Nicehash Profits are Skyrocketing, and it will kill the GPU market for gamers

[WYP]

The demand for GPUs from crypto miners has risen...



Read more about Nicehash profitability rising and its impact on the GPU market.

 

[Dark NighT]

not again :/

 

[Gothmoth]

it was pretty clear for a few weeks.


in mining forums people report about their new rigs with 50 or more RTX GPUs.
while the big stores here get 20-30 GPU´s a month.


the 78 RTX rig that was going through the gaming press the last days is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[queeg]

thankfully i have stacks of old games to play on my old gpus but i would like to buy a 6800 or xt for an uninflated price in the very near future its the only thing stopping me draining and redoing loop which really needs doing

 

[23RO_UK]

So, in between a Global Pandemic affecting just about everything, an acute shortage of silicon and Scalpers; low and behold we can now add the predicted mining boom into the mix.

End result, you have more chance of seeing a rocking horse sh*t than getting your hands on a current generation GPU; ultimately, neither AMD or Nvidia will care whose actually buying them so long as the cash rolls in.

Oh Joy!

 

[Daiyus]

Oh well. That pretty much seals it then. I'll be getting a motorbike this year instead of a new rig.

 

[Dippin-in]

I'm an older gamer and have been playing computer games since they started and by that I mean Pong on an Atari console tuned through your TV ariel socket circ 1975. With the state of PC gaming now, I have decided that I no longer wish to pay the cost required to participate in the sector.

Over the years I have spent 10s of thousands of pounds (no exaggeration) on new computer systems every 2-3 years but it's just got to expensive and so flaky that it has killed my enjoyment. Marketing bull LIES has drowned any ability to make reasoned choices when purchasing hardware AND game software. Sub-par game releases, hardware price manipulation and a sector that that exploits a one way customer loyalty is just too sickening for me to pay so much for a once beloved PASTIME.

Hardware options have never been greater and then the so called AAA game programming just turns them to a BSOD I mean if multi TB day one patches are not indicative of sub-par respect for the customer I don't know what is.

Scalpers, Miners and lying two face bullers have finally closed at least one wallet for the last time.

 

[Warchild]

I see it as a partial good thing. The amount of people splashing cash they dont have on GPUs because the Want outweighs the Need.

 

[ImprovizoR]

And just like that, my budget for a new guitar has trippled.

 

[looz]

I don't see why mining is somehow a "wrong" way to use a GPU.

 

[queeg]

DIPPIN IN ...i here you i am allmost there we likely similiar age i remenber the tank game and qbert on atari & some pirate treasure game on my beloved commodore 64 ............this will likely be my last cpu ,gpu maintaining water loops is becoming a bit too much on my back now aswell i do it much less than i should and may go back to air or at least A I O

 

[Warchild]

I don't see why mining is somehow a "wrong" way to use a GPU.

its not, its just frowned upon, much like the world of scalping.

 

[grec]

its not, its just frowned upon, much like the world of scalping.

Think there's a difference between "Creating a needless additional middleman between a consumer and producer for the sake of profiteering often with the side effect of creating artificial scarcity on top of existing scarcity (By temporarily taking units out of supply for actual customers)" and "This customer is buying things for something I don't like when I want said things"

For better or worse, GPUs are now general compute devices, with a wide range of purposes and applications, both for professionals and consumers. The fact that GPUs marketed for gaming are being bought for their general compute uses is not something particularly new, and really it's up to manufacturers to create enough SKUs to serve all their customers. Gamers are the most consistent buying and largest market, so most of the best and most competitively priced models are gonna be "gaming" models, but at the end of the day the scarcity is with the chips at the moment anyway

Personally don't see how this is different to complaining about datacentre customers taking all the best Ryzen dies or something like that.

 

[looz]

The largest issue I see with mining is the unnecessary generation of greenhouse gases - but it greatly depends on the source. If they rely on nighttime electricity, especially in an area served by nuclear/wind/hydro, impact might be pretty low. In household use the cards are unlikely to run full tilt around the clock, but can run with dirtier electricity.

That being said, you need quite the mining setup to even challenge a dog owner in terms of unnecessary emissions.

But in a free market it seems silly to make tier lists for use cases. Or to regulate scalping of entertainment devices, even if scalping is just (mildly) antisocial behaviour. It's just red tape for tackling something trivial, when scarcity is the root cause.

 

[grec]

Yeah most for-profit mining, in terms of big farms, uses renewables to maximise that profit, some cities even invest heavily in renewables to lure in big crypto mining organisations, and the tax gains in countries with the appropriate infrastructure/legislation for crypto can be a big boon.

Small scale scalping is trivial, but the industrial scale, bot powered scalping that can go on with certain launches in various industries of late will be having significant artificial impacts on the markets within which they are active, the tactic of buying up 100's to 1000's of units/tickets/ect at a time and then drip feeding the resale to artificially drive up the price, harms both the creators/sports teams/musicians/ect and ofc the fans, besides bordering very close to market manipulation in many cases, but it's unlikely anyone would ever deem it profitable to chase that one through the courts to test it.