Maingear and Sood Defending a Defenseless Position on Selling Crypto Boxes?

You're not wrong, but neither are the people saying that this is just the market.

The market doesn't care about the community. It doesn't care about what happens to the PC industry over the long term. All the market cares about is maximizing (short-term) profit, period. Which I personally agree is a problem, but to a certain extent we are only reaping what we (as a society) have sewn.

Then we need to make a concerted effort to ask AMD and nVidia to ignore small market gains and take immediate action to help their core customers. Where is something to sign? I'll do it right this instant.

The problem has been identified ... what can we do? Taking about it here might have some small effect but will get nothing truly accomplished. The best thing going for us now, the PC Gamer is when these major news outlets report on this problem which they have been doing lately.

Hopefully this helps.
 
I am shocked that some of you guys are using "Free Market" .... "Luxury Items" ..... "Capitalism" as a defense for companies taking away what arguably is the heart and soul of any gaming computer, the GPU. Not only shocking and unreal but down right sad. This entire nightmare is not only unprecedented, it's splintering the PC enthusiast community as evident by some of the posts on this very thread.

I've been building gaming/workstation systems since the early 1990's. In fact it's how I make my living to this day. But I have never ever seen this type of disruption in the market. People CANNOT build a gaming PC ... this is in Kansas City, this is in Mountain View, California, Denver Co, NYC, Miami Florida ... the locations go on and on and on the world over. The GPU market no longer serves gamers primary, it serves the mining community. I've talked at length with the sales guys down at Microcenter and was told several times there is literally nothing they can do to stop miners from getting their cards as they come in. I was told they have 20 - 30 miners laying in wait to pounce on their cards for every 1 PC builder that comes in. How true is this? I'm pretty sure it's true. In fact the problem is so severe Microcenter had to price all of their video cards out of miners hands to protect gamer's. You cannot buy a 1080 Ti now at a Microcenter without spending $1,400 .... $1.500 hundred fucking dollars. Go look or call @ Microcenter.com right now if you have any doubts.

Miners caused this ... not PC gamers. I'm partly to blame, more on this below.

Not to kiss anyone's ass but when the founder of HardOCP made this post it reflected probably one of his core passions for the PC market/community as a whole. Which, was not only the right thing to do, it's his right. The over-all message was very clear. It's wrong and compounds the problem.

I don't know about any of you but who do you want in your corner? What do you stand for?

This is not so much an attack on miners. I want Newegg and Microcenter and especially Miners themselves to make money. Full disclosure, I might be.... I might not be involved in 1,450 MH/s being mined 24/7 but even as an ( allegedly ) miner, more has to be done. It's easy for me to speak out because I'm in a great position but I still personally think any GPU whatsoever should be going back into the hands of gamers. This is a terrible time for any company to be involved in disrupting the market any further. I'm cool with miners but not when the market cannot support both parties.


OK I guess I just don't understand what the point is? Seriously please explain... Are you saying "blame" needs to be placed on someone wanting a video card, because they want to use it differently then someone else? In this context, that has a negative connotation imo, which is not rightly deserved. Yes it is fact their demand certainly caused or is the reason for the situation but isn't a negative it just is. They have a right to cards just as much as anyone.

What solution are you proposing? From what I have read most of the free market/luxury/capitalists also don't like that gamers are affected or the prices but cannot see an acceptable alternative outside of ramping up production which could be a mistep if demands crash.

I certainly see and agree with the issue the OP/Article, that companies are trying to blow smoke and say their mining devices aren't affecting gamers.
 
Also, if you want a 1080 ti at MSRP prices, there's always the nvidia store: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/10series/geforce-store/
Feel free to pick one up at 699. Screw microcenter, screw amazon, just do some decent shopping and you can find a decent price.

Point of order: Those are out of stock, and have been for some time.
Also what i stand for is anything that suits me. I play video games but i don't consider myself part of the broader gaming community for things like this because when it comes down to it, it doesn't affect me and i don't think it affects the broader gaming community in general. It's just a temporary phase.

Well, unless you produce your own motherboards, memory, etc. -- not to mention your own games -- what happens to the industry may well affect you.

If you're saying "this too shall pass," well, I suspect you're right. But I'd be very sad to discover that you're wrong.
 
Point of order: Those are out of stock, and have been for some time.


Well, unless you produce your own motherboards, memory, etc. -- not to mention your own games -- what happens to the industry may well affect you.

If you're saying "this too shall pass," well, I suspect you're right. But I'd be very sad to discover that you're wrong.
http://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/gtx1080ti/full_history.php
Every day it seems nvidia has more in stock, but they're gone in 2-10 minutes. Still, you can monitor that site and be alerted when it is in stock and at least get one for msrp if you really want one.
I used this to snag a snes classic. Pretty helpful for other goods which are hard to get because of supply issues (switch).
 
Hold on to your butts everyone.

This has happened before, I believe it will happen again.

Once enough miners start doing their thing, the mining networks that they are on will decrease the effectiveness of all hardware. Crypto prices will drop because that's what they do...and suddenly you're going to get a lot of people who spent $10 - 20k on hardware that makes them no money.

And then the market will flood with video cards, and the prices are going to drop so hard.

Nobody's going to be buying those headless Maingear GPUs, though.
 
http://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/gtx1080ti/full_history.php
Every day it seems nvidia has more in stock, but they're gone in 2-10 minutes. Still, you can monitor that site and be alerted when it is in stock and at least get one for msrp if you really want one.
I used this to snag a snes classic. Pretty helpful for other goods which are hard to get because of supply issues (switch).

Ah; I did not know that. Thank you. Every time I have checked the 1080tis have been out of stock (though admittedly, I haven't done anything more than check periodically, because I choose not to spend $700. A 1060 or maybe a 1070 is more my speed).
 
http://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/gtx1080ti/full_history.php
Every day it seems nvidia has more in stock, but they're gone in 2-10 minutes. Still, you can monitor that site and be alerted when it is in stock and at least get one for msrp if you really want one.
I used this to snag a snes classic. Pretty helpful for other goods which are hard to get because of supply issues (switch).

I've agreed that you CAN do this but it does take some effort and time that's just not normal beyond the initial launch of a GPU. The PC DIY market is simply not normal by historical norms. If the new normal for DIY PCs is driven by rampant speculation then it's going to suffer. Indeed rampant speculation isn't good for the crypto side of things either.
 
I think this is only one of a hand full of times when I could actually sell my 1080 Ti GPUs and make a profit.

I will not be doing that, but I have thought about it a couple of times.

This will continue until all this crypto stuff hits the fan.........which I can bet won't be too long.
It's currently for all the cool kids, but we all know the cool kids cut and run as soon as they have some cash in the bank.
 
This will continue until all this crypto stuff hits the fan.........which I can bet won't be too long.

I wouldn't count on that. There's going to be a lot of crashing but crypto currencies are here to stay for various reasons though the level of speculation will level off.
 
I sold all my 1080s 11 days ago and then regret set in as i saw the shortages go from bad to worse. I was just crusing nicehash reddit section this morning and noticed a lot of miners complaining their profits are going down the drain. I was making $55 a day mining 2 weeks ago, i bet id only be making $25 today. Maybe $15 next week, when that happens i guarantee you -- a lot will quit.

Try to look at the bright side. All these shortages have resumed a need for actual overclocking on old hardware. :) I got a pair of Firepro V7800s i am gaming on and its kinda fun to see what is playable. (they earn 30 cents a day each, if you are wondering via nicehash miner)
 
It isn't just the fact that gamers can't get cards at a sane price, it's the systemic effects across the whole PC hardware industry. There is some major splash damage occurring.

That said, I'm a free market guy, and I believe said free market will eventually take care of things. If the crypto bubble doesn't pop (and I think it will) then eventually manufacturers will begin to ramp up production. But for now it sucks incredibly hard. I'm in an indefinite holding pattern on a new build.


I had a 1070 card that failed last Sunday, they are sending me a replacement so I am happy, but I was looking for a new card just in case. Last night I saw EVGA had a card up for a little while, a 1080 Ti card. It was about $800 so not cheap, but 1080 Ti cards are top of the line now and top of the line has been up there for awhile now.

Another issue is, it's my understanding that manufacturers like EVGA for instance, they build their own cards and they place their own orders for chips from the foundries like TSMC or whoever they are. So I think this is largely where the issue is, it's supply and demand at these chip makers, the guys laying down the silicon itself. If EVGA isn't ordering more chips then they aren't making more cards, if an outfit like the one in this story is ordering chips and making custom mining cards than that's competition at that end.
 
Frankly I would like to know more facts: (some of these would most likely be hard to obtain, others not)
  • How many GPU's are being bought for mining
  • How many GPU's are being bought for gaming
  • How many GPU's are being made for Datacenters, AI for cars, HPCs, Cloud services such as Nvidia Gaming Service (This obviously takes away resources, how large is this segment?)
GPUs are not just for gamers, that has changed awhile ago - Other markets are buying them - Tesla's are not cheap and are being sold out as well. The professional cards market was always higher in price using the same GPU - there is a market segment there.

I just don't see the market incentive for either Nvidia or RTG to limit GPU's, reduced the selling cost for a gaming segment and charge more for a mining segment. That is also part of the problem, and even most miners on this forum are really gamers or some other professions that also started mining. In my case the only difference from my normal buying routines is having both a SLI and CFX system, basically I bought two additional cards then what I would normally buy as in 2x Radeon FE's and actually put to use replaced cards which would have been in the closet or given away.

I would say most of the availability complaints prior to this week or two weeks ago (my view here only) was more whinny then fact or just plan lazy on getting video cards. I believe that has dramatically changed in the last couple of weeks and a real issue is present affecting the whole PC gaming platform.

Then it comes to the real deal -> Mining -> Cryptocurrency -> Is this really go to change the World or not? -> Big scam or not? Changes are happening beyond all the hype and want to believers, what will evolve and come out of the hundreds of currencies hitting the world stage?

As for a company making mining rigs - I just hope they are just truthful about it - "We do it because we can make a ton of money from it, don't really give a shit if it affects your gaming or not" "Hey gamers, if you want a graphics card then get in line and pay the price it is going at". I actually believe many retailers are really not pocketing way extra amount of money, many are just selling what is available with the normal markup to stay in business.

Of course the endless YouTube sites and regular computer sites are now being affected since what are you going to review? When the large share of your audience is not interested at this time due to the pricing and what is going on? I just hope some are smart at it vice trying to demonize a segment which would be a loosing position. Ram pricing went way up, GPU's even further up and other resources such as higher cost of high end power supplies.

Now I haven't heard of the concern for the lack of GPU's for the miners looking for them and wanting to build or expand their rigs . It is affecting those poor souls as well.
:p
 
I don't think it will be that long. There can only be so many people doing cryptomining before it becomes too much computational power to be profitable, or more supply than demand. There aren't that many people working with cryptocurrency. I think things will return to normal in about 2-3 more months.
 
Anyone claiming that they are making anything mining related that doesn't direcly affect the gpu gaming industry is 100% spinning bullshit. There's no defensible answer. The industry was created for gaming, with cards like tesla for data center (which should have been the mining cards technically) so anything that isn't a data center variant, is strictly being taken out of the gaming market. Now don't get me wrong, you can buy ping pong balls to throw in cups of beer and no one is going to lose their shit that they have to pay a little more for their table tennis past time, however due to the massive complexity of gpus and the volatility of the market, Nvidia can't afford to overproduce and lose their business when the crypto market takes a six month nosedive at some point.
 
I had a guy email me the other day, knows next to nothing about computers and asked if I have a source for 60 video cards for mining.
I laughed and laughed and laughed!
 
As I said on the other post. I'd rather maingear do this and make some money selling at a REASONABLE cost than watch everyone get screwed with no lube by Newegg. If they are seeing gaming sales impacted by mining buyers then this is a good way to preserve gaming builds for gamers while offering a prebuilt solution for miners. The mining GPUs are going to be made either way. Calling it stealing from gaming GPU sales is nonsense. AMD/Nvidia get paid the same per GPU as before and so do the manufacturing partners.

There really is not a solution here. The financial incentive to cryptomine is so strong I even turned my 980ti on for a few bucks. Even if Nvidia and AMD do a driver change to disable mining on 'gamer' cards it won't stop people from modding a bios or using old drivers.

What we have here is the perfect storm of extremely high demand during the GPU sunset before volta. Normally we'd be seeing great rebates and stock clearing on these GPUs but the lower supply with high demand = high price.

Finally, crying about gaming GPUs being used by greedy miners is to be frank, a shit argument. The GPUs are being allocated to the market and if gamers want them they can pay the higher prices. Hell, they can mine part time to get back the price premium if they want. Nothing is stopping people from doing this.

Does it hurt sales of new builds? Sure. But it isn't like gamers don't blow extra money all the time on non necessary things that inflate build prices. E.G. the computer in my signature.

Gamers can put up the cash or wait and no amount of whinging and flaming will change that.
 
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The RAM and MB both have to support it.
The ram doesn't matter, running 4 sticks of the same ram will give you quad channel if the MB/CPU support it.

http://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/gtx1080ti/full_history.php
Every day it seems nvidia has more in stock, but they're gone in 2-10 minutes. Still, you can monitor that site and be alerted when it is in stock and at least get one for msrp if you really want one.
I used this to snag a snes classic. Pretty helpful for other goods which are hard to get because of supply issues (switch).

The last time a Vega 56 was in stock at MSRP ($399) was Nov 11... it has only been available at MSRP a total of 13 times since launch...
http://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/amd/rxvega56/full_history.php

Same goes for the 64...
http://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/amd/rxvega64/full_history.php
 
I sold all my 1080s 11 days ago and then regret set in as i saw the shortages go from bad to worse. I was just crusing nicehash reddit section this morning and noticed a lot of miners complaining their profits are going down the drain. I was making $55 a day mining 2 weeks ago, i bet id only be making $25 today. Maybe $15 next week, when that happens i guarantee you -- a lot will quit.

Try to look at the bright side. All these shortages have resumed a need for actual overclocking on old hardware. :) I got a pair of Firepro V7800s i am gaming on and its kinda fun to see what is playable. (they earn 30 cents a day each, if you are wondering via nicehash miner)
Two 1080 Ti's looking at $12 to $14 a day on NiceHash at the moment - it is varying. Still very high compared to 3 months ago. This coin crash or low has not lowered the profits like previous lows I've seen. Now 3 weeks ago one 1080 Ti would have been pulling that amount in or close to it. With restriction on the GPUs which also affects miners, looks like it is making mining remain more constant since the mining operations are not expanding as fast. Actually the more that quite mining the better for us small time miners that don't have a lot invested in hardware. Plus those GPU assets may start hitting the streets at more affordable prices. If they are not then they are still making money.
 
I fully disagree with many aspects of this post.

High end GPUs are the definition of a luxury good. Explain how they're not?

Microcenter is scalping because of the high demand and the low supply. How does pricing them at 1400-1500 protect gamers? It does nothing but earn microcenter a quick buck for those who are willing to pay double the price for a luxury good.

If Microcenter wanted to protect gamers, like you are implying, they could just enforce a 1 item per person policy when it comes to GPUs.

Miners did cause a shortage of video cards because they bought up the extra supply. There's no denying that, but how is that somehow adverse to gamers?

There's no rolling back the clock on utilizing video cards for things other than games. CUDA came out and now the video card is basically a co-processor for specialized tasks. It's being used from a wide variety of things including crypto mining.

If this is a market issue, then some 3rd party graphics maker will come out of this mess and refuse to create drivers that can allow the video card to be used for something other than graphics. But the issue here is that the gaming market cap is pretty fixed. Even with the increase of prices, it's not like there's a very lucrative market that can limit themselves just to gamers.

Also, if you want a 1080 ti at MSRP prices, there's always the nvidia store: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/10series/geforce-store/
Feel free to pick one up at 699. Screw microcenter, screw amazon, just do some decent shopping and you can find a decent price.

Also what i stand for is anything that suits me. I play video games but i don't consider myself part of the broader gaming community for things like this because when it comes down to it, it doesn't affect me and i don't think it affects the broader gaming community in general. It's just a temporary phase.


You cannot simply take a $699 video card and call it a luxury item/good. In fact, $699 and the definition of Luxury doesn't even belong in the same sentence. People are using current prices as a vehicle to make some errant point in regards to a free market, etc. All BS. Doesn't hold water, never will. In fact these same people of which you are one of them are proving my point for me.

Microcenter doesn't want to charge anymore for anything they sale than they have to. The logic being is that even if we raise our prices away from what we think miners would be willing to pay, at least we have those cards in stock for PC builders. The additional cost while unfortunate still sways the balance back towards gamers. Again, gamers did not cause this nightmarish state of affairs.

You're free to stand for what you want but remember this, if you stance is disruptive, doesn't align with the greater good of the community some people will take notice and remember that. All in all, it's not a really big deal but all of us have to decide what side of history we want to stand on. I admit I may or may not mine but my heart is truly with gamers. That's just what I believe in. There is room for both gamers and miners but I could never side with miners, ever. If the powers that be want to vastly increase production and support all of us, great but until that happens you're not going to catch me yapping about a Free Market and other ... clearly misguided BS babble that serves the few while the greater good goes without.
 
Anyone claiming that they are making anything mining related that doesn't direcly affect the gpu gaming industry is 100% spinning bullshit. There's no defensible answer. The industry was created for gaming, with cards like tesla for data center (which should have been the mining cards technically) so anything that isn't a data center variant, is strictly being taken out of the gaming market. Now don't get me wrong, you can buy ping pong balls to throw in cups of beer and no one is going to lose their shit that they have to pay a little more for their table tennis past time, however due to the massive complexity of gpus and the volatility of the market, Nvidia can't afford to overproduce and lose their business when the crypto market takes a six month nosedive at some point.


Wait up...... I think you have some misconceptions.... NVidia isn't producing chips. They order chips from the chip makers the same as the other manufacturers like ASUS and EVGA. They all place their orders with the Fab and the Fab makes the chips and sells them to fill the orders. Now the card makers are saying that they are not in a hurry to order more chips because they are afraid to make more cards and create a glut in the market and I actually believe them.

First off, a short term famine that effects prices isn't a loss for them. They sold all their projected supply, they made theirs already. Could they make more, sure, but why should I place another large order for chips and all the other components, lay on all that production, and risk getting stuck with a ton of cards I can't unload when I have made all of my sales projections for the year?

Why would I take that risk?

Now if there is something I don't understand correctly about this then by all means enlighten me. But if other GPU chip users are placing orders at the Fab and kicking out custom mining cards well, unless it's preventing EVGA from ordering more for themselves, then I don't see your take on this being accurate.
 
I am shocked that some of you guys are using "Free Market" .... "Luxury Items" ..... "Capitalism" as a defense for companies taking away what arguably is the heart and soul of any gaming computer, the GPU. Not only shocking and unreal but down right sad. This entire nightmare is not only unprecedented, it's splintering the PC enthusiast community as evident by some of the posts on this very thread.

I've been building gaming/workstation systems since the early 1990's. In fact it's how I make my living to this day. But I have never ever seen this type of disruption in the market. People CANNOT build a gaming PC ... this is in Kansas City, this is in Mountain View, California, Denver Co, NYC, Miami Florida ... the locations go on and on and on the world over. The GPU market no longer serves gamers primary, it serves the mining community. I've talked at length with the sales guys down at Microcenter and was told several times there is literally nothing they can do to stop miners from getting their cards as they come in. I was told they have 20 - 30 miners laying in wait to pounce on their cards for every 1 PC builder that comes in. How true is this? I'm pretty sure it's true. In fact the problem is so severe Microcenter had to price all of their video cards out of miners hands to protect gamer's. You cannot buy a 1080 Ti now at a Microcenter without spending $1,400 .... $1.500 hundred fucking dollars. Go look or call @ Microcenter.com right now if you have any doubts.

Miners caused this ... not PC gamers. I'm partly to blame, more on this below.

Not to kiss anyone's ass but when the founder of HardOCP made this post it reflected probably one of his core passions for the PC market/community as a whole. Which, was not only the right thing to do, it's his right. The over-all message was very clear. It's wrong and compounds the problem what Maingear and other companies are currently doing and or have planned in regards to mining.

I don't know about any of you but who do you want in your corner? What do you stand for?

This is not so much an attack on miners. I want Newegg and Microcenter and especially Miners themselves to make money. Full disclosure, I might be.... I might not be involved in 1,450 MH/s being mined 24/7 but even as an ( allegedly ) miner, more has to be done. It's easy for me to speak out because I'm in a great position but I still personally think any GPU whatsoever should be going back into the hands of gamers. This is a terrible time for any company to be involved in disrupting the market any further. I'm cool with miners but not when the market cannot support both parties.

There isnt a violin little enough for this nonsense. >Luxury< class GPUs - that were already far outside the reach of most steam gamers if you look at the median GPU config - have been a few hundred dollars more than usual for a few weeks. The sky isn't falling because people that couldn't be bothered to buy or upgrade a GPU until now can't kill time at the highest framerates.

There was all of 2017 and most of 2016 to score a 1060/1070 or better for MSRP or less. Why is it now suddenly life and death? Prices will settle down. GPUs can still be found at MSRP if you keep an eye out.

Get a grip.
 
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Wait up...... I think you have some misconceptions.... NVidia isn't producing chips. They order chips from the chip makers the same as the other manufacturers like ASUS and EVGA. They all place their orders with the Fab and the Fab makes the chips and sells them to fill the orders. Now the card makers are saying that they are not in a hurry to order more chips because they are afraid to make more cards and create a glut in the market and I actually believe them.

First off, a short term famine that effects prices isn't a loss for them. They sold all their projected supply, they made theirs already. Could they make more, sure, but why should I place another large order for chips and all the other components, lay on all that production, and risk getting stuck with a ton of cards I can't unload when I have made all of my sales projections for the year?

Why would I take that risk?

Now if there is something I don't understand correctly about this then by all means enlighten me. But if other GPU chip users are placing orders at the Fab and kicking out custom mining cards well, unless it's preventing EVGA from ordering more for themselves, then I don't see your take on this being accurate.

You just repeated back to me what I said. . .thank you for validating my opinions.

On a side note of course we all want to see gpu prices come back down for gaming rigs. I have a lot of customers right now that are stepping down in tiers for their gpu since it's just not economically feasable to pay so much more for what they want. Others are just getting Titan xp's directly from nvidia since it's actually a manageable price right now due to market variations. These aren't miners but just gamers and content creators trying to enable themselves a good experience.

I do a fair bit of mining so I'm not innocent and understand how addicting it is to get just one more videocard (s) for your setup. It would be nice if there were mass produced crypto versions available but it's just not the case right now.
 
Wait up...... I think you have some misconceptions.... NVidia isn't producing chips. They order chips from the chip makers the same as the other manufacturers like ASUS and EVGA. They all place their orders with the Fab and the Fab makes the chips and sells them to fill the orders. Now the card makers are saying that they are not in a hurry to order more chips because they are afraid to make more cards and create a glut in the market and I actually believe them.

First off, a short term famine that effects prices isn't a loss for them. They sold all their projected supply, they made theirs already. Could they make more, sure, but why should I place another large order for chips and all the other components, lay on all that production, and risk getting stuck with a ton of cards I can't unload when I have made all of my sales projections for the year?

Why would I take that risk?

Now if there is something I don't understand correctly about this then by all means enlighten me. But if other GPU chip users are placing orders at the Fab and kicking out custom mining cards well, unless it's preventing EVGA from ordering more for themselves, then I don't see your take on this being accurate.
Maybe another consideration is more current chips will also eat into sells for the next generation of chips. Right now if Volta hit the stage in force it would sell out - if 10x times the # of Pascals hit the street gamers would probably not bother to update to Volta if they bought a nice reasonable priced Pascal chip. In any case, I do believe cheap gaming video cards will not be around for awhile unless of course mining disappears or is dramatically reduced. The market is indeed fixing the price regardless what people wish or hope for. Unfortunately the gaming market on the PC has to compete with any other market out there be it movies, music, racing or other forms of entertainment and hardware needed and costs. If someone rather build a mining rig vice a VR rig and you believe in some form of freedom then the mining rig it will be.
 
You cannot simply take a $699 video card and call it a luxury item/good. In fact, $699 and the definition of Luxury doesn't even belong in the same sentence. People are using current prices as a vehicle to make some errant point in regards to a free market, etc. All BS. Doesn't hold water, never will. In fact these same people of which you are one of them are proving my point for me.

Microcenter doesn't want to charge anymore for anything they sale than they have to. The logic being is that even if we raise our prices away from what we think miners would be willing to pay, at least we have those cards in stock for PC builders. The additional cost while unfortunate still sways the balance back towards gamers. Again, gamers did not cause this nightmarish state of affairs.

You're free to stand for what you want but remember this, if you stance is disruptive, doesn't align with the greater good of the community some people will take notice and remember that. All in all, it's not a really big deal but all of us have to decide what side of history we want to stand on. I admit I may or may not mine but my heart is truly with gamers. That's just what I believe in. There is room for both gamers and miners but I could never side with miners, ever. If the powers that be want to vastly increase production and support all of us, great but until that happens you're not going to catch me yapping about a Free Market and other ... clearly misguided BS babble that serves the few while the greater good goes without.
Look, luxury isn't defined by how much something costs. It's defined as a premium put on products that are far above what the average or normal person gets. I can buy a luxury electric toothbrush for 200$. The average price of a toothbrush is probably around 2.50$, maybe electric ones are like 10$. 200$ is way above and beyond the normal.

If you don't like that concept, then lets go with marketing terms. Nvidia touted it's craftsmanship. If that doesn't scream luxury then i can't help you, because based on my recollection, every other luxury good touts it's craftsmanship (because the value per dollar isn't there).

I know, it's not like Microcenter has a gun to it's head and is forced to make the video card double or triple the cost. They're forced to by people who want to buy them. Re-read that statement and see how it makes no sense.

I don't believe in collectivism. There is no real stance. Saying stuff like what side of history will you be remembered for is just outlandish. You asking companies to increase production so prices can level out is outlandish as well. There's no profit motive in that. 0. If anything the 1080 ti is almost a year old, the other 1080 series are almost 2 years old. They're ramping up volta chips. Why in the world would they increase production of pascal chips? Because of some weird group sentiment from people that buy their products? That's childish.
 
There isnt a violin little enough for this nonsense. >Luxury< class GPUs - that were already far outside the reach of most steam gamers if you look at the median GPU config - have been a few hundred dollars more than usual for a few weeks. The sky isn't falling because people that couldn't be bothered to buy or upgrade a GPU until now can't kill time at the highest framerates.

There was all of 2017 and most of 2016 to score a Pascal based nvidia for MSRP or less. Why is it now suddenly life and death? Prices will settle down. GPUs can still be found at MSRP if you keep an eye out.

Get a grip.
Prices are increased right down the line, not only the top tier.
 
There isnt a violin little enough for this nonsense. >Luxury< class GPUs - that were already far outside the reach of most steam gamers if you look at the median GPU config - have been a few hundred dollars more than usual for a few weeks. The sky isn't falling because people that couldn't be bothered to buy or upgrade a GPU until now can't kill time at the highest framerates.

There was all of 2017 and most of 2016 to score a 1060/1070 or better for MSRP or less. Why is it now suddenly life and death? Prices will settle down. GPUs can still be found at MSRP if you keep an eye out.

Get a grip.
My thoughts as well but there are a number of folks where waiting a few months will be rather uncomfortable since they have a business around gaming a.k.a Gaming Nexus etc.
 
Finally, crying about gaming GPUs being used by greedy miners is to be frank, a shit argument. The GPUs are being allocated to the market and if gamers want them they can pay the higher prices. Hell, they can mine part time to get back the price premium if they want. Nothing is stopping people from doing this.

This is logic right here. It's capitalism at work. You might not see such extremes under communism or socialism so?? I've got to agree with Darrpara here as much as I may not like what's happening with the GPU and RAM market. :hungover:
 
More demand for GPUs should spur more production which should lower prices. Isn't this just a temporary shortage?

If by "temporary," you mean the 20 BILLION dollars and 2-3 years it will take to build and ramp-up new GPU silicon fab, then yes, it's only "temporary" :D

As long as crypto currencies everyone is pumping change from one week to the next, the crypto train will never come off the tracks. But try convincing fab owners that the current demand is worth upgrading to meet, and you'll find them more hesitant.

You don't want to get stuck with a cutting-edge fab that's never utilized.
 
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If by "temporary," you mean the 20 BILLION dollars and 2-3 years it will take to build and ramp-up new GPU silicon fab, then yes, it's only "temporary" :D
I think he means (and i could be wrong) that the next generation of chips (volta/vega+/whatever) will have more production in general before the generation before it sold that much more. I can only guess that supplies are planned out way in advanced due to demand. If more people are buying now, then later on when they make production runs of the next series they'll be more because they can sell more.
Volta should already have started production in the fabs. It should be a few more months until the 2080 is available to be purchased.
 
I also believe that there is nothing wrong with offering a (Legal) product that is wanted by the market. In addition, with a little effort I have been able to find several 1080tis at MSRP. The nice part about all of this is that I was able to sell older GPUs at near what I paid and able to upgrade for very cheap. Lastly, mining is so simple at this point, that I don’t understand why more people don’t do it.
 
I think he means (and i could be wrong) that the next generation of chips (volta/vega+/whatever) will have more production in general before the generation before it sold that much more. I can only guess that supplies are planned out way in advanced due to demand. If more people are buying now, then later on when they make production runs of the next series they'll be more because they can sell more.
Volta should already have started production in the fabs. It should be a few more months until the 2080 is available to be purchased.

If TSMC has already maxed-out production for all their customers, how exactly will they increase production for Nvidia? Nvidia has already given Samsung the GTX 1060 jobs, to reduce demand on TSMC.

An unexpected increase in demand means you have to build new fabs. There's no magic production available TODAY that wasn't there 6 months ago.

The productivity already peaked in mid-2017, about a year after the new process tech was introduced in big chips. That's why they introduced the GTX 1080 Ti, and lowered the price of the 1070 and 1080.

You can't expect to just bump someone else's production run. Also, if Volta is just like Maxwell the die sizes will be larger, so it may REDUCE the number of cards per-wafer.
 
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If TSMC has already maxed-out production for all their customers, how exactly will they increase production for Nvidia?

An unexpected increase in demand means you have to build new fabs. There's no magic production available TODAY that wasn't there 6 months ago.

The productivity already peaked in mid-2017, about a year after the new process tech was introduced in big chips.

You can't expect to just bump someone else's production run. Also, if Vega is just like Maxwell the die sizes will be larger, so it may REDUCE the number of cards per-wafer.
I don't know much specifics, but isn't that assume that TSMC is producing at max all the time? I think it would be strange to think that they're still producing 10XX series at maximum capacity and that it wouldn't ramp down over time to go along with demand.
 
I don't know much specifics, but isn't that assume that TSMC is producing at max all the time? I think it would be strange to think that they're still producing 10XX series at maximum capacity and that it wouldn't ramp down over time to go along with demand.

That would explain the shortages THIS YEAR.
But what about the GTX 1070 shortages since June of 2017? That's way before you start to ramp production of consumer Volta.

Prior to that rush, you could regularly get the cards at their new MSRP of $350.

Signs point to there not being enough PEAK production capacity to meet miner demand LEAST YEAR. Can you show me otherwise?
 
When I did my 1080 Ti upgrade last year, I thought "holy crap, I'm spending almost $1500 on GPUs. I am an idiot. A 4K 60 idiot."

But now? They're going for $1400 each. Which is super retarded.
 
That would explain the shortages THIS YEAR. But what about the GTX 1070 shortages since June of 2017? That's way before you start to ramp production of consumer Volta.

Prior to that rush, you could regularly get the cards at their new MSRP of $350.

Signs point to there not being enough PEAK production capacity to meet miner demand LEAST YEAR. Can you show me otherwise?
More than likely there was some finance guy looking at demand for middle of the line models. Lets face it, if you're a gamer, you may just want to pay almost 1.5 to double to get the 1080/1080ti. If you're not and you're on a tight budget, 1060,1050 is probably more your style. Sitting in the middle is always an iffy proposition.
1070 sat at msrp as long as supplies outweighed the demand. Then you add miners who probably can't find affordable 1080/1080tis and the roi between 1070 and 1080/1080ti isn't all that much different. I've heard many times from miners to buy lower end cards because they don't really scale in performance as much as you would think. It actually might be more efficient to get a 1070 when you look at the initial cost + electric costs for a mining rig than a 1080/ti.

Before mining really made it big this past year, demand on the supplies wasn't even really considered. This was a gaming only market. In the future there will more than likely be greater supply to make even more profits because it's now in their figures how much they can actually sell.
Also to reinforce this point (again, all assumptions here), the ones who are actually making money because of the low supply should be the retailers. I don't think nvidia has increased the cost of the chip, but then again i'm not privy to that info. If nvidia is still selling at the same pricepoint, then they're not making any money off this shortage and in fact they're losing (theoretically) money.
 
You cannot simply take a $699 video card and call it a luxury item/good. In fact, $699 and the definition of Luxury doesn't even belong in the same sentence. People are using current prices as a vehicle to make some errant point in regards to a free market, etc. All BS. Doesn't hold water, never will. In fact these same people of which you are one of them are proving my point for me.

Microcenter doesn't want to charge anymore for anything they sale than they have to. The logic being is that even if we raise our prices away from what we think miners would be willing to pay, at least we have those cards in stock for PC builders. The additional cost while unfortunate still sways the balance back towards gamers. Again, gamers did not cause this nightmarish state of affairs.

You're free to stand for what you want but remember this, if you stance is disruptive, doesn't align with the greater good of the community some people will take notice and remember that. All in all, it's not a really big deal but all of us have to decide what side of history we want to stand on. I admit I may or may not mine but my heart is truly with gamers. That's just what I believe in. There is room for both gamers and miners but I could never side with miners, ever. If the powers that be want to vastly increase production and support all of us, great but until that happens you're not going to catch me yapping about a Free Market and other ... clearly misguided BS babble that serves the few while the greater good goes without.

I think you are off the mark a bit here.
First and foremost, both elite PC builders and miners are "luxury customers". Neither are vastly enormous sized groups.
We are debating a subject that most people in general don't even know exists.
If someone knows about Cryptocurrency, it's generally because they are "wowed" by the %tage rise in value recently.
Not a single one of them could describe or explain the worth of the currency.

Yup, gaming PCs are being affected, but the elite end GPUs are definately a "luxury" fraction of the market.
Again the average person has never heard of a 1080 Ti or a Vega (other than the old chevy product) let alone Nvidia or AMD. I also think that the demand for GPU computation power is at an all time high.....this is all a perfect storm of sorts.

This stuff is niche of a niche, that in and of itself is the very essence of "luxury".
 
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I refuse to pay retail for old tech graphics cards that are being sold at outrageous prices. I will happily keep chugging along on my HD6950. Fuck these retailers.
 
More than likely there was some finance guy looking at demand for middle of the line models. Lets face it, if you're a gamer, you may just want to pay almost 1.5 to double to get the 1080/1080ti. If you're not and you're on a tight budget, 1060,1050 is probably more your style. Sitting in the middle is always an iffy proposition.
1070 sat at msrp as long as supplies outweighed the demand. Then you add miners who probably can't find affordable 1080/1080tis and the roi between 1070 and 1080/1080ti isn't all that much different. I've heard many times from miners to buy lower end cards because they don't really scale in performance as much as you would think. It actually might be more efficient to get a 1070 when you look at the initial cost + electric costs for a mining rig than a 1080/ti.

Before mining really made it big this past year, demand on the supplies wasn't even really considered. This was a gaming only market. In the future there will more than likely be greater supply to make even more profits because it's now in their figures how much they can actually sell.
Also to reinforce this point (again, all assumptions here), the ones who are actually making money because of the low supply should be the retailers. I don't think nvidia has increased the cost of the chip, but then again i'm not privy to that info. If nvidia is still selling at the same pricepoint, then they're not making any money off this shortage and in fact they're losing (theoretically) money.

Yes, in the future there will be greater supply. Just after TSMC gets done building another fab. Which will take years.

I'm still waiting for you to prove me otherwise. All you''ve done so far is paint two full paragraphs of fluff we already know.
 
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