Why Nvidia does not make hardware lock to prevent some GPU from being used for mining?

[modeonoff]

I want to build a high end workstation but the costs of GPU have increased a lot. I heard that the price increase is due to too many miners buying GPU for mining. Can Nvidia make some kind of hardware lock to prevent GPU from being used for mining?

 

[codygriffy]

Pretty sure they're working on cards dedicated to mining if things get any worse. They have also talked about software locking mining with future cards which would essentially do what you're saying. And people have said that you can order from Nvidia's site and possibly get less inflated prices. <---- can not confirm that last statement, just what I heard.

 

[The Paladin]

and loose millions of dollars in revenue, the more direct question would be , why isn't NVidia mass producing more video cards to flood the market to keep the4 price down.. oh yes I have the answer for that too, they are greedy capitalistic corporation that doesn't care that gamers are forced to pay massive amount of money for video cards, when bitcoin mining places buy 10-50-100 of the same cards because they have the cash.

you, me, all gamers mean little in the pool of money NVidia makes my friend, that is the reality.

Sell 1000 cards at 400$ or sell 1000 Cards at 1400$... which do you think they want to do most ?

 

[renz496]

Honestly i'm not sure if any kind of restriction will end up successful to block mining performance on gpu because miner will just make new type of coin that will bypass the restriction. If they want to block mining performance then nvidia have to impose even more restrictive measure on both software and hardware level. But we (be it gamer or professional user that just need GPU for non mining purpose) will pay dearly for this new form of restriction.

 

[Wolfshadw]

As I understand it, neither NVidia nor AMD are going to invest a billion dollars or so into a new fabrication plant to create more GPU chips for an ecurrnecy economy that may collapse at any given moment.

-Wolf sends

 

[renz496]

@ The Paladin nvidia does not benefit at all from the price increase. They can increase the production but there is still other factor to look into. The reality is nvidia can't simply increase their volume production anytime they like. Nvidia is fabless. They manufacture their GPU at mosly at TSMC. And they can't simply ask TSMC to give them more capacity because there is also other company that fab their chip at TSMC. the likes of Qualcomm and Apple usually get the top priority for capacity. Heck sometimes this big boys got top priorities from TSMC that they build their process node first and foremost for apple/qualcomm use. This is one of the reason why AMD and Nvidia end up skipping 20nm process as TSMC priority back then was to serve a process that is suitable for Apple SoC in an effort to win the contract vs samsung. And there is also issues with DRAM shortage which most of them going into smartphone production first. Some companies that manufacture GPU for nvidia (more specifically PNY) said that they have the GPU but they simply does not have the needed memory module to complete the package. And lastly nvidia is about to launch their new architecture. For years it is known that nvidia will stop production much earlier before launching new series. Digi times (which usually reporting facts) said that nvidia already stop the production of GP102 chip. Nvidia from time and time again already said that they did not factor mining as a major factor in their business. So instead of maintain or even increasing the production of current gen gpu they most likely stick to their initial plan to stop and limiting the production of their current gen gpu and ramping up the production of next gen hardware.

 

[william p]

The reason they don't produce millions more cards is that A- They would need to build more factories to do that which B- would take time, and C- would take millions of dollars, and D- If cryptocurrency GPU minig collapses ( which for Bitcoin it already has, and Ether is planned) it would be a financial disaster, and
E-the market would be flooded with used high end GPUs making new sales impossible.

 

[modeonoff]

How do they use 10-50-100 of the same cards as it is difficult to get even 16x4 GPU in one motherboard. Do they build racks of computer clusters at home?

I thought I read news that Nvidia said they care about gamers and wants to do something to prevent the sky rocketing costs due to the mining.

 

[USAFRet]

How do they use 10-50-100 of the same cards as it is difficult to get even 16x4 GPU in one motherboard. Do they build racks of computer clusters at home?

This is not "at home".

 

[modeonoff]

OMG! How do they have so much money to buy so many cards?

 

[USAFRet]

OMG! How do they have so much money to buy so many cards?

You're thinking on a personal scale.. the PC under your desk. Too small.
Same reason a real estate developer has enough 'money' to build 50 houses before selling a single one.

Simply a calculated investment, in hopes of future return.

If I can get a few people to invest $200,000 in my "business", with a 10% return in a year....
That's where the GPU's are going.
And for people that could invest $200,000 2 years ago...that would have returned a million or two a month ago.

It's not some one or two card dude in mom's basement doing the big money mining.

 

[modeonoff]

I read an article that we need to wait til the end of the year before the price of the GPU would go down again. Is this a realistic estimate?

 

[Phaaze88]

Nope. Even more speculation.
NO ONE really knows when this will die down, if ever. Too volatile. It picks up, and drops, over and over and over...
I hope you recently acquired a card before this boom... you may be relying on it for a good while. Glad I nabbed a 1080ti back when it first came out. Should be good for at least 3 years... and things may STILL be stupid by then even.

 

[USAFRet]

I read an article that we need to wait til the end of the year before the price of the GPU would go down again. Is this a realistic estimate?

Absolutely unknown. Pure speculation.

In Dec 2018, will the stock price of Apple/Microsoft/Ford/Exxon be higher or lower than it is today?
Predict that, and you can be a millionaire. And not have to worry about piddling GPU prices.