flooded with AMD cards, game makers will stop optimizing mainly for nVidia. If there are more people playing on AMD than on nVidia, game makers will optimize for AMD.

Which brings the related question :
ever noticed the recent trend in gaming consoles ?

Microsoft :
Since the XBox 360 all the way to the current XBox One X, uses ATI/AMD GPU hardware (and since the XBox One uses AMD CPUs too).

Sony:
Since the Playstation 4, including the current Playstation 4 Pro, uses an AMD APU.

Nintendo:
With the sole exception of the current Switch (which is Nvidia Tegra based) uses graphics core by ATI/AMD, either through acquisition (ATI did buy Art-X who were doing the GameCube's Flipper and Wii's GX) or by putting their own tech (The GX2 core of Wii U's Latte is a Radeon HD derivative core).

Nearly all hardware outputing graphics from gaming console has been some way or another related to AMD.
Chances are, game developer, more precisely triple-A big studio that target multiple consoles in addition to Windows PCs, are paying attention to AMD hardware optimisation.
(Though, due to the diverse jungle of graphical APIs. it doesn't necessarily translate into things applicable directly onto PC with AMD GPUs)