Well the problem with that is that crypto-crappers will still buy other single, double or 2,5 as long as the investment in the gpu is returned with an index of confidence that is acceptable. The only way right now to prevent cryptos from getting gaming stuff is to solder everything to the MB and actually have the GPU properly locked by the bios and design a similar handshake between the MB and GPU so no instructions reach the GPU that are considered mining.
Truth is that nvidia just wants to sell and retailers and everyone is the pipeline from manufacturer to the end-client don't care who will use it as long as they get to jackup prices and still not have enough supply for the demand.
You are safer buying a PS5 or XBOX or join the nvidia now program at least until this BS continues.
That is the problem and why you have to sour the GPU hash rate on newer cards.
NVIDIA took it a step further and opened up old nodes specifically for mining. They still sell all their new node stock and OLD node stock thereby maximizing profits. I have to give them a hat-tip for that strategy.
The old nodes are less profitable because of the higher power requirements / hash. But they are still profitable. And NVIDIA can makes tons more of the old node than they can the new. So if they ruin the hash rate enough on all 30 series, miners will have no choice but to regress to 20 series to mine again, freeing up stock to be sold as gaming cards that can't be profitable as mining cards. That's a raw throughput increase with higher margins on older nodes, while still maintaining mind share with gamers.
The ONLY reason why card prices are so high is because of miners. People don't care what a card cost because they think mining will pay for it, even if it's $2,000. The ONLY people affected are pure gamers. This two cases to support this:
1. Months before the mining crash, AMD and NVIDIA both CRANKED production. Prices were still at all time highs as bitcoin complexity sored, and etherium prices went up. HOWEVER after the crash, there was a glut of supply, and prices crashed. I bought a NEW RX580 8 gig for $130! That's an old node by then and production capacity was high. Now today you are lucky to find that at $750 for the same card with similar production capacity.
2. Turing sales were vastly below NVIDIA's expectations. They were disappointed in sales, but Turing had the worst MSRP/performance ratio in a long long time. This forced NVIDIA to roll out 1660ti's and below but even that didn't sell as well they hoped. This was all during mining lows. This is more subjective proof that true gamers who don't mind will bulk at the price.
3. A recent poll on youtube (while not scientific) was talking about 6700XT and how it stacks up to NVIDIA 3070. And the last option was "Pricing is so out of whack, I could care less" 68% of people clicked this button of 5 choices.
THAT is a bad sign and it will bite AMD and NVIDIA in the ass hard if Intel comes in with a good competitor and the mining boom stops. Once a user switches brands, they tend to stay with that brand. That is why retention is important. (Me I just look for the best value)
Rumor mill is everyone in the supply chain from Board partners, to distributors, to retail are adding on excess premiums to cash in right now. On the order of 30% or more margin each and why the pricing is so expensive at places like NewEgg/Amazon/Bestbuy. And they aren't fessing up because when you look greedy, it's bad for business. And they won't fess up either.
Covid isn't helping things because air freight cost is outrageous right now to offset passenger fare losses. So best you can do is wait for the slow boat from China (literally) to save cost. But you have to do really large batches of several dozen containers to keep cost down. That means a longer wait time between ships. Shipping companies like dealing with small customer base with large shipments because it helps streamline operations.
Both Steve and Linus made the argument that mining only cards contribute to eWaste. That's bull! Mining cards in general have a much shorter lifespan left after they are resold. Doesn't matter if you repaste them or not. And you will have to replace mined cards at a much higher rate than if you buy new! A typical card if used appropriately will last you 6+ years. A used mining card may last you 2 years if you are lucky. Power stages and caps just fail under constant use. Even solid state stuff. due to migration with switched supplies. It's an effect similar to venturi's effect with flow except with field collapse as high current is switched. And caps dry out. That means I would have to buy 3x's the mining cards to replace 1 new high end card. So why would you want to buy a used card with 2 years life for $700 when you can buy new for 6 years at $250? The economics of it just doesn't make sense for pure gamers.
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