Micro Center Will Sell You a GPU at MSRP If It’s for Gaming, Not Mining

Chunder said:
Because making "big bucks" with cryptocurrency is like becoming a billionaire in Monolopy. You can't spend it on anything. The sheep, however, are enriching those at the top of the pyramid scheme.
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That's really weird -- my mortgage and car note don't exist anymore thanks to early investments in crypto. Would you harbor this much hate for anyone that bought Tesla stock for $30 back in the day? Or Apple stock for 75 cents a share in the mid 90s?
 
Something really needs to be done about this. Some of us are trying to make an honest living and these "gamers" are just overgrown man-children trying to escape from reality. Dude you are in your thirties and still playing games! time to grow up and be a big boy and stop stealing the bread out of my hands. Everyone knows there are things called consoles that can be bought for a reasonable price that can do these same things but gamers are all "4k this, peasants that" 4K? what about my 401k??? lately i haven't been able to buy any new cards and the difficulty is going up daily!

I can think of some basic solutions to this problem.

1. Nvidia could make changes to their drivers to disable gaming. Like seriously, these things are made for productivity and not wasting time and ruining the environment.
2. Windows could be sold with a surcharge since everyone know you need windows for gaming.
3. Evga and other realtailers can start selling GPU's without display out ports. This would certainly block their usage for trivial things like gaming
4. Large surplus tax for electricity bill for gamers. Make them pay extra for wasting all that time and damaging our environment

Its just a bubble really and one day they will wake up and realize the trail of tears and broken families they left behind.
 
Hakaba said:
I see the classic damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
While I am a miner and like some of your points it’s foolish to think it will replace FIAT and that it is more secure. If that happened, it would be government made/controlled most likely will not happen within i the next couple generations. As for it being more secure, it fluctuates to easily due to manipulation and only a few places might give you back missing/stolen currency.
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When I said move away, I should have been more clear. I meant more of provide an alternative. I doubt fiat will go away. Cyrpto has the value we assign to it and they coins (most of them) have a finite quantity or a quantity that goes down over time. You are right, the values are too variable right now. It will likely be that way for the next 5-8 years. It will stabilize.
 
Chunder said:
Because making "big bucks" with cryptocurrency is like becoming a billionaire in Monolopy. You can't spend it on anything. The sheep, however, are enriching those at the top of the pyramid scheme.
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No. You can have your own opinion but you can't have your own facts. That has not been true since the guy bought a pizza for what is worth around $7 million in bitcoin's current price. It turns out crypto is more like gold and stocks, right now, it is great for big transactions, and in the future it will be even easier than cash.

It's just a baby right now, works quite well and is getting better and better. There is lots of information out there that you would be really surprised if you knew. You have to look, it won't fall in your lap.
 
Chunder said:
Because making "big bucks" with cryptocurrency is like becoming a billionaire in Monolopy. You can't spend it on anything. The sheep, however, are enriching those at the top of the pyramid scheme.
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You might not be able to spend it on anything, but you damn sure can exchange it for cold hard cash.... It won't and can't stay this way forever, but mining is stupid profitable right now, which is why GPUs are unobtainium.
 
triwolf said:
So he spent an extra $800 dollars to get a new system, he does have that going for him, and Microcenter loves that he dropped cash in their store. Still a lot to drop to save only $100, he could have mined that in 3 weeks.
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He is a HUGE anti crypto person so can’t convince him to go try that. Also I pitched a used gtx 950 or 960 as a better priced option to no avail.

It’s a budget build for his Dad and we needed all the parts so other that he gouging on the gpu the other pricing is decent. His old system was Phenom2.

1300x, Asus B350 Prime and 8G Ram. Just under 300 for that. Then the “deal” on the 1050ti added 219. Toss on an cheap Evga psu for 44 and pushing 600 after tax and all.

Still about 100-150 too much but they wanted it now so...
 
This deal doesn't help me much, I've got a 8600K / z370 board already but have a GTX 970 but at current pricing I don't wanna purchase a new card. Then again I game at 1080p / 144Hz so the GTX 970 is doing pretty fine still.
 
collegeboy69us said:
That's like me saying: "I hope the NFL collapses and goes bankrupt because I don't like sports or how some football games interrupt my favorite shows".
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Actually it would be more like if you didn't like NFL football but all other TV shows were taken off the air and replaced with NFL shows and games.

Gamers are the ones getting the shaft here. Manufacturers are happy because their overpriced GPU's are selling out as soon as they hit the shelves, miners are happy because they're buying GPU's out of stock constantly in some weird kind of frenzy but gamers are left using their 4+ year old GPU's because they either can't find an upgrade in stock or it's marked up 400%.

Ironic because it's the gamers that made and sustained the GPU industry and it'll be the gamers that support it again once this stupid crypto bubble bursts but for right now, we're out in the cold.
 
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I'm more concerned for pc gaming developers in the timeframe 3-5 or so years unless changes are made. Not so fun if the cryptocurrencies crashes hard at some point for the GPU manufacturers either if they play all cards into compute oriented market. If current status keeps up, it will lead to developers closing doors because there's not enough pc gamers left in the market to keep the business suistanable. The real effect of cryptomining will be seen after years from now on. For console game developers it's probably nice though as they will start to see more shift from pc to consoles.
 
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NIVO said:
BestBuy is NOT selling at MSRP or close to MSRP at all. Just looked and a PNY GTX 1060 3gb is going for $449. Not even close
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Wow that’s nuts! I bought 2 GTX 1060 6gb cards in November for $280 each on Amazon.
 
RPGWiZaRD said:
I'm more concerned for pc gaming developers in the timeframe 3-5 or so years unless changes are made. Not so fun if the cryptocurrencies crashes hard at some point for the GPU manufacturers either if they play all cards into compute oriented market. If current status keeps up, it will lead to developers closing doors because there's not enough pc gamers left in the market to keep the business suistanable. The real effect of cryptomining will be seen after years from now on. For console game developers it's probably nice though as they will start to see more shift from pc to consoles.
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I honestly don't think this will happen. For one, this crypto fad can't last forever. This bubble has lasted longer than the last one did but I can't see it continuing like this for long. But most of all, I don't see enough PC gamers giving up the best gaming format to go to 30 FPS and a slow console controller. After all these years playing with a keyboard and mouse, I couldn't ever go back to a controller and 144 FPS vs 30? Not even close.

The saving grace here will be that at least right now, unless you're at 4K you don't really "need" a high end GPU because games aren't all that more demanding than they were a few years ago. So I would think this crypto fad would hurt the 4K market more than the developers.
 
Tuff crowd.. sounds like slot of miners here.

Anyways.. there not doing anyone any favors with there discount.

I called last week and was told after a long was spew that I need to buy a qualifying cpu/motherboard and ram to get s massive $300 discount from buying a $1500 1080ti.

Still $400 over normal price!!!
Get serious!

I expected a $700 discount!

There site says see manager for discount to me means each store will be different.. so whatecer they feal they can get from ya I guess.

I've been going to microcenter prob over 10 year now and love it if this really has put a bad taste in my mouth.

I managed to grab a 1080ti ftw3 hybrid straight from evga.com a few days ago for $860 plus shipping.

Now you must be an elite member to qualify to buy one when in stock.
 
Hold up! Now they dropped there new policy!

Just checked to see if anyone bought one cause forever they had the Asus rog strix for $1500 and 10+ in stock..

Now they have a bunch of cards and lowered the prices to around $900!

No big red statement about needing to see byo department for store discount..

Now it's just see store for discount. So maybe there to ally selling for normal price??
 
whoismoes said:
I know you guys are going to roast me because I am a miner and this is my first post here..... I've been visiting [H] for 15 years or so and lurking these forums...

This policy at MC is a joke. It helps no one except MC and the scum that cell video cards for 2.5x the price on craigslist.

Just this year I've purchased 42 GPUs at MSRP or very close to it. You have to do the work and find the right prices. MC's policy is making that a lot harder for me, but I'm holding off buying new GPUs until new architectures come out.

My MC video card shelves used to be empty. Now they are full. Where are all the gamers? They are all still playing their games (I'm a gamer too) unwilling to buy a new CPU, memory, and motherboard just for the privilege of getting a video card. This policy won't last long at MC. Soon some executive is going to notice the hit on their bottom line. It turns out it is more profitable to sell me 6 GPUs than it is to sell one of you (or no one) a GPU, processor, motherboard, memory...

Video cards are not scarce because of people like me. They are scarce because ASUS, MSI, EVGA, ... sell cards to mega farms in the bulk. I know a guy that I have actually met in person that buys video cards 1000 cards at a time. He is big time, I am small time. It's his right. He isn't selling drugs. He (and I) are helping to create new ways to transacting business. Crypto is the future. Crypto currencies, commodities, collectables... they are here to say.

When someone steals your gaming rig, I'm not going to say yea, get those gamers. (none of my coins have been taken).

ASUS, MSI, EVGA, .... could all sell more cards if they wanted to. However, they all know that new architectures are coming from both nvidia and amd and they don't want to be left with inventory.

For those of you who think AMD and nvidia don't like miners... take a look at the "compute" setting in your AMD drivers or these special blockchain optimized drivers.

I would love it if there was a larger supply of video cards. I really would. Like I said, I've gotten 42 of them just this year for near MSRP. I probably tried harder.

I can also tell that a lot of you don't know very much about crypto (some of you do). It would be worth researching this stuff. I know it can be boring, but you have this thing in your office, basement, bedroom that can help you get a little $$$ back and also help us move away from fiat currencies to something more secure.

Let me note that the crypto that was taken in this article wasn't weak, the security provided by the exchange was. Also, the first rule of crypto is to never keep your crypto in an exchange...

I am not a crypto expert, but I do know a fair share including how to get started, what the real ROI is, what taxes you HAVE to pay! Let me know if you have questions...
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hey man I saw your post on that gpu forum and I was curious what coins are worth mining for someone like me that has a single 1080? Or the best way to get started?
 
TheHig said:
He is a HUGE anti crypto person so can’t convince him to go try that. Also I pitched a used gtx 950 or 960 as a better priced option to no avail.

It’s a budget build for his Dad and we needed all the parts so other that he gouging on the gpu the other pricing is decent. His old system was Phenom2.

1300x, Asus B350 Prime and 8G Ram. Just under 300 for that. Then the “deal” on the 1050ti added 219. Toss on an cheap Evga psu for 44 and pushing 600 after tax and all.

Still about 100-150 too much but they wanted it now so...
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I understand. Really not sure what people think or heard or read about cryptocoins to hate them so much. Lots of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) being spread probably by people that will lie so that there are more cards available and the coins are easier to mine. The problem is if people don't mine and use the coins it will not grow. Better to inform people of the truth and allow them to form an opinion. Except people are hard to convince of the fact their thinking is all wrong.
 
MacLeod said:
I honestly don't think this will happen. For one, this crypto fad can't last forever. This bubble has lasted longer than the last one did but I can't see it continuing like this for long. But most of all, I don't see enough PC gamers giving up the best gaming format to go to 30 FPS and a slow console controller. After all these years playing with a keyboard and mouse, I couldn't ever go back to a controller and 144 FPS vs 30? Not even close.

The saving grace here will be that at least right now, unless you're at 4K you don't really "need" a high end GPU because games aren't all that more demanding than they were a few years ago. So I would think this crypto fad would hurt the 4K market more than the developers.
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Can the Fiat money fad last forever? Crypto coins are based on Blockchain technology that has many many uses. Not sure why there is such hate and disdain for crypto. Did it take your ice cream cone as a kid? LOL
 
whoismoes said:
When I said move away, I should have been more clear. I meant more of provide an alternative. I doubt fiat will go away. Cyrpto has the value we assign to it and they coins (most of them) have a finite quantity or a quantity that goes down over time. You are right, the values are too variable right now. It will likely be that way for the next 5-8 years. It will stabilize.
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I agree with the assigned value that we give it and that’s what trips up 99% of the people who hate it. Whenever they say it’s worthless the market cap can be pointed out, when they said it cant be used for purchases Centra is there to show them wrong (other options are available).

I have no lambo or to the moon dreams with my spread of coins, at the markets best it was nearing 40K and currently around 20k, all from an initial buy in of 750$. The market part for me is an experiment and it makes me glad I am not a day trader and more of a long term holder.
 
braamer said:
At least Microcenter is trying to do something to help the PC gaming market. These video card prices are ridiculous. I cannot wait until cryptocurrency collapses or gets over-regulated by the government.
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How about stores stop jacking up their prices.....oh wait.. its a business.
 
I'd rather spend $920-950 plus tax and a manufactures warranty for a 1080ti then grabbing one new off the forums right now for $1100-1200! Haha

There selling quick at my local mc.. evga brand sold out fast.. all that's left is asus and msi brands.
 
triwolf said:
Can the Fiat money fad last forever? Crypto coins are based on Blockchain technology that has many many uses. Not sure why there is such hate and disdain for crypto. Did it take your ice cream cone as a kid? LOL
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No not my ice cream but all the crypto kids are buying all the GPU's in a wild feeding frenzy wiping out stocks and causing the price to jump a couple hundred percent all for a fad that will most likely collapse just like bitcoin did. Selfish as it may be, I think a little hate is justified.
 
Yeah for me ,the angst and rage is more out of frustration due to not enough GPUs to go around and prices skyrocketing. If gamers and miners alike could get cards at normal prices a lot of it would dissipate. Im squarely in that camp. Pissed about wanting an upgrade and none to be had for reasonable expense. Miners don’t piss me off. Everyone has hobbies it’s just that this crypto craze is messing with mine.
 
MacLeod said:
No not my ice cream but all the crypto kids are buying all the GPU's in a wild feeding frenzy wiping out stocks and causing the price to jump a couple hundred percent all for a fad that will most likely collapse just like bitcoin did. Selfish as it may be, I think a little hate is justified.
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TheHig said:
Yeah for me ,the angst and rage is more out of frustration due to not enough GPUs to go around and prices skyrocketing. If gamers and miners alike could get cards at normal prices a lot of it would dissipate. Im squarely in that camp. Pissed about wanting an upgrade and none to be had for reasonable expense. Miners don’t piss me off. Everyone has hobbies it’s just that this crypto craze is messing with mine.
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I get a kick out of the complaints and conjecture that occurred when Vega 56 and 64 was released and look where we are now. :D That 290x and GTX 980 are still very good cards though, so you just have to wait it out. Others waited to long and lost out, at least for now.
 
ManofGod said:
I get a kick out of the complaints and conjecture that occurred when Vega 56 and 64 was released and look where we are now. :D That 290x and GTX 980 are still very good cards though, so you just have to wait it out. Others waited to long and lost out, at least for now.
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Waiting it out is what I decided. I cashed in by selling a 1070, 2 rx480s , an rx 580 to miners and finally bought a used 980 for 175 bucks locally. Used the funds to build my Ryzen box almost for free. This was months ago and my only real regret if you could even call it that is not having those cards to sell now for even more profits! Lol. All the gaming I do is fine on the 980 honestly.
 
Spaceninja said:
So they are giving you a break if you buy another $500/$1000 worth of components. Wonder how many mobo/processor combos are going to be returned in the near future. I use to work for them in KC a long time ago. Wasn't a bad company to work for, the general manager needed some work but the assistants were always cool.
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I hear the guys on the floor don't get paid very well, and the service in my local MC kinda reflects that. They're usually helpful but they feel understaffed and poorly managed.
 
Emission said:
I hear the guys on the floor don't get paid very well, and the service in my local MC kinda reflects that. They're usually helpful but they feel understaffed and poorly managed.
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That could be today. I was a lead cashier, but worked more on the sales floor than I did up front. The sales guys work on commission or something. No idea how they do things now. Keep in mind I worked for them 18 years ago.
 
Bdonedge said:
hey man I saw your post on that gpu forum and I was curious what coins are worth mining for someone like me that has a single 1080? Or the best way to get started?
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If you want to mine with your current card you have to first figure out what algorithms it is good at. A 1080 is good at Equihash (think ZCash, BitcoinGold) and NeoScrypt (think GoByte). They are also ok for Ethash (think Ether <Ethereum>).

Next you need to look at the coins that use those algorithms and figure out which one(s) you believe in. If you want to mine the hard yet likely most profitable ways you will have to look at youtube tutorials for these coins, that is the best way to learn. If you want to quickly point and click you way to mining, look up nicehash tutorials on youtube. It will mine what is most profitable for your hardware at a given time and pay you out in bitcoin.

Take a look at http://whattomine.com for your 1080...

https://whattomine.com/coins?utf8=✓...hanges][]=yobit&dataset=Main&commit=Calculate
 
BTW guys, Microcenter has already given up. I was just in there today, picked up another 570 4GB for near MSRP. Other miners where there also, no gamers to be found.
 
I heard on Saturday during the daily meeting that this idea is longer happening. The backlash on social media was to much even from non miners. Good idea in theory, not so much in practice. Still limiting to 1 GPU per month, at least thats whats supposed to happen, I think YMMV from store to store as management at my store makes sure this is followed but IDK about other stores.

Spaceninja said:
That could be today. I was a lead cashier, but worked more on the sales floor than I did up front. The sales guys work on commission or something. No idea how they do things now. Keep in mind I worked for them 18 years ago.
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Nope still that way. I just recently started working for them and the sales guys still work off commision.
 
Fuckin weaklings. Damn you Microcenter!

Uykskpw.gif
 
whoismoes said:
BTW guys, Microcenter has already given up. I was just in there today, picked up another 570 4GB for near MSRP. Other miners where there also, no gamers to be found.
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It's like a feeding frenzy, only the quick and smart survive! I am glad I got several cards for under msrp in June 2017 gaming and mining, just wait it out haters, if you work at it and try to find a way to check stocks you can win. A smart idea would be to wait until the next generation cards come out and pray Nvidia makes plenty for the launch. I also did hear a rumor ATI cards would be coming back in stock in just a few weeks, save your pennies!
 
Title of thread is clickbait. Fake News.

It isn’t gamers that microcenter is willing to sell a GPU for MSRP, it’s system builders.
 
Spaceninja said:
That could be today. I was a lead cashier, but worked more on the sales floor than I did up front. The sales guys work on commission or something. No idea how they do things now. Keep in mind I worked for them 18 years ago.
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IIRC I chatted with one of the newer sales guys at the Paterson NJ Micro Center and they get paid something like $4/hr + commission. Doesn't seem that great but I have no idea what percentage of the sales they get. If the way the store is run is any indication then I would say it's not great.
 
Emission said:
IIRC I chatted with one of the newer sales guys at the Paterson NJ Micro Center and they get paid something like $4/hr + commission. Doesn't seem that great but I have no idea what percentage of the sales they get. If the way the store is run is any indication then I would say it's not great.
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I have a friend/co-worker who worked at microcenter in the last few years in the Kansas location. He said the good full time salesmen earned ~ $80,000 a year. He only worked there part time.
 
Archaea said:
I have a friend/co-worker who worked at microcenter in the last few years in the Kansas location. He said the good full time salesmen earned ~ $80,000 a year. He only worked there part time.
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That is the one I worked at. Some of the salesmen hustled and made good money, even for Johnson County. With declining PC sales overall I can see that not being the case today. There isn't any margin on those machines so not sure where they are making their money.
 
When I shop and MC and pick something up off the shelf, I always ask one of the sales people to put their sticker on it so they get credit.
 
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