How do we give gamers first crack at new cards?

Gorankar

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How do we give gamers first crack at new cards, without resorting violence against people that mine crypto?

I know this has generated more than just a little bit of hate against crypto miners, but let's please avoid the calls for violence.

It is a bit of a problem though isn't it. One goes to buy a new video card and they are mostly all out of stock, and what you can find is way over MSRP. New cards are just around the corner. How can we get those cards, at least most of the first production run or two, into the hands of gamers rather than miners?

My very rough idea, is for the major AIB's to sell exclusively, short term, through the boutique PC builders, (Alienware, Falcon NW, Maingear, and the like), and through the primary PC gaming services. (Steam, Origin, GOG, etc.) Through those services create priority lists for those cards and any backorders. (Someone with a Steam account that is multiple years old, has multiple games, and over a certain number of hours of gameplay would be given priority over someone with few hours of gameplay or games.), Limit the purchases to one or two cards a year through those services. Then open it up and have the cards pop up on Amazon and the like after we have at least had gamers take the first crack at those cards. It is not perfect, but I think it might get more cards into the hands of more gamers sooner.

B4 the "if you can't afford to overpay $$$ for a luxury good, maybe you should choose another hobby" types open up their yaps, it is the principal. Sure I can afford $600 for a $450 msrp video card, but it pisses me off to do so. Especially when the card is going to be relegated to some crypto farm somewhere.



As an aside, I am not against crypto currencies. They have their uses and there are fortunes being made on them. I am however less than pleased with one of the consequences. That being the shortages, and resultant price rise of video cards.
 
I don't think serious miners are going to be thwarted by any attempt to sell cards in alternate ways. If you limit the quantity, they have ways around it. If you have other prereqs, they have ways around it.
 
B4 the "if you can't afford to overpay $$$ for a luxury good, maybe you should choose another hobby" types open up their yaps, it is the principal principle.


But what else is there to say besides this? Consumer-grade GPUs are made primarily for the purpose of playing video games, which is honestly a complete waste of time for anyone who isn't playing E-sports and making money off of doing so. Anyone using GPUs in some professional capacity probably isn't buying the ~$300-500 consumer grade cards anyway (they probably don't even buy the cards themselves), so they really weren't affected by the shortage. And anyone who isn't looking to play games on their PC isn't in the market for a gaming GPU anyway as they most likely have an iGPU that does everything they need it to. What exactly is there to cry about, just because people who are looking to waste their time playing games on their computers can't do so affordably?

I'm not trying to rile you up or anything, I honestly do not understand what the outrage is about, just because people who are looking to upgrade for the sake of running games at higher resolutions or detail settings can't do so at the prices they wanted, which were in place for nearly 2 years before they spiked to current levels.
 
I don't think serious miners are going to be thwarted by any attempt to sell cards in alternate ways. If you limit the quantity, they have ways around it. If you have other prereqs, they have ways around it.
I am sure they do. Just looking to delay them long enough so that at least some gamers have a shot at them. This waiting around 6 weeks just to find a card at something near MSRP, and then having it sell out in minutes is rather annoying.

But what else is there to say besides this? Consumer-grade GPUs are made primarily for the purpose of playing video games, which is honestly a complete waste of time for anyone who isn't playing E-sports and making money off of doing so. Anyone using GPUs in some professional capacity probably isn't buying the ~$300-500 consumer grade cards anyway (they probably don't even buy the cards themselves), so they really weren't affected by the shortage. And anyone who isn't looking to play games on their PC isn't in the market for a gaming GPU anyway as they most likely have an iGPU that does everything they need it to. What exactly is there to cry about, just because people who are looking to waste their time playing games on their computers can't do so affordably?

I'm not trying to rile you up or anything, I honestly do not understand what the outrage is about, just because people who are looking to upgrade for the sake of running games at higher resolutions or detail settings can't do so at the prices they wanted, which were in place for nearly 2 years before they spiked to current levels.

I am not really outraged, though some certainly are. (LOL, some are at the lynch the crypto miners stage.) It just pisses me off a bit that when I try to buy just one of something like this, and you can't because someone else had to have 26 of them. 6 weeks later I get a notification that, that item is back in stock and I click my mouse over immediately to that site and see that it is $150 over MSRP. Ouch, oh well, I really want to game so I pull the trigger only for the things to have sold out within 10 minutes of me receiving that email and going to try and buy one. The price is annoying, the waiting around and still not getting the product even at an inflated price that is really irksome. In any case I am just looking for ways the gaming community believe might get gamers get the first shot at these cards. Preferably at or around MSRP.
I have no intention or arguing the merits of crypto, or about the laws of supply and demand for luxury items. I think everyone is aware how that works. I am looking for ways the industry could circumvent that, at least short term, for the next major card releases.
 
You don't. They don't care who buys them. They want to sell cards. Make money. Do you really think they are going to cry "Poor Jimmy and others don't have a card to game with, I will find a way to not sell to miners and have lots of stock sitting here."

There are cards to get at MSRP or close. Just have to watch.
 
You don't. They don't care who buys them. They want to sell cards. Make money. Do you really think they are going to cry "Poor Jimmy and others don't have a card to game with, I will find a way to not sell to miners and have lots of stock sitting here."

This. This is the new normal, sadly.
 
I personally cant wait until crypto crashes and the market gets flooded with cheap used GPUs and new GPU sales plummet.

And to answer your question, nope, nothing you can do it's the new norm.
 
Gorankar

I think your idea is solid with the Orgin or Steam account - but you'd have to get EA or Steam to partner with them. That's probably not going to happen. EA and Steam don't have a storefront - they deal in digital goods primary -- meaning they aren't manned up for a giant shipping warehouse/distribution function of physical goods.
EVGA did something similar with their EVGA club limitation. You had to have bought two items from EVGA in the past in order to join their club and some of the GPU's were for club members only.

Nvidia and AMD do want to sell cards to gamers, but they aren't opposed in the least to also sell them to miners. The cold facts are that it's cheaper, and more efficient for NVidia (or retailers) to sell 8 cards in one package to one crypto currency miner address than 8 cards to 8 different individual gamers. I bet in a steady crypto market, the miners make for less product returns too. They don't try to stuff a premium graphics card in a OEM computer with an inadequate power supply and inadequate airflow...ETC.

The physical version of the mining cards is a great idea, but they need to not be stripped down pieces of crap that nobody wants like they tried to do last time with the Nvidia p106. (slower than a 1060, 90 day warranty, and no I/O function so resale was low --- then to add insult to injury they were priced higher MSRP than a standard 1060 6GB.) That's a load of crap and not the way to divert sales from the 1060 6GB card it competed against. Instead make the mining GPUs slightly FASTER than the gaming version at the equivalent pricepoint. Make the cooling MUCH more sufficient (use thicker beefier fans exchanging cooling ability improvement for a louder sound profile, give it a longer 5 year warranty to the original registered purchaser which is a feel good and likely won't ever be called in (miner's won’t likely use a 5 year warranty because in 5 years that card won't be profitable based on difficulty increases), take away the I/O plate and for that matter the whole PCI-E plate.(professional miners don't often use typical cases and motherboards, so they don't need that airflow restriction -- just give it an easy set of holes to hang via zip tie on a bread rack, cut the RAM down (miners don't need 11GB of RAM for any algo - in fact I don't think any algo uses more than 4GB right now), and charge more for the card if you like. I'd pay more for that bullet list for a crypto card -- and I'd seek it out instead of gaming cards.

Don't bundle it with partner hardware like AMD did with Vega. That was a bullcrap self-serving move that wasn't for the gamer's benefit at all.
 
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I do not see any short term solutions. Graphics card makers want to make money, miners make them more money than gamers, the end.

Anyway, there are a gazillion older games or games that don't need cutting edge gpu's to play (minecraft, wow, Undertale, etc). Go play those for a while, forget about 4k gaming or Kingdom Come Deliverance. Unless you are rich and money is no object, in which case go and spend over msrp for a gtx 1080.
 
If the crypto-GPU market becomes permanent, then the supply will raise to meet demand.

GPU manufactures (well AMD, nVidia was taking notes though) were burned on bitcoin when it flipped to ASICs, they are leery to do so again without a bit more confidence in the mining market.

Sucks short term - will work itself out long term.

I am betting that ASICs/dedicated non-GPU specific boxes for these new coins come out sooner than later. Sure, a lot of people say it can’t be done, but I just don’t believe that.
 
EA and Steam don't have a storefront - they deal in digital goods primary -- meaning they aren't manned up for a giant shipping warehouse/distribution function of physical goods.

Steam does - you can buy SteamLinks and controllers via the Steam storefront. Blizzard and S/E do as well, I’m sure EA would as well quickly if they saw a good reason. They basically just partner with a physical distribution, not a difficult arrangement to make.
 
Maybe a pick and choose mobo+cpu+gpu+ram bundle that will give you priority?

Although, with the way ram prices are right now, I can see a majority of gamers wanting only a video card for now.
 
I don't think serious miners are going to be thwarted by any attempt to sell cards in alternate ways. If you limit the quantity, they have ways around it. If you have other prereqs, they have ways around it.
One can always social engineer their way around limits.
Look at MC for example. People still walked out and bragged about buying a dozen vid cards.

More power to them, and I've certainly abused the "Limit 1 per customer" terms in the past
(and will continue to do so), but in my case I'm talking about purchasing ~2 CPU/mobo combos
every few years, not dozens of video cards!
 
Simple solution, limit video card purchases too one video card per credit card, with a 30 day period in between purchases. No cash sales. If someone wants 20 or 200 cards, good luck. I guess someone could buy from 20 different website's, but what a pain in the ass that would be.
 
Simple solution, limit video card purchases too one video card per credit card, with a 30 day period in between purchases. No cash sales. If someone wants 20 or 200 cards, good luck. I guess someone could buy from 20 different website's, but what a pain in the ass that would be.
This is extremely ineffective. Every iPhone launch has limited quantities, so exporters will just have 200 people in the line, who they pay to buy phones on their behalf. Video cards would be no different. A miner will just drop $card+$50 on 1000 people with instructions to buy cards and welp, now they have 1000 video cards. Done.
 
Honestly, nVidia is going to have to block out mining on the driver level for their future gaming cards. It's the only way for them to solve this problem. Then sell a separate lineup of mining cards for higher prices with maybe a one year warranty. I doubt nVidia will do this though. They are profiting nicely from the current situation.
 
Save your money up.

Register an account at Amazon in advance.

Find out the exact time for the next GPU launch. I mean the exact hour for the launch down to the minute.

Camp the Amazon product page before the launch and refresh the page continuously.

When the GPU pops up buy it at MSRP immediately and checkout! Use Amazon as the seller.

Even if you have to click a link to find the page and miss the initial shipment, Amazon will allow you to continue to purchase them for up to 5 minutes. You might have to wait a couple of weeks before it ships, but you will get it.

Thank your neighborhood [H]ardocp family by posting with excitement that you got one!

Basically that's how I got my Vega 64 ordered at launch for MSRP.
 
How about NVIDIA and AMD and partners just rev up production instead of causing a fake shortage so they can jack up demand...
I have no idea what either company's max output could potentially be, but historically demand on the high end was limited to a very small pool of buyers since they were already so expensive relative to the next model down. They could keep the market for $600 video cards low by, well, making them $600, so they didn't need to dedicate a massive amount of resources to making those chips or cards. A $600 video card is a massive expense for ~gaming~ and most buyers of cards are gonna get stuff way closer to the mid-range or that next card higher. I'll safely assume that hey were not ready for a scenario where demand for high-end cards would go up exponentially overnight, and ramping up another plant or whatever to make more chips isn't something ya knock out in a weekend for pocket change.

I'm sure both companies are happy with the insane sales, but they also know they are hurting their reputations with gamers, and they also both know that mining always has the potential to fade off, but gamers are still gonna want cards.
 
How about NVIDIA and AMD and partners just rev up production instead of causing a fake shortage so they can jack up demand...

Since both AMD and nVidia outsource their chip production, they cannot suddenly increase production without renewing their contracts with the chip fabricators.
This can take several months.
 
Next gen low end midrange should sit somewhere where the RX 4/570 1060 6gb do now I would think.. That's going to end up a $200 card if it hits the market at the right time.

Prices are falling, and right now it's not hard to buy a 1080 TI for under $1k. Expensive, yup. But, the frenzy is ending. I'd bet mid April they will be in the $850 range. If your picky, 'better' cards will cost more, but they always have.. Also consider, the 1080 TI was not far at all behind the Titan XP, at just about half the cost. 1080 TI was probably priced too low from the get go if you think about it.
 
Since both AMD and nVidia outsource their chip production, they cannot suddenly increase production without renewing their contracts with the chip fabricators.
This can take several months.

This, on top of bitmain taking up all the fab time. Add in ram shortages and you have GPUs $100s over msrp.
 
Next gen low end midrange should sit somewhere where the RX 4/570 1060 6gb do now I would think.. That's going to end up a $200 card if it hits the market at the right time.

Prices are falling, and right now it's not hard to buy a 1080 TI for under $1k. Expensive, yup. But, the frenzy is ending. I'd bet mid April they will be in the $850 range. If your picky, 'better' cards will cost more, but they always have.. Also consider, the 1080 TI was not far at all behind the Titan XP, at just about half the cost. 1080 TI was probably priced too low from the get go if you think about it.

If I recall, Titan XP is more of a professional level card, rather than a Geforce for gaming consumers.
 
If I recall, Titan XP is more of a professional level card, rather than a Geforce for gaming consumers.

That is the Titan V, a $3,000 video card.. The TXP is under the Geforce gaming marque. Basically a 1080 TI is a very slightly gimped TXP, at the original MSRP of $700 vs the $1200 TXP
 
Right now video card makers have little incentive to cater to gamers when crypto is rolling in profits by the truckload. They might end up getting burned big time down the road though.

If this keeps up long enough, it might stagnate the market for high-end gaming as developers scale back to making titles with more modest requirements, which in turn opens the door for Intel to take over with their "good enough" on-board solutions,.
If it takes years before crypto crashes, Intel would have the opportunity to steadily improve their on-board solutions during that time, improving to the point where developers can start ramping up high-end gaming again.
Years from now nVidia and AMD could wake up from the crypto crash to find a gaming market that Intel has quietly taken over (and improved), with users that now have really good on-board solutions and little desire for discreet graphics cards, perhaps looking back at them fondly like we do with discreet sound cards today..
 
Years from now nVidia and AMD could wake up from the crypto crash to find a gaming market that Android devices have quietly taken over (and improved), with users that now have really good on-board solutions and little desire for discreet graphics cards, perhaps looking back at them fondly like we do with discreet sound cards today..
Fixed that for you.
 
Right now video card makers have little incentive to cater to gamers when crypto is rolling in profits by the truckload. They might end up getting burned big time down the road though.

If this keeps up long enough, it might stagnate the market for high-end gaming as developers scale back to making titles with more modest requirements, which in turn opens the door for Intel to take over with their "good enough" on-board solutions,.
If it takes years before crypto crashes, Intel would have the opportunity to steadily improve their on-board solutions during that time, improving to the point where developers can start ramping up high-end gaming again.
Years from now nVidia and AMD could wake up from the crypto crash to find a gaming market that Intel has quietly taken over (and improved), with users that now have really good on-board solutions and little desire for discreet graphics cards, perhaps looking back at them fondly like we do with discreet sound cards today..
Agree with the concept but it would be AMD, not intel. AMD has a big advantage with APU's and the 2200g/2400g. Those chips compete well with the gtx 1030 and can run less demanding games at 1080p medium settings.
 
They can check things like geforce experience, steam hours played, oculus hours played, Windows store hours played, etc (basically check all of the major software stores as they all track hours played) if they really care. Use that to determine who are actual gamers and go from there.
 
Any gamers that want a card will get the card. They just need to know nowinstock.net or similar websites that show stock availability and alerts to order.
If you are too casual about it, then maybe you don't deserve a card.
 
Any gamers that want a card will get the card. They just need to know nowinstock.net or similar websites that show stock availability and alerts to order.
If you are too casual about it, then maybe you don't deserve a card.

That does not really compute, because some people can't drop what they are doing to order a card when an alert comes.. Your basically saying people that work hard instead of goofing off don't deserve a card.
 
How about NVIDIA and AMD and partners just rev up production instead of causing a fake shortage so they can jack up demand...
This and Nvidia, AMD, and AIBs do a direct to consumer sales. Cut out the middleman and stop relying on retailers. Fuck retailers, if they can't stop succumbing to greed don't reward them with a purchase. MRSP or no sale.
 
If they don't learn from anything else. Mining should be banned, and not because of gpu prices.
 
What people are forgetting about is the scalpers. They are going to hit the new cards hard to flip to miners I bet.
 
I like the idea of AMD and Nvidia being sold (one per customer) at the MSRP in the Steam store front to "proven" gamers

Both companies purport to "Put gamers first" , so maybe we should start a petition to have AMD and Nvidia put their money where their mouth is and contract with Steam.
Steam would benefit from players buying high dollar GPU driven titles, instead of $0.99 specials due to lack of GPU power. Win=Win.
Likely never going to happen but I've eaten my words before.


Anyone want to start a petition?
 
I hear everyone touting the endless benefits of blockchain tech that this cryptocurrency boom is supposed to promote... I propose someone figure out how to use blockchain to solve this problem, then I'll believe it is a cure-all for all problems.
 
But what else is there to say besides this? Consumer-grade GPUs are made primarily for the purpose of playing video games, which is honestly a complete waste of time for anyone who isn't playing E-sports and making money off of doing so. Anyone using GPUs in some professional capacity probably isn't buying the ~$300-500 consumer grade cards anyway (they probably don't even buy the cards themselves), so they really weren't affected by the shortage. And anyone who isn't looking to play games on their PC isn't in the market for a gaming GPU anyway as they most likely have an iGPU that does everything they need it to. What exactly is there to cry about, just because people who are looking to waste their time playing games on their computers can't do so affordably?

I'm not trying to rile you up or anything, I honestly do not understand what the outrage is about, just because people who are looking to upgrade for the sake of running games at higher resolutions or detail settings can't do so at the prices they wanted, which were in place for nearly 2 years before they spiked to current levels.

Couldn't agree more.

PC gaming is, and always will be, ultimately a rich kids game. There just happened to a be a freakish era about 5 years back where the cost of a PC wasn't too far off what Console buyers were willing pay be for their consoles (that started to do more than play games). Hardware competition was fierce. But now it's back to normal again. All I can see that's changed is CPU and GPU have switched in terms of how much you pay for them.

I pay now for my GPU what I did for my CPU 20 years ago. :cool:
 
They can check things like geforce experience, steam hours played, oculus hours played, Windows store hours played, etc (basically check all of the major software stores as they all track hours played) if they really care. Use that to determine who are actual gamers and go from there.
No company is going to go through the all that bs. They don't care. Their cards are selling and that is all they care about. You think these companies can't figure out how to stop it and co
I like the idea of AMD and Nvidia being sold (one per customer) at the MSRP in the Steam store front to "proven" gamers

Both companies purport to "Put gamers first" , so maybe we should start a petition to have AMD and Nvidia put their money where their mouth is and contract with Steam.
Steam would benefit from players buying high dollar GPU driven titles, instead of $0.99 specials due to lack of GPU power. Win=Win.
Likely never going to happen but I've eaten my words before.


Anyone want to start a petition?
Not happening. They are making a killing atm. Why cut themselves off at the knees? So what if they piss gamers off? It is not like they have anywhere else to go for GPUs. AMD is in the same boat making a killing. I have a hard time seeing Nvidia/AMD putting out money and time to do a collaboration with value to make less money. I also expect future AMD/Nvidia card to go up in base MSRP too.
 
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