As Prices Soar, Graphics Card Manufacturers Appeal To Cryptocurrency Miners

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problematiq

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This might work for Ethereum for the next 2 months before ASIC boxes kill any value of using GPU's. as far as bitcoin, that ship sailed a LONG time ago.
 

SteveRNG

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But if there is a limited supply, and if miners are already snapping up the gaming variants, what is to stop them from going back to snap up the gaming-centric ones AFTER the miner-centric ones are out of stock?

It's still supply and demand. The demand is so high right now that NOTHING will bring the price down until the demand is met. I just hope it's met by the time we figure out how Vega competes with Nvidia. Because I want a new card, but I'm not paying these prices for them.

Edit: Added a question mark to my actual question. It was driving me crazy.
 

TJ Hooker

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Eth hashing is different than Bitcoin, and is designed to be resistant to acceleration with ASICs.
 

problematiq

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It is different yes, but it only takes a financial incentive for a company to start kicking out ASIC boxes, like a jump in a crytocurrency's value. As far as ASIC resistant goes, I high doubt it will take much for someone to over come that minor hurdle, there are other cyrptocurrency's that were resistant to ASCI mining, (just look at ALT coin) but that ultimately did not last very long.
 

TJ Hooker

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What makes you think it's a "minor hurdle"? Not saying it couldn't happen eventually, but I don't think it'll be the same as for Bitcoin. Also, Eth is eventually switching from a Proof of Work scheme to a Proof of Stake scheme, which I believe is supposed to make it less important to have oodles of hashing power, and therefore would seem to make ASICs (and ASIC development) less attractive. Unfortunately I don't really understand the PoW vs PoS thing that well.

Not sure what you're talking about with altcoin, given that altcoin is not an actual currency but rather a blanket term for cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin.
 

problematiq

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Sorry "Just look at the alt coins" It really is not a big hurdle as most people think, they hear "resistant to ASCI miners" and what they think they hear is "almost impervious to ASCI miners". VERTcoin was one that came to mind that was "ASCI resistant" that in the end only took a few months before there were ASCI boxes flooding the market. Granted, it is a POW currency as is eth currently.

 

Kahless01

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the whole damn thing makes no sense. friend of mine recently got a rig up and running with 8 1070s and hes making 30$ a day. thats a <mod edit> of effort for what seems like a little return. and if it crashes youve got a lot sitting there doing nothing.

<Moderator Warning: Watch your language in these forums>
 


That's going to be a headache too, given how they work those cards. The GPU equivalent of buying a used car from a Car Rental agency.
 


I think you may need to read an investment wiki or two...

If he spent, say $400 on each 1070....I'll even be cautious and say $450 per card. Let's say another $1400 on system components to get the cards up and running for an even $5000 investment. At $30/day...he'll make his investment back in 5 1/2 months, assuming the value of etherium keeps pace with the difficulty of mining.

That's over 100% annual return rate....If you don't understand how ridiculously good that is, you definitely need to read an investment tutorial or two.

I can give you a relative example.....people were making a 20% annual return rate on bundling bad housing debt and betting against it before the crash in 2008...and THAT rate is considered ridiculously good (the average stock investment return rate is around 7%)

.....please excuse me while I look for an apartment where power cost is included in the rent :D
 


And even if the Etherium market crashes, assuming he was selling as he mined he won't be left hanging. He'll just have a rig with 8 1070's that can go on to mine something else. Or, he can sell the 1070's used and probably recoup ~75% of his initial investment.
 

Zoidman

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The profitability of mining Ethereum is based on the hashrate of the GPU that is working on it vs. the efficiency of the card.

GTX 1070's are actually churning out a hashrate of around 25mH/s where GTX 1080's are only getting about 20 mH/s. The rumor is that this is due to the type of memory that is on the 1070 making it more suited for mining Ethereum . The 1060's get around 18mH/s making them near as powerful as the 1070's. Due to this the demand for the 1080's is not as great.

The reason why Ethereum is resistant to ASIC's. Ethereum mining is designed to require at least 2GB of RAM to compute, and more the better. ASIC's are not designed to incorporate large amounts of RAM. A GPU manufacture may only have to increase the vRAM on their GPU to appeal to the cyrptocurrency mining audience.
 

bit_user

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Depending on how painful that up-front investment was, just sell some fraction of coins as you mine them. That way, you can still profit from any further increases. If you want to get sophisticated, you can get into derivatives and hedge like a real trader. Not that I'd recommend it, unless you know what you're doing.

Anyway, the end of this craze will likely spell bargain basement prices for GPUs. Even new ones, since enough people will probably buy ex-mining units so as to depress demand for the new units. Furthermore, the heavy discounting on ex-mining GPUs will affect the perceived value of new ones.
 

Dugimodo

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I had a go at lightcoin mining for a while when they were making the same claims about it, after 6 months the profits dropped below power costs and I sold all the hardware. I ended up with a net loss of a few hundred dollars.

The only way to make any real money mining the currencies is to get in early and pick the right one, I was about 3 months late but it's a gamble either way. As soon as it becomes profitable big players start investing heavily and make it unprofitable for every one else.

And as for ASICs, supply time is too long to be worthwhile even when they do become available. By the time you get one it's already marginal and something better has been developed. A few lucky and savvy miners make good money from this, the rest of us just help line their pockets.
 

kyee7k

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When will the prices bottom out for the 1060? The 760 gtx card I purchased last year from ebay recently died and am using a 460 gtx 768 MB card that is showing its age.
 

IndignantSkeptic

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Stop saying ASCI !! ! !
 

alextheblue

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It's a little more complex than that when you are discussing mining. What is making him $30 today could make him $3 tomorrow. If it crashes or suffers component failure, that impacts your profit, especially if you aren't around to babysit it. They also start ramp the difficulty once a coin gains popularity, cutting into your mining rate. When talking about Eth specifically, in a few months they may end PoW and implement PoS. The inevitable shift would render all his crunching power useless. I believe his has time to make his money back and then some, but after that, who knows. Certainly won't be quite as profitable as you are projecting.
 

iPanda

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yeah, once it moves to proof of stake... then it will help alleviate the strain on supply. until then... it's gonna be rough. guess it gives me an excuse to put off my next gaming build.
 

Giroro

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" Ethereum mining is designed to require at least 2GB of RAM to compute, and more the better. ASIC's are not designed to incorporate large amounts of RAM."

ASICs are designed, by you, to do whatever you want. That's what makes them ASICs
 
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