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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.
When the crypto miners disappear, there may be a glut of NVidia cards on a certain popular auction site .. or maybe they will start to think of something more useful to do with all of that compute power designed to work on massively parallel problems. They might start doing a bit of Computer Aided Detection for radiologists using AI for instance, or sell their services to hospitals and universities to do genome processing, or sell their compute cycles to companies doing research into battery technology, or finding new antibiotics; or research into using Thorium for nuclear reactors, or at the very least hand some compute power to SETI.
At least HPCs might become more accessible.
You'd think they could make something just for miners and cash in.
Even if it's just saving a few cents on the video connectors and calling it a "headerless" card for $5 less.
No sig today...
This sounds like they have a manufacturing bottle neck in the supply chain.
They could ramp up production but they know the demand is just as much of a bubble as cryptocoins are. They don't want to be left with empty factories when it bursts.
No sig today...
nVidia knows two things: First, gamers will need graphics cards. Now, tomorrow, forever. Miners will need a lot of cards now but whether they will still buy any with the next generation is questionable. First question, is cryptocurrency still a thing and second, is GPUs still where the bitcoins are. If they can't supply enough cards to meet the demand today anyway, there is no point in trying to suck up to any customers today. But you might have to see where you get your customers tomorrow.
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.
And who'd then buy an nVidia card tomorrow when there (possibly) isn't a demand for crypto mining anymore?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
they've made them before and sold poorly. cards specifically for mining have a much poorer resale value than a standard card.
Nvidia should put buzz words like "blockchain" and "crypto" in the name/descriptions of a line of video cards they're producing with a high margin and let nature take its course.
"Introducing the NEW Ford Pinto... powered by a BLOCKCHAIN engine with Ford's new CRYPTO door opener and starter mechanism!"
Bitcoin is mined on ASICs these days but there are other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum that are designed to be "ASIC resistant" by involving a very large number in their mining algorithms that needs to be stored in RAM, and changes periodically. Currently for ETH I believe that number is ~3GB. The result is that it makes ASICs unlikely to be worthwhile since a GPU is already a massively parallel processor with access to high speed ram. So yeah, GPU mining is back and reasonably profitable. Even after electricity costs many cards would pay for themselves in 3-5 months at current rates.
Why would they ever need to sell them? They'll all be millionaires who won't care about the $50 a used graphics card will be worth by then.
No sig today...
There are some altcoins that are ASIC resistant that can only be mined with GPUs or CPUs and others that historically could only be mined with GPUs or CPUs until new ASICs for hashing methods are available, so you can miss out on a lot of potential money early if you are waiting on an ASIC solution. What's more, ASIC vendors have been notoriously slow with shipping as well as availability.
I buy the cards I use specifically because if crypocurrency flops I can resell the cards at a decent price. The current ROI is about 3 months, if the payout drops after a month and a half I can at least break even.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Nvidia doesn't mind selling tons of GPUs to whoever has money.
But what they don't want is for all the $popular_crypto_coin to suddenly crash (and it looks like they're about to) and then flood the market with dirt cheap used GPUs and leave Nvidia in the lurch unable to sell $Gpu->filter('this_year')->get_newest()
By doing this they can continue the high demand for their products and try to smooth out the coming bumps and dips.
My teenager hinted he wants a new build for his birthday next week. I spent some time spec'ing a system last night, but I couldn't find a gpu that wasn't priced about the same as all the rest of the components compbined. Cards that should be around $100 are selling in the $500 range.
As much as I hate the idea of some criptominer causing a price rise that would affect me buying my gaming card, let me just say Screw you NVIDIA. You have NO say in what we use your GPU for and neither does the shop owners who you're suggesting ... do what exactly? ... Don't sell us the card if we can't pass a multi choice quiz on gaming culture?
While miners quite reasonably prefer not to buy headless cards because they're harder to resell, if the headless cards are a lot easier to buy in quantity than normal cards, it may help.
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)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
if AMD suddenly ramps up production they could devour the gaming market leading to games written specifically for AMD. Right now nVidia has a big performance & stability edge because they can throw more engineers at game companies and because they just plain have more hardware.
At the moment neither nVidia or AMD wants to take the risk of ramping up production since it'll be a disaster if crypto currencies collapse. But AMD has a long history of slightly off kilter business decisions.
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I don't run mine flat-out like that. I limit my 1070s to 115W or less, and the factory-overclocked cards are underclocked to something closer to stock speed; they're more efficient (hashes per watt) when they're not being pushed like that. I also keep them at or under 60C. If the bottom were to fall out of the cryptocurrency market tomorrow, they'd still have a long life ahead of them with gamers.
(By comparison, reference-design 1070s can handle up to 150W, and the MSI Gaming X 1070s (of which I have three) will allow up to 230W.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Have gnu, will travel.
nvidia doesn't want their cards to be sold at 200$ above mspr and they get nothing rather than the usual.
Actually, I don't think that it is because NVIDIA does have the tools to stop it and it is a tool they have already deployed with a specific exemption for miners: the driver license agreement. They recently changed the license terms to forbid usage in a "datacentre" except for "blockchain processing". If they really wanted to stop the miners they would not put in that exception and would, at least attempt, to ban all datacentre usage. This would massively drop demand and allow them to release a "miner card" which works with a driver that has a different license like their Tesla cards which, at ~10+ times the price, have a driver which is allowed to be used in a "datacentre".
Instead, they specifically exempted miners so I think that this is just an attempt by them to try and mollify gamers while, at the same time, pumping out as many cards as they can to make as much money as they can while not really caring at all about any customer so long as they keep making tons of money.
Hoss, you and I are in the same boat. I was looking at a nice 1070ti. Last week the thing was $500 now its like $900. But some advice. Wait it out. If you can get by with your 660GTX for a few months and see what happens. Don't by some card off ebay right now. Odds are it has been worked hard and will fail soon any way. Not worth the trouble.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
"Think of all those shitty capacitors and diodes running near their upper specs"
Tantalum caps almost NEVER fail. That's why we switched to them for microelectronics versus electrolytic caps. Diodes have a fairly high thermal operating envelope.
I can tell you don't do any actual electronics work.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
how hot do you think I run my cards? My fans keep them pretty cool, well below the damaging point. they are undervolted also to save power and heat.
When you cant win, ad hominem.