I'm experiencing a bit of rage right now...

Was looking at prices for a possible mid-year replacement of my gaming PC.

And GFX Cards a year old or more are 100s of Euros above their introduction price because of the god damn bitcoin miners?

As far as I'm concerned Bitcoin can go crash.

Law of supply and demand... why blame bitcoin miners when they're not the ones setting the prices of the GPUs? They have to buy at inflated prices just as you do.... maybe ask your retailer why they're selling at such a high price?

Maybe there is indeed a shortage of materials? RAM prices are high and that has nothing to do with mining.

I blame them because they are using consumer/entertainment goods to make money. So for them the inflated prices are bearable as they have a return on them. The people who just want to enjoy non-profit entertainment end up f***ed.

I'd not mind if AMD and Nvidia implement an "average load counter last 7 days" on the cards, and void the warranty for cards running 95% or higher (mining cards).

It's been many years since it was viable to mine Bitcoin with GPUs, but until the whole thing crashes there are ' easier to mine' alternatives that have a 'value' that moves in lockstep with the 'value' of Bitcoin.
It can be quite amusing looking at the 'mission statements' for some of these:
https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/
...but worryingly, even the joke ones can be 'worth' billions of dollars.

Yeah, I take it he meant altcoins instead of bitcoin or just using bitcoin to refer to all crypto currencies in general


1. What's wrong with using your hardware to make money? What's stopping you from mining with your own GPU and therefore also get a return on your hardware? Use your current hardware to help pay for your upgrade.
2. AMD and nVidia can do loads of things, but why would they cut off their nose to spite their face? Their cards are flying off the shelves!! As discussed in another thread here, both manufacturers made a statement supporting gamers and technically condemning miners, but AFAIK, it's only a PR stunt and nothing more.

I shouldn't be forced to turn my entertainment time into work time just to compensate for others using consumer goods to make money.

Imagine there's a way to make money by providing internet bandwidth for legal downloads. And I go and run this over my consumer Cable internet 24/7, so that suddenly my neighbours suffer a bandwidth shortage because the edge connections on the apartment block are shared.

Of course I'm only utilizing my own line to the max. Perfectly my right, no?

Still the provider would cap me fairly soon. Because I wouldn't be allowed to utilize a consumer link for a business.

I'm not saying you SHOULD, I'm just saying you CAN. And it doesn't have to be your entertainment time, you can run the mining when you're not using the PC then have it turn off when you're using it.

Your example is not valid anyway, as miners have no control over pricing and availability. If you listen to this guy, retailers don't have much of a say either:


1:15 mark onwards.

If you mean OCing then that would affect gamers since a lot of miners actually underclock their GPUs. For certain models they do that to save power; it is all about getting a good hash rate per power consumed.

I understand your frustration and it can become a problem for PC gaming if this trend continues. Otherwise you'll just have to wait it out. I have no problem with people mining myself, but I luckily bought my GPU well over a year ago and don't have to deal with inflated prices.

The one thing I don't understand about hating on the miners.... don't you realize that unless you're talking about the mega-corporations who probably buy from the source, your average Joe miner suffers from the same price-gouging as gamers.... just because they choose to mine doesn't mean they get preferential treatment from sellers. In fact, if you think you're getting screwed buying ONE video card, how about the miner who buys 6 or 12?

I'll just rock this gtx970 4gb until prices drop. I'm running a 2k\144hz monitor and most games I play run fine once I disable all the gimmicks in the gfx options like DoF, fxaa, motion blur, etc.

Besides playing pc exclusive games at 144hz, there's not much incentive to upgrade IMO.

Or just wait for the mining craze to collapse and pick up a used mining GPU for cheap as miners get rid of their setups!! That is if the naysayers are to be believed

Most billionaires are naysayers when it comes to CraptoCurrency.

Just more proof that we are so hacked that it's time to put up net borders....

No, I am NOT kidding.

How he can admit he knows nothing about cryptocurrency and yet say with certainty that it's going to end badly??
Then the lady at 1:06 mark says something about being involved in BitCoin. Maybe there were plans to do so but Mr. Buffett essentially killed it during that interview?




He may be totally right.... or totally wrong. What did people say about the internet or modern smartphones? How about the likes of Apple, Amazon, eBay, or Paypal? Only time will tell, I guess, but the naysayers aren't really putting up much of a convincing argument.

I have nothing against miners or the market reactions. However, these are business investments, though, right? The miners are investing for a return, a profit. As I understand, some break even on their hardware investments?

I can't say I've known many gamers recovering their hardware costs through gameplay!

That's measuring using the same metric for different criteria! The miner would find his investment useless if it did not bring him good mining returns and eventually, return of investment. That's his criteria for choosing and buying the hardware. I would bet the gamer wouldn't give two hoots about the GPU's hashrate potential.... but the gamer would find his investment useless if it did not bring him good, smooth framerates and enjoyable gaming. That is his return of investment.

Miners are guided by hashrates and projected ROI, gamers are guided by framerates under certain resolution or screen setups.
A miner will not see a single framerate from his investment; a gamer will not see a single £££ from his investment.

Well my bit about gamers was in jest, perhaps not as obvious as it should have been, due to me not placing an emoticon. Sorry about that.

The actual point I was making was in reply to "Joe miners" suffering worse at these prices, due to them buying 6 or 12 cards. If they can afford to buy those cards at current retail prices, mine to break even on all costs, and then sell that hardware off (which is 100% profit, after breaking even), then aren't they doing as well as a gamer who got their enjoyment out of the gaming life of the same hardware?

This comparison ignores economics of financial gains, which of course, as you say... gamers aren't seeking. Hence my jest... 'Wouldn't it be great if my seeking gaming enjoyment could also result in recouping all my costs and maybe even paying for a new gaming rig to keep going?"

But speaking directly to the financial aspects, it does make me wonder what pressures are actually driving the prices. Are we seeing ordinary supplies and higher demand, with inflated prices driven by buyers who are seeking/enjoying financial returns in spite of those prices? Or are we seeing limited supplies caused by higher demand due to mining activity, resulting in the higher retail prices as both serious gamers and miners reach for the more scarce product? I cannot say whether it's true, but I've heard talk that buying a pre-built PC, sourced from non-retail components is a way to avoid the higher retail prices on GPUs. If true, what would this indicate about supply, and the pricing?

And meanwhile other Bitcoin news, Bitcoin energy use in Iceland set to overtake homes, says local firm.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43030677

Haha! Missed that completely then! I thought you were serious....


The point I'm making is that if a gamer is screwed when he buys a GPU, Joe miner is screwed more since he buys 6-12 GPUs. What's more, a GPU will give that gamer a constant X framerate for game Y. The value of "work" the GPU does for a miner will fluctuate based on the market, based on the coin he's mining, etc. BitCoin could be $20K or it could be $2K and the gamer won't care. The miner would probably be selling his GPUs well before the $2K point. What I'm saying is that the gamer knows what he is getting with his GPU purchase and he gets it straight away as soon as he fires game Y.... the miner will need to wait for time to pass to get his ROI. It could be a few months if the market value is good, or it could be a year or more if the market is down.

Sure, a miner can mine, get ROI, sell the hardware off or continue mining... but the road to this is fraught with uncertainty.... unlike gaming

As for the prices.... supply and demand. That first video I linked talks about it a bit more. There have been talks about factories working at max and if the GPU manufacturers are bringing more online, some have said they'd do so for the next-gen GPUs, not current-gen which kinda makes sense. I don't think it's ordinary supplies; if your product is flying off the shelves faster than you can make them, then supplies/production would've been ramped up as much as possible to meet the demand, but even then I think the demand is still more than the supply. Shortages in RAM chips is sometimes cited as a limiting factor and we can see this in the price hike of RAM kits.... and nobody is climbing over the fence to buy RAM, they're not going out of stock of RAM kits, but the prices today are double of Dec 2015 when I bought my current setup. The question now is who is deciding the price? I thought at first it would be the retailers. After all, why sell at £500 when you can get buyers at the £900 price mark? But then the above video suggests otherwise.

With regards to pre-built, I've heard that too and I can only assume YY company made a deal with ZZ manufacturer to supply them with XX 1080Ti GPUs under ABC price and this contract was locked down long ago (maybe at GPU launch?) before the price hike and thus the manufacturer has to honor the pricing quoted on that deal which allows pre-built PC companies to offer their systems at current prices.

That's an argument I don't understand from your side.

Yes, Joe Miner is also paying more upfront. But he's still going to recover his investment and make a profit, just takes a bit longer. He ca do what he wants to do (crypto mining) just with a bit more delay in ROI.

I won't be able to afford gaming. He's kicking me out of my hobby to make his extra pocket cash.



Not exactly about OCing, but about running a card at a constant load for a long time. Nvidia and AMD could measure this and void the warranty, arguing that a consumer product is not to be used in a server load scenario.

Edit: I see Adlabs already pointed that out.

Yes, you are correct, he is still (hopefully!) going to recover his investment.

The point I was making was that the price for the GPU is the same whether you are a miner or a gamer. Joe Miner is paying more up front, but the cost of each GPU is the same as for a gamer. So why hate on miners? Can miners hate on gamers too?

The miner is does not have any control over pricing or over supply and demand, so why target the miner for hate?



And why would nVidia/AMD do that? No question there are steps both manufacturers could do and literally wipe out GPU mining in one fell swoop.... but what do they have to gain in doing so? nVidia and if I'm correct, AMD too, made a statement about advising retailers to make sure gamers can buy GPUs, but this has been seen as a more PR stunt than an actual change in focus, with gamer's brand loyalty being cited as a possible target for the PR stunt.