News Radeon RX 6600 XT May Be The New De Facto GPU For Mining

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JerryC

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I guess I was wrong... :/

Well, we can only hope for a difficulty spike, a market crash, strict regulations etc., just to upgrade our gaming toys.
They need to limit shipping to the same address to no more than 2 GPUs in any 6 month period unless they are a company like Dell, but then those companies need to be told that they can't sell GPUs individually except to someone that has purchased one of their systems in the past and then the maximum of 2 GPUs should apply. That would at least make it possible for regular computer users to get their hands on one for a little longer before they all get bought up by crypto miners.
 
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JerryC

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Surprisingly there are 6700 XT/6800XT in stock at brick and mortar retailers (i.e. not marketplace resellers) near me. It's just that they cost $1000+/$1500+ (CAD)...

Some 6600 XTs as well, but again overpriced. No Nvidia GPUs available locally that I've seen.

Sure there are, exactly where were you when you saw the ONE box?
 

JerryC

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As a general statement of the GPU market today, yes it's true, but contextual the launch of RX 6600 XT was the best AMD GPU launch of the 6000 series yet, considering availability and street/actual shop price (not MSRP).

In EU we had lots of shops for an entire day (yesterday) having these GPUs in stock with prices ranging from 460 euro to 530 euro. Considering the 3060 which is supposed to be cheaper has a 600+ euro price and the 3060 Ti which is supposed to be the best deal vs RX 6600 XT is 700+ euro, in the same shops that sell the AMD GPUs at 460-530, yeah, this paints a very different picture when you take into account reality and not just PR pieces and MSRP fairy tales seen in all the articles and youtube (influencer) videos...

All of these prices are still too much, too expensive, but the markup on RX 6600 XT is actually much less than on nvidia GPUs, so in reality it is the better deal, in a paradoxal kind of way, if you really need/want a GPU now and you can't wait any longer.

Sorry but the 3060 is a $300 GPU! The only reason it costs that much is because stores that get them in know they can sell them for that much so they bump the price up to the 3080 MSRP
 

VforV

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Sorry but the 3060 is a $300 GPU! The only reason it costs that much is because stores that get them in know they can sell them for that much so they bump the price up to the 3080 MSRP
Sorry, but like so many others you're being deluded that the 3060 is a $330 (by the way, not $300 like you said) GPU.

MSRP for GPUs is the biggest lie today! Yet, a lot of ignorants and shills still throw it left and right, when the real prices are nowhere neat the MSRP ones.

Wake the **** up people! Stop comparing GPUs MSRPs. :mad:
 

Bubba Jones

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We are neutral, and we are reporting the news. Mining is burning power and making it virtually impossible for gamers to buy GPUs.

You mentioned the Ethereum PoW Merge and had a comment something like: " ...miners will find another coin...", but this kind of glosses over how utterly dominant ETH GPU mining is.

Essentially, far too much hashpower directed at ETH (96.3%) and other mineable altcoins are essentially valueless in comparison (market caps). Once ETH goes PoS, the remaining GPU minable coins will be swamped with hashpower and the profitability will collapse, ergo, there will be LOTS of GPUs on the used market and on store shelves.

Obviously, it'll be a game of whack-a-mole for a while, with miners chasing after coins that have not been hashrate-saturated, but that won't last long. The bottom line is that there is simply nowhere for the existing ETH worldwide GPU hashrate to be used in any meaningful way once ETH goes PoS. There will be a GPU mining blow-out that makes 2018 look like a joke!

Over time, the available hashrate will stabilize (read: drop by an few orders of magnitude or more) to meet the needs of the coins in question, but it will be a massive game of chicken. (How long will miners wait, making pennies a day if you're lucky, before it "improves"?)
 
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You mentioned the Ethereum PoW Merge and had a comment something like: " ...miners will find another coin...", but this kind of glosses over how utterly dominant ETH GPU mining is.

Essentially, far too much hashpower directed at ETH (96.3%) and other mineable altcoins are essentially valueless in comparison (market caps). Once ETH goes PoS, the remaining GPU minable coins will be swamped with hashpower and the profitability will collapse, ergo, there will be LOTS of GPUs on the used market and on store shelves.

Obviously, it'll be a game of whack-a-mole for a while, with miners chasing after coins that have not been hashrate-saturated, but that won't last long. The bottom line is that there is simply nowhere for the existing ETH worldwide GPU hashrate to be used in any meaningful way once ETH goes PoS. There will be a GPU mining blow-out that makes 2018 look like a joke!

Over time, the available hashrate will stabilize (read: drop by an few orders of magnitude or more) to meet the needs of the coins in question, but it will be a massive game of chicken. (How long will miners wait, making pennies a day if you're lucky, before it "improves"?)
There's a question of whether Ethereum is successful because of its design, or whether its successful because of all the miners that have gone after the coin. Probably some of both is true, but I won't be shocked if some other coin 'magically' becomes the best thing since sliced bread (aka Ethereum) once ETH goes PoS. The future hypothetical coin will likely use KAWPOW or Octopus, or even Ethash maybe (though I suspect miners would want to move to something that hasn't had a hashrate limiter imposed by Nvidia, given the choice).

We shall wait and see what happens. Fundamentally, with services like NiceHash, lots of GPU miners are already putting energy into something other than Ethereum.
 

Bubba Jones

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There's a question of whether Ethereum is successful because of its design, or whether its successful because of all the miners that have gone after the coin. Probably some of both is true, but I won't be shocked if some other coin 'magically' becomes the best thing since sliced bread (aka Ethereum) once ETH goes PoS. The future hypothetical coin will likely use KAWPOW or Octopus, or even Ethash maybe (though I suspect miners would want to move to something that hasn't had a hashrate limiter imposed by Nvidia, given the choice).

We shall wait and see what happens. Fundamentally, with services like NiceHash, lots of GPU miners are already putting energy into something other than Ethereum.

It's a common misconception that miners somehow influence the popularity of any given altcoin, this is absolutely incorrect these days. Speculators drive altcoin popularity and miners simply serve the speculators; coins with high transaction levels and resonable market value (not pennies) reward miners more in convertible hard-currency value, those low, much less. Your concept is essentially that the tail is wagging the dog and that is incorrect.

There's an enormous difference in mining a coin for profit than mining some kind of "up and coming" coin with the anticipation that it MIGHT have value. The latter is the extremely rare edge-case since the upside is negligible.

Nicehash is meaningless, it's simply a portal for buyers to buy hashpower from sellers, it's extremely rare for any Nicehash user to dictate what algorithms they offer, they simply go with what is in demand and paying well. Nicehash buyers will simply pay less when altcoins are swamped with hashpower.

All in all, the idea that some magical altcoin will appear to take the place of Ethereum in a hashpower-saturated market is wishful thinking...
 
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It's a common misconception that miners somehow influence the popularity of any given altcoin, this is absolutely incorrect these days. Speculators drive altcoin popularity and miners simply serve the speculators; coins with high transaction levels and reasonable market value (not pennies) reward miners more in convertible hard-currency value, those low, much less. Your concept is essentially that the tail is wagging the dog and that is incorrect.

There's an enormous difference in mining a coin for profit than mining some kind of "up and coming" coin with the anticipation that it MIGHT have value. The latter is the extremely rare edge-case since the upside is negligible.

Nicehash is meaningless, it's simply a portal for buyers to buy hashpower from sellers, it's extremely rare for any Nicehash user to dictate what algorithms they offer, they simply go with what is in demand and paying well. Nicehash buyers will simply pay less when altcoins are swamped with hashpower.

All in all, the idea that some magical altcoin will appear to take the place of Ethereum in a hashpower-saturated market is wishful thinking...
I think you underestimate the amount of speculation in mining companies. Are they all immediately selling everything they mine? Absolutely not. Which means it's all just another form of speculation, using equipment to gather a coin rather than just buying the coin directly. You say speculators drive altcoin popularity, but most miners absolutely are speculators. They're betting big on hardware purchases and expecting to turn a profit.

Why are any of the cryptocoins valuable? Because people — including miners! — believe they are! So, if/when Ethereum finally halts mining and goes proof of stake, there will be something like eight billion dollars worth of GPU miners looking for an alternative. So some coins will get 100X more hashing power devoted to them, miners will hold a lot of those coins, that will create a perceived "shortage" which will imply perceived value, and at least some of the coins will gain a reputation for being worth more than they were previously.

Will it be enough to offset the loss in Ethereum mining? Short-term, no, of course not. Long term, though? I've been following the cryptocurrency market for over a decade now. There's so much tail wagging the dog stuff happening that it's become expected rather than unusual. In another ten years, will there still be companies using GPUs to mine cryptocurrency? I'd wager heavily that that will be the case. People have been predicting / hoping for the collapse of Bitcoin and blockchains since this all started. Those people have been proven repeatedly wrong about what the market will bear.
 

TJ Hooker

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Sure there are, exactly where were you when you saw the ONE box?
Admittedly I didn't actually go into the store, I'm just looking online out of curiousity (not in the market for a new card right now). Memory Express (Canadian retailer), lists a number of cards as being in stock in at least some locations, but I now see they have a note about real-time inventory being disabled for most locations. Which is odd, given that the inventory listings do keep changing. But I suppose their inventory numbers probably can't be trusted for now though.

Newegg/Amazon Canada do have couple models listed in stock though, sold and shipped by Newegg/Amazon, not marketplace.

But as I said, the prices are terrible relative to MSRP.
 

TJ Hooker

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I think you underestimate the amount of speculation in mining companies. Are they all immediately selling everything they mine? Absolutely not. Which means it's all just another form of speculation, using equipment to gather a coin rather than just buying the coin directly. You say speculators drive altcoin popularity, but most miners absolutely are speculators. They're betting big on hardware purchases and expecting to turn a profit.
I guess the people buying all the mining equipment might also buy a bunch of the coin, and/or start an organized shilling campaign online to hype the coin, either of which could provide upward pressure on price. But there isn't really any mechanism for increased hashrate on its own to impact prices.
Why are any of the cryptocoins valuable? Because people — including miners! — believe they are! So, if/when Ethereum finally halts mining and goes proof of stake, there will be something like eight billion dollars worth of GPU miners looking for an alternative. So some coins will get 100X more hashing power devoted to them, miners will hold a lot of those coins, that will create a perceived "shortage" which will imply perceived value, and at least some of the coins will gain a reputation for being worth more than they were previously.
The amount of coins that go to miners as a whole, i.e. the block rewards, isn't impacted by network hashrate. So even if coin X's hashrate suddenly goes 100X due to former Eth miners, I don't see how that would create a shortage. Unless we assume that the existing miners were selling mostly their coins while the new miners will be mostly holding them. And even then, that's not really going to make the coin more scarce so much as slow the effective rate of inflation going forward. I.e. available supply isn't reduced by miners hodling, the rate of increase of supply is reduced.
 
I guess the people buying all the mining equipment might also buy a bunch of the coin, and/or start an organized shilling campaign online to hype the coin, either of which could provide upward pressure on price. But there isn't really any mechanism for increased hashrate on its own to impact prices.

The amount of coins that go to miners as a whole, i.e. the block rewards, isn't impacted by network hashrate. So even if coin X's hashrate suddenly goes 100X due to former Eth miners, I don't see how that would create a shortage. Unless we assume that the existing miners were selling mostly their coins while the new miners will be mostly holding them. And even then, that's not really going to make the coin more scarce so much as slow the effective rate of inflation going forward. I.e. available supply isn't reduced by miners hodling, the rate of increase of supply is reduced.
Right. People are using most of these coins presumably to turn a profit. Some are buying and holding, some are mining and holding, others are just speculating and trying to buy low, sell high. But most altcoins have relatively little traction, among miners as well as traders. With all the excess mining power likely to be available in the future once Ethereum goes proof of stake, various parties will have a vested interest in finding something new to promote.

I'm not saying there's a guarantee some coin/coins will go bonkers, because there are so many interdependent factors that it's almost impossible to say exactly what will happen. We know for sure that Ethereum is talking of going PoS — it's been talking about PoS for a couple of years at least, though, so it could get delayed again. (Don't underestimate all the ETH miners who don't want ETH to stop using PoW.) Beyond that, it's a guessing game. Which is why speculation exists — people believe they can game the system better than others.