Wednesday, February 28th 2018
"Where Are My Graphics Cards?" - 3 Million Sold to Cryptocurrency Miners in 2017
The title of this piece is both question and answer, though users that keep up with PC-related news knew the answer already. Jon Peddie Research, in a new report, pegs the number of total graphics cards sold to miners at a pretty respectable 3 million units (worth some $776 million). That's some 3 million gamers that could be enjoying video games on their PCs right now, or which would be able to enjoy them at a much lower price that they had to recently pay to have the privilege.
AMD has been the primary benefactor here - its GPU market share went up by 8.1%, while NVIDIA's dropped by 6% and Intel's by 1.9% (the fact that Intel's graphics processing units come embedded in the company's processors helps keep that number stable). As it is, attachment rates of GPUs to systems was over 100% at 136%, the result of miners buying more cards per system in an effort to maximize profits. Jon Peddie thinks that gaming will still be the key player to drive GPU sales, though "augmented by the demand from cryptocurrency miners." The firm also expects demand for GPUs to slacken, coeteris paribus, due to "increasing utilities costs and supply and demand forces that drive up AIB prices." However, for those looking for prices to drop before upgrading their system, the news aren't rosy: the article states that pricing will not drop in the foreseeable future, so owners of GPUs that can actually mine already are being encouraged to mine while not gaming, so as to try and offset the markups in the current GPU offerings.
Overall GPU shipments in the fourth quarter of 2017 actually decreased 1.5% from the previous quarter, though JPR said that was due to normal seasonal activity. But even with miners' help to drive sales, overall GPU market shipments declined 4.8 percent - the only actual positive trend in that market were the actual discrete desktop GPUs.
Some key highlights JPR calls attention to are as follows:
Sources:
JPR, via PC Gamer
AMD has been the primary benefactor here - its GPU market share went up by 8.1%, while NVIDIA's dropped by 6% and Intel's by 1.9% (the fact that Intel's graphics processing units come embedded in the company's processors helps keep that number stable). As it is, attachment rates of GPUs to systems was over 100% at 136%, the result of miners buying more cards per system in an effort to maximize profits. Jon Peddie thinks that gaming will still be the key player to drive GPU sales, though "augmented by the demand from cryptocurrency miners." The firm also expects demand for GPUs to slacken, coeteris paribus, due to "increasing utilities costs and supply and demand forces that drive up AIB prices." However, for those looking for prices to drop before upgrading their system, the news aren't rosy: the article states that pricing will not drop in the foreseeable future, so owners of GPUs that can actually mine already are being encouraged to mine while not gaming, so as to try and offset the markups in the current GPU offerings.
- AMD's overall unit shipments increased 8.08% quarter-to-quarter, Intel's total shipments decreased -1.98% from last quarter, and Nvidia's decreased -6.00%.
- The attach rate of GPUs (includes integrated and discrete GPUs) to PCs for the quarter was 134% which was down -10.06% from last quarter.
- Discrete GPUs were in 36.88% of PCs, which is down -2.67%.
- The overall PC market increased 5.93% quarter-to-quarter, and decreased -0.15% year-to-year.
- Desktop graphics add-in boards (AIBs) that use discrete GPUs decreased -4.62% from last quarter.
- Q4'17 saw no change in tablet shipments from last quarter.
117 Comments on "Where Are My Graphics Cards?" - 3 Million Sold to Cryptocurrency Miners in 2017
large scale mining farms are set up in places like iceland because of the cold climate and very cheap electricity.. its needs special circumstance like this to make large scale mining profitable..
icelands answer seems an easy one.. build more power generating plants and welcome the miners or jack up the price of electricity and drive them away..
trog
Nvidia : with no real competition, and the miners finally gobbling them GTX also, the price is only seeing the up trend for considerable amount of time.
and that slight fall in supply though deemed "seasonal" makes me feel little worried too as with shadow play their next big game is subscription service model, as adding new customers each quarter is impossible after some limit, so they in reality have another incentive to constrain hardware supply.
AMD : they are laughing all the way to bank even with no competition at top end of spectrum. they can continue the same way and still demand a premium cause of mining. granted they are heavily focused on CPU side for now, and that gives me another reason to believe that they will continue the same way. to top it they are promoting CPU mining now too soo they also want to price their CPU's the way GPU's are right now.
#tinfoilhat #torches$pitchfork #deadenthusiast #prebuildonlyoption
www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/multi-platform-gaming-for-the-win.html
trog
<raises fist in air>
Damn you, miners!
Please don't refer to fellow forum users as "scum" btw.Hell no. Elite Dangerous really taxes compute as is! You can pry that kind of procedural generation from my cold, dead gamer hands!
I say I'm not sure if Jon Peddie can get down to the "granularities" of all the world wide sales outlets to actually see if 3 card here 5 cards there are being soaked up by DYI miners. They might be able to report the larger mining farms that have the inside track to see volumes sales (100's at a time) not going into retail but does he get information from Newegg, Amazon, and others and distinguishable as miners/gamers sales. I doubt such company's care to offer that information or have a fool-proof way to even sort it.
Both are more commonly used for mining.
Disable it too right? What about games that USE compute?I appreciate it, thanks.
*to mad angry gamers, why you so mad bro!!!
www.coindesk.com/germany-considers-crypto-legal-equivalent-to-fiat-for-tax-purposes/
finance.yahoo.com/news/wyoming-wants-silicon-valley-blockchain-155501435.html
cointelegraph.com/news/us-georgia-next-state-in-line-to-accept-crypto-for-taxes-licenses
www.coindesk.com/cftc-gives-green-light-for-employees-to-trade-in-cryptocurrencies/
What is said new tech supposed to produce? What is it useful for?
One reason I am involved in several Crypto's is I also believe they will do a lot of good for the world. Sure I am making bank, but not as much in the short term as I would be if I focused on projects from a purely speculative/profit-oriented point of view.