Question Jen Sung makes questionable decision? [RUMOR] NVidia tries to disable GPU mining?

[VirtualLarry]

So now, not only is Nvidia's chairman selling GPUs that can be used for Compute (*formerly called GPGPU - "General Purpose"), he's rum0ored to be attempting to effectively regulate WHAT PROGRAMS are ALLOWED to be run on the GPUs that they mfg?

Imaging if Intel decided to decree, that their CPUs, could no longer be used for searching for prime numbers.

This whole idea is a slippery slope that I am NOT willing to go down.

And to think, this is all just an (alleged) stupid band-aid, over their mfg and supply-chain issues.

If Nvidia could effectively supply all of their GPU markets with product, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Edit: If this rumor turns out to be true, expect class-action lawsuits against NVidia, much like what happened to Sony with the PS3 losing functionality (running Linux) after people purchased them.

Now, ALL NVIDIA RETAILERS will be forced to post a prominent disclaimer of the software that is NOT ALLOWED to be run on these GPUs, or they will get sued as well.

Update:
NVidia to phase out all existing Ampere PCI device-ids, phase in EtH mining "block" across ALL new Ampere line-up!

 

[coercitiv]

Why doesnt NV do what they normally do? Update their "policy/contracts" with OEMs. If they catch OEM selling in Bulk to miners, they get a hefty fine. If OEM doesn't want to sign contract, OEM doesn't get any chips anymore. The problem are clearly the OEMs. That pic from Zotac that was taken down?

So much this. They can never avoid giving cards to miners, but they can make sure lots of cards reach regular customers. But this solution is a lot of work... they're a tech company... so they just "fix" this using a signed piece of software that scales to their entire inventory. (until it fails)

 

[Mopetar]

Yeah, no, mining hardware is attached to x1 PCI-E risers and in some cases you have entire PCI-E bridges for multiple gpus attached to a x1 PCI-E, that hardware is useless for anything that is not mining.

. . .

You basically just rewrote what I said, but no everyone who's mining is using a massive rig. There are plenty of people who just mine with their own GPUs while they aren't being used for anything else. It would be far and away better for any future digital currencies to be designed with this kind of usage pattern in mind to avoid incentivizing or even necessitating massive mining farms or pools.

Why doesnt NV do what they normally do? Update their "policy/contracts" with OEMs. If they catch OEM selling in Bulk to miners, they get a hefty fine. If OEM doesn't want to sign contract, OEM doesn't get any chips anymore. The problem are clearly the OEMs. That pic from Zotac that was taken down?

It's a lot easier to push around reviewers than it is to push around companies that have their own legal teams. Nvidia has no legal standing to tell the companies what to do with their existing products and they can't just break existing contracts that they have in place and may extend several years into the future.

It doesn't even solve the problem because the next person in the chain that OEM sells to is free to take their pallet of GPUs and sell them in bulk to miners.

 

[MrTeal]

They really wouldn't even need to break existing contracts. If Nvidia went to Zotac and said if we catch wind of you selling RTX gaming SKUs direct to miners it will affect your future allocations of dies going forward, that would likely be enough to discourage it. The Gigabytes and Asuses would probably be fine without selling Nvidia GPUs. EVGA and Zotac, probably not so much.

 

[Ajay]

You're asking the wrong question. It needs to be flipped back on miners, because miners are the problem, not gamers.

The question to ask is: "would you rather have nVidia's mining SKUs, or have nVidia completely block mining"? Because nVidia could well do that.

I'm actually surprised they only did 2x; they should've done 10x. Make it so gaming SKUs can technically mine for education or research purposes, but there's no hope for it to be profitable.

There may be technical reasons. Maybe reducing further the hashing algorithms would tank some other useful functionality. Or, they could just be throwing hobbyist miners a bone. This 'fix' affects only Ethereum, IIRC, because it's popular. There are less popular hashing algorithms that still work.

PS, for those of us who use AT's Dark mode, black text kind of sucks.

 

[DeathReborn]

The stupid thing about this "short term" thinking by the AIB's is that soon those mining cards will enter the used market, often at a discount and eat new sales. I myself took advantage to buy 2x (Mining) Powercolor R9 290 PCS+ cards for less than the cost of a R9 280. The disgusting side of that is mining cards being sold without any word about them being mined on (average person wouldn't know), those sellers are scum.

 

[Panino Manino]

So much this. They can never avoid giving cards to miners, but they can make sure lots of cards reach regular customers. But this solution is a lot of work... they're a tech company... so they just "fix" this using a signed piece of software that scales to their entire inventory. (until it fails)

Miners are also customers.
Let the market regulate itself, the cards are only going to where the demand is.

 

[ultimatebob]

Miners are also customers.
Let the market regulate itself, the cards are only going to where the demand is.

That's not really working, though. Gamers only want 1 or 2 of the latest generation video cards, while the miners want dozens of them.

What sucks is that this is holding back development for next generation PC games, because most people do not have the hardware to run them. Instead, they're getting piled up in the basements of crypto miners.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Miners are also customers.
Let the market regulate itself, the cards are only going to where the demand is.

So you’re cool and would be happy if cards were market priced as in current gen cards would likely sell for 2-5x what their current listed price is.
I fail to see how that would be a good thing for any of use except possibly someone employed by AMD or nvidia

 

[VirtualLarry]

So you’re cool and would be happy if cards were market priced as in current gen cards would likely sell for 2-5x what their current listed price is.

The price is what the market will bear. If the market will bear those prices, then they must be actually "worth" that much to the purchaser.

In what other industry, can one buy a (relatively expensive, luxury product), and simply by using and running the product, can one pay itself off, in a short 3-4 months. Simply unheard of! A modern miracle machine!

Wait until drug dealers and cartels start to pick up on CC mining. Then the market will really be in for some, err, I can't even being to call it "fun". More like, industry-wide terrorism. (Or maybe, I'm hopefully mistaken, and the mark-up in the drug industry produces far better returns than even GPU mining, and therefore, we should be relatively safe from intrusion into our space from those elements.)

 

[Mopetar]

So you’re cool and would be happy if cards were market priced as in current gen cards would likely sell for 2-5x what their current listed price is.
I fail to see how that would be a good thing for any of use except possibly someone employed by AMD or nvidia

If the cards were selling for 2 - 5x what they currently do, don't you also think that Nvidia and AMD wouldn't start making more of them, probably devoting wafers to them instead of other products or even being able to buy more wafers because they can outbid other companies that might also want to use them? Part of the reason we don't see more Navi cards being made is because AMD stands to make far more money from a wafer if it's full of Zen 3 chiplets.

The more I think about it, the worse Nvidia's solution to this is. Previously, any cards that miners bought could be later used by gamers and often purchased at a deep discount during times when mining wasn't profitable. Now, any mining cards are essentially useless to gamers. It's less about helping gamers as it is about protecting Nvidia from not being able to charge MSRP for their cards in the future due to competition from used cards. The sad part is that some people actually think this is a good move from a consumer perspective.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's less about helping gamers as it is about protecting Nvidia from not being able to charge MSRP for their cards in the future due to competition from used cards. The sad part is that some people actually think this is a good move from a consumer perspective.

This! Exactly!

Using investor-speak, this is a "moat" to protect their profits, due to possibility of later re-sale of used cards.

You thought NVidia actually CARED about miners versus gamers? Let me tell you, actions speak louder than words, and Nvidia and their AIBs are drop-shipping PALLETS of "gaming" GPUs to miners, often at inflated prices. (*Do I need to link to those articles documenting NVidia selling $175 Million USD worth of Ampere graphics cards to miners in one quarter?)

 

[Heartbreaker]

Why doesnt NV do what they normally do? Update their "policy/contracts" with OEMs. If they catch OEM selling in Bulk to miners, they get a hefty fine. If OEM doesn't want to sign contract, OEM doesn't get any chips anymore. The problem are clearly the OEMs. That pic from Zotac that was taken down?

How would that work? Even if not sold in bulk, they just sell them to the normal distribution channels, and the channel sells them to miners. It doesn't help. Are you going to follow every card through every link in the distribution chain until it lands with a certified gaming buyer that signs an affidavit that he won't sell to miners? Then followup a week later and make sure he's playing games with it?

Desirable product will find a way into the hands of those that want and are willing to pay for them.

IMO making the product less desirable is a lot more effective, than trying to control who buys them. Though IMO they should have nerfed mining more than they did. A quarter performance would have been more effective. Half performance might still entice miners.

 

[Ajay]

This! Exactly!

Using investor-speak, this is a "moat" to protect their profits, due to possibility of later re-sale of used cards.

You thought NVidia actually CARED about miners versus gamers? Let me tell you, actions speak louder than words, and Nvidia and their AIBs are drop-shipping PALLETS of "gaming" GPUs to miners, often at inflated prices. (*Do I need to link to those articles documenting NVidia selling $175 Million USD worth of Ampere graphics cards to miners in one quarter?)

This. I was just reading about AIBs drop shipping pallets and pallets of GPUs to the big mining companies. It's easy money.
I still want that hash reduction on the 3060Ti though

 

[Kuiva maa]

Miners are also customers.
Let the market regulate itself, the cards are only going to where the demand is.

Miners aren't consumers. They use GPUs as capital, to create monetary value. There is no consumer mining demand to be satisfied by the supply of cards. The more cards AMD and nvidia make,the more cards they will buy more or less because they profit off them. If this situation remains unchanged for a prolonged period of time, the result will be the decline (and ultimately the demise) of PC gaming/prosumer market. Gamers will just move to consoles/mobile, PC game sales will drop creating a downward spiral. Now you may think, why would chip makers and vendors care, they still sell cards. Thing is , sooner or later mining boom will subside. But if that process takes too long to happen, the PC GPU market may not be able to absorb the production any longer since there is a danger the target group will have moved on.

 

[KompuKare]

This! Exactly!

Using investor-speak, this is a "moat" to protect their profits, due to possibility of later re-sale of used cards.

You thought NVidia actually CARED about miners versus gamers? Let me tell you, actions speak louder than words, and Nvidia and their AIBs are drop-shipping PALLETS of "gaming" GPUs to miners, often at inflated prices. (*Do I need to link to those articles documenting NVidia selling $175 Million USD worth of Ampere graphics cards to miners in one quarter?)

While I think you or Mopetar are mostly correct, I do think NVidia do "care" about gamer versus miner.
Obviously, they're happy to take the money, and being Nvidia they would be even more happy to charge extra for the priveldge of using their cards for mining.
What they are not happy about, is miners are not repeat customers who might destroy the gaming market.
Always, rather suspected that some part of Nvidia looks at gaming cards as almost a subscription thing gamers are willing to pay them.
An other consideration might be that the current gen actually has Nvidia leading at hash/watt for ETH just at a time when RDNA2 is really competing at the top end, so miners might eroede their gamer's mindshare.

 

[ozzy702]

Miners aren't consumers. They use GPUs as capital, to create monetary value. There is no consumer mining demand to be satisfied by the supply of cards.

Blanket statements like this are wrong. Every single friend I have that is mining has one GPU and is a gamer that's paying for their hardware via mining. Yes, gamers who also mine may represent a smaller % of the overall mining sales, but it's significant. If all AIBs and vendors were to do a que system like EVGA and not sell direct to miners, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Fact of the matter is NVIDIA and the AIBs have LOVED this mining boom and NVIDIA's move with the 3060 is 100% virtue signaling. Shoot, the 3060 still mines Ravencoin and all sorts of other crypto without throttling so again, it's optics plain and simple.

 

[Ajay]

the 3060 still mines Ravencoin

But Ravencoin and other are small potatoes compared with Ethereum (of the GPU accelerated hash algos).

 

[Asterox]

Let's get ready to rumble.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Let's get ready to rumble.

LTT cares about clickbait. No pretending involved.

 

[ultimatebob]

LTT cares about clickbait. No pretending involved.

Linus also did a bunch of mining tutorial videos during the last crypto boom, so I can almost taste the hypocrisy in the air when I watched his sudden shift in "concern" for the gaming community. He knows that they're pissed off, mostly because they can't buy the products he's been shamelessly hawking on his channel for the past six months.

I'm looking at it this way... LTT probably already has their 3060 review ready to go for the NDA release day, and Nvidia isn't going to be launching any more new cards for a while. Therefore, Linus can stop kissing their asses for free sample products for a few months and come up with a new way to generate channel subscriptions. That GME "stonk" that he recently bought to pander to the Reddit crowd didn't do it

 

[Mopetar]

Regardless of whether or not he's got his own selfish motives for making the video or is a bit of a hypocrite given past videos he's made about mining, is anything he said actually wrong?

 

[DeathReborn]

Regardless of whether or not he's got his own selfish motives for making the video or is a bit of a hypocrite given past videos he's made about mining, is anything he said actually wrong?

Yes, he didn't get the "driver + chip + BIOS" part right, must have filmed it too early or just doing his typical "i'm gonna rant" shtick.

 

[ultimatebob]

Yes, he didn't get the "driver + chip + BIOS" part right, must have filmed it too early or just doing his typical "i'm gonna rant" shtick.

I still think that someone is going to find a workaround for the mining throttle within three weeks of the 3060 release date.

I also think that NVidia isn't going to sell a lot of mining only cards to miners or anyone else unless they are cheap, because the resale value on them would suck if the mining boom ends quickly. It probably will end soon, too. Wasn't Ethereum supposed to switch over to Proof Of Stake by now?

 

[jpiniero]

Wasn't Ethereum supposed to switch over to Proof Of Stake by now?

Looks like Proof of Work is sticking around regardless.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Regardless of whether or not he's got his own selfish motives for making the video or is a bit of a hypocrite given past videos he's made about mining, is anything he said actually wrong?

I have a current "No LTT videos" policy, so I wouldn't know.

Did he say anything substantive?