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

[germgoatz]

nvidia please gimme rtx 3080 i want it now wahhh

[germgoatz]

 

[Bombastinator]

52 minutes ago, germgoatz said:

nvidia please gimme rtx 3080 i want it now wahhh

The date I am hearing is probability of available units will increase by February.  No idea how true that is or what prices will be.

[aisle9]

Hi, my name is capitalism, how are you doing today?

[Master Delta Chief]

2 hours ago, MageTank said:

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.

 

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?

First of all, there's nothing that needs to be agreed upon. It's simple, mining needs to end, period. Your comparison has no relevance in this particular debate as those two are different things and circumstances. I know that capitalism is pretty much at fault here as the system allows it to happen, but that doesn't mean that because of that we can't put restrictions in place for scalpers. One of the reasons there is a market in place for scalpers is simply because consumers have no other choice but to buy from those types of people if stock in regular stores are empty or worse are at higher prices because of that. In order to prevent that from happening, governments should regulate stores to restrict sales of these solely towards the regular consumer by either putting a limit by how much can be sold or by other potential solutions that I can't come up with right now. 

 

And for the record, this isn't about entitlement whatsoever. I know the issues that I have mentioned go way beyond this original topic of the thread, but are related. 

[Dracarris]

4 hours ago, MageTank said:

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.

Nobody really cares about this type of miners much. The type that buys 1-2 GPUs and does a bit of mining on the side. That is not who Nvidia (allegedly) has sold to. The problem here is companies that buy GPUs in bulk, run them at full blast a few months and replace them with the next bulk. This seriously needs to stop, now.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, Master Delta Chief said:

First of all, there's nothing that needs to be agreed upon. It's simple, mining needs to end, period. 

It's simple, gaming needs to end, period. 

 

2 hours ago, Master Delta Chief said:

One of the reasons there is a market in place for scalpers is simply because consumers have no other choice but to buy from those types of people if stock in regular stores are empty or worse are at higher prices because of that. 

Well I mean, there is an option and that's to wait a little while. It's not like gaming components are life essential. You're talking about introducing laws just to ensure that you will be able to buy what's essentially a toy to play some games on. 

Don't you think that sounds a bit excessive? Just wait a bit. 

 

2 hours ago, Master Delta Chief said:

And for the record, this isn't about entitlement whatsoever. I know the issues that I have mentioned go way beyond this original topic of the thread, but are related. 

You say it's not about entitlement, but at the same time you are pushing for laws and regulations specifically designed to ensure that other people can't buy a product because you feel like your use of the product (which I should add, is playing games) is more "right". 

The definition of entitlement is:

Quote

the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.

 

I think that fits really well with how you are acting right now. 

Someone is buying a product you want and your response is to go:

Quote

But that person won't play games with that card which I will. The government should prevent they person from buying that GPU so I can buy it instead. I deserve it more because I want to play games and that other person wants to earn money by computing hashes on it. 

 

[Dracarris]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Just wait a bit.

A bit? Haha sure. What is a bit in this case? 4-6 months? When already additional 3080 and 3070 variants are released? yeah sure

[Arika]

1 hour ago, Dracarris said:

A bit? Haha sure. What is a bit in this case? 4-6 months? When already additional 3080 and 3070 variants are released? yeah sure

Doesn't matter. Its not food or water, you can wait.

[Dracarris]

10 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Doesn't matter. Its not food or water, you can wait.

By that glorious logic, we never have to ever buy a piece of tech again. General availability near MSRP before the product is outdated must become the standard again.

[Arika]

8 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

By that glorious logic, we never have to ever buy a piece of tech again. General availability near MSRP before the product is outdated must become the standard again.

Correct. You don't HAVE to buy a piece of tech, it all a luxury item. You don't need the latest and greatest.  There are people who will never be able to buy it, even when its back in stock and at MSRP.

 

For years I was poor and had to rely on used parts from 2-3 generations back from the current at the time. And guess what? It worked, I was able to do what I wanted to with the money I had. I'm now in a position where I have a decent amount of disposable income that I can by myself something nice. But just because I have the money, doesn't mean I'm entitled to stock. Hell when I bought my 2060super, if I was able to find a GTX 1080 cheaper, I would have gone with that, basically the same performance, again, going back to the not needing the latest and greatest.

[mwagen]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

You say it's not about entitlement, but at the same time you are pushing for laws and regulations specifically designed to ensure that other people can't buy a product because you feel like your use of the product (which I should add, is playing games) is more "right". 

I don't think he was talking about how the gov't should give a certain set of consumers first dibs on a product, just that the gov't should outlaw scalping. 

 

Again, entitlement just isn't the right word. The feeling is closer to resentment. It's the feeling that a person would have at the beginning of the pandemic when they need to buy diapers for their newborn only to arrive at the store and see that one person bought out the entire stock for their dog that can't stop pooping in the house. 

[Moonzy]

34 minutes ago, mwagen said:

just that the gov't should outlaw scalping

how do you differentiate a retail vs scalpers?

 

retail also charge a marked up fee, afaik

 

34 minutes ago, mwagen said:

The feeling is closer to resentment

you resent because you feel entitled, like you should have it but you dont

 

if you're feeling anger/resentment because you cant buy a gpu, maybe calm down and reconsider your choices

 

 

34 minutes ago, mwagen said:

It's the feeling that a person would have at the beginning of the pandemic when they need to buy diapers for their newborn

necessity =/= luxury items

 

though i would start arguing that computer is pretty much a necessity now, since more and more things rely on it

but definitely doesnt need the latest GPU/tech product

[leadeater]

26 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

how do you differentiate a retail vs scalpers?

Honestly not much harder than the laws that already prohibit scalping of event and sporting tickets. One actually has a registered business and the other does not, one actually files business tax and the other does not. Scalping is illegal mainly for the purposes of tax, and event promoters lobbying for it because it hurts their image and can cause empty seating.

 

What got event and sporting tickets over the line was the fact that they are time critical, you either can see the event or you cannot, there is no later. But if tech companies like Nvidia and AMD start to feel the need they will lobby for the same thing, either by laws or by policies from the likes of ebay. Scalpers go away when they are unable to sell their items, relying on personal will of everyone to just not buy from them is unreliable, far more so than ebay closing down all bulk sales of new items etc.

 

And you don't have to make it totally and completely effective either, just enough to raise the bar and make it harder and more risky and less people will try and scalp these items and as with all these bandwagon type things it'll fade away. Some will for sure try and persist but they will just stick out even more and be even easier to squash while everyone else is more able to buy through regular retail channels.

 

Only accepting perfect solutions to problems is often just a cognitive trap, start with something acceptable and has an effect first, then work from there.

[mwagen]

9 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

how do you differentiate a retail vs scalpers?

 

retail also charge a marked up fee, afaik

I wasn't defending the position that the gov't should actually do that, nor will I. Just clarifying what this is about.

 

14 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

you resent because you feel entitled, like you should have it but you dont

necessity =/= luxury items

I can see your point of view but you're not even trying to see mine.

 

So would you say that the guy with the newborn is entitled to the diapers? Diapers aren't a necessity, could use cloth like many do, and that's part of my point. Entitlement implies that an object or position has been earned in some way, so I just don't like the use of that word in a discussion on free market economies. 

[Moonzy]

10 minutes ago, mwagen said:

So would you say that the guy with the newborn is entitled to the diapers? Diapers aren't a necessity, could use cloth like many do, and that's part of my point.

when i typed that, I remembered about the cloth thing

and i would say that yes, it's unfortunate that someone who needs the product gets to it first, it's not like they're re-selling it for higher price like some who bought toilet rolls did.

but modern society has spoilt us into thinking diapers is a necessity, i guess, that's why i refrained from saying the cloth remark

but if it comes down to no other options, you still have another way to deal with the issue, so i dont see much of an issue here

 

let's say food, people raid the market and bought out all the food, for their own survival in some apocalyptic scenario

food is definitely necessary, and i would argue that whoever comes first, gets it, it's all fair game.

would you be willing to give your food to others in that scenario?

 

10 minutes ago, mwagen said:

Entitlement implies that an object or position has been earned in some way

i think lawlz's definition better fits my definition of entitlement

 

10 minutes ago, mwagen said:

I just don't like the use of that word in a discussion on free market economies.

that's the thing, people are arguing why free market is bad, why they should be prefered over the other customers

 

14 minutes ago, leadeater said:

One actually has a registered business and the other does not,

this would kill off used markets, and that would be a huge issue by itself

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

this would kill off used markets, and that would be a huge issue by itself

No it would not, because for one platforms like ebay and authorities themselves have the choice to exercise their powers given to them or not. So even if scalpers were to start listing the items as used instead of new it's still painfully obvious what is items being scalped and those that are not. You really think RTX 3080 being listed on ebay at the day of release are legitimate used market sales, I think not.

 

See my note about wanting perfect solutions, fools errand.

[mwagen]

1 hour ago, Moonzy said:

and i would say that yes...

...that's the thing, people are arguing why free market is bad, why they should be prefered over the other customers

Yes, you agree the person with the newborn is entitled to the diapers, even though you agree they qualify as much of a necessity as a gpu? But then you're contradicting yourself. The point I'm trying to make is that in a free market neither the person with the baby or the person with the dog are entitled to the diapers, but I think you could forgive the guy with the baby for being angry at the guy who bought them for his dog. 

 

So we're not really arguing about why the free market is bad, just how wasteful and irritating it feels when a product isn't used for its intended purpose, like hogging all the baby diapers for an incontinent dog, using a Hummer for urban commuting, playing blu ray movies on an old CRT, etc. And since this is the internet I guess some people felt like complaining that latest graphics processing units, which I hear are exactly what you need to play games in stunning visual quality, are instead being used to mine bitcoins. My first thought was, "Yeah that's kinda dumb, but so what?" But it seems the elitists among us felt this was the perfect opportunity to get on their platform to lecture and insult gaming enthusiasts. Give me a break.

[MageTank]

16 hours ago, Master Delta Chief said:

First of all, there's nothing that needs to be agreed upon. It's simple, mining needs to end, period. Your comparison has no relevance in this particular debate as those two are different things and circumstances. I know that capitalism is pretty much at fault here as the system allows it to happen, but that doesn't mean that because of that we can't put restrictions in place for scalpers. One of the reasons there is a market in place for scalpers is simply because consumers have no other choice but to buy from those types of people if stock in regular stores are empty or worse are at higher prices because of that. In order to prevent that from happening, governments should regulate stores to restrict sales of these solely towards the regular consumer by either putting a limit by how much can be sold or by other potential solutions that I can't come up with right now. 

 

And for the record, this isn't about entitlement whatsoever. I know the issues that I have mentioned go way beyond this original topic of the thread, but are related. 

I believe my analogy was perfectly sound, but I need not convince you, your mind is pretty made up on the subject. That being said, I am fine with the existence of miners. I've explained what purpose they serve in my personal opinion, and I use them for that exact purpose quite often. My job requires that I test new hardware, often to the point of failure, and the data shared with me by crypto miners is invaluable in that aspect. Like I said before, you have to take the good with the bad sometimes

 

As for people not having a choice but to buy from scalpers, that is simply not true. They always have a choice. They can choose not to buy a new graphics card. You people are confusing wants vs needs. I know some of you will attempt to make the case that you need a new GPU for your work, but then that just counters the point that a few people were making in this thread that these gaming cards are for gamers. Ignoring those people entirely, there is nothing stopping people from buying used hardware or older cards that still perform well. 1080 Ti's are still very fast cards, I know because I still have my old 1080 Ti in a spare system and it more than handles 1080p/1440p gaming with ease. 2060's and 2070's are still widely available at my local Micro Center for normal pricing as well and perform just fine. The notion that gamers hands are tied and that they have to buy from scalpers is just silly.

 

15 hours ago, Dracarris said:

Nobody really cares about this type of miners much. The type that buys 1-2 GPUs and does a bit of mining on the side. That is not who Nvidia (allegedly) has sold to. The problem here is companies that buy GPUs in bulk, run them at full blast a few months and replace them with the next bulk. This seriously needs to stop, now.

Except it doesn't. It doesn't need to stop. It would be nice if it did, but by no means does it "need" to. Business is business. Their money is just as good as ours. We can all sit around and make claims that Nvidia needs us more than the miners and that they are being short sighted by taking this quick money, but every single one of us knows that regardless of how this pans out, we'll be buying their GPU's when they come in stock because those of us already invested in their ecosystem have few options short of jumping ship to AMD or Intel. If you've already invested in a G-Sync panel and paid that premium, that pill is far more bitter to swallow, especially when that panel is in the form of a 55 inch OLED TV, lol.

 

I want to remind everyone of a very real truth here. Gamers are not as important to these businesses as we like to make ourselves out to be. We represent a very small, very niche portion of their businesses. Granted, we are the loudest portion, and often drive their marketing for the average consumers, but the big money exists in markets most of us have little to no understanding of.

 

The second half of this truth is that companies do not care about you, contrary to how altruistic they want you to believe they are. Anyone that believes a company has their best interest in heart, or are doing it "for the gamers" are being foolish. A companies first priority is survival. A company that cannot survive is doing a disservice for everyone that works for them and the people that rely on/consume their services. This is why I firmly believe the greatest lie ever told was that "the customer always comes first". In business, the survival of the company comes first, everything else fights for second after that.

 

I wish I had an easy answer for you people on how to resolve your GPU woes. I want a 3080, mostly because I want HDMI 2.1, but I do not need a new GPU. I was one of the fools that overpaid $1200 for a 2080 Ti, but it will last me quite a while in terms of raw performance, even if it can't push 4k 120 through HDMI for my TV. With that being said, I am still down to debate the moral conundrums of what people do with their hardware and wants vs needs, anything to get me through these longer stress tests.

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, MageTank said:

I am still down to debate the moral conundrums of what people do with their hardware and wants vs needs, anything to get me through these longer stress tests.

Something something, counter argument, on guard.

 

Actually on topic comment, this single sale in regards to the topic post is less than 8% of Nvidia's quarterly revenue in their Gaming segment (Yes Nvidia calls it that in the reports) so odds are without this sale and all the GPU packages going in to gaming cards and being feed in to the retail chain would have been largely unnoticed. The overall demand is just that big of a problem, so big we don't actually know how big it is.

[MageTank]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Something something, counter argument, on guard.

 

Actually on topic comment, this single sale in regards to the topic post is less than 8% of Nvidia's quarterly revenue in their Gaming segment (Yes Nvidia calls it that in the reports) so odds are without this sale and all the GPU packages going in to gaming cards and being feed in to the retail chain would have been largely unnoticed. The overall demand is just that big of a problem, so big we don't actually know how big it is.

I've been trying to speculate what has been driving the demand for this particular series of GPU's. I don't remember the 2000 series being this sought after, then again, most people are smart enough to not buy the first revision of a new technology. Is it because this is the mature revision of ray tracing? Is it due to the pandemic giving those working from home more time to game while technically on the clock? There has to be a quantifiable reason that the demand for GPU's this time around is eclipsing every previous launch, and I don't just mean from miners.

[leadeater]

16 minutes ago, MageTank said:

I've been trying to speculate what has been driving the demand for this particular series of GPU's. I don't remember the 2000 series being this sought after, then again, most people are smart enough to not buy the first revision of a new technology. Is it because this is the mature revision of ray tracing? Is it due to the pandemic giving those working from home more time to game while technically on the clock? There has to be a quantifiable reason that the demand for GPU's this time around is eclipsing every previous launch, and I don't just mean from miners.

I think it's a collective of all you mentioned converging at the same time. You have people feeling that a GPU upgrade is now actually warranted, GTX 10 series was actually extremely successful but sales spread out much wider. Monitor technology has actually started to progress again last few years which is factoring in to people wanting to upgrade to now be able to drive that new purchase. Personally existing gamers I do not think are influenced that much at all by the pandemic, RTX 30 series just felt good enough people want it. However I do think a lot more people are getting in to gaming due to the pandemic so the market itself has grown.

 

So I think it's a combination of both GTX 900 series and GTX 10 series owners trying to purchase at the same time, those who do every second or so generation largely did not buy in to RTX 20 series, along with the market growing reasonably significantly and everyone looking to buy right now as there is nothing better to do.

 

Every recent GPU release has gotten higher demand each time, that's at least a consistent trend. But we can also look over at the CPU demand issue to know that the market as a whole is growing, even before Ryzen Intel was having CPU supply shortages.

 

Human observation is a fickle thing, we tend to notice problems and not notice things when they are not or are building up to one. I'll be very interested to see the next 2 quarterly reports from Nvidia and AMD, both for the GPU revenue and AMD for the CPU revenue. I think this will tell a very interesting and enlightening story. What I want to know, I'll certainly forget to check it, is GPU sales figures for GTX 10 series vs RTX 30 series once 30 series gets replaced. Only then will we know just how much bigger the demand/market actually was/is right now.

[Blade of Grass]

8 hours ago, mwagen said:

So would you say that the guy with the newborn is entitled to the diapers? Diapers aren't a necessity, could use cloth like many do, and that's part of my point. Entitlement implies that an object or position has been earned in some way, so I just don't like the use of that word in a discussion on free market economies. 

Just to be clear, "entitlement" has nothing to do with earning, but solely to do with having the right to something. (e.g. Humans are entitled to Human Rights, there's no quest you must complete to earn them)

 

Re: diapers. Definitely a necessity. Cloth diapers sound ineffective/unsanitary.

[Dracarris]

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

I want to remind everyone of a very real truth here. Gamers are not as important to these businesses as we like to make ourselves out to be. We represent a very small, very niche portion of their businesses. Granted, we are the loudest portion, and often drive their marketing for the average consumers, but the big money exists in markets most of us have little to no understanding of.

Until very recently gamers where the sole reason for the existence and development of GPUs (plus a bit of CAD designing). GPGPU is a very young field which would all not exist if it wasn't for gamers that drove GPUs to become as powerful as they are. Even now I wouldnt be so quick to jump to the conclusion that most money is made from non-gamers. Just because the fraction of 3080s and the like is tiny, lower-end GPUs that share the same architecture have insane volumes in all kinds of computing devices where they are mostly used for gaming, also don't forget the GPUs that are part of every console sold.

[MageTank]

12 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Until very recently gamers where the sole reason for the existence and development of GPUs (plus a bit of CAD designing). GPGPU is a very young field which would all not exist if it wasn't for gamers that drove GPUs to become as powerful as they are. Even now I wouldnt be so quick to jump to the conclusion that most money is made from non-gamers. Just because the fraction of 3080s and the like is tiny, lower-end GPUs that share the same architecture have insane volumes in all kinds of computing devices where they are mostly used for gaming, also don't forget the GPUs that are part of every console sold.

Very true, and I am not arguing against this by any means. Gamers resulting in the existence of GPU's has little to do with modern day market share in terms of GPU's. Without even googling the numbers, I can say with the utmost confidence that Nvidia is making more money in their HPC, Cloud, Neural Networking, AI and automotive markets than what they currently are from just their gaming customers. Those contracts are worth billions in and of themselves just in the exchange of money, and the relationships forged from those business ventures are invaluable.

 

Businesses grow, and while it is commendable that most still continue to serve their original markets, many do move on to more profitable endeavors. It's still very worth it for AMD, Nvidia and Intel to compete for the attention and acclaim of gamers, because gamers (as I mentioned earlier) are often the loudest in this industry. They are the ones that make recommendations to their family members. They are free marketing. They are also frustratingly loyal. Anyone that has participated in any tech forum has likely witnessed their fair share of fan wars between Brand A and B, it's beyond comprehension. Catering just enough to the extent of keeping their loyalty is basically a surefire way to keep revenue coming in, while not wasting silicon or R&D resources while working on the next big thing.

 

In short, everything you just said in the paragraph that I quoted is absolutely right, but that doesn't mean things haven't changed from a market perspective. Our consumer technology are now the breadcrumbs/afterthought of the enterprise products that came before them. This isn't a bad thing though, it's pretty smart, lol.