PSA: Do NOT Buy A Graphics Card Today (Thanks, Cryptocurrency)




Graphics card shortage leads retailers to take unusual measures

WTF is cryptocurrencey ??

bitcoin etc

Pearls before swine, when there are cheaper ways to mine bitcoins even though cryptocurrency firms are trying to ban them.

They just want to push their cards designed for mining,it has no video output but the same power of a 1060 and 1070 card.

And that's a good thing if it stops the artificial price inflation on graphics cards.

miner arent buying it becouse they have no resale value.

A card that has been used for mining has little to no resale value anyway, at least to anyone with a clue. It's rather like buying a used taxicab. It's fine if you are desperate for a vehicle but not if you want something with long term reliability.

i honestly dont know how they go about it, but would people even know ? microsoft was banned from selling reconditioned produts to my country, what happened is all RMA stuff was fixed and then sold among normal orders here. maybe they will try something like that ? placing orders on ebay and the likes, used products, almost new and still make a buck for it.....maybe if they really cut the price like half market it would even be worthy ?

untill nvidia cracks down on products being bought as soon as they leave manufacture nothing will change,you can't expect retailers to take the blow,but plants ? make so that only 30% can be bought from warehouse if they are not for partners or retailers.

Yeah, interesting.... but how are they going to implement this, really? You're a store and one guy wants to buy 6, 12, 20, or even 50 GPUs. Are you really going to tell him no because Joe-Gamer might want to buy one and you're going to hold stock just in case?

Mining cards hold no advantage over gaming cards... no GPU outputs, a small difference in price (about £30-50), a big difference in warranty (3 months vs. 3 years), and minimal, if any, performance difference. IMO, that warranty difference is the clincher.

I think nVidia and AMD are just making this statement to look good to gamers. There's really nothing there to put their words into action.

like i said, the real problem is not retailers, its that chinese are buying the product as soon as it leave manufacture before even hitting the street,leaving few units to retailers, thus inflating the price on the street. you can't control free market, but i'm pretty sure they can "sugest" to building partners to make x number of product to hit the street, make so only known retailers and partners can buy from warehouse (unreseanable they want to sell it too) or make a quota, if you produce 2000 units a month, 600 can be bought by individual people and companies not in partnership, that would still allow 1400 units to hit the street though retailers and allow you to find them at least online. I heard nvidia has increased production and started on the USA to sell directly to consumers to avoid this,with all this increased production and bitmining getting harder ,eventually there will be a surplus on the market, just wait..Besides what damage this will do to the industry, isnt pc master race made of thieves and pirates and the future is on the console ?

Also heard that is cheaper now to get a pre built gaming pc becouse they have a set pricing for gpus, maybe in the USA and europe that is feasible, in my country not really makes much difference becouse we dont.

Again, if you have 2000 units and your retailers have orders for 2500 units, do you say "No, I'll only sell you 600 units as I'm holding 1400 units for the average Joe gamer"??

You will sell those units to whoever buys them and for whatever price you can make them pay. Supply and demand. Free market.



Yeah, sure. I wonder how platforms like Steam, GoG, and others continue to exist if it's all thieves and pirates Even if it were, that has no bearing on cryptocurrency and GPU prices

i'm not sure you understood me, what i said is lets say factory makes 2000 units a month,,product goes to warehouse,from there to retailers,partners,average joe. chinese/miners are literaly at warehouse doorstep buying those units before they go to the market, so partners and retailers have less units than they requested thus inflating the price. if you limited the number of those sales, more gpus would hit the market. its not something extraordinary, many campanies do this to their products to control who sells them and the demand.

Ah, I see. Apologies for the confusion on my part

Luckily, it does seem like this isn't 100% the case. nVidia can make a number of GPUs and it seems like ZZ% will go to country A, YY% will go to country B, and XX% will go to country C. If country C were the UK, then we have XX number of GPUs to be distributed to various retailers.... it is then at that point that the grab-all-you-can bit starts happening and it is there where nVidia/AMD is saying "sell to gamers first" which is really impossible to do. A good PR move, but how are they really going to implement this?

There is already limited supply and increased demand. I think I read somewhere that increasing factory output isn't as simple as it sounds, so let's assume that factories are at 100% output, but the demand is still high. High enough to strip shelves of GPUs. Supply and demand now takes place.

I do hope this mining craze dies down soon. I'd like to get a 1080Ti as a step up from my 980Ti, but the prices are just silly. I was willing to buy them at £700 or so but now they're closer to £900! Thank god I'm not in the market for a whole new PC!! RAM prices are insane too!

Once the cryptocurrency fad breaks you'll get great GPUs thrown after you for change

Hopefully a buy one get one on 1080Tis for £5?

I wonder if it is possible for GPU manufacturers to insert some code into their GPU firmware that would make the card less useful, or completely useless, for cryptocurrency mining?

I suspect they could if they wanted to. If they can and don't that reveals just how truly interested they are in curtailing this.

Why would you put a stop to something that's selling out your product?

Only if they were serious about stopping this sort of usage and keeping prices down for gamers. I suspect that isn't a high priority hence my suspicion that their "attempts" at limiting sales to miners is for show only.

Indeed. Like I said, I suspect this was only a PR move.