Ethereum Mining Frenzy Leads To German Graphics Card Shortage

[Guest]

MindFactory, a German retailer, has removed many AMD and Nvidia graphics cards from its virtual shelves. The company confirmed in an email to Tom's Hardware that it had to stop selling the products because it can't get its hands on more graphics cards.

Ethereum Mining Frenzy Leads To German Graphics Card Shortage : Read more

 

[rush21hit]

Meanwhile, at second hand market for people brave enough to gamble and informed enough to venture in, a second hand 970 can be had for as little as $120, I even saw a 290 4gb for 100 a while back. Don't take my word for it, go find out.
With how vendors build their cards with every intention for it to last as long as it could possibly get, I'd wager that some dude out there still rocking a decade old top tier gpu of its time.

 

[Embra]

Most used R9 290's are going for $300-400 right now.

 

[redgarl]

At least, miners are not able to afford High-end and enthusiasm cards.

My best advice is to jump on small Vega card at the end of the month.

 

[KD_Gaming]

I've been involved with etherium for quite awhile now and the only real use of it was for companies to use as a ico. Sadly ico is also killing it, which is why etherium has done nothing but drop over the last month and will keep doing so for atleast awhile longer.

 

[nzalog]

At least, miners are not able to afford High-end and enthusiasm cards.

My best advice is to jump on small Vega card at the end of the month.

It's not about not being able to afford it or not. It's about which cards are best for mining. A 1080ti and and 1070 get almost the same performance when mining Ether but the 1080ti uses more electricity and is almost twice the price.

 

[derekullo]

The Geforce 1080 is actually more power efficient than the 1070 when used for gaming.

Most likely due to being a higher binned chip, along with having less of the cuda cores disabled.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3293248/gtx-1070-disabled.html

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-1080-vs-GeForce-GTX-1070


The reason the 1080 is not used for mining is due to the memory being used on the card GDDR5X is not as fast as regular GDDR5 for mining.

http://wccftech.com/ethereum-mining-gpu-performance-roundup/

The charts above explain it best, the profit chart in particular.


Efficiency is what drives the purchases of those that want to mine.

Not the overall price.

If the Geforce 1080ti gave 20% more hashes per second than the 1070 but with only a 10% increase in power then it would also be in short supply as well.

 

[jasonelmore]

eth is just not coded properly for GDDR5X.. the coders need to work on that

 

[xelliz]

I've been involved with etherium for quite awhile now and the only real use of it was for companies to use as a ico. Sadly ico is also killing it, which is why etherium has done nothing but drop over the last month and will keep doing so for atleast awhile longer.

I've noticed that since about Jun 13th it has dropped from $399 to $247. Thats quite a lot. I wonder if it would be worth buying...just wish I had a crystal ball to see its final low point.

 

[10tacle]

Most used R9 290's are going for $300-400 right now.

Exactly why I've got my two GTX 970s for sale. Two months ago they were going for $150US on eBay and Craig's List. Now they are selling for $250 plus. Even my old 680s are selling for $125 when two months ago they were no more than $75 GPUs on eBay. Anyone with recent generation GPUs wanting to upgrade need to take full advantage of this. Not everyone are losers in this lunacy!

At least, miners are not able to afford High-end and enthusiasm cards. My best advice is to jump on small Vega card at the end of the month.

Seriously? At the current state of cryptomining craze you don't think they'll be a rush on Vegas as well?

 

[nitrium]

Reminds me tulip mania of 1619. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania - something with no inherent value being driven to stratospheric prices. As long as the governments don't accept cryptocurrencies as legal tender, the real "value" of these things is zero. They could make all of these currencies illegal with the stroke of a pen and they will if it starts to compete tangibly with their official fiat currencies.
If you get out at the right time you could get rich, if not... well, there has to be a bag holder when it falls apart.

 

[derekullo]

Nitrium must be the Doctor

"Reminds me (of the) tulip mania of 1619"

 

[Gregory_3]

I 've had some extensive conversation with people that engage in this. I look at it as an investment scheme for low-budget chimps. With a couple thousand dollars up front, it seems to me that you could do better investing in one or two mutual funds and come away with something far more tangible.

 

[10tacle]

it seems to me that you could do better investing in one or two mutual funds and come away with something far more tangible.

Most of the chumps will eventually realize it's not easy money, and this late in the Ethereum craze, at best the valuation has stabilized. The kid who maxed his credit card out with a mining PC with $1600 worth of two RX 580s is up against teams of people who have warehouses full of mining hardware and jumped on the Ethereum market early.

Here's a photo example of what they are competing against.

Something eventually has to give. As nitrium said above, it's either going to be the national governments stepping in or the market for each currency will eventually tank. This hollow non-backed currency craze is exactly why we had the global financial collapse in 2008 and fake credit. If you can't back what's not tangibly there, it is not sustainable.

 

[Sherwoody]

Only reason I got involved was because I had just built a gaming rig and figured why not recoup some of that cost when I'm not using it? Bought a 2nd 1080ti for SLI early. Hope to have it paid off in 2-3 months.

Completely agree that building a dedicated mining rig right now is a bit too risky. Then again, if ETH is trading at a kilobuck next month we'll be kicking ourselves for not getting in.

 

[Sherwoody]

Only reason I got involved was because I had just built a gaming rig and figured why not recoup some of that cost when I'm not using it? Bought a 2nd 1080ti for SLI early. Hope to have it paid off in 2-3 months.

Completely agree that building a dedicated mining rig right now is a bit too risky. Then again, if ETH is trading at a kilobuck next month we'll be kicking ourselves for not getting in.

 

[falchard]

You don't actually need to buy a mining rig. You can buy a computational block from one of the warehouses.

 

[nitrium]

Something eventually has to give. As nitrium said above, it's either going to be the national governments stepping in or the market for each currency will eventually tank. This hollow non-backed currency craze is exactly why we had the global financial collapse in 2008 and fake credit. If you can't back what's not tangibly there, it is not sustainable.

Couldn't agree more. Even the worthless straight off the printing press Yellen (or Bernanke before her) greenbacks at least have the full economic backing of the United States economy. This whole cryptocurrency thing is set up almost exactly like a pyramid/Ponzi scheme: all the low hanging fruit is always already mined by the founders and early adopters, while the rest of us "toil" away with ever decreasing returns on a hardware and/or electricity investment while continually driving up the prices for almost entirely their benefit.

 

[MaCk0y]

Even computeruniverse.net has no stock. "An estimated dispatch date cannot be given" for almost all graphic cards.

 

[redgarl]

At least, miners are not able to afford High-end and enthusiasm cards.

My best advice is to jump on small Vega card at the end of the month.

It's not about not being able to afford it or not. It's about which cards are best for mining. A 1080ti and and 1070 get almost the same performance when mining Ether but the 1080ti uses more electricity and is almost twice the price.

The hash rate is about 20, and the 1080 cost 500-550$... multiply this by 6 and you know they can't afford them. Once again it is a question of price. It doesn't worth it and they cannot afford a rig that is going to cost almost 4000$ US.

And to all the people who downrated me... which architecture is better for mining...? That's right, good old GCN... but I know nothing...