Question Will crypto mining permanently affect the price and availability of all future graphics cards?

[fordongreeman]

Will crpytocurrency mining permanently affect the price and availability of all graphics cards, now, and in the future?

The RTX 4000, 5000, 6000, and beyond, will be cost many thousands of dollars, and will be nearly impossible to purchase anywhere?

This sounds extremely cruel and unfair to people who need these devices for purposes other than mining electronic currency.

Also, how does using massive computing power to solve math problems constitute the generation of money?

 

[Phaaze88]

TL;DR:
A test of patience this is:
Temper your patience and embrace the light?
Get what you want now, and give in to the dark side?

 

[Karadjgne]

Excluding secondhand market my guess is yes prices will be permanently impacted, I don’t see pricing coming back to what it was. NVidia and AMD have seen that gamers will pay more rather than go without. Most brands have raised their MSRP since the 3000 series first launched, I bet it doesn’t go down again when things improve and next gen seems unlikely to adjust downwards.

Competition. The single biggest influence on new sales when the market is flooded. Ppl won't spend $1500 for a 4080 when they can get a second hand 3090 for less than half that. And you can bet that if Asus puts up a 4070 for $800, msi or Gigabyte or both will have equitable grade gpu for less.

When mining crashes, you go from a sellers market, to a buyers market and thats an entirely different situation. Vendors won't be setting unreasonable prices or they won't sell their cards in any meaningful volume.

 

[InvalidError]

Ppl won't spend $1500 for a 4080 when they can get a second hand 3090 for less than half that.

If mining is still going strong, the RTX4080 won't be anywhere near $1500 for more than one second after launch and the RTX3090 may still not be available for anywhere near $1500 either.

Miners are snapping up just about anything they can find within the last couple of generations that has at least 6GB of VRAM. They could be buying 7-8nm GPUs well into next-gen launch to finish phasing out the remainder of their pre-7nm fleet.

 

[sizzling]

Competition. The single biggest influence on new sales when the market is flooded. Ppl won't spend $1500 for a 4080 when they can get a second hand 3090 for less than half that. And you can bet that if Asus puts up a 4070 for $800, msi or Gigabyte or both will have equitable grade gpu for less.

When mining crashes, you go from a sellers market, to a buyers market and thats an entirely different situation. Vendors won't be setting unreasonable prices or they won't sell their cards in any meaningful volume.

I’m not saying a 4080 would be $1500. I bought my 3080 for £750, I very much doubt it will go back to that as MSRP has been put up already. I would not be surprised if the 4080 equivalent came priced at around £900. While competition should keep prices down it doesn’t always, key market player can strategically not reduce prices too far. NVidia and AMD will also have shareholders wanting to capitalise as much as possible on the current situation and leverage it for future returns.

I might be wrong but my prediction is each tier of gpu will see a new higher price banding even when supply meets demand.

 

[LordVile]

Will crpytocurrency mining permanently affect the price and availability of all graphics cards, now, and in the future?

The RTX 4000, 5000, 6000, and beyond, will be cost many thousands of dollars, and will be nearly impossible to purchase anywhere?

This sounds extremely cruel and unfair to people who need these devices for purposes other than mining electronic currency.

Also, how does using massive computing power to solve math problems constitute the generation of money?

Nah it’s very boom and bust so it’ll go quiet and resurface again later down the line. Remember it’s not just mining but just silicon availability in general that’s the issue atm. All chips are in low supply from GPUs to phones and even card are having shortages.

 

[InvalidError]

I might be wrong but my prediction is each tier of gpu will see a new higher price banding even when supply meets demand.

When supply actually meets demand and there is actual competition, you get price wars. With Intel building two new 7nm fabs for 2022-2023 and TSMC having a bunch of 3-7nm projects under way, fab capacity should be in a much better place in 2023. If Intel is reasonably successful with first-gen Xe, it will also want to build market share around that time too.

If we're lucky, we will see the combo of sufficient fab capacity and at least three-way competition between one or two newcomers against two incumbents do its thing in 2023.

 

[Nemesia]

Well you pay 4000-5000 dollars and you have a mining rig that pays itself inside 2-3 months. I'd mine to if I could buy GPU's.

My friend has a 3GH/s Ethereum mining rigs and he is making 400 a day with that.

 

[sizzling]

When supply actually meets demand and there is actual competition, you get price wars. With Intel building two new 7nm fabs for 2022-2023 and TSMC having a bunch of 3-7nm projects under way, fab capacity should be in a much better place in 2023. If Intel is reasonably successful with first-gen Xe, it will also want to build market share around that time too.

If we're lucky, we will see the combo of sufficient fab capacity and at least three-way competition between one or two newcomers against two incumbents do its thing in 2023.

Most products are not priced on what they cost to produce, they are priced by what the market is willing to accept. Those fabs will also be meeting lots of other new demand such as the car market. You only need to see the tear downs of popular brand mobile phones showing the massive mark ups, why doesn’t competition drive down prices when there is ample supply and profit margins. You only get price wars if the companies go to war with each other which ultimately only hurts themselves, with 2 players in the market and one clear market leader by market share I just don’t see a price war unless Intel does actually do something useful and unsettles the balance. I might be cynical but I really don’t believe the consumer has the power they are claimed to have. It is the shareholders that nearly always come first.

 

[InvalidError]

Most products are not priced on what they cost to produce, they are priced by what the market is willing to accept.

Only when there is no meaningful competition. "Popular brand phones" cost a stupid amount only because they have an effective oligopoly, buying up the entire supply of next-gen mobile chips and other specialty parts on one end, tying would-be competitors with red tape on the other, so the only way to get anything decent for a reasonable price is to buy off-brand or "international model" phones that aren't supposed to be sold in NA.

I just don’t see a price war unless Intel does actually do something useful and unsettles the balance.

AMD CPUs and platforms had to sell at heavily discounted prices for most of the first four years before AMD released something good enough to flip the tables on Intel on the CPU side of things. Now that Zen 3 has the lead in most areas, most Intel chips are getting non-official price cuts in the form of temporary promos to keep chips moving through the retail channel.

Intel merely entering the market with relevant GPUs should upset the market: Intel does not touch a market unless it intends to carve a significant market share and most people won't pick Intel over AMD or Nvidia if Intel merely offers practically the same performance for a given price, so expect the first 2-3 generations of DGX cards to get priced aggressively to get the ball rolling. After all, Intel is no stranger to losing billions of dollars in the form of chip discounts and development grants in addition to all of the R&D costs to get a new product to market in a bid to break into new markets.

Of course, the above only applies if mining demand slows down enough for retail prices to return to some degree of normalcy where target pricing is at least somewhat relevant. Otherwise, street prices will scale almost directly with ETH/s regardless of what MSRPs are.

 

[Pc6777]

Hopefully the intel gpus are decent, the more compotition the better, no matter which brand you like.

 

[M3rKn]

In a addition to mining, covid, chip shortages, way more are being sold than what was anticipated. Combine that with there being only two sources to get chips from and yeah its all <Mod Edit>.

 

[fordongreeman]

Will I have to wait until 2022-2023 to get an RTX card?

 

[InvalidError]

Will I have to wait until 2022-2023 to get an RTX card?

Yup. Worst case scenario, assuming Nvidia is at least greedy enough to shift its 7nm allocation downward as 5nm gets phased in from the high end instead of forfeiting lower-end sales altogether, 3000-series' availability at MSRP could be spotty all the way to the 4000-series' launch.

Of course, I could be wrong about Nvidia's greed and Nvidia could decide not to retain 7nm capacity. In that case, more price-conscious gamers will be screwed until miners dump their least productive cards in bulk.

 

[fordongreeman]

Yup. Worst case scenario, assuming Nvidia is at least greedy enough to shift its 7nm allocation downward as 5nm gets phased in from the high end instead of forfeiting lower-end sales altogether, 3000-series' availability at MSRP could be spotty all the way to the 4000-series' launch.

Of course, I could be wrong about Nvidia's greed and Nvidia could decide not to retain 7nm capacity. In that case, more price-conscious gamers will be screwed until miners dump their least productive cards in bulk.

What if the same thing happens with the RTX 4000 series and beyond?..

 

[General Kenobi]

Indeed. A Perfect Storm.

Mining,
COVID demand.
Shipping delay (COVID).
Chip shortages.

Also due to unusual high demands as Linus mentioned in one of his video many people are getting into pc as during lockdown they wanted to entertain themselves as well as work.

 

[Phaaze88]

What if the same thing happens with the RTX 4000 series and beyond?..

If the confidence in cryptocurrency does not fall, then future gpus will also fall prey to veteran and up and coming miners too - especially if the newer cards are shown to have higher hash rates.
Out of all the factors in play of this storm, the profitability of gpu mining, as well as the high stock value, have the biggest impact to users genuinely trying to get a gpu for work/play.

 

[InvalidError]

What if the same thing happens with the RTX 4000 series and beyond?..

I'm taking that as a forgone conclusion assuming there isn't another crypto crash, hence my low expectations of current-gen GPUs becoming readily available until next-gen GPUs on 5nm launch and miners switch to those for higher throughput and higher power-efficiency, thus abandoning 7nm GPUs and letting the rest of world have decently priced previous-gen GPUs.

 

[fordongreeman]

If the confidence in cryptocurrency does not fall, then future gpus will also fall prey to veteran and up and coming miners too - especially if the newer cards are shown to have higher hash rates.
Out of all the factors in play of this storm, the profitability of gpu mining, as well as the high stock value, have the biggest impact to users genuinely trying to get a gpu for work/play.

This seems extremely unfair to people who need GPU's for purposes other than mining cryptocurrency.

There are people who need them for professional applications such s computer assisted design (CAD) as well as advanced 3D rendering, design, and animation.

Maybe Nvidia and AMD should try to implement features into their regular gaming/workstation GPU's so that it is impossible to use them for mining?

One line of cards should be meant solely and specifically for gaming, and the other solely and specifically for mining? That would be fair for everyone.

 

[Nemesia]

I just wish there was enough GPU's for everyone really. Miners, gamers and people who needs them for work.

 

[InvalidError]

There are people who need them for professional applications such s computer assisted design (CAD) as well as advanced 3D rendering, design, and animation.

Most professional applications used by professionals require the use of certified drivers for the application in question which are usually only available on the super-expensive professional GPUs anyway. So there already are GPUs marketed specifically to those who make a living off of non-mining GPU work.

Maybe Nvidia and AMD should try to implement features into their regular gaming/workstation GPU's so that it is impossible to use them for mining?

And then they'd be screwed if a crypto crash happens before they have recovered the R&D cost of putting together something mining-specific. Also, a mining-specific ASIC would compete against other mining ASICs on the market, which decreases potential revenue while increasing risks.

Just making more GPUs and letting people mine on them achieves practically the same goal at near-zero risk.

 

[USAFRet]

Maybe Nvidia and AMD should try to implement features into their regular gaming/workstation GPU's so that it is impossible to use them for mining?

They tried that.
Broken within a week.

 

[Karadjgne]

They half-assed tried it with firmware, but consumers critched and an unofficial fix was released.

If Intel really wanted to, they do like the Quadro cards and use a hardware fix that's impossible to reverse.

As far as Intel jumping into the gpu fray, the only thing they really need to release is 580-2070 class cards and they'll clean house. It's hard to get even those atm, so ppl will gladly buy them as a stop-gap while waiting on availability of the boss cards. All they need is a foot in the door, doesn't have to be big, just has to be there.

 

[fordongreeman]

They tried that.
Broken within a week.

Try engineering it into the hardware, on the silicon die.

 

[USAFRet]

Try engineering it into the hardware, on the silicon die.

This particular topic has gone round and round.

There is not that much difference between calculations for mining, and calculations for graphics.

Sure, they could (and I believe are) produce a line of GPUs specifically for mining.
Thereby reducing the number of game oriented GPUs that come out of the factory.

There is a current capacity of X chips per day production.
Until several billion $$ are fessed up to build more fab plants.

 

[InvalidError]

Sure, they could (and I believe are) produce a line of GPUs specifically for mining.

They don't have GPU specifically for mining, they merely re-purpose GPU dies that allegedly don't make the grade for gaming cards.