GPU prices and how it isn't fun

[Hekazi]

https://imgur.com/a/TBLinAz

I'm genuinely disgusted and my day is ruined, we need an authority to control this phenomenon.
Good prices exist, until they don't, because of these fools making a living out of it, this is advocating evil and apes are legally getting richer.
The first seller sold 8 of those cards and made less profit than this scalper is trying to make with just one.

You also got this kid.
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-56270058

[Gaidax]

Not much can be done about it. There is some talk of Etherium changing their model to have transactions rely less on gas, which might help, but while BTC/ETH is pumping coupled with shortages - can't really get anywhere there. There is a really small supply for huge demand.

Sure Nvidia might do something with BIOS rate limiters and such, but it remains to be seen how effective that is, especially seeing how they botched it first time they tried it recently.

Maybe if someone introduced some sort of ASIC aimed at crypto, then GPUs might be back to doing what they were made for to begin with.

[StayTuned]

Not much can be done about it. There is some talk of Etherium changing their model to have transactions rely less on gas, which might help, but while BTC/ETH is pumping coupled with shortages - can't really get anywhere there. There is a really small supply for huge demand.

Sure Nvidia might do something with BIOS rate limiters and such, but it remains to be seen how effective that is, especially seeing how they botched it first time they tried it recently.

Maybe if someone introduced some sort of ASIC aimed at crypto, then GPUs might be back to doing what they were made for to begin with.

I doubt that limiters will help. Even with them active, as long as there isn't a better product suited for their needs, we're going to remain in the same situation.

An affordable, yet powerful and mining exclusive / specific card is really the only thing we can hope for.

[Semihagez]

I meant.. the solution is build shit tons of capacity to meet the demand. That's what TMC and Intel are both doing.

[TehTemplar]

A good idea would be for people to not buy second hand 3070s and 3080s once scumbag miners try to offload them - to atleast hurt their return. Other than that, besides outlawing crypto for the waste of energy and enabler of easy money launder that it is there ain't much you can do.

[Something Wicked]

Or maybe make hardware custom designed for miners, that are both cheaper and utterly useless for gaming, and then leave the actual GPUs targetted for gaming.

Crazy thought, I know. God forbid.

[Unholyground]

A good idea would be for people to not buy second hand 3070s and 3080s once scumbag miners try to offload them - to atleast hurt their return. Other than that, besides outlawing crypto for the waste of energy and enabler of easy money launder that it is there ain't much you can do.

It's not even the miners fault, the pandemic saw a surge in gaming never seen before because everybody was forced into their homes so the demand went through the sky. If you combine the need for work machines for businesses and for recreation you can see why there ia a shortage. It wasn't just one singular cause as it never is with anything.

There's plenty of 1080p cards floating around, people could just get one of those and stop being graphics whores too lol.

[Drusin]

I'm hoping for a market crash after the pandemic <3

[C20]

I meant.. the solution is build shit tons of capacity to meet the demand. That's what TMC and Intel are both doing.

The major shortage has been ongoing for around 6 months, but there were signs of it a little bit before then.

You make it sound like they're just putting up a tent and that'll be good enough. Building a fab takes time, and existing ones are already running at capacity. It's often not feasible to simply expand the existing buildings because then you risk exposing existing fab lines to contamination when you're connecting the old and new sections, and they may have already expanded to the maximum feasible geographical footprint in the area they're built.

Cryptocurrency needs to be regulated. The amount of money laundering through it is making a joke of every country in the world. The problem is far bigger than one guy scalping a GPU...

Regulating crypto wouldn't fix the GPU shortage.

People use this argument of "Well crypto is used by criminals" and I'm like "Yeah... so are fiat currencies". They act like fiat currencies are so much better and as though no criminal activity has ever happened with them. Art is one of the biggest money laundering sources in the world and that's not using crypto.

No matter what you use as 'currency', some people will still find a way to launder it. If donuts were the currency of the world, there would be people robbing others of their donuts, but there'd also be organized crime syndicates that turn stolen donuts into legitimate donuts.

[Hellobolis]

i wouldn't mind some regulation regarding artificial scarcity. but let's be honest that's only a part of the problem this time around.

not too worried about miners, that's either going to blow over, get regulated or the supply side will adjust for it. will take some time but it'll happen.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

A few shitty things all lined up to fuck this generation of GPUs sadly.

1. The world is and was way to dependant on a very slim number of manufacturers of silicon for GPUs (and other things as well). These manufactures were affected by covid like everything else. So lower supply makes higher demand from the git go.

2. Mining for crypto exploded right around the same time the shortage happened. So a huge well funded arm exploded on the scene bigger than usual. They fuel scalpers because they got the money and don't care. They probably bot themselves to pick up GPUs. They use a LOT of GPUs. So demand was exploded upward from this.

3. People were staying at home. Playing video games and new PCs for work/fun were being built. So suddenly another arm of less funded by in massive numbers exploded on the scene. Here is where a lot of us are and since most of us aren't endless pockets we get kind of caught up but we do still drive some demand on a very limited product.

4. All the companies that make GPUs release them at like the same time, continued new launches like things were normal that limited stock per type because it was getting spread about, and they also WAY WAY WAY under estimated the demand. Which in turn increased demand because of choosing to order less, stock fewer, and releasing all at the sametime means spinning up more quickly is more divided up.

5. Scalpers saw an opportunity to make money and started scooping it up. Way more than enough people bent to the pressure and bought them from them so it continues to only become a bigger game. So anything off the heap that leaks through miners and a few lucky normal people ultimately get picked up quickly here. Now it really just keeps demand where it is at, extremely high, but allows them to double, triple, or even quad prices. Hell at this point even retailers are doing it.

The problem is what would regulation really do? Require production of a limitedly supplied product to increase? These things are often spanning across several countries including China so does Europe or the US force them into doing something, lol? Require people probably lining political types pockets with money with crypto really help these things along? Require and monitor company product launches and supply chains? Monitor everyone buying GPUs and see if they flip them or not and if so where does that start/stop/end? It really hasn't been that big of a problem aside from when covid hit and when crypto explodes from time to time. When it flops again all these GPUs will flood the market on the used scene as people ditch. Really all they could do is stop retailers from more or less price gouging like they are and that is mostly a rule already but no one cares because its merely a luxury item for the most part.

[Semihagez]

The major shortage has been ongoing for around 6 months, but there were signs of it a little bit before then.

You make it sound like they're just putting up a tent and that'll be good enough. Building a fab takes time, and existing ones are already running at capacity. It's often not feasible to simply expand the existing buildings because then you risk exposing existing fab lines to contamination when you're connecting the old and new sections, and they may have already expanded to the maximum feasible geographical footprint in the area they're built.

Oh I know we are not going to immedialty see the results of that. But that is the solution even though it's going to take a while to see the effects of it.

[Kagthul]

Or maybe make hardware custom designed for miners, that are both cheaper and utterly useless for gaming, and then leave the actual GPUs targetted for gaming.

Crazy thought, I know. God forbid.

Theyd still have to be able to produce them.

The issues isnt that miners exist, its that they cant just make more at the drop of a hat.

TSMC and Samsung's fabs are booked out 9+ months in advance. If you guess wrong on demand for your product, you cant just make more tomorrow. You have to wait for capacity to open up.

So they would have had to have known that there would be this kind of demand last year at this time, roughly.

As one poster already said... the answer is to build more capacity, which Intel and TSMC are doing at the very least. But it takes years and tens of billions for modern fabs to be built.

[Temp name]

Or maybe make hardware custom designed for miners, that are both cheaper and utterly useless for gaming, and then leave the actual GPUs targetted for gaming.

Crazy thought, I know. God forbid.

They did that. Does fuck all. It's still silicon not going to gamers, and drivers can be hacked

I meant.. the solution is build shit tons of capacity to meet the demand. That's what TMC and Intel are both doing.

Trying*. Problem is, it takes *YEARS* for new capacity to be built, as well as several billions of dollars, and there's no guarantee that the demand will remain when they got the new fabs up and running.

They're already running current fabs are capacity, nothing they can do.

[Atrea]

A good idea would be for people to not buy second hand 3070s and 3080s once scumbag miners try to offload them - to atleast hurt their return. Other than that, besides outlawing crypto for the waste of energy and enabler of easy money launder that it is there ain't much you can do.

TIL that people trying to make money during a global economic collapse are "scumbags" because their purchases are inconvenient to gamers.

Gamers really are the worst fandom in existence.

[Puntar]

I'm hoping for a market crash after the pandemic <3

No you don't!

Shit storm would we worldwide and EU is heading into collective social suicide with this "corona BS narrative"!

[Gaidax]

Just build more capacity 4head!

/s

It will take years to solve, so better hang onto your GPUs and pray they won't die, cuz this shit is going to go strong for years to come.

[Drusin]

TIL that people trying to make money during a global economic collapse are "scumbags" because their purchases are inconvenient to gamers.

Gamers really are the worst fandom in existence.

It has nothing to do with gamers, it is a collective hate of price gouging

https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/pers...g-during-covid

[Afrospinach]

Or maybe make hardware custom designed for miners, that are both cheaper and utterly useless for gaming, and then leave the actual GPUs targetted for gaming.

Crazy thought, I know. God forbid.

All these things have more or less been tried. One of the big issues with catering to miners is the market could be gone tomorrow. Just see in this thread someone saying etherium may the way it does things to cut out GPU feasibility.

Unfortunately, Nvidia is rather good at what they do and for some tasks there is apparently no ASIC that can keep up.

[Daedius]

Fuck scalpers... seriously.

- - - Updated - - -

Cryptocurrency needs to be regulated. The amount of money laundering through it is making a joke of every country in the world. The problem is far bigger than one guy scalping a GPU...

It'll take 30 years before the old farts catch up to date with tech.