What Manufacturers Think of Mining 6 Months Later (Spoiler: OEMs still hate miners)

[AlTech]

GamersNexus has once again asked manufacturers what they thought about mining 6 months after they first asked them.

 

And once again, he got responses and they were collected in aggregate and made anonymous.

 

Generally the opinions of OEMs were similar to previously but things have changed.

 

For starters, OEMs still don't like selling to miners because of loss of revenue across the ecosystem of products. A gamer might buy a monitor and a graphics card from the same company but a miner would only buy the graphics card. This leads to increase gaming graphics cards revenue but decreased revenue elsewhere in the ecosystem. OEMs also still didn't like selling to miners due to the lack of brand loyalty that miners have.

 

That's not to say that OEMs haven't seen benefits with miners as customers. Miners generally require less incentives such as rebates etc to purchase a graphics card and so the cost to acquire additional customers is typically substantially lower with miners.

 

Still, overall OEMs are not happy with how unpredictable the market is and they've been purchasing graphics chips from Nvidia and AMD based on how much has been sold in the previous quarter. For example, in Late 2017 OEMs realized that there was a larger demand for graphics products and thus accordingly ordered more chips from Nvidia and AMD.

 

Nvidia and AMD are not to blame for the lack of GPU availability or the pricing spikes.

 

Generally the OEMs seemed fairly confident that if they needed AMD or Nvidia to produce more Graphics Chips that Nvidia or AMD would be able to. The problem is the instability in the market and OEMs don't want to buy too many in case some don't sell for some reason.

 

OEMs don't want to buy more graphics chips than they need to and for good reason. In 2014, many OEMs were burned when they tried to order more chips than needed from Nvidia and AMD when suddenly the bitcoin crash came and thus the value of GPUs plummeted after countless GPUs were sold on eBay.

 

Also, the price increase of GPUs is not entirely to blame on mining. The average price to produce an 8GB video card such as an RX 580 or a GTX 1070 has gone up $20-30 USD in manufacturing cost due to the increased demand for NAND flash. The price to produce GPUs with lots of GDDR5 is probably going to rise and the cost will likely be passed down to the consumer.

 

In summary, OEMs hate miners and really wish (like you probably) that the mining craze stopped and that they could sell graphics processors and other products to gamers. Because gamers are better customers than miners.

 

Source:

 

[hconverse02]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Also, the price increase of GPUs is not entirely to blame on mining. The average price to produce an 8GB video card such as an RX 580 or a GTX 1070 has gone up $20-30 USD in manufacturing cost due to the increased demand for NAND flash. The price to produce GPUs with lots of GDDR5 is probably going to rise and the cost will likely be passed down to the consumer.

I disagree that they are the main reason gddr5 is in low stock, same with graphics cards and people ordering half dozens of cards at a time.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, hconverse02 said:

I disagree that they are the main reason gddr5 is in low stock, same with graphics cards and people ordering half dozens of cards at a time.

NAND flash is used in GDDR5, DDR4, and SSDs.

 

What do all of these have in common?

 

They all have had huge price increases due to a lack of supply and a huge demand collectively for NAND flash.

[Thermosman]

5 minutes ago, hconverse02 said:

I disagree that they are the main reason gddr5 is in low stock, same with graphics cards and people ordering half dozens of cards at a time.

making it even worse, many retailers are cashing in on the boom by selling 6 packs of cards

its all the same supplier, "ushopmall" on newegg and on amazon, go look up 6 pack gpu and sort highest price

the vega frontier edition even comes with pcie risers for miners

[ExplosiveSloths]

I know a lot of people use online stores and whatnot.

I'd advise to look in repair shops and whatnot, as they might have some stock or can order stock sometimes.

 

I often find myself ordering from a small tech shop a couple of miles away, as they tend to have older prices.

£30-65 depending on if I want 8 or 16gb of DDR4.

 

Also the RX 470 is still £159.

 

[BuckGup]

6 minutes ago, hconverse02 said:

I disagree that they are the main reason gddr5 is in low stock, same with graphics cards and people ordering half dozens of cards at a time.

Actually I would blame apple. They are eating up 23% of all NAND produced

[kerradeph]

9 minutes ago, ExplosiveSloths said:

I know a lot of people use online stores and whatnot.

I'd advise to look in repair shops and whatnot, as they might have some stock or can order stock sometimes.

 

I often find myself ordering from a small tech shop a couple of miles away, as they tend to have older prices.

£30-65 depending on if I want 8 or 16gb of DDR4.

 

Also the RX 470 is still £159.

 

I wish this was an option. The places around where I live don't carry higher end hardware like 1070 ti and up. And online it's virtually impossible to find anything in stock unless you happen to get lucky and see the 5-10 minute window where there's actually a few available.

[dizmo]

What the hell is this? I disagree with the sentiment that they hate them. That's a strong word, and in no way is it accurate to what was said in the video. OEMs also never suggested purchasing locally at retail outlets. That was a Gamers Nexus suggestion.

 

Overall, your articles tone isn't at all what the video conveyed.

You're doing a great disservice to the news section by posting bullshit like this.

[knightslugger]

10 minutes ago, dizmo said:

What the hell is this? I disagree with the sentiment that they hate them. That's a strong word, and in no way is it accurate to what was said in the video. OEMs never suggested purchasing locally at retail outlets. That was a Gamers Nexus suggestion.

 

Overall, your articles tone isn't at all what the video conveyed.

You're doing a great disservice to the news section by posting bullshit like this.

Well I think their angst towards miners is misplaced.

 

They shot themselves in the foot a long time ago. If crypto suddenly folds up, GPU manufactures all the way up the chain will suffer BADLY as the used market will be FLOODED with ultra-cheap high performance GPUs with price competition that is UNSEEN in today's business, and no one in their right mind would buy a new (or next gen) GPU when they can get a last gen used model for 1/4 the price.

 

Primary Resellers don't dare order massive quantities of current gen cards to drop the prices back to normal for fear of a sudden next gen release, or a straight up folding of crypto. They'd be left with the bag of hundreds upon hundreds of GPUs they have to cut the price on drastically (or give INSANE incentive to purchase) to move them at all and then they STILL wouldn't be able to cut into the massive used market that would exist.

[PCMasterDebater]

9 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

 and no one in their right mind would buy a new (or next gen) GPU when they can get a last gen used model for 1/4 the price.

You don't really believe this do you?  There will always be someone wiling to buy the latest and greatest no matter the price of the new stuff.

 

New and shiny ain't on the used marketplace.

[knightslugger]

5 minutes ago, PCMasterDebater said:

You don't really believe this do you?  There will always be someone wiling to buy the latest and greatest no matter the price of the new stuff.

 

New and shiny ain't on the used marketplace.

you misunderstand.

 

When Pascal came on the scene, there were PLENTY of people waiting to by TotL Maxwell GPUs way CHEAPER than they could a 1080. If CC suddenly folds up, how many 1070/1080/ti's do you think will be on the used market? how many will undercut someone else just to liquidate their farm? we don't even have a next gen GV10x out yet that isn't a $3000 Titan. That's massive.

 

They (the card manufacturers and resellers) wont be able to SELL their cards at the prices and volume that they wanted to because of a massive used market place.

[captain cactus]

If OEMs really hate miners they'd start making custom RX cards with custom BIOS chips (which AMD allows) that throttle the card to a standstill when it detects a mining load. 

 

Then AMD re-releases the Vega FE for Blockchain Pioneers that doesn't do that and sells that at $800 a pop, no group discounts. They make their money's worth, us gamers get the cards we want.

[knightslugger]

1 minute ago, lots of unexplainable lag said:

when it detects a mining load. 

...which is what exactly?

[dizmo]

21 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

Well I think their angst towards miners is misplaced.

 

They shot themselves in the foot a long time ago. If crypto suddenly folds up, GPU manufactures all the way up the chain will suffer BADLY as the used market will be FLOODED with ultra-cheap high performance GPUs with price competition that is UNSEEN in today's business, and no one in their right mind would buy a new (or next gen) GPU when they can get a last gen used model for 1/4 the price.

 

Primary Resellers don't dare order massive quantities of current gen cards to drop the prices back to normal for fear of a sudden next gen release, or a straight up folding of crypto. They'd be left with the bag of hundreds upon hundreds of GPUs they have to cut the price on drastically (or give INSANE incentive to purchase) to move them at all and then they STILL wouldn't be able to cut into the massive used market that would exist.

Not entirely true. I'd much rather have a card with a warranty, that wasn't bagged to shit. The cards that flooded the market had a higher failure rate. Granted that might not be as accurate now as cooling solutions have greatly improved and the power going through them is lower, but still. It's something I'd be a little worried about, especially with AMD cards. At this point they wouldn't be able to get cards out before the next launch happens.

[knightslugger]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

I'd much rather have a card with a warranty, that wasn't bagged to shit.

well i think that depends entirely on the manufacturer of the card. EVGA for instance doesn't care when or where you bought your card. If you can't cough up an original receipt, they give you the full factory warranty starting from the date of manufacture. what is that, 3 years? 5 years?

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, knightslugger said:

well i think that depends entirely on the manufacturer of the card. EVGA for instance doesn't care when or where you bought your card. If you can't cough up an original receipt, they give you the full factory warranty starting from the date of manufacture. what is that, 3 years? 5 years?

True, but the exception is far from the rule.

[-rascal-]

19 minutes ago, PCMasterDebater said:

You don't really believe this do you?  There will always be someone wiling to buy the latest and greatest no matter the price of the new stuff.

 

New and shiny ain't on the used marketplace.

 

That is true, but consider the ratio between buying new, and buying used.

 

Let's assume GTX 1070Ti's have flooded the market due to crypto-mining dying.

You can buy a new one for ~$500 USD, or a used one for...let's say $250 ~ $300 USD.

 

For someone looking to upgrade, on a set budget...

$250 ~ $300 USD on a GTX 1070Ti, or that same amount for a GTX 1060 3GB /  6GB?

The option is pretty clear; safe to say 8 times out of 10, people would go for the used GTX 1070Ti.

 

There will always be people who are willing to buy the latest and greatest -- price is not a problem, but that percentage is low.

Start Wars Edition GTX Titan Xp.

nVidia still has them in-stock, no problem, and those are not made in mass quantities.

If there are many people with the "price is not an problem" mindset, those Titan Xp's would be back-ordered by now.

[knightslugger]

1 minute ago, -rascal- said:

The option is pretty clear; safe to say 8 times out of 10, people would go for the used GTX 1070Ti.

especially one used for mining as they are not run nearly as hard as people make them out to be.