Nvidia's 3000 Series RTX GPU [3090s with different memory capacity]

[ninelven]

I don't get why they don't implement restricted sales.

Hash credit cards and mailing addresses, restrict to something like 1 card per hash per 6 months for the first 3 weeks of every month.

Last week of each month have open market to clear any inventory issues.

Since the hash database blacklist is completely anonymous could even share access to other online retailers, which could also contribute to it.

IDK, just seems like a fairly trivial problem to solve, but I suppose there is no motivation since they get paid regardless.

 

[pcchen]

I have no insider information on supplies, but from what I see all online retailers (there’s currently no “offline” retailers offering any 3080 ti here now) have this “one per customer” policy. I guess the supplies are not great. I have a friend actually got the last one piece of a bundled package (the product page showed “sold out” after he ordered, and it keeps that way since then).

 

[pharma]

Nvidia GTX GPU Shortage (kotaku.com)
June 3, 2021

The video below, captured by PrestonALewis, goes for 50 minutes, but you’ll only really be interested in the first five or so, where we see a huge crowd form in the store’s parking lot, before staff emerge to tell everybody that only one card per household can be purchased.

“Is there going to be enough for all of us?”

“No!”

Then, when the doors open (at around 3:55), all hell breaks loose.

 

[DegustatoR]

I don't get why they don't implement restricted sales.

Hash credit cards and mailing addresses, restrict to something like 1 card per hash per 6 months for the first 3 weeks of every month.

Last week of each month have open market to clear any inventory issues.

Since the hash database blacklist is completely anonymous could even share access to other online retailers, which could also contribute to it.

IDK, just seems like a fairly trivial problem to solve, but I suppose there is no motivation since they get paid regardless.

What would that solve besides lowering their sales? Miners would still buy the majority of the cards. Big miners who get the most sales don't buy cards in Best Buy.

 

[ninelven]

No, they wouldn't. It would be for ALL online sales referenced across platforms. With a tiny bit more work could also implement it for offline sales as well.

And no, it would not lower their sales. That is the entire point of the 4th week. If miners are currently consuming 100% of your production, then giving them open access at the end of each month is going to ensure that month to month you are selling the same number of cards as you would otherwise (100%).

 

[DegustatoR]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Review Roundup

 

[pcchen]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Review Roundup

Looks like its performance advantage over 3070 is even smaller than what 3080 Ti over 3080.
However, if there's a chance to get one at anywhere near its MSRP I'd say it's worth it.

 

[Malo]

It only seems worth it due to nvidia's ridiculous anchoring from the 3080ti MSRP. There's no reason for either card to exist other than to milk the current market.

 

[Albuquerque]

No, they wouldn't. It would be for ALL online sales referenced across platforms. With a tiny bit more work could also implement it for offline sales as well.

And no, it would not lower their sales. That is the entire point of the 4th week. If miners are currently consuming 100% of your production, then giving them open access at the end of each month is going to ensure that month to month you are selling the same number of cards as you would otherwise (100%).

While I appreciate where your head and heart are here, the reality is there's absolutely no reason for them to do this work. Let's break down why so you don't think I'm just handwaving:

• The credit card + shipping address is trivial in concept, it would be harder in practice to work through legal validation of all the various consumer data protection laws (GDPR / CCPA / CCPAv2 now it seems). Yes, I get why it should be purely anonymized in the end, however reality results in bad actors using seemingly anonymous data to track LOTS of things, just like how cookies work and why even simple tracking cookies are now a legal shitstorm.
• This validation code would have to be implemented everywhere cards are sold, and then the data would have to be collected and shared between all those endpoints. Where is this going to happen? Easily we could say "the cloud", but what happens if the service is unavailable? Do card sales not happen?
• What is the eventual consistency timeframe of this global database of tracked people? You can't globally force-sync a dataset this large and with this many simultaneous producers and consumers without causing other massive coding challenges. How do we stop a potential scalper from buying one card from 47 retailers simultaneously, therefore bypassing an eventually-consistent data model? How does the data model deal with conflicts when someone accomplishes this?
• Who is going to pay for the development of this code, the upkeep of it, the cloud service where the data will be hosted, and who is financially responsible if/when it breaks down and causes sales to stop because transactions can't process?
• If they change absolutely nothing at all, they will continue to sell as many as they can make without any of the aforementioned legal or technical or financial headaches. Why then change?

In a single store, this is solvable using the method you describe.

In a global economy where thousands of retailers will be selling to millions of people, many of which will set out purposefully to defeat the system because it's a hindrance to their profit, this isn't solvable in the way you think it is.

 

[DegustatoR]

It only seems worth it due to nvidia's ridiculous anchoring from the 3080ti MSRP. There's no reason for either card to exist other than to milk the current market.

The market is "milked" with or without these cards on it. And I very much prefer for the margin to go to Nvidia instead of some scalper or a distributor.

 

[trinibwoy]

I wonder how volumes compare to Pascal’s in its heyday. Nvidia must be wary of repeating that mistake and having to deal with a flood of beaten up mining cards once the hype dies yet again.

And yes it’s obviously much better for us if Nvidia is doing the milking instead of some random dude on eBay who will just smoke the profits. There’s nothing Nvidia can do unilaterally to stop the bleeding so might as well get in on the action.

 

[Albuquerque]

The market is "milked" with or without these cards on it. And I very much prefer for the margin to go to Nvidia instead of some scalper or a distributor.

And while I'm not some sneering imperialist who wants to fight for corporate rights to gank money from consumers, I'm in begrudging agreement with you here.

Sigh.

 

[nutball]

One other issue, the NVIDIA execs have a fiduciary duty to maximise the value / return of the investments of their shareholders. Which, in our current world, means maximising profit in the short-term. Maybe medium-term if you're feeling generous. This is essentially the sole reason that that company exists.

If they can charge X currency units for a product that is in high demand, and chose to charge <X or say X/2 then they would not be maximising their shareholder return. That could lead to lawsuits, board shuffles, etc.

The same applies to the other team BTW. That's what kind of annoys me about the ambience here that they are somehow better because they charge less because they are "good people". I don't think that's how that works. If as a CEO you have a product that can make a mint, and choose not to make a mint, you won't be CEO much longer unless you own the company or have investors who are truly in it for the long-game.

 

[DegustatoR]

The other team has been routinely charging considerably above their announced MSRPs straight from launch days of their respective products. Which could only happen due to current market situation.

 

[nutball]

And so they should. For the exact same reasons.

 

[PSman1700]

Sigh.

https://www.gamingbible.co.uk/news/...2tsGicFTxq8fC8iGJMHyiZh9dQpGsqAuNome4leeYd5Is

Graphics Card Restock Causes Customer Panic And Dangerous Stampeding

 

[pharma]

Nvidia RTX A4000 / RTX A5000 review - AEC Magazine
June 5, 2021

Announced at Nvidia’s GTC event this year, the PCIe Gen 4 ‘Ampere’ Nvidia RTX A4000 and Nvidia RTX A5000 are the replacements for the PCIe Gen 3 ‘Turing’ Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 and Quadro RTX 5000, which launched in 2019. And with an estimated street price of $1,000 for the Nvidia RTX A4000 and $2,250 for the Nvidia RTX A5000, they have much more palatable price tags than the Nvidia RTX A6000 which comes in at $4,650.
...
The performance leap from ‘Turing’ to ‘Ampere’ (Quadro RTX 4000 to RTX A4000) is nothing short of impressive. In real-time 3D, a 45% to 60% boost, generation on generation, seems typical, with even bigger gains from real-time ray tracing when the enhanced RT and Tensor cores come into play. The step up from the four-year old ‘Pascal’ Quadro P4000 is simply phenomenal, especially for GPU rendering.

Equipping the RTX A4000 with 16 GB of memory is very significant. While we often see models / scenes that surpass 8 GB (the capacity of the previous generation Quadro RTX 4000) scenes that are 16 GB and above are certainly less common, and more the preserve of viz specialists than most architects or product designers who use standard materials and assets.

As we wait for AMD to deliver a Pro version of its ‘Big Navi’ Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs with hardware ray tracing, Nvidia’s biggest competitor in pro graphics is currently itself.

The new 12 GB ‘consumer’ GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, for example, might have half the memory of the Nvidia RTX A5000, but offers more performance on paper for half the price. Nvidia even has a GeForce Studio driver for applications including Enscape, Unreal Engine and V-Ray.

Despite the obvious attraction of Nvidia’s consumer GPUs, Nvidia’s ‘A’ class models should continue to find favour in large firms and enterprises that buy in volume, want more memory, consistent supply, pro viz features or the assurance of certification. There’s also the question of supply. As the global chip shortage continues to bite, Nvidia may well prioritise manufacture of its higher-margin pro GPUs, making GeForce even harder to get hold of.

 

[ninelven]

it would be harder in practice to work through legal validation of all the various consumer data protection laws

Yes, I get why it should be purely anonymized in the end, however reality results in bad actors using seemingly anonymous data to track LOTS of things

It isn't a matter of "should" or "could" here but is. All one need store is a hash of the card number, no name, no date, no back code, nada. Just the hashes randomly shuffled. Each individual bit of information can be kept on its own server (again hashed in random order). All the salespoint people are then checking is does the hash of X exist. If so, don't sell.

How do we stop a potential scalper from buying one card from 47 retailers simultaneously, therefore bypassing an eventually-consistent data model? How does the data model deal with conflicts when someone accomplishes this?

Simple, you don't let perfect be the enemy of better. Of course, there will always be a group of people dedicated enough to circumvent whatever measures are taken; the idea is just to minimize this population while maximizing the number of traditional consumers (people needing say 1-4 cards) getting one.

Why then change?

As I wrote in my OP, short-term there is no reason, which is why it hasn't been done. There may be long-term benefits however when one considers things customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, etc. If one of AMD or Nvidia started doing this and the other does not, then the one who did will still be selling the same number of cards as before. But, they will also be growing their gamer & developer market share relative to their competitor. Certainly that has the potential for long-term gains.

 

[ninelven]

Intel.

 

[trinibwoy]

Genuinely curious. What would you do in Nvidia or AMD’s current position to get more cards into gamers’ hands?