NVIDIA, AMD to Launch Mining-Oriented Versions of Their GPUs

[Raevenlord]

You must've heard the news of increasingly tighter supply on AMD's video cards. This is kind of a "hello darkness my old friend" kind of moment, since we've seen this happening before. However, these days, the problem looks to be exacerbated with the increase in digital currencies - it's not just Bitcoin now. Ethereum and Zcash have come in to fill customer's desire for a lower entry, ASIC-resistant mineable cryptocurrency. And with the currencies' exploding pricing, people are once again looking to enter the mining craze - to ride the crypto wave, so to speak. All higher-performance graphics cards since the R200 series are flying off the shelves and second hand markets, and as we speak, virtually all RX 580 models are out of stock on Newegg. And while AMD graphics cards have historically been leagues better than their NVIDIA counterparts in mining environments, recently some specialized miners have surfaced, tailored for the Pascal architecture (more oriented to Zcash, though.)





As a result, demand for AMD graphics cards is straining and suffocating supply, and it could be that NVIDIA will go the same route, should recent optimizations continue. It would seem that both companies understand the strain this puts on general customer who really just want to play a game with their graphics cards, but are finding pricing and availability an insurmountable challenge. Both companies are thus reportedly working on specialized editions of their graphics cards specially geared for cryptocurrency mining. These would apparently eschew any gaming capability, and likely display output connectors as well, which are unneeded for mining farms. NVIDIA is said to be prepping a special edition GeForce GTX 1060 with their GP106-100 GPU, and AMD is rumored to be working on some adaptation of their Polaris graphics cards as well. Sources point towards only 90 days warranty on these NVIDIA GTX 1060 cards, which will also be cheaper than gaming models, and be distributed by add-in board partners.

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[Ubersonic]

Pretty stupid idea, I mean let's look at it logically, for every "mining orientated" GPU they produce that's a regular GPU they didn't produce so it won't help with regular GPU availability at all.

Add to that they will have terrible resale value as you can't game on them and terrible warranty the only way AMD/Nvidia are going to get anyone to buy these is if they sell them at a loss lol.

Stupid.

 

[Prima.Vera]

I thought this mining craze was over a couple of years ago....

 

[qubit]

This I've gotta see.

 

[Countryside]

Seriously do they think that this is a fix ?

 

[Firedrops]

Pretty stupid idea, I mean let's look at it logically, for every "mining orientated" GPU they produce that's a regular GPU they didn't produce so it won't help with regular GPU availability at all.

Very true. It's the miners who are still buying out stock even at over 50% markup, they'll just buy out the 'mining versions' and continue buying out the normal ones.

Also, it might make more sense for AMD, but is nvidia deluded?

 

[P4-630]

In the near future we might see threads like "Mining card modded to Gaming card" .....

 

[ASOT]

Romania is out of stock everywhere no RX 470/480-570/580

 

[Kaapstad]

AMD and NVidia maximising profits at the expense of gamers.

These specialised cards can not enter the gaming market as they have no outputs so will not effect future sales for the vendors, no secondhand mining cards to push prices down.

This will cause a shortage of genuine gaming cards which will push their prices up.

They hope both NVidia and AMD get stung by a sudden fall in demand for these cards leaving them with loads of unsold stock that is useless for anything else.

 

[Countryside]

Romania is out of stock everywhere no RX 470/480-570/580

Its 99% out of stock in Europe.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Easier answer is to just up production on the gaming cards for awhile, knowing they will sell, and scale back when no mining.

 

[Caring1]

I'm going against the grain here and saying it is a good idea.
GPU farms are pretty common for mining, and professional cards cost an arm and a leg, hence why gaming cards are snapped up.
If cheap compute cards are released this makes more gaming cards available to the market, it has nothing to do with cutting in to a set number being produced like some people think.
There's also the chance an AMD compute card could be used in X-fire, unlike Nvidias offering which most likely wont provide SLI like the current 1060's.

 

[64K]

Very true. It's the miners who are still buying out stock even at over 50% markup, they'll just buy out the 'mining versions' and continue buying out the normal ones.

From what little I observed with the past mining craze that will probably be the case. Miners want to get in at the beginning when it's easier to generate crypto-currency so there will be a huge demand right away before either Nvidia or AMD can ramp up production. Cards could be in short supply on both sides this round.

 

[Caring1]

AMD and NVidia maximising profits at the expense of gamers.
This will cause a shortage of genuine gaming cards which will push their prices up.

 

[rtwjunkie]

AMD and NVidia maximising profits at the expense of gamers.

AMD and NVIDIA are trying to react to outside demand. This has nothing to do with maximizing profits, which, might I remind you is the number one priority of ANY for-profit business.

 

[R-T-B]

Very true. It's the miners who are still buying out stock even at over 50% markup, they'll just buy out the 'mining versions' and continue buying out the normal ones.

Also, it might make more sense for AMD, but is nvidia deluded?

If the mining versions are more power efficient at mining than gaming cards, it might make gaming cards completely unappealing to them, due to no longer being economical.

 

[Kaapstad]

AMD and NVIDIA are trying to react to outside demand. This has nothing to do with maximizing profits, which, might I remind you is the number one priority of ANY for-profit business.

Not true, they already have product that will do that, existing cards.

This will introduce shortages of gaming cards that will in turn lead to higher prices.

 

[Countryside]

The simple fact is that mining is bringing in some really nice cash and they will just simply buy both of them this is like adding gasoline to the fire.

 

[iO]

With these high exchange rates even CPU mining became profitable again so only thing helping would be the long overdue market crash...

 

[Divide Overflow]

Until the speculation bubble bursts and then the market is flooded with "slightly used" GPUs.

 

[Ubersonic]

If cheap compute cards are released this makes more gaming cards available to the market, it has nothing to do with cutting in to a set number being produced like some people think.

It has everything to do with that.

If they produce 10 compute cards then that's 10 gaming cards they didn't produce, the only way around that is to increase overall production, but then you have the issue that you could have done that anyway and made more gaming cards lol.

Also how are they going to make them cheaper? even if they don't put any outputs one them (or make them 1x PCI-E) that's not going to knock much off the card cost so for everyone they make that's a GPU die they are selling for less profit than they would have made if it had been a gaming board.

And the final nail in this stupid idea is that if they make the cards unable to game, then they will be worth hardly anything used after a few years and so no miners will want them as it's counter productive. What I mean is, the HD79XXs and R290s I mined with paid for themselves multiple times over then when they were no longer viable for mining (compared to newer much more efficient cards) sold for £100+ as they could still game. These compute cards will never sell for £100 when they become uneconomical as they can't game so they need to be at sold for at least £100 less than an equally performing gaming card to be viable, that means you're looking at paying £100 for RX580 performance and if AMD sell a £100 compute card with the die they could have put on a £200 gaming card they would be shooting their profits in the foot.

 

[cdawall]

Why are people angry at nvidia offering a product to meet demands, did I step off of TPU and find Toms? Sell me a 1060 3GB for $125-175, with a consistent supply, single slot and a grated rear so I can suck air out of the rear.

Again MAKE ME A SINGLE SLOT 1060, 8800GT STYLE.

 

[Ruru]

This new coming of mining toy money came as a surprise for me, I was surprised to see that everyone is talking about it again, like couple years ago.

 

[Indurain]

For those that think this is a dumb idea, a GPU with no video outputs would be a perfect cheaper alternative for a Crossfire or SLI setup since card #2 doesn't need actual video out. Provided they don't cripple the drivers. I could see a Crossfire using a Full Vega + Mining Vega or SLI with a 1060 + Mining 1060. Would certainly lower the cost barrier to entry.

 

[R-T-B]

This new coming of mining toy money came as a surprise for me, I was surprised to see that everyone is talking about it again, like couple years ago.

It's never going to go away completely. This is the new way of things.