Didn't get a chance to run over to micro center and grab a GTX 3060 today. I look around online and people are selling this $500 GPU online for $1,200 same day they picked it up.

Come on people. This is F'ing retarded. Get a real job.

Yup, this is TOTAL Bullshit!

I've been trying to find a EVGA RTX 3080, or maybe an RTX 3070, if I come across one somehow, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay $1600 for a $800 graphics card!
And, I'm NOT gonna pay $1200 for a $650 RTX 3070 either!

I built a Gaming PC w/ my son as it was impossible to get a Playstation 5 at Christmas, and for multiple months prior, basically since it was launched! All we need is the Graphics Card, and we can turn it on, load Windows and start gaming. Actually, I'm lucky to have all of the components I do have for that machine as certain Memory (w/ particular Timings/Latency) and Power Supplies are impossible to find at times as well.

Fucking COVID....Everything's Unobtainium!

I thought I read somewhere that they are using GPU's for bitcoin mining?

Between that, covid gaming, and the tariffs, it was like the perfect storm against cards.

Thank goodness for the second entry. Many of us do not speak geek. My first thought was 1800 is pretty cheap for a sports car.

quote:

Originally posted by Gibb:
I thought I read somewhere that they are using GPU's for bitcoin mining?

Yep. It's not just COVID shortages. People have been snatching up most of the high-end GPUs for a few years for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency mining, and the resulting shortage had led to people hoarding and scalping them. COVID's effect on the supply just exacerbated the issue.

Here's an example of a "crypto mine", consisting of racks of high-end GPUs (RTX 3080s). And that's small compared to some of the setups out there.

Interesting Article just popped up..

Link

Nvidia says GeForce RTX 3060 is for gamers, not crypto miners

Instead, the company is launching a new CMP line for professional cryptocurrency mining.

Nvidia says it's taking steps to make sure its GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card ends up in the hands of gamers. The RTX 3060 will be able to detect aspects of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm and limit its hash rate by around 50 percent, the company said in a blog post last week. This will make the GPU less efficient at mining the digital coin.

"We designed GeForce GPUs for gamers, and gamers are clamoring for more," wrote Matt Wuebbling, Nvidia's vice president of global GeForce marketing, in the blog post. "Yet Nvidia GPUs are programmable. And users are constantly discovering new applications for them, from weather simulation and gene sequencing to deep learning and robotics. Mining cryptocurrency is one of them."

GPUs -- which are important for PC gaming, video editing and other graphics-intensive activities -- have been increasingly difficult to find in stock as the price of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum hit new highs. Cryptocurrencies are mined using powerful computers, often equipped with multiple GPUs.

But Nvidia isn't leaving cryptocurrency fans out in the cold. The company said it's launching a new CMP, or cryptocurrency mining processor, product line. CMP products will be optimized for mining, with features to improve power efficiency and airflow, but won't do graphics, Nvidia said.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Interesting Article just popped up..

Link

Nvidia says GeForce RTX 3060 is for gamers, not crypto miners

Instead, the company is launching a new CMP line for professional cryptocurrency mining.

But Nvidia isn't leaving cryptocurrency fans out in the cold. The company said it's launching a new CMP, or cryptocurrency mining processor, product line. CMP products will be optimized for mining, with features to improve power efficiency and airflow, but won't do graphics, Nvidia said.

Great business decision.

quote:

The RTX 3060 will be able to detect aspects of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm and limit its hash rate

That's all well and good, but what about other crypto mining?

WTF is bitcoin/crypto mining?

While it would be an apocalypse - part of me looks forward to that day when a solar flare or EMP thins the herd of Face-Tok, reality-TV, LGQTBxyz, social justice free-shit users - leaving only SFers and Trump fans to rule the country.

So their answer isn't "Produce more units and make piles of money?" It's "Cripple a potential end-use, because, fair?"

They may be thinking that they are protecting a profit stream. If graphics card users decide to go with a different company because the product availability is spotty they might never come back. There also is zero chance that the computer side of the business ever goes away, the mining side could evaporate fairly quickly. Crypto currency regardless of what you may think isn’t the most stable of enterprises.

Keeping the product streams separate might be a win for both users.

quote:

Originally posted by sgalczyn:
WTF is bitcoin/crypto mining?

While it would be an apocalypse - part of me looks forward to that day when a solar flare or EMP thins the herd of Face-Tok, reality-TV, LGQTBxyz, social justice free-shit users - leaving only SFers and Trump fans to rule the country.

Crypto are all based on computer algorithms. High end video cards are used for cracking the algorithm by attempting millions and millions of keys in an attempt to find one that unlocks the crypto coin. If you are one that discovers that key, you own the crypto currency at whatever value it is. So people build computer farms with tons of high end video cards in an attempt test as many keys as possible in the hopes of discovering one or many keys. Obviously, this is a simplified description. But the whole point is there is nothing backing the crypto other than the demand by others to buy your coin.

quote:

Originally posted by sgalczyn:

While it would be an apocalypse - part of me looks forward to that day when a solar flare or EMP thins the herd of Face-Tok, reality-TV, LGQTBxyz, social justice free-shit users - leaving only SFers and Trump fans to rule the country.

Sounds like a plan...I say, Bring It On!

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
They may be thinking that they are protecting a profit stream. If graphics card users decide to go with a different company because the product availability is spotty they might never come back.

Thanks... that's an aspect I hadn't considered.

Judging by the reactions of tech guys on YouTube, you may have dodged a bullet on that 3060. I'm very happy with the performance of my 2080Ti. Perhaps you should consider one from that generation, since there have been at least two cards from the 3k series that have been poorly received.

Where do the damn coins come from to begin with? Aw, wait, they don't actually exist. They're financial constructs.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredward:
Where do the damn coins come from to begin with? Aw, wait, they don't actually exist. They're financial constructs.

Kind of like the US Dollar these days...

quote:

Originally posted by DennisM:
So their answer isn't "Produce more units and make piles of money?" It's "Cripple a potential end-use, because, fair?"

There's a chip shortage. They're at capacity with production, so no, they can't just make more of the product.

This also isn't the first GPU shortage. The last time this happened, the price of Bitcoin eventually dropped below the mining profitability and a ton of used cards ended up on the market.

Video game enthusiasts continued to buy new cards.

Catering to video game enthusiasts now is a viable strategy. Video games will be popular for the foreseeable future, but crypto may suddenly turn unpopular if the bottom drops out of the crypto market.