Nvidia Sold $175 Million Worth of GeForce RTX 30 GPUs To Crypto Miners

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

 Gaming is mostly wasting time. Arguably an evil thing.

Yes well tramping is also just wasting time and largely destroys nature and disrupts animal habitats, so which is more "evil". There isn't anything inherently "evil" about personal entertainment, we have to do that or there would be serious impacts, humans simply cannot be static and do nothing. Evil implies some kind of intent, even in the case of trampers or similar people don't go do that with the intent to destroy or harm ecosystems, but that is the impact it has.

 

Gaming and mining aren't any different, and in fact for the largest mining companies they operate in very cold climates so they do not have to pay for cooling and some even utilize geothermal power so other than the impact to building a large building the impact to their operation is actually very minimal. That's how they make such good profits, by reducing operating costs to as near zero as they can. Only hobby miners really have to worry about power and cooling costs. 

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yes well tramping is also just wasting time and largely destroys nature and disrupts animal habitats, so which is more "evil". There isn't anything inherently "evil" about personal entertainment, we have to do that or there would be serious impacts, humans simply cannot be static and do nothing. Evil implies some kind of intent, even in the case of trampers or similar people don't go do that with the intent to destroy or harm ecosystems, but that is the impact it has.

 

Gaming and mining aren't any different, and in fact for the largest mining companies they operate in very cold climates so they do not have to pay for cooling and some even utilize geothermal power so other than the impact to building a large building the impact to their operation is actually very minimal. That's how they make such good profits, by reducing operating costs to as near zero as they can. Only hobby miners really have to worry about power and cooling costs. 

I didn’t say it was a real good argument.  I do play video games after all. 
 

the biggest mining company I’ve heard of in the US is a power company that had a problem with power they had to generate but couldn’t sell so they lined the walls of their building with ant miners and used them amongst other things to heat the place. 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Bombastinator

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

This seems to be a situation where there is a denial then a repetition of what I said.  The second such I have run into in close proximity.  In the last one the difference was very minimal but there. It seems likely the same is true here.  I don’t seem to be finding it.  Doesn’t mean it is t there, but it implies it is subtle.  The last one was anyway. One difference I see is that of the cooler origin.  I was under the impression AIBs do their own coolers.  It was implied so previously anyway. My intent was that since the gpu manufacturer, be it Nvidia or AMD, has to design a card and pay for its construction they would have to be familiar with the costs.

I don't know what you mean by denial, literally go back and read my other post, it said the same same thing as that last one. I have no idea what you are even trying to actually talk about here anyway? 

 

Reference is reference, entire process and costing under the control of AMD and Nvidia end of story? What else do you even need to know? Who actually puts the card together is essentially irrelevant due to that. Knowing exactly which it is doesn't change anything, but if you really do want to know I'm happy to go find out for you, I'm just not sure how that information relates to what ever it is you are trying to talk about because at this point I don't even know what that is????

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I don't know what you mean by denial, literally go back and read my other post, it said the same same thing as that last one. I have no idea what you are even trying to actually talk about here anyway? 

 

Reference is reference, entire process and costing under the control of AMD and Nvidia end of story? What else do you even need to know? Who actually puts the card together is essentially irrelevant due to that. Knowing exactly which it is doesn't change anything, but if you really do want to know I'm happy to go find out for you, I'm just not sure how that information relates to what ever it is you are trying to talk about because at this point I don't even know what that is????

Re: denial.

I was referring to the word “no.”  It’s the first word. 
 

re: who makes the card.  

I agree that doesn’t matter.

 

that thing got edited a couple times to try to make the statement more in line with what I was trying to express.  It’s possible you are reacting to a early version. I’m done with doing that for that post.  It’s a factor of the limitations of my phone.  It causes problems. I suppose I should do all my posts in a word processor or something and copy/paste only when I was sure.  It’s not something I’ve gotten around to though and still might not help totally. 

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Re: denial.

I was referring to the word “no.”  It’s the first word. 

I said no because what you said I said in your post was not what I said. What am I supposed to say? I have and have only ever said the AIBs either get the entire card assembled or the assembled parts for a card and do the final assembly. It's one or the other and I don't know which it actually is.

 

I'll start with no if you make a statement or claim that is wrong, especially if it is directly about something I have said and is not the case.

 

Edit:

And because you made the incorrect statement it is then necessary to restate it again because you got it wrong so you can read it again and hopefully better understand it. I'm not repeating myself because I want to.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

I said no because what you said I said in your post was not what I said. What am I supposed to say? I have and have only ever said the AIBs either get the entire card assembled or the assembled parts for a card and do the final assembly. It's one or the other and I don't know which it actually is.

 

I'll start with no if you make a statement or claim that is wrong, especially if it is directly about something I have said and is not the case.

Fair enough.  I don’t always keep track of who said what and this is a long thread. 

[GDRRiley]

21 minutes ago, The Blackhat said:

Gaming is just burning power to do some BS calculations to render an image. Folding is just some BS calculations to cure a disease. Servers running 24/7 just run some BS calculations so you can access random info whenever you want.

Folding helps the world and I'd argue so does gaming. I view folding as a good thing. Gaming is another form of entertainment, choose your pick they all use lots of power or create waste. I heat my room purely by running my computer which is mostly folding.

 

Maybe because I spend part of my day working on and in a data center with the main goal of improving our lives by giving scientist all around the world access to a supercomputer. 4/5 days a week I spend time in a meeting with people with their only job being reduce energy waste. I view mining as purely a waste, that hardware could help us in so many other ways.

 

 

[Dracarris]

4 hours ago, Kisai said:

The problem, is cryptocoins are driven by profit-only, so if they can generate coins cheaply by burning coal, oil and gas, they will do that. The amount of energy being wasted on crypto, can power a small country. That's insanity for a speculative asset that's backed by nothing. 

 

Yep. Here is some reference for that: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48853230

This is just insane.

 

3 hours ago, pythonmegapixel said:

All these people complaining that mining is bad for the environment - you know what is also bad for the environment? Throwing away PC hardware after you upgrade (and even if you sell it on, it's still ultimately going to end up as e-waste at some point).

Sure. Me buying a new single GPU every 3-5 years is exactly as bad for the environment as mining companies buying dozens or hundreds of cards every couple of months and running them at full blast 24/7. Come on, you cannot be possibly serious.

3 hours ago, pythonmegapixel said:

Possibly because providing that information would not be helpful to the narrative that Nvidia have somehow denied thousands of gamers - who are, obviously, superior to anyone else /s - their entitlement (which they never had in the first place) to replace their perfectly good graphics card.

I asked you before where you pull that utter crap about entitlement from - you seem to avoid answering that question. All we ask for is fair distribution of a limited good and not to prefer anybody. And before you bring that up: Fair does not mean selling a consumer product in bulk to whoever bids highest, especially if you have promised the opposite.

3 hours ago, pythonmegapixel said:

Gaming is just burning power to make some BS coloured pixels appear on a screen.

We have also extensively covered that argument:

Quote

In the worst case people are doing recreational things with their computers and IT infrastructure, having fun, breathing some fresh air and as a result being more productive (both in their job and elsewhere) and mentally healthier. Still a lot better than hyping some virtual currency.

If you really want to make the argument that mining is just as good as all the other things that IT has helped advancing humanity with, I think you are a lost cause. Rapidly advancing science, curing diseases, spreading knowledge much more easily to poor people, fighting oppressive governments, again with easy availability of information, are just a few examples. But sure, mining ist just as good as these.

 

12 hours ago, Moonzy said:

idk how loyal are gamers

 

how many people jumped from intel bandwagon to AMD recently?

Glad you bring that up. After years of Intel making people mad, shamelessly exploiting their CPU monopoly and leeching insane amounts of money for CPUs that only got very small incremental improvements each generation. Exactly doing what so many suggest here to be totally okay: Shamelessly maximizing your profits by pulling as much money out of everyones pocket as you can possibly get. Yeeeah, free capitalsim, hurr durr!!

 

After years of such behavior, a lot of people quickly jumped ship when finally a viable alternative was available. Wow. How surprising. As I have said multiple times here before: Behave like an asshole, get treated as such. But sure, I am stupid, and every company in their right mind should exactly follow Intels example.

[pythonmegapixel]

7 hours ago, Dracarris said:

 

Sure. Me buying a new single GPU every 3-5 years is exactly as bad for the environment as mining companies buying dozens or hundreds of cards every couple of months and running them at full blast 24/7. Come on, you cannot be possibly serious.

That's not what I mean.

The point I am trying to make is that if you care enough about environmental damage, you should be doing everything in your power to reduce it, regardless of how insignificant it may seem. Which includes not creating as much ewaste. The implication of some of the earlier posts was that gaming was somehow great for the environment... it's not.

 

Mining is much worse overall, of course... but that doesn't mean gaming isn't pretty bad.

Quote

 

I asked you before where you pull that utter crap about entitlement from - you seem to avoid answering that question. All we ask for is fair distribution of a limited good and not to prefer anybody. And before you bring that up: Fair does not mean selling a consumer product in bulk to whoever bids highest, especially if you have promised the opposite

 

How have I avoided answering that question? I've said what I'm about to say now, many times.

 

This answe is simple: A lot of people on here are acting as if they are somehow entitled to a GPU. Which they aren't. Neither are the miners, but obviously they could offer Nvidia a more attractive deal than the retailers could.

 

In an Ideal world, everything would be distributed freely. But - skipping over the monstrous logistical issues of how on earth you figure out how to do that - we are in a capitalistic society. In such a society, whoever can pay the most for goods get them - end of story.

 

Plus, if Nvidia had attempted to distribute the cards freely, this forum would be full of people moaning at that strategy as well, because whatever clever mechanisms they introduced would ultimately end up with people unable to get/use cards.

 

Limit one per address? "My sister bought a 3080 for her rig, now I can't get one for mine!"

Limit one per phone number? People will just use fake phone numbers.

Some means to verify that you're a True Gamer™? "I need a card for folding@home and Nvidia won't sell one to me!"

Drivers which send back to Nvidia details of what each card is being used for? Aside from the privacy issues, "My card was deactivated because Nvidia thought I was mining and I wasn't!"

 

Or possibly you're asking for a blanket policy at Nvidia against making bulk deals other than with retailers. Well, it doesn't take a genius, given that miners often don't seem to be the most moral of characters, to see that they will simply start posing as retailers to get their hands on cards.

[mwagen]

1 hour ago, pythonmegapixel said:

snip

Dude, you are reading our frustration all wrong. Entitlement is not the right word. I can see that PC gaming isn't a hobby of yours so it seems all you're here to do is try and sound superior. The economics is not hard to understand but those defending miners seem to have no theory of mind.

 

I think my Porsche analogy was pretty good. We're dealing with a highly anticipated, limited supply product, designed and marketed to a fairly specific set of buyers. So, when a different set of essentially speculative buyers noses in and winds up buying a high enough percentage of the supply such that it appears to contribute to shortages, then how would you expect the "intended" audience for that product to feel? Frankly I find it impossible not to judge them in the same way we all hate scalpers or otherwise rent-seeking scumbags. Of course we're only discussing luxury electronic goods and not food or something, so it's not like we ought to be too upset since it's not like people have wound up going hungry because of this.

 

But yadayadayada capitalism, yeah, we get it. I'll be honest and say that I wish I had jumped on the mining bandwagon years ago because I definitely could have. My brother is the financial guru who told me to do it but I ignored him, but even then all these years later I doubt I would have kept up with it. 

 

Btw, Porsche actually blacklists speculators from buying their cars.

[mwagen]

oops double post

[AndreiArgeanu]

I wish I could care but my whole PC costs just a little more than a 3070. Hopefully there's going to be more 3060 stock since perhaps the chips require less binning and also miners would probably preffer higher end cards.

[CTR640]

On 11/28/2020 at 1:12 AM, Moonzy said:

People: "mining is bad, they waste electricity when we're trying to be green, miners are selfish"

Also people: -uses electricity to game to entertain themselves-

 

Me: -visible confusion-

 

 

And how do you charge your phone then? Or monitors?

There is a difference between two of them. Miners use electricity 24/7 while gamers doesn't.

[Bombastinator]

6 hours ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

I wish I could care but my whole PC costs just a little more than a 3070. Hopefully there's going to be more 3060 stock since perhaps the chips require less binning and also miners would probably preffer higher end cards.

My memory is mining runs the gamut card wise for about the same reasons as gaming PCs do.

[niofalpha]

On 11/27/2020 at 4:03 AM, Arika S said:

says who?

 

Miners are customers too. Why are "gamers" more entitled to new GPUs than anyone else?

Gamers and Entitelement

 

Name a more iconic duo

[Goldilock]

Miners already have ASIC mining for virtually every crypto currency on the market. Why the heck do they need gaming GPU again?.

 

Am I missing new crypto on the block?

[Dream Machines Official]

On 11/27/2020 at 11:07 AM, TOMPPIX said:

Ummm Nvidia.

Maybe Nvidia did not realize the untapped potential that their cards posses. The miners did realize it though faster than Nvidia managed to say "that was fast" in terms of sales of their cards and miners had bough almost whole top tier assortment of their cards. $ makes $

[Dracarris]

17 hours ago, niofalpha said:

Gamers and Entitelement

 

Name a more iconic duo

People claiming gamers feeling entitled and a vast lack of common sense.

[MageTank]

On 11/27/2020 at 9:20 PM, Gamer Schnitzel said:

Could you please explain to us why these cards are very clearly labelled as gaming cards on Nvidia's website if they are going to suddenly give them away to miners for cash?

Please either answer this question or just don't post anymore, I don't think fanboys or sheep are popular on these forums. Try to think for yourself instead of "lolz tis b buzinezz guizz nvidia maekz moni LOL". What about the current situation and the fact that people sit at home and that a ton of people either need this to distract fromselves from slitting their wirst considering mental health has been on the rise due to the pandemic and lokdown? What about the fact that people need this for work and cannot get any? What about kiddos that have nothing else in their life than game while they sit around at home? But hey, people that want to take advantage of this idiotic currency to make money and enrich themselves sure are customers too. <removed by staff>

My friend, you fell victim to marketing. Marketing doesn't dictate a products intended use. It merely exists as a means to push sales. Slapping "gaming" all over a product doesn't make a product exclusively a gaming product, no less than slapping "military grade" on a product make it exclusively used by the military. It's all buzzwords used to pander to people that do not know better. This is nothing new, nor is it exclusive to our tech industry as it is often used in the automotive industry as well. 

 

Your overly aggressive response is unwarranted, especially the hostile approach of "answer this or get out", made worse by the fact that the question you posed was not at all difficult to answer nor was it relevant to your following use of the "fanboy/sheep" label. Your use of the pandemic and the decline of mental health as a justification is also weak, as this has nothing to do with miners whatsoever. You are asking that consumers be empathetic towards others as if it is their responsibility to do so for products that are of no legitimate concern to their physical, mental or emotional wellbeing. Miners (or consumers in general) should not be responsible for the decisions others make because they were unable to get a graphics card. An inverse argument could also be made that gaming can cause just as much emotional and mental stress and that miners are saving gamers by buying up the graphics cards. This is especially true for anyone that plays competitive League of Legends (my one and only joke in this paragraph).

 

 The users on this forum need to grow up and understand that there are tech enthusiasts that exists outside of gaming that use their hardware for other purposes. I myself am not a miner nor do I ever see myself diving into that pool, however I respect the hustle of those that wish to expand their mining empire. If they want to put in the effort and put their finances on the line, by all means, have at it. I've actually enjoyed the services that miners have offered me in my line of work, as I consider them the most valuable GPU guinea pigs in the industry. If anyone is to find inadequacies in a GPU power delivery/cooler design, it's the miners.

 

While it can be a bit of a bummer to have to wait extended periods of time for a GPU upgrade (still waiting on a reference PCB 3080 to go with my new water block), it does give me time to research and explore options between different brands and manufacturers as well as wait out any early revision/adopter woes. With that said, patience isn't something one can teach, so I won't waste my time trying, but I do implore those of you that are at odds with the mining culture to look on the brighter side of things and take the good with the bad.

 

 

[Briggsy]

8 hours ago, Goldilock said:

Miners already have ASIC mining for virtually every crypto currency on the market. Why the heck do they need gaming GPU again?.

 

Am I missing new crypto on the block?

NVidia are selling mining companies the GPU chips, and the mining companies have their own PCB design, components and drivers. Not only that, but Nvidia are selling them the chips that have too many defects to be used in a consumer product (but still have working SM's), thus giving NVidia the ability to make up for poor Samsung yields. 

 

To be honest, I've never seen a more misinformed and entitled forum thread in my life. Outrage culture needs some valium. 

[Master Delta Chief]

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

The users on this forum need to grow up and understand that there are tech enthusiasts that exists outside of gaming that use their hardware for other purposes. I myself am not a miner nor do I ever see myself diving into that pool, however I respect the hustle of those that wish to expand their mining empire. If they want to put in the effort and put their finances on the line, by all means, have at it. I've actually enjoyed the services that miners have offered me in my line of work, as I consider them the most valuable GPU guinea pigs in the industry. If anyone is to find inadequacies in a GPU power delivery/cooler design, it's the miners.

 

While it can be a bit of a bummer to have to wait extended periods of time for a GPU upgrade (still waiting on a reference PCB 3080 to go with my new water block), it does give me time to research and explore options between different brands and manufacturers as well as wait out any early revision/adopter woes. With that said, patience isn't something one can teach, so I won't waste my time trying, but I do implore those of you that are at odds with the mining culture to look on the brighter side of things and take the good with the bad.

 

 

There are certain arguments in this thread that are pretty much pointless and don't make much sense, though there are valid criticisms that should not be ignored. I don't think mining should be expanded as you any further beyond to what exists right now, in fact I would even say it should decline as it holds no proper value in our society other than wasting energy and 'getting money'. And no, I don't see any good in what you call the 'mining culture' or even cryptocurrency except the development of blockchain which is interesting to say the least. Regardless, when people buy GPU's (especially in the current environment we are in right now), it shouldn't be used for mining or heck even scalping. 

[Bombastinator]

20 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

NVidia are selling mining companies the GPU chips, and the mining companies have their own PCB design, components and drivers. Not only that, but Nvidia are selling them the chips that have too many defects to be used in a consumer product (but still have working SM's), thus giving NVidia the ability to make up for poor Samsung yields. 

 

To be honest, I've never seen a more misinformed and entitled forum thread in my life. Outrage culture needs some valium. 

Well that’s a whole lot of information that directly contradicts other stuff.  I haven’t heard any specifics about “mining companies”. I’m assuming you mean companies that make mining cards as someone merely doing cryptomining would have absolutely no use for a bare chip.  I’m not saying what you are saying is false, I’m just saying it’s got an internal inconsistency which may be coincidental and lacks any evidence.  Got anything to back it?

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, Master Delta Chief said:

There are certain arguments in this thread that are pretty much pointless and don't make much sense, though there are valid criticisms that should not be ignored. I don't think mining should be expanded as you any further beyond to what exists right now, in fact I would even say it should decline as it holds no proper value in our society other than wasting energy and 'getting money'. And no, I don't see any good in what you call the 'mining culture' or even cryptocurrency except the development of blockchain which is interesting to say the least. Regardless, when people buy GPU's (especially in the current environment we are in right now), it shouldn't be used for mining or heck even scalping. 

“Our society” may be narrow.  Apparently most of there were sold in mainland China and there could be specific uses there due to legal differences.  I just don’t know.

[Touch My Hamm]

Imagine if nobody purchased from Scalpers we wouldnt have an issue with scalpers? The problem isnt bots/savy users buying your cards and reselling them to you for a markup, its the people buying the markup price. Miner "comapnies" buying cards might be buying through business means which is smart thinking cant hold it against startups buying cards and relating them to the issue of nvidia not having enough supply for the demand during a global pandemic. 

[MageTank]

35 minutes ago, Master Delta Chief said:

There are certain arguments in this thread that are pretty much pointless and don't make much sense, though there are valid criticisms that should not be ignored. I don't think mining should be expanded as you any further beyond to what exists right now, in fact I would even say it should decline as it holds no proper value in our society other than wasting energy and 'getting money'. And no, I don't see any good in what you call the 'mining culture' or even cryptocurrency except the development of blockchain which is interesting to say the least. Regardless, when people buy GPU's (especially in the current environment we are in right now), it shouldn't be used for mining or heck even scalping. 

That is the beauty of the subjective nature of this issue. Neither side has to come to an agreement on anything as neither side is doing anything wrong. Miners are simply consumers that are using their product differently to how you believe it should be used. No different than the kids that go out and lower their Honda Civics, cut their exhausts by several inches then pretend they are characters from Fast & Furious. Honda didn't intend for them to make a poor attempt at turning their Civic's into a street racing phenomenon, but the will of the consumer was strong enough to endeavor to persevere, in spite of what most of us would consider to be a "stupid" and "pointless" endeavor.

 

Now scalpers... that is an entirely different issue, however I am bound to make some enemies here with yet another unpopular opinion. What most of you call "scalping", I call capitalism. They are taking advantage of an opportunity. One can spend all day arguing the morality of it, but at the end of the day, scalpers would not exist if there were not a market for it. Otherwise, they would be sitting on hardware that nobody is buying. You can't blame the miners on this, because they care too much about their ROI that they refuse to overpay for GPU's upfront, so someone is clearly making the scalping worth it for the scalpers.

 

With that said, I should probably add a disclaimer before people rush to assume that I myself am a scalper. I am not, still waiting to get my hands on a 3080 for personal use that doesn't belong to my testing facility. Much like the rest of you, I have to wait and refresh websites for availability and do the hokey pokey every time I go online. I've made several physical visits to my local Micro Center store in the hopes that they'd randomly have one in stock but it has yet to happen.

 

My point is, I personally do not take what is going on personally, nor do I choose to cast blame at any party in this shortage. In an ideal world, the scalping issue would be addressed by both the retailers (in-store purchase limits, online order limits per household / billing information) and manufacturers (producing enough product to meet the demands in the first place). The mining "issue" as far as I am concerned, isn't one. They, as consumers, are no less entitled to the same hardware we are as gamers or overclocking enthusiasts. That said, this "perceived issue" can only ever be addressed by manufacturers meeting the supply needs of all parties involved or for that crypto bubble to burst. You know, that thing the "experts" have been claiming was going to happen for several years now?

 

To those of you that will inevitably say "The more GPU's they make, the more the miners will buy", remember, there is only a finite amount of power and space available. They'll hit that wall eventually, or society will evolve to handle crypto mining in space, lol.