Nvidia telling retailers to stop selling to miners.

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nVIdia is laughable at best ... with this ... there is no way to enforce this unless they threaten to pull their product distribution to vendors unless they release their sales invoices and then they are going to have to pay someone to ensure that no more than two GPUs are or were sold to any one single customer at a time.

Good luck with that.
 
Now you Graphics Card upgrade people actually have something to complain about this is probably the worst thing ever to happen to the GPU market. If they make the cards with a low hash rate or next to none that could solve the problem. Or have the cards shutdown after being at full load at 12 hours or more.
 
Comixbooks said:
Now you Graphics Card upgrade people actually have something to complain about this is probably the worst thing ever to happen to the GPU market. If they make the cards with a low hash rate or next to none that could solve the problem. Or have the cards shutdown after being at full load at 12 hours or more.
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So in other words dictate to people what they can use or not use a GPU they bought - limit it and confine it how they see fit. I don't think that would be too wise.
 
I think Nvidia is trying to pull the wool over the gamer's eyes! Did anyone watch Nvidia's press event at this years CES 2018? Jensen talks about the 3 markets Nvidia is in.

1.) Gaming $100 Billion Industry

2.) Artificial Intelligence $3 Trillion Industry

3.) Autonomous Vehicles $10 Trillion Transportation Industry


Now which one do you think Nvidia really cares about? Remember money talks, bullshit walks.
 
razor1 said:
What they should do is differentiate products for mining and gaming somehow by performance or price, the latter is much harder to do because of resale value. So create mining chips that are better than gaming chips in mining will be really the only way to go.
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This already exists. GPU's are more efficient than traditional CPU's at mining, but ASIC's are orders of magnitude more efficient than GPU's. ASIC's cost a lot more than a typical GPU but cant be repurposed/reprogrammed so they eventually become 100% worthless. GPU's of course are not as efficient as ASIC's, but they cost less and can be repurposed/have resale value. The ceiling for video cards is whatever the ASIC miners are priced at.

There are lots of crypto's that are ASIC resistant (for various reasons) so this also drives demand for video cards.

There are already mining specific pseudo-video cards but they are not available for sale in the US. They also cant be used as normal video cards, so the only market for them is miners. Problem is they use the same parts/chips as normal video cards, so why would a chip manufacturer sell the same chip for less money to a miner? Again, this drives the price of the miner only cards to be the same as a normal video card, so again doesnt work.

Nvidia and AMD have no reason to make a mining only chip that deviates off their current consumer/professional video cards as that would take capacity away, increase costs, etc.

Hate to say this, but this situation isnt going to go away...... One potential relief is when crypto's go to proof of stake vs. proof of work but that would also mean the rate of forks and new crypto-currencies would need to slow to a very slow pace or go away entirely. Its possible this sort of stability will happen, but not for the foreseeable future (10+ years easily).
 
Good initiative by Nvidia as crypto mining is making thing bad for gamers.
 
Airbrushkid said:
I think Nvidia is trying to pull the wool over the gamer's eyes! Did anyone watch Nvidia's press event at this years CES 2018? Jensen talks about the 3 markets Nvidia is in.

1.) Gaming $100 Billion Industry

2.) Artificial Intelligence $3 Trillion Industry

3.) Autonomous Vehicles $10 Trillion Transportation Industry


Now which one do you think Nvidia really cares about? Remember money talks, bullshit walks.
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The writing's is on the wall, mining GPU's will pale in comparison to when AI and AV GPUs pick up - AI has already and Tesla cards are being made as fast as possible. Which ties up HBM2 supplies - poor Vega.

Nvidia I do believe will be a mega company in the next 5 years, probably bigger than Intel. Unless Intel gets their ass in gear and make GPU's and succeed with quantum chips. AMD also has a good shot if they get their GPU's for AI and then AV competitive.
 
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Memory Express in Canada is taking steps to prioritze "system builds and upgrades" after NVIDIA's public statement.

https://www.memoryexpress.com/Policies/VideoCardShortage.cm.aspx

Video Card & Power Supply Inventory Shortage
We would like to apologize to our loyal customers for the current inventory situation with video cards and power supply units (PSU). Our purchasing team are working diligently to secure as much inventory as possible but currently there is no confirmed eta, pricing and availability.

As such, we will be taking several measures to ensure there is inventory in place going forward for those looking to build systems or purchase upgrades:
  • We are currently unable to fill or accept any backorders for individual video cards. Online orders for individual videos cards will be disabled.
  • Über Price Beat Guarantee and price protection will be disabled for all video cards and power supplies.
  • Inventory (when available), will be allocated for system builds and upgrades.
  • Limit of 1 video card and power supply per house hold per day
  • Inter store transfers will be disabled until inventory normalizes
These restrictions are temporary and will be lifted as the inventory situation improves. If you require a graphics card and/or power supply for a system build please contact our stores directly.

Again, we apologize for any conveniences caused by this current situation. Thank-you for your patience and understanding.
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noko said:
Customers are customers that buy your product. Gamers are only one aspect, professional uses also abound. Miners will jump on any improvement in mining and buy everything that Nvidia can make at ridicules prices while gamers complain it is not cheaper than the previous generation, not enough improvements, doing just fine on the Maxwell generation etc. ;). Even the $3000 Titan V are sold out.

If there are a mass selling of previously used mining cards then gamers may have a endless supply of cards to choose from at utterly ridicules low prices - is that a good thing for PC gaming or not?

Realistically if a segregated product can be made that will cater to miners while gamers also are catered to would be the best solution. Not restricting per se but just more beneficial for the miners to buy available mining cards vice gaming cards. Some ideas which will probably go nowhere and even a waste to read but:
  • Mining cards you can buy with Cryptocurrency (instant updated pricing of course since Crypto is all over the place)
  • Different type of warranty
    • Easy fan replacement, fans easily bought from manufacturer or sent DIY
    • Warranty based on actual history - either via software or onboard data collection
  • Different PCIe connection as in cable to go to a single PCIe is standard (not a typical graphics card plug in)
    • Limited to PCIe 1x or 4x
    • No need to buy a riser card, cable connected from the get go
    • Easy mount system, clip in, screw in etc since no PCIe plug
  • No need for display outputs or hardware to support display
  • Special optimized drivers that don't work well with gaming cards since they would not have display outputs
  • Various cooling accessories that can be attached easily onto the card, mounting accessories as well
Basically make it that you would be stupid to buy a gaming slotted card for mining. Gamers may also need to realize they will need to pay a higher price as well in the coming years unless manufacturers can really up the quantities produced on all aspects of video cards. GPU's are in a state of explosive use in many things besides gaming with no end in sight. Selling combinations maybe a way to save which a good discount to encourage buyers to stay in the market for gaming.
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Sure, but what if there are no available mining cards due to demand? Then they still just buy up the gaming cards. Difference is, when there's a downturn they can't resell the mining cards to gamers anymore, where they can with the gaming cards, so that will be worth extra to a miner that wants to be flexible. So they'll buy up all the gaming cards first and pay a premium for them as they'll have resale value (even if not great) until the mining cards are like half the price or less of the gaming cards. Gamers still get the short end of the stick while being even more pissed off that all those gpus are sitting in mining cards that nobody wants to buy.
 
what NV and AMD need to do is figure out way to lock out the GPU if its being used for mining thinking about this most mining rigs are running these things with out monitors and in 1 or 2x PCIE slots

seems like it would be easy to tell if the card wasnt in a 8x or 16x slot and then just lock the card down to like 100mhz or if the card wasnt being used in SLI and didnt have a monitor on it and do the same

it would force miners to to have by more setups make it lot less profitable if they couldnt use more then 2 cards in a PC then just not have any of this on the Quadro or Titan cards want to mine? get Quadro or Titan
 
Elios said:
what NV and AMD need to do is figure out way to lock out the GPU if its being used for mining thinking about this most mining rigs are running these things with out monitors and in 1 or 2x PCIE slots

seems like it would be easy to tell if the card wasnt in a 8x or 16x slot and then just lock the card down to like 100mhz or if the card wasnt being used in SLI and didnt have a monitor on it and do the same

it would force miners to to have by more setups make it lot less profitable if they couldnt use more then 2 cards in a PC then just not have any of this on the Quadro or Titan cards want to mine? get Quadro or Titan
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They would have to do more then just driver checks though, it has be something with silicon based changes. Just driver changes, people will figure out how to manipulate the drivers in thinking its something its not. Just like the old soft mods for geforces to quadros, it wasn't until nV started to laser cut the quardro features out of the geforce cards or removing features at a board level like, gen link, did that really stop.
 
I delivered about 250K worth of mining gear today. Literally two delivery trucks full of pre built mining rigs and 2200 watt power supplies. I barely had the opportunity to talk to the guy who bought it all. Apparently, he worked hand in hand with Nvidia to design these rigs, and he is "renting" them out. He wouldn't get into specifics with me. I think he was a little shocked that his Fedex guy knew what he was up to lol.
 
razor1 said:
They would have to do more then just driver checks though, it has be something with silicon based changes. Just driver changes, people will figure out how to manipulate the drivers in thinking its something its not. Just like the old soft mods for geforces to quadros, it wasn't until nV started to laser cut the quardro features out of the geforce cards or removing features at a board level like, gen link, did that really stop.
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im talking low level like a ROM on card this stuff would take effect at boot

clearly its to late for current cards but not for the next round

maybe even a refresh 10x5 with lock out like that so only a board respin is needed
 
Elios said:
im talking low level like a ROM on card this stuff would take effect at boot

clearly its to late for current cards but not for the next round

maybe even a refresh 10x5 with lock out like that so only a board respin is needed
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Even ROM changes won't stop, this is exactly what nV did with the old geforce's different bios, for different drivers. The soft mod was an overlay and fooled the system into thinking its a quadro so the quadro drivers would install. Prior to the soft mod, there was software to fool the flashing so you could actually hard mod a geforce card to a quadro, think that was prior to the 7800 series. 7800 up to Fermi soft mods worked. I don't think its possible after Fermi to do any of these methods, you literal have to put in transistors or remove them, maybe both to even get a soft mod to work.

I know the hard mods worked on the 6800 series, I did that with my card to get a quadro. Tried the same thing with the 7800 series didn't work, so ended up getting a x1900xt instead, which suited my needs without the extra cost of the quardo.
 
they could also make real ROM that cant be flashed sure you could take it off the card but that would brick the card

catch is you dont have this ROM on the Quadro or Titan so you cant just swap the ROM either no ROM bricked card

clearly some people would try to get around it but the point is to make it painful as you can for miners wile not really changing any thing for gaming users
 
Elios said:
they could also make real ROM that cant be flashed sure you could take it off the card but that would brick the card

catch is you dont have this ROM on the Quadro or Titan so you cant just swap the ROM either no ROM bricked card

clearly some people would try to get around it but the point is to make it painful as you can for miners wile not really changing any thing for gaming users
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I think its very hard to do, cause its all the same GPU's, to even do something like that, there needs to be differences in the silicon, something that activates or deactivates due to what ROM is being used.

Sorry didn't mean transistors, ment resistors lol, board level changes in my previous post :)
 
razor1 said:
I think its very hard to do, cause its all the same GPU's, to even do something like that, there needs to be differences in the silicon, something that activates or deactivates due to what ROM is being used.

Sorry didn't mean transistors, ment resistors lol, board level changes in my previous post :)
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simply blocking vBIOS from loading would do it you could do this all external from the GPU core just have it look if its in a 8x or better slot if not block the main vBIOS from loading
if the ROM isnt there then the vBIOS cant load and card is bricked

sure you could run 4 of 5 cards still in one system but it would make it a pain add on some driver level stuff to lock out more then 2 cards in one PC done this wouldnt be hard to do on the next gen of cards
you could do cut down version with just a board respin now
 
hmm don't know man, cause some people use multiple geforces not just for mining, for home HPC work......, yah have the guy that had 4 Titan V's in one system for medical stuff too.
 
razor1 said:
hmm don't know man, cause some people use multiple geforces not just for mining, for home HPC work......, yah have the guy that had 4 Titan V's in one system for medical stuff too.
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well already said Titans wouldnt have the lock out and if your doing stuff for work you can afford Titans and or Quadros and not use consumer level hardware
 
Elios said:
well already said Titans wouldnt have the lock out and if your doing stuff for work you can afford Titans and or Quadros and not use consumer level hardware
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Its going to be hard, the drivers are the same for the most part for all these cards, the way they are doing it now is actually at board level to stop any type of modding, its actual hardware differences. Anything done on a software or ROM which is software, can be circumvented.

The ROM differences you mentioned can work but only if they have additional silicon for that, which can recognize the ROM version. This cannot be circumvented if they do something like that. But that would make it harder on the AIB partners because the complexity of such changes will need to account for the AIB's and all the different versions they have too. It might actually increase the cost of the cards by doing something like this, its going to take quite a bit of planning and execution to do something like that.

The whole problem is getting a Geforce card to work like a mining card, if there are extra resistors on the board to active multiple cards on the same system. if they implement something like that, bam a mod like that invalidates warranties, and also resale value. The main reason for GPU mining is the resale value of these cards. If that can be removed, then there can be different markets, one for mining cards and one for gaming cards.

For most large miners they only care about one thing the coins, those guys that are clearing off store shelves, those are the guys that put up there hardware once the cryptomarket goes down lol.
 
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bobzdar said:
Sure, but what if there are no available mining cards due to demand? Then they still just buy up the gaming cards. Difference is, when there's a downturn they can't resell the mining cards to gamers anymore, where they can with the gaming cards, so that will be worth extra to a miner that wants to be flexible. So they'll buy up all the gaming cards first and pay a premium for them as they'll have resale value (even if not great) until the mining cards are like half the price or less of the gaming cards. Gamers still get the short end of the stick while being even more pissed off that all those gpus are sitting in mining cards that nobody wants to buy.
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The money is in the mining, not selling the used cards. Of course selling at a higher cost may make some sence if prices are similar or there are no clear benefits like package deals or discounts of bunches of cards and not have limits in buying gaming cards, gaming driver issues. Having specific better mining drivers and support. Able to pay using Cyrpto.

Biggest issue why this will not happen is there is no certainty in what the demand will be in mining or how it will progress. Unless these specialized cards can have other market driven purposes I don’t expect them.

There is even a much bigger shift happening and that is GPU processing being used for computing, data streaming, online game streaming, AI processing of all sorts of things. Resources supporting those growths from GPU based processors and SOCs also limit GPUs for gaming.
 
How are they going to prevent it? I guess maybe they could check your age via driver's license.


(ok, it's a deep pun/joke... but hoping...)
 
Maybe a new company needs to get into the video card market and create a new architecture entirely? One that is dedicated to a new standard of gaming? Maybe a new 3dfx??
 
Is what folks want is a limited product that you can only game on? If you can't mine then you will not be able to do other stuff as well - wait there is such a thing - it is a console.

I am all for GPUs in doing many things and not limited by what ever means, so a few can be supplied. I just don't see production dramatically increasing for the gaming market, due mostly to other market forces beyond mining which maybe not the biggest issue with the lack of gaming cards (significant but not the overall contributor). AMD is using 12nm for what? CPU's and 12nm Vega instinct cards. Nvidia is using 12 nm process for what? V100, Tesla cards, Titan V and SOCs for AI and for the automobile industry. That should tell us where the real profits, opportunity and resources are being directed both at AMD/RTG and Nvidia or at least where they think they are.

AMD APU's in this climate may make a rather smash hit - that is if they ever get them out!
 
noko said:
Is what folks want is a limited product that you can only game on? If you can't mine then you will not be able to do other stuff as well - wait there is such a thing - it is a console.

I am all for GPUs in doing many things and not limited by what ever means, so a few can be supplied. I just don't see production dramatically increasing for the gaming market, due mostly to other market forces beyond mining which maybe not the biggest issue with the lack of gaming cards (significant but not the overall contributor). AMD is using 12nm for what? CPU's and 12nm Vega instinct cards. Nvidia is using 12 nm process for what? V100, Tesla cards, Titan V and SOCs for AI and for the automobile industry. That should tell us where the real profits, opportunity and resources are being directed both at AMD/RTG and Nvidia or at least where they think they are.

AMD APU's in this climate may make a rather smash hit - that is if they ever get them out!
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Its also possible to mine on a console (or cell phones for that matter even), but you do make a good point in that its a platform dedicated to gaming and is super cheap for what you are getting.

Almost all the posts in this thread are wishful thinking. The reality is the current trend is going to stay around for a long time.
 
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why not a gaming series and a compute/mining series? that doesn't sound bad to me. the gaming cards are neutered so they can't mine and the miner cards can do both but come at a premium. everyone's happy.
 
Comixbooks said:
Now you Graphics Card upgrade people actually have something to complain about this is probably the worst thing ever to happen to the GPU market. If they make the cards with a low hash rate or next to none that could solve the problem. Or have the cards shutdown after being at full load at 12 hours or more.
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You can't do that because the very hardware that makes them so powerful in graphics is the same thing that makes them powerful for mining crypto. Graphics and crypto require intensive mathematical calculations. It could take years for them to change the architecture which is likely a longer time frame than it would take for the bubble to burst or crypto programmers to move onto something else such as dedicated ASIC chips like the AntMiners.

There are better ways of fixing the problem.
 
pendragon1 said:
why not a gaming series and a compute/mining series? that doesn't sound bad to me. the gaming cards are neutered so they can't mine and the miner cards can do both but come at a premium. everyone's happy.
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That would probably take some R&D to make appropriate bios and driver sets to limit the abilities, almost like how they do the Quadro and Tesla series. However, this solution would not be foolproof and has the potential of being jailbroken.
 
ah yeah good point plus your previous post. then ill say it again; dirty-filthy-fucking-cyprtominers!
 
pendragon1 said:
ah yeah good point plus your previous post. then ill say it again; dirty-filthy-fucking-cyprtominers!
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No, "Dirty-filthy-fucking-rich-cyprtominers"!

I am so glad that others think they know better in what others should do with their purchases. Well not really.

Yes AMD and Nvidia should make it so their cards are so handicapped that they sell for much less. That will probably not happen. The one that can produce enough cards/gpus/resources to get it all will be the big winner. If a separate product not solely reliant upon the Cypto industry for it's success - a generic Co-processor which you can hook up to your own gaming card if desired - maybe feasible. Sorry, GPU's are no longer just for gaming - they are now doing more than the CPU ever could.
 
H2R2P2 said:
Maybe a new company needs to get into the video card market and create a new architecture entirely? One that is dedicated to a new standard of gaming? Maybe a new 3dfx??
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Matrox was the last competitor, and they failed because they don't have the engineering talent to operate in the space that Nvidia and AMD operate.

I'd wait to see what Raja does at Intel.
 
atp1916 said:
Well Nvidia, you are just stupid.
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Put yourself into the CEO's shoes. A few month's ago there's a boom and cards fly off the shelves until their stock dries up, no new cards. But bitcoin is still jumping in price and the board, you know those guys, along with the share holders, their asking the CEO about sales figures cause damn their product should be selling hot man so hot ..... and sales are almost non-existent because they have no cards to sell.

Now they go back and forth and argue about "what happens if we order another 5,000 GPU chips and all the other parts and build the cards and the price for bitcoin drops, demand drops, we have the next gen chips in the pipe for producing the next cards and instead we just pushed all that back to build another 5,000 10 series cards and no demand, hell their is a glut, ebay is full of cards all cheaper than we can sell our new cards because we got charged more for the order of GPU chips from the Fab .......

Do you want to be the guy having this discussion every month with a bunch of rich bastards who can't be happy with the terrific profits you have been able to bring them?
 
Seems high GPU prices is mainly a US problem because of extreme retailer markup. Just buy on backorder.
 
oldmanbal said:
keep telling people to stop making money, see how they respond.
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European shops have openly said they have denied huge GPU sales to some miners.

You know, selling 100000 cards to one mining customer isn´t going to help your business in the future. Selling 1 card to 100000 customers is. But hey, short term vs long term investment in your customer base I guess ;)
 
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