Editorial Why the Litecoin Craze Hurts More Than Helps Brand AMD Radeon

[GC_PaNzerFIN]

I have never seen a typical load that is so close to Furmark than mining crypto currency. And people tend to do it 24/7. Heat output and temperatures are high compared to any typical gaming load. Also VRMs go easily above 100 degrees celcius which is something people often forget. Fans need to run high RPM to keep cards within acceptable operating temperatures. Indeed, temperature has pretty serious effect on failure rate of CMOS devices.

Here is example with certain memory IC. Quite a big impact going from 90c to 60c, isn't it?

Also integrated circuits do degrade slowly over time. Excess heat and voltage etc. only make it worse. These is ton of articles in web for those interested to read.

This one for example, you could try wikipedia too:
http://www.semicon.panasonic.co.jp/en/aboutus/pdf/t04007be-3.pdf

PS. Every proper integrated circuit designer / electrical engineer knows this. If you are not one of them, maybe should check facts before making too much noise?

 

[bpgt64]

As a gamer/hobbyist miner, IMO there is no reason to buy nvidia at this point. Why buy a nvidia card when I can run my radeons when I'm not gaming and essentially have my cards pay for themselves after only 1 or 2 months? I enjoyed nvidia products for very many years but I am not going to turn down what is essentially a top tier, free, crossfire setup. The litecoin difficulty rose as more and more AMD cards were added to the network but seems to have stabilized as the supply of cards dried up. Litecoin mining is still profitable assuming you pay a reasonably low rate for electricity. Besides, the money nowadays is not really in bitcoin or even litecoin anymore, but other scrypt based alt coins such as dogecoin/gridcoin where the profits are potentially enormous for the early miners.

I have been an avid nvidia follower for most of my gaming career but things have shifted with the litecoin craze. An HD 7950 that sold for <$200 last year now sells for 1.5x that, used. So a gamer who bought a 7950 or 7970 in the past year actually saw the value of their card RISE over time, something that I never could have imagined. In terms of performance, all of my AMD cards overclock extremely well, far better than anything I've been able to do with my nvidia cards. They also perform well for all the games I've tried and the drivers are not nearly as bad as people make them out to be.

This is certainly a valid perspective, but coming from someone who wants to drop Nvidia, and go to AMD, there's almost no reason to do so with the prices inflated the way they are. If AMD ramps up production and we start seeing R9 290s at 400 with after market coolers, AMD will win alot of friends I think because they have the performance/price ration on lock. The fact there going for 550-600 right now makes Nvidia somewhat attractive.

 

[Vario]

AMD always drops prices fast.

 

[Relayer]

Theres plenty of times things barely work. Heres an example: the card is overclocked and tweaked to run bitcoin with maximum hash. Then the user bios flashes it back and sells it on ebay. It is now unstable even at stock settings and I have to underclock it to get it to work.

When I was younger I owned a lot of things that degraded really bad from heat. I had a Pentium4 inside of a 2004 Shuttle barebones mini pc that ran really hot (100*C) all the time because the heatpipes in the shuttle case would shift the thermal paste when the case was moved. This Pentium 4 never worked right after that on later full sized mobos. Heat ruins electronics. Remember the XBox RROD? Mining generates a lot of heat when you put 4 cards next to each other.



Here is a typical mining setup:

Now I know why my PCB sags so bad.

Heres an inhouse example:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...-up-pic-clubhouse.71955/page-306#post-3043802

I've never seen that output configuration. What cards are those? They look old as dirt, with paint scraped off the sides, etc. I find it hard to believe this is typical at all.

Edit: Your in house link says it's a guess as to what happened to the chip. Do you actually know how the chip broke like that?

Edit 2: Looked up the image and those are 4x5970's. Well used for sure, judging by the condition in the photo.

 

[Nordic]

Here is a typical mining setup:

I am more used to seeing stuff like this.

Spoiler: several pictures

I have seen those ghetto setups like that. They exist. They get attention because, well look at it. You and I both have no way of knowing if that is typical. I doubt it is common myself but I only have my word for that.

Yeah theres a lot of people who don't have brains in it, thats why its such a bubble. I don't know how anyone could ever statistically model a futures price for bitcoin because its purely based on past price increases rather than anything else. Thats a bubble. "yeah man its gonna go up because its been going up, time to buy in!" It has a really high cost of carry (electricity bill) and it has inherent value only in that it allows pedo's and druggies to buy illegal stuff.

Here is a good article on bitcoin being a bubble. Link.

Bitcoin is starting to move away from the silk road(drugs) being its primary use. Without the silk road and other more black market type uses bitcoin would not of gained any traction what so ever. Honestly, I myself do not mind the criminal uses. The porn industry, although not criminal, still has negative connotations the same as drugs has had determined the use of VHS and DVD's. "One oft-recalled explanation for the failure of Sony's Betamax videocassette format in the 1980s was the Japanese company's ambivalence towards producers of pornographic videos. By contrast, proponents of VHS, Betamax's rival, welcomed adult content with open arms and, the legend goes, caused Betamax's demise." (Link)

 

[Relayer]

I am more used to seeing stuff like this.

Spoiler: several pictures

I have seen those ghetto setups like that. They exist. They get attention because, well look at it. You and I both have no way of knowing if that is typical. I doubt it is common myself but I only have my word for that.



Here is a good article on bitcoin being a bubble. Link.

Bitcoin is starting to move away from the silk road(drugs) being its primary use. Without the silk road and other more black market type uses bitcoin would not of gained any traction what so ever. Honestly, I myself do not mind the criminal uses. The porn industry, although not criminal, still has negative connotations the same as drugs has had determined the use of VHS and DVD's. "One oft-recalled explanation for the failure of Sony's Betamax videocassette format in the 1980s was the Japanese company's ambivalence towards producers of pornographic videos. By contrast, proponents of VHS, Betamax's rival, welcomed adult content with open arms and, the legend goes, caused Betamax's demise." (Link)

Sure, there are mining rigs out there that some are nicely done and some are as the pic I responded to. Thing is you can google mining rig pics and that original picture is about the worst example there is (I'm sure someone will now find a worse one ). I mean really, look at the physical condition of those cards! The post was made to make it seem like the market was going to be flooded with examples like that. Not as a worst case example.

I'm sure we've all seen pics like this too. What's it prove?

 

[damric]

See if I leave you any coins in my will.

 

[GLD]

I can care less about cyber coin mining. I really think it is a bunch of BS. It pisses me off that it is driving up AMD gpu prices. I want that crap to stop and the prices get back to msrp. ARGH!

 

[suraswami]

Price of both AMD and NV GPUs are ridiculous, its funny how both companies rebrand and hike the price. Does AMD even get a higher cut from these retailers?

http://promotions.newegg.com/combo/14-0151/index.html?icid=231190

 

[The Von Matrices]

Price of both AMD and NV GPUs are ridiculous, its funny how both companies rebrand and hike the price. Does AMD even get a higher cut from these retailers?

http://promotions.newegg.com/combo/14-0151/index.html?icid=231190

There is no conspiracy by AMD, NVidia, or the board vendors. The retailers are the only ones increasing prices and earning the increased profit. Newegg is the most egregious at this, as you can see.

 

[Nordic]

If any of you were newegg, and the opportunity to rise prices was there, would you?

 

[happita]

There is no conspiracy by AMD, NVidia, or the board vendors. The retailers are the only ones increasing prices and earning the increased profit. Newegg is the most egregious at this, as you can see.

Not like it matters to Newegg, but it sucks that I will be taking my business elsewhere when I find the opportunity at a different retailer to get a video card substantially cheaper than what they are selling them at currently.

If any of you were newegg, and the opportunity to rise prices was there, would you?

The thing is that we don't know whether or not AMD are producing enough cards to meet the demand, so in essence, Newegg is almost "forced" to increase prices to deter some of the demand from buying up the low amount of stock in their inventory. Whatever the case is, it certainly sucks for consumers who can't afford these extravagent prices. I've been waiting since November for non-reference designs and in that time-frame, the prices got so fudged out of wack, I can't justify spending $500+ for a video card now. But at the same time I'm banging my head for not getting one at launch and a third-party aftermarket cooler. Oh well

 

[cunkymonkey]

I don't really care what it does to AMD, but I've had my fucking Asus 280x ordered since 6th December and today got an email from the store saying the cards are not available and they have no idea when will they show up. There are NO other goddamn alternatives at all.
Screw you litecoin.

Sorry Octopuss, that was because of me! I have 20 of them running. I haven't played a video game since GTA was released in 2001. So I guess all these cards can play some cool games? What people who aren't business types don't get is that the Alt coin revolution is like penny stocks. We've got traders, miners and long term investors. So long as people are making money the "system" will be kept operational by those making money. The miners are just one part of this whole thing. Is this a fad that will be over by next years GPU release? It doesn't look like it. Why when it has cult like support by libertarians who think hyper inflation is coming, it does offer simply value transfer worldwide and offers a trading platform without regulation. Just saying if you think this litecoin thing will all blow over don't hold your breath.

I could be wrong but when people are making money... the ball usually stays in play.

 

[DRDNA]

True
I don't like the current prices or offerings so I still haven't upgraded. When things look right I will. It seems if you want a fair price that you have to get the card at initial release or it goes up and up. This use to be just the opposite.

 

[Nordic]

Sorry Octopuss, that was because of me! I have 20 of them running. I haven't played a video game since GTA was released in 2001. So I guess all these cards can play some cool games? What people who aren't business types don't get is that the Alt coin revolution is like penny stocks. We've got traders, miners and long term investors. So long as people are making money the "system" will be kept operational by those making money. The miners are just one part of this whole thing. Is this a fad that will be over by next years GPU release? It doesn't look like it. Why when it has cult like support by libertarians who think hyper inflation is coming, it does offer simply value transfer worldwide and offers a trading platform without regulation. Just saying if you think this litecoin thing will all blow over don't hold your breath.

I could be wrong but when people are making money... the ball usually stays in play.

I agree. Alt coins and other crypto currencies aren't going away any time soon.

 

[R-T-B]

A true mining setup. 6+ MHash

I know all you AMD card lovers want to save these beauties from this graphics card hell. You can't, they're mine. And they'll be slaving away making me money until they melt...

 

[Octopuss]

What in the shit is this mess. I call that hardware rape.

 

[R-T-B]

Believe it or not, those cards run cooler than most gaming rigs.

I'm still pretty sure it's a tentacle rape scene though... Somehow I get twisted pleasure out of how bad it looks.

 

[Octopuss]

lmao

 

[AsRock]

I am more used to seeing stuff like this.

Spoiler: several pictures

I have seen those ghetto setups like that. They exist. They get attention because, well look at it. You and I both have no way of knowing if that is typical. I doubt it is common myself but I only have my word for that.



Here is a good article on bitcoin being a bubble. Link.

Bitcoin is starting to move away from the silk road(drugs) being its primary use. Without the silk road and other more black market type uses bitcoin would not of gained any traction what so ever. Honestly, I myself do not mind the criminal uses. The porn industry, although not criminal, still has negative connotations the same as drugs has had determined the use of VHS and DVD's. "One oft-recalled explanation for the failure of Sony's Betamax videocassette format in the 1980s was the Japanese company's ambivalence towards producers of pornographic videos. By contrast, proponents of VHS, Betamax's rival, welcomed adult content with open arms and, the legend goes, caused Betamax's demise." (Link)

Betamax failed due to the heads in them as they were a lot more expensive and higher quality than VHS.

Anyways, if people are making a lot on it it will become common but i hope it dies soon ha.. Getting sick of seeing the card i want priced 200$ more than it should be..

 

[vega22]

i think most people who are a little more serious about their mining use stuff like these.

 

[R-T-B]

Meh, I'm serious. Just lazy. If I upscale I'll need to tweak my rig.

In other news, my file server has apparently went down and my pic links are broken. Remote desktop isn't working either. Maybe my miners just burst into flames and took the house with it... We'll find out tomorrow.

 

[AsRock]

i think most people who are a little more serious about their mining use stuff like these.

It be awesome if some one made a case like that.. Although i don't know about the extensions coursing any issue's playing games.

 

[R-T-B]

Just updating to say my rig did not melt, my servers

It be awesome if some one made a case like that.. Although i don't know about the extensions coursing any issue's playing games.

If you use 16->16 Risers that transmit the PCIe voltage, you are fine. Otherwise you risk overspecing your GPU, and being bound by a crappy 1->16 lane riser, which gives you uh... one lane of gaming performance. Fine for mining, for gaming? Not so much.

 

[vega22]

It be awesome if some one made a case like that.. Although i don't know about the extensions coursing any issue's playing games.

aria sell them.