Nvidia's 3000 Series RTX GPU [3050, 3060, 3070, 3080, 3090 now with TIs]

GPUs are selling like hotcakes lol. The corona virus didnt stop people from being extremely hungry after a new GPU.

 

Some people also got extra money on hand...and extra time.
I got extra money too...but not extra time as in no vacation for 1 year and 8 months due to being datacenter responsible during a pandemic.
But then I can look forward to my 3 months of paid vacation in the "bank" (Denmark's holdiday fund)...so two weeks after my sencond Pfizer-jab...I might go a few months on vacation

 

Actually the mining profit is kind of a fiction. For example, a few months ago a 3070 might be able to reach an APR of $3000+, but now according to whattomine.com, it's about $6 a day, which is ~US$2000 a year. It's likely to go lower.
The key thing is that today's mining profit has very little to do with mining profits tomorrow. If it's highly profitable, then it's likely more people will want to join in and profit will go down. So my advice is not to go into mining, especially now.
Some might argue that the coins could rise in prices, but if that's what you are going after, you can just buy those coins. No need to invest into expensive mining rigs.
Of course, there's also the prospect of selling those cards after mining crashes. However, when it happens, it's likely to create a glut of second hand cards. It's probably not going to fetch even half the MSRP of those cards.

 

Buying GPUs for mining at above their MSRPs now seem like a not very smart thing to do considering ETH2.0 and LHR series.

 

Why is because supply is limited, becauase silicon lithography production is limited.

We have direct information on hashrates for the various mining economies. If you want to logically defend this position, then do some goddamned math, show your actual work, and stop spewing your opinions as if they're fact.

I did the homework to defend my position with hard numbers. You've done nothing but spew opinions and point at a non-randomized, non-controlled, self-reported public poll rife with confirmation bias.

Stop spreading bullshit.

 

Huh, imagine that, 25% is the number they come up with, probably based on even better numbers than I was able to scrape in about an hour of digging around.

Looks like miners aren't ruining the GPU economy. Whodathunk it?

 

Your numbers seem to align with theirs, but I don't see how you arrive at your conclusion.

Let's discuss this without pretending to know actual numbers.Not because I do not believe you, but in order to go on to the meta plane, i.e. the conclusion you're drawing. There is an amount X of desireable GPUs produced each quarter, there is an amount Y of gamers and creatives in the market for these GPUs. And then there is an amount of Z of stock that is inventory, in the channel or in containers being delivered to stores.

Since GPUs cost money (bind capital investment) and shelf space costs money, companies traditionally try to minimize the amount of total inventory time TIT (volume x time until sale is completed). That leads to a small surplus of cards in stores or on short time backorder. That's in normal times.

Now enter the mining craze. There is an amount of crazy miners CM and ruthless scalpers RS that seek to obtain desireable GPUs in order to make a profit. Contrary to Y (gamers and creators), they do not buy one or two GPUs, but "more", creating additional demand AD.

If that AD is larger than Z, market principles dictate rising prices due to demand being larger than supply. And since TSMC and Samsung are fully booked, AMD and Nvidia cannot simply increase production volume in order to close this gap.
And since CM and RS will make a profit not only from one card they obtain but from more cards, they buy more to either use them or sell them to desperate gamers/creators for greatly inflated prices. Thus, even incoming supply does nothing or not much to lessen the demand pressure, which in turn would lead to lower prices.

IMHLO, this vicious circle shows that its indeed miners (and scalpers) that are tipping the delicate balance of GPU economics, without even having to consume the majority of cards.

 

25% of units shipped may well cover pretty much all 30 series desktop GPUs, with the remaining 75% being the TU11x based parts and the likes of GT1030 - which aren't of big interest to miners.

So yeah the figure of 25% alone doesn't allow to arrive to a conclusion that mining isn't ruining the GPU economy. In fact it seems high enough to assume the opposite.

 

Actually miners tend to buy lower end cards because they are cheaper and generally more power efficient. A friend of mine who has a friend recently got into GPU mining (a few months ago), only get something like 1660 and 1660 Ti. It not too hard to get one at about US$400 and even now can mine about US$1.6 worth of ETH each day. Higher end cards tend to consume much more power and also increase cost of other peripherals (e.g. power supply). For example, if you have to pay something like $2,000 to get a 3080, which is able to mine about US$5.5 worth of ETH daily, the ROI is still much worse than a lowly 1660 Ti.

It's actually the same story about 3 years ago, when I helped one of my friend building some GPU mining rigs. He started with 1070 Ti, which was a great deal, but then it's becoming very difficult to get one, not to mention the price. He decided to get some 1080 Ti for the remaining rigs (he built 4 rigs eventually). Ironically, many of those 1080 Ti later failed (I think only less than half of them are still mining), and all of those 1070 Ti are still mining now.

Despite mining for nearly 3 years, if he sold all BTC/ETH mined monthly, I think it'll probably only barely cover the cost of the mining rigs, electricity bills, and other supporting devices he bought for those rigs. And no one will buy those GPU with failed fans anyway.

 

So if we ignore data, and make up assumptions about SKU distribution, we can totes defend miners ruining the GPU economy.

Got it.

I'm done here, you guys have decided the answer and have no interest in an actual data-backed dialogue. I have no interest in debating feelings, thoughts, prayers and your confimation bias.

 

If we ignore it then we can assume that 25% of sales are in the sub-200 range while the rest 75% are 3090s. But if we don't do such weird assumption then it will look like what I've said. And while it's true that miners are unlikely to be very interested in 3090 they certainly are interested in 3080. And there's not a lot of mining friendly SKUs in current Nv lineup below 3060Ti - which basically covers all 30 series lineup with the exception of 3060.

 

No. You did not. If anyone actually researched the situation the truth is quite obvious an apparent. You seem to be operating under a few delusions here, but your mental health is none of my concern.

I made my post to complain. What I like to complain about most is the abject horror of many of humanity's practices, from climate change to death for profit to crypto mining. It is not my (or anyone else's here) problem if you do not understand the reality of the situation. It is neither our job nor responsibility to educate you personally.

My posts are primarily rants, but may also be considered informative, though I usually encourage others to their own research. My view on ignorance or delusion is that it is its own punishment, and I am not here to relieve anyone of either.

An Ethereum miner tested a single 3070 for a week. In that week, he generated $73 worth of Eth with 1 3070. Of course, there are operational expenses, primarily electricity. However, if one has their own source of power from something like solar panels or wind turbines, or their power is subsidized by the government (partially or fully), then that changes the equation quite a bit. Now, at this point, one might be wondering about specifics of costs or why on earth a nation state would subsidize crypto mining. While I can not speak to every situation (every coin type, clock, and power set ups), the person in the aforementioned example was pulling ~130 watts from the wall per card, which is a little over 3kwh per day and ~94kwh per month. But one can round up here to make the math a bit simple to 100kwh per month per card. Then there are other costs of the mainboard, CPU, and cooling. Of course, those come down nicely at scale. Or again, if you have "free" or subsidized electricity, it is pure profit. I trust any genuinely curious individual can connect the profitability dots from here via their own research skills and mathematical abilities. For real world numbers, the guy on youtube, with his 5-6 system setup (1660s, 3060/70s, and a couple of AMD rigs) is currently making ~5500 / month. That is reality. And at this point, not only is it currently happening, but it has happened.

Now, as for that second little issue that may be gnawing in the back of one's mind. Crypto is already a 2 trillion+ market. What does profitable mining represent? If you guessed wealth creation, congrats. Each and every modern GPU is a license to create wealth (effectively print money). And note this does not come at the direct cost of devaluing a nation's own currency. Oh, it can a bit with local trade, but the crypto is going to get mined regardless on a global scale. A rising tide raises all boats.

It is like being in California in 1848 except mining equipment is not plentiful but scarce.

As for the "quit your bullshit":



https://www.coindesk.com/hut8-nvidia-mining-gpu-purchase





Of course this involves some degree of speculation, however as the market diversifies and establishes itself (if 2T isn't enough), the investment risk is really quite minimal. Especially with coverage times measured in months. After that, the return rate is insane (currently). Imagine a hedge fund promising 50%+ yoy. If anyone thinks that the demand from people seeking to use device X to "print money" is going to be less than the demand from people seeking to use device X to cost them considerable money up front with further cost with usage, I have a bridge for sale. Hit me up.

 

Us consumers lose access to GPUs every time there's a spike in crypto value, which results in a spike of total aggregate ashing power.

To claim these are not related, and instead it's covid that made everyone into a rich whale for >$600 GPUs seems like a weird flex to me.

 

One or two months ago maybe, but now it's more like $20 per week. Quite a difference just in a month. It's not likely to be going up anytime soon.

I helped a few friends building mining rigs and management software nearly 3 years ago, so I've seen the economy, how the speculators driving up GPU prices (back in the 1070 TI days), and how it crashed. It crashed before, and I believe it will crash again (and probably quite soon). As I said, thinking GPU mining as a "minimal risk investment" is naïve. It's not, and many people lost money during the last crash. It's likely those who have a 2500 GPU mining farm will be having trouble getting rid of all those GPU when it's no longer profitable. Note that if you consider depreciation, even if you have access to free electricity, it's still quite possible to lost money. Of course, some might tell you that they are "already in the black" because the price appreciation of those mined coins, but again, if you expect the coin price to go up, then why not just buying those coins? It's less risky.

I also find it weird that some people here seem to be taking a black and white point of view, that is, it must be all GPU miners' fault, or it must be not related to GPU miners at all, but the reality is more likely to be in the middle. If we accept the 25% number, then of course GPU miners helped push up the prices, but it's also obvious not the entire story. We all seen the same effect on next gen consoles, Nintendo Switch, and countless other popular but scarce goods.

 

None of them have went anywhere near the 300%+ of MSRP figures of the 30 series GPUs.

 

Hmm. Based upon the price in the video and the current price, I get an approximate ratio of 0.78. My windows 10 calculator app indicates that 0.78 * 73 = ~57. But who knows how far a person can trust that....

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the only way this is happening is if crypto is made illegal by the majority of major nations. There may be individual coin crashes especially for garbage coins like doge, but the idea that the entire market is going to go up when there can always be the presence of mathematically sound (scarce) resources is bonkers.

 

Mining profit is not fixed, it depends on many variables and can change quite a lot. For example, a few months ago, the transaction fee on ETH was very high (10x current price was normal, and sometimes 50x or more), therefore mining profit skyrocketed (as the miners share the transaction fees). Now the transaction fee goes down to a more manageable level (for users), but that's bad news for miners. It also depends on how many hashrate are there. It goes down a bit over last few weeks, but not large enough to offset the fee reduction and price difference. That's why you can't just look at the price difference.

I just looked at the managing software of my friends' mining rigs and the mining revenues changed quite a lot over last few months. Monthly revenue went from $1.1k in Dec 2020 to $2k during Feb and March, and down to $1.5k again last month. It's already past half this month, and the revenue is just $590, so revenue in June is likely to be about $1.2k.

No, actually most popular coins are not GPU minable. Once ETH goes to PoS model (no longer rely on mining), GPU mining is going to crash, at least in some way.

 

I see several people putting words in my mouth about my position.

"WHy is it binary?"
"Your saying there's no mining at all?"

Bullshit.

Yup, there's what I actually said. Feel free to continue with your preferred narratives though, don't let things like facts get in your way.

I've unsuscribed any notifications from this thread. Feel free to shitstorm with youtube videos and out-of-context quotes and misinformation without me Let me know when all your complaining results in a net positie result for potential GPU purchasers!

 

When I refer to RTX, I am referring to desktop gaming GPUs like the RTX 2060, 2070, 2080, 3060, 3070 and 3080. People buying other GPUs like mobile version of RTX through laptop purchases, workstations, datacenters or automotive don't directly impact the pricing and availability of desktop discrete gaming cards.

15-20 million desktop gaming RTX unit sales per quarter readily means that Nvidia is able to capture playstation-like size userbases within a generation and 18 months. Do you have that impression? Have you come across any data on the internet that such RTX as a desktop gpu sports a userbase that large?

 

Oh no, my confirmation bias has been exposed. Too much cognitive dissonance. Must shut down to protect my ego. Typical humanity.

That was never the point? I am not God; I don't have that kind of power.

It is fine to mention this, but people who do not understand such things might be interested in the actual numbers in order to measure the significance. Of course, the people *really* interested already know . Transaction cost also becomes meaningless if production overhead is 0. Now, I know China is a fairly small nation without very many people to be interested in mining, but....