Why doesn't Nvidia make "mining" cards

[aandril]

Gamers buy graphics cards to game. 

Miners buy graphics cards to mine.

 

Why do gamers have to suffer the increase in prices because of miners?

 

Why can't Nvidia just make "miner" cards separately from GPUs that are made for mining and mining alone?

 

Srs

[EPENEX]

What would the difference be?

[bellabichon]

1 minute ago, EPENEX said:

What would the difference be?

That's easy. No display outputs, better cooling, base overclocked. I could go on.

[bellabichon]

Companies are nervous to invest in the mining sector, because if the bubble bursts, so do their sales. However, in places like China, companies are making mining cards, using Nvidia chips, with many of the features I described earlier.

Edited June 6, 2018 by bellabichon
Bad grammar.

[Sakkura]

1 minute ago, bellabichon said:

That's easy. No display outputs, better cooling, base overclocked. I could go on.

What would it help?

 

There isn't a shortage of graphics cards for gaming because of a limited supply of DisplayPorts and HDMI ports. It's all about the GPUs and the memory, and those are largely the same whether the GPU is "made for" gaming or mining.

[Alexzz_]

They kinda already do

https://www.webantics.com/gigabyte-nvidia-gtx1060-6gb-mining-edition-graphics-card

But its still the same chip so it still impacts the gamers.

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, aandril said:

Gamers buy graphics cards to game. 

Miners buy graphics cards to mine.

 

Why do gamers have to suffer the increase in prices because of miners?

 

Why can't Nvidia just make "miner" cards separately from GPUs that are made for mining and mining alone?

 

Srs

Because they would use the same chips. Gaming cards would still go up in pricies or become scarse.

[Mira Yurizaki]

8 minutes ago, aandril said:

Gamers buy graphics cards to game. 

Miners buy graphics cards to mine.

 

Why do gamers have to suffer the increase in prices because of miners?

 

Why can't Nvidia just make "miner" cards separately from GPUs that are made for mining and mining alone?

 

Srs

Everyone else would complain that NVIDIA is shifting resources away from their market to another.

[bellabichon]

3 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

What would it help?

 

There isn't a shortage of graphics cards for gaming because of a limited supply of DisplayPorts and HDMI ports. It's all about the GPUs and the memory, and those are largely the same whether the GPU is "made for" gaming or mining.

It would help to separate the enthusiast gaming demand for GPUs, and the mining demand for GPUs. With no outputs, gamers won't buy the cards. With improved features, miners would buy the mining cards.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, bellabichon said:

It would help to separate the enthusiast gaming demand for GPUs, and the mining demand for GPUs. With no outputs, gamers won't buy the cards.

It would still eat into the supply that could be available for gamers. And miners would just buy gaming cards anyway because output be damned.

[Sakkura]

1 minute ago, bellabichon said:

It would help to separate the enthusiast gaming demand for GPUs, and the mining demand for GPUs. With no outputs, gamers won't buy the cards.

But the problem isn't gamers taking cards away from miners. The problem is miners taking cards away from gamers. And there's no way to prevent a "gaming" graphics card being used for mining.

[EPPHO]

7 minutes ago, bellabichon said:

That's easy. No display outputs, better cooling, base overclocked. I could go on.

Majority of miners wouldn't buy cards without display outputs, no resell value

[bellabichon]

1 minute ago, frozeNNN said:

Majority of miners wouldn't buy cards without display outputs, no resell value

If the price was different enough, and the features were good enough, I think that many amateur miners that are trying to get into the market would buy them.

[bellabichon]

10 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

But the problem isn't gamers taking cards away from miners. The problem is miners taking cards away from gamers. And there's no way to prevent a "gaming" graphics card being used for mining.

I'm not saying that this would be in any way a flawless soulution, but I think that it would help. Items branded "Gaming" or "For gamers" sell to gamers much more than items that aren't. By that logic, items branded "Mining" or "For miners" would probably sell more to miners. It's not misleading, it's just clever marketing.

Edited June 6, 2018 by bellabichon
Spelling.

[aandril]

Not only all of the above, but could they not mod the power consumption to make it less for miners?

[Equilibrium_FOOL]

10 minutes ago, frozeNNN said:

Majority of miners wouldn't buy cards without display outputs, no resell value

You're absolutely correct, the lifespan of most mining cards is pretty short, most miners rely on the resale value to recoup their money.  I am surprised nobody mentioned this before.

[Combustible Lemon]

But... they do. 
Google p106-100.

[Drak3]

Literally no reason to make mining specific cards. Identical hardware.

[dalekphalm]

55 minutes ago, aandril said:

Gamers buy graphics cards to game. 

Miners buy graphics cards to mine.

 

Why do gamers have to suffer the increase in prices because of miners?

 

Why can't Nvidia just make "miner" cards separately from GPUs that are made for mining and mining alone?

 

Srs

Here's the thing, either cards would still both use the same GPU Die's (the actual core processor).

 

And the reason why Gamers are "suffering" because of miners, is because there's a GPU shortage.

 

Having separate cards for miners wouldn't really solve this, since NVIDIA will still produce and sell the cards with the highest demand.

 

So if there's a GPU Die shortage, and NVIDIA has to choose between building and selling a Gamer card vs a Mining card, and the Mining card sells twice as much, at a higher profit margin? NVIDIA will choose the mining card.

 

So the Gaming card will still go out of stock.

 

The only thing that will fix this is when production finally catches up to demand... Or mining dies. Whichever happens first.

[Christophe Corazza]

1 hour ago, aandril said:

Why can't Nvidia just make "miner" cards separately from GPUs that are made for mining and mining alone?

 

Nvidia has actually already released mining-edition GPUs. The first model to come out was the P106, which is basically a GTX 1060 without the display ports. Then, we had the P104 which is the GTX 1070 with memory optimized for mining. Eventually Nvidia is leaving the best for last: the P102-100 is a mining version of the GTX 1080 card.

[Ithanul]

1 hour ago, aandril said:

Not only all of the above, but could they not mod the power consumption to make it less for miners?

That can already been done with current GPUs.

No miner in their right mind runs the cards full out at max TDP.  A balance in power and hash rate is the desired outcome.

Especially Nvidia cards, set it to 65-70% TDP limit and set the fan and you are good to go.  Pascals respond very well to undervolting when mining.

 

I have done mining, folding@home, and BOINC.  When mining software is setup right and the TDP and undervolt are dialed in right.  I seen way less temps doing that in comparison to other compute tasks that really push a GPU (PrimeGrid makes mining seem like mild heat).  And, that was with stock air coolers.

[Mick Naughty]

Seems pointless overall. Especially if there isn’t a market for it. 

 

Realy dont see why people want that to be a thing. 

[Christophe Corazza]

11 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

Seems pointless overall. Especially if there isn’t a market for it. 

 

Realy dont see why people want that to be a thing. 

 

However, it is a thing! NVIDIA has already released mining cards and AMD is intended to do so either.

[Mick Naughty]

26 minutes ago, Christophe Corazza said:

 

However, it is a thing! NVIDIA has already released mining cards and AMD is intended to do so either.

I could have said the same thing 10 years ago too. Still wouldn't have stopped people from crying about not getting a card after 2 years of being released and not being able to afford it.

 

[EPPHO]

14 hours ago, bellabichon said:

If the price was different enough, and the features were good enough, I think that many amateur miners that are trying to get into the market would buy them.

Amateur miners buy few cards and that's it. That would be a waste of time for a company because not many cards would be sold.