Newsflash: traditional media tells us something we already know

Yes and no, Sony and MS get 80% of AMD's stock for consoles - so based on their idea, there should be no shortage of consoles in the world... and yet there is, because it is not solely GPU's, but all of the resources that go into them and shortages of all of those supplies and over demand from all of these people being at home and requiring computers and such.

Computer sales are up hundreds of %'s, so now you have OEM's also getting the few cards that are out and the final stores are getting shafted for inventory.

Now, you do have OEM's and NVIDIA selling direct to massive miners, doesnt help...but crypto is not by any means the only reason there is a shortage.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Yes and no, Sony and MS get 80% of AMD's stock for consoles - so based on their idea, there should be no shortage of consoles in the world... and yet there is, because it is not solely GPU's, but all of the resources that go into them and shortages of all of those supplies and over demand from all of these people being at home and requiring computers and such.

Computer sales are up hundreds of %'s, so now you have OEM's also getting the few cards that are out and the final stores are getting shafted for inventory.

Now, you do have OEM's and NVIDIA selling direct to massive miners, doesnt help...but crypto is not by any means the only reason there is a shortage.
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But AMD also has not been meeting Sony and Microsoft’s demands either they both have been shorted about 1/3’rd of their contracted number of chips and they both called AMD out on that to their investors for their lower than expected sales on the consoles.
But yes there is far more demand for home PC’s and Laptops and most kids are smart enough to know the onboard IGP’s don’t cut it.
It’s one of the reasons Intel’s launch for the DG1 there is key. I’ve brought in a lot of SFF towers with low profile 1030’s and they do what’s needed but I would take the DG1 over them any day of the week.
 
Crypto is for sure putting a pressure on the prices (so the second hand market pricing following ETH make total sense), but like the other point out, not sure how easy it would be to simply by a GPU on bestbuy.com right now without that phenomenon, considering I cannot buy a PS5 either (or Kayak life vests in the outdoor store the other day or many items having either a supply issue or a jump in demand).

And if buying complete pre-build just to get the gpu is not common among miners, like for console, those should be easy to get that way has well (but perhaps they are)
 
Anyone know the relative efficiency of the console GPUs compared to the retail? I'm wondering if some of the 'gobbled up to scalp' consoles did not get busted up for the gpu given the ridiculous price of the cards.

Functionally, MS and Sony are selling the consoles either at cost or at a loss b/c they're making money on the game environment rather than selling hardware - so I don't suspect them of doing it, but a few clever scalpers might have
 
DarkSideA8 said:
Anyone know the relative efficiency of the console GPUs compared to the retail? I'm wondering if some of the 'gobbled up to scalp' consoles did not get busted up for the gpu given the ridiculous price of the cards.

Functionally, MS and Sony are selling the consoles either at cost or at a loss b/c they're making money on the game environment rather than selling hardware - so I don't suspect them of doing it, but a few clever scalpers might have
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You can not take the GPU out of a console and put it in your PC. They are not the same cards used. the GPU's in consoles are soldered onto the mainboards.
 
MrGuvernment said:
You can not take the GPU out of a console and put it in your PC. They are not the same cards used. the GPU's in consoles are soldered onto the mainboards.
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I meant miners stripping them - I don't know what those guys can do with the stuff (nor do I know much about the innards of consoles having never messed with them either)
 
I guess anything is possible, also cracking the bootloader on a console and installing Linux (or whatever) could be theoretically possible. AFAIK it hasn't been done.

Miners have been known to buy up laptops, and it seems laptops are mostly in stock and probably compete with consoles in terms of power (at least w/ high end gaming laptops), so this would make more sense cause it wouldn't require sophisticated hardware hacking.
 
cybereality said:
I guess anything is possible, also cracking the bootloader on a console and installing Linux (or whatever) could be theoretically possible. AFAIK it hasn't been done.

Miners have been known to buy up laptops, and it seems laptops are mostly in stock and probably compete with consoles in terms of power (at least w/ high end gaming laptops), so this would make more sense cause it wouldn't require sophisticated hardware hacking.
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Rooting and loading a desktop OS would be more likely. Pulling the GPU from a console would be a LOT of work. You would have to basically construct a whole MB around the SoC, make the BIOS/FW, and possibly write some (or a lot of) driver code.
 
Yeah, that is what I was getting at. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if people know how to do it, but the amount of work and difficulty of the endeavor doesn't seem like good ROI.

Especially when you can just use bots to buy GPUs, or use gaming laptops, or just pay scalper prices if you think it makes sense for the operation.
 
DarkSideA8 said:
Once I read they are soldered on, I figured as much.
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Just to play devil's advocate here, aren't there a few laptop CPUs that were soldered onto LGA boards so they could be used in desktop motherboards? Pretty sure I've seen a couple of LTT videos finding them from places like AliExpress. If that's physically possible to do, it's got to be physically possible to do it to an Xbox, too. I mean, that doesn't address the rest of the stuff mentioned up-thread, making up a new board, drivers, etc.
 
1_rick said:
Just to play devil's advocate here, aren't there a few laptop CPUs that were soldered onto LGA boards so they could be used in desktop motherboards? Pretty sure I've seen a couple of LTT videos finding them from places like AliExpress. If that's physically possible to do, it's got to be physically possible to do it to an Xbox, too. I mean, that doesn't address the rest of the stuff mentioned up-thread, making up a new board, drivers, etc.
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I'm no expert - but I'm pretty sure you can solder something on to another something and use it better than you can chisel something soldered off of another something and then use it.
 
1_rick said:
Just to play devil's advocate here, aren't there a few laptop CPUs that were soldered onto LGA boards so they could be used in desktop motherboards? Pretty sure I've seen a couple of LTT videos finding them from places like AliExpress. If that's physically possible to do, it's got to be physically possible to do it to an Xbox, too. I mean, that doesn't address the rest of the stuff mentioned up-thread, making up a new board, drivers, etc.
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In the past mITX boards with current generation BGA laptop chips soldiered on were available on Newegg for people making low power SFF builds. I didn't see any recent ones in a quick look today, but between Intel offering 35W T processors on one hand, and NUC type systems on the other hand the market for laptop mobos in desktop form factor probably has withered away.
 
cybereality said:
Not true. People have got Linux running on PS3 and PS4, as well as homebrew apps.

This dude is playing PC games from Steam on a PS4:

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old firmware doesn't count imo, and no one's going to even consider something as old as a PS3 anyway, my point is that the mitigation is effective enough to exclude consoles from worthwhile mining equipment

I don't see miners seeking out EOL consoles with specific firmware, dedicating time to jailbreaking each one individually. I don't see anyone developing mining clients for closed platforms like Sonys and Microsofts, it just doesn't make sense at all
 
I understand. I was more talking about cracking next-gen consoles, I used the PS3/4 as historical precedent of this happening.

In any case, consoles are impossible to find today, so it doesn't really help anyone to go down this road.
 
cybereality said:
consoles are impossible to find today,
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Which is why I questioned whether some of them got snatched up for mining.

Clearly a faulty speculation - but given how many GPUs have ended up in the hands of the assh miners it was worth asking the question
 
DarkSideA8 said:
I'm no expert - but I'm pretty sure you can solder something on to another something and use it better than you can chisel something soldered off of another something and then use it.
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Rework stations. Superheated air will melt the solder, if done carefully.
 
Blaming them for it entirely is pretty short sighted. There are a number of other issues contributing. The biggest is just the chip shortage at Samsung and TSMC. They make chips for everything, everyone wants a piece, there is more demand than supply and building a new fab takes years and billions so it isn't happening tomorrow. Along those lines demand is another aspect. People want new electronic toys in record numbers. So they get snapped up fast, there is just so much demand that there is no way to meet it easily. Add on top of that scalpers. Because people are impatient, they'll pay a price premium to have their toy now and jerks are taking advantage of that, which further reduces available stuff on shelves.

Crypto miners then, of course, add to all that shit. They create more demand than there would be otherwise and the big ones can be pretty insatiable.

So they ARE making it more of a problem, but they are NOT the only cause. If there was lots of spare chip and shipping capacity, it would likely be pretty well resolved by now because they'd just start pumping out more cards. That takes 6ish months to get through the whole supply chain... which is where we are now. Thing is there isn't more supply to be had, so here we stay.
 
blackmomba said:
You can't run unsigned code on consoles, since like the ps2
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My PS3 Linux cluster begs to differ.
blackmomba said:
old firmware doesn't count imo, and no one's going to even consider something as old as a PS3 anyway, my point is that the mitigation is effective enough to exclude consoles from worthwhile mining equipment
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I think that "mitigation" is less the issue and more the lack of processing capabilities the previous-generation console have.
The PS4/Slim effectively has the rough equivalent of a HD 7850, and the PS4 Pro has the rough equivalent of a RX 480 - not going to net much of a profit out of either of those.

The current-generation hasn't been cracked yet to run 3rd party operating systems, but if they do, I guarantee you that crypto miners, and not gamers, will be obtaining them as they are certainly powerful enough to net a profit.
 
Red Falcon said:
The current-generation hasn't been cracked yet to run 3rd party operating systems, but if they do, I guarantee you that crypto miners, and not gamers, will be obtaining them as they are certainly powerful enough to net a profit.
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By the time that happens, the hardware will be so outdated that it'll be pointless, just like with the last gen consoles right now.

Like I said, you can't just go to Walmart and pick up a pallet of consoles that are exploitable and start mining. the latest PS4 revision isn't exploitable, god knows how long it's gonna take for the new consoles to be exploited.

It's already enough trouble for a miner to rub two brain cells together long enough to be able to find a card with the right amount of ram. Imagine if they had to start looking for specific firmware revisions, serial number ranges and so on. Not efficient

The Enterprise miner will not sit, wait for exploits, apply exploits, and tinker. Hardware needs to pay for itself fast. Mining is supposed to be easy
 
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