German retailer MindFactory has removed many AMD and Nvidia graphics cards from sale because the products have a delivery time of 3 months. According to them, the GPU shortage affects "the whole of Germany" or even the "whole Europe".
The demand for GPUs to mine cryptocurrencies, particularly Ethereum, has led to OEMs creating products specifically tailored to cryptocurrency mining. For example, new cards that are smaller, have fewer display ports, with cooling systems:
While the GPU shortage continues, there are some signs of improvement. There are now several models of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 in stock from various OEMs, but prices remain high and relatively close to the price of the GTX 1080. There are also a few more GTX 1060 6GB graphics cards available, and the price on the least expensive one has dropped significantly, down from $484.80 to $259.99.
At the same time, however, the price on the least expensive GTX 1050 Ti has climbed by about $10, and several models now cost around $200. The price on the least expensive Geforce GTX 1060 3GB has also climbed by roughly $20, as well. This likely indicates that sales of these cards have increased somewhat, pushing prices up accordingly.
Meanwhile, several OEMs, including Asus, Biostar, Sapphire, and Zotac, have announced new mining graphics cards that are tailored for cryptocurrency mining. We have also seen a new motherboard from Asrock that can support up to 13 GPUs for mining. Biostar has a similar board for AM4 CPUs that can support six GPUs. Although we haven't seen them yet, EVGA and MSI also have mining GPUs coming soon, and MSI will also have a motherboard designed for mining. Although these may be attractive to cryptocurrency miners, one source told us that they use the same GPU cores as traditional graphics cards, and thus don't address the underlying supply problem.
The shortages go all the way to the source. OEMs are reportedly having trouble getting GPU cores from Nvidia, and Nvidia can't get enough from TSMC. This is presumably the same situation for AMD and GlobalFoundries.
Previously: BitCoin, Ethereum and Gold
Cryptocoin GPU Bubble?
Related Stories
Something odd is going on in finance this week. One unit of BitCoin briefly exceeded the value of a troy ounce of gold before it fell back. However, this occurred during Ethereum rallying to its current peak above US$100. Perhaps this is like comparing apples, oranges, and dog-biscuits but — as of this week — we now have a situation where Ethereum is well above the US$1 credibility threshold of most alternative digital currencies and, to a simpleton, BitCoin was more valuable than gold.
What changed? Nothing obvious. Banks have teams of shirking resume builders working on trendy projects and they've been working on digital currencies for years. Likewise, tranches of investments funds have been going into technology for decades. However, after puffing and bursting a housing bubble and educational bubble, is this the next place to jub other people's money? Is it Charles Stross' Accelerando coming to life? I don't know but I'll be very concerned if there is a financial wobble within the next month.
(External hyperlinks via Vinay Gupta, an Ethereum contributor, Ethereum evangelist and all-around great guy who helps the homeless.)
[Ed Note: Asking what is Ethereum? Me too. Additional information on the above topic can be found at the IB Times]
There are many reasons for investors to buy chipmakers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, but the recent rush for an indirect way to play skyrocketing cryptocurrencies bitcoin and ethereum should not be one of them, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Friday. "One of the reasons why AMD and Nvidia have been going up is their chips are used for mining, for cryptocurrency mining," Cramer told "Squawk on the Street." But he warned, "Do not play it for this is what I'm saying. But it is being played for that." [...] Cramer cited a recent note from RBC Capital Markets, which said the growing cryptocurrency mining market has contributed $100 million worth of GPU sales for Nvidia in the past 11 days alone. "AMD chips are the best ones for the ethereum platform," he added.
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Over the past few months, there has been a GPU shortage, forcing the prices of mid-range graphics cards up as cryptocurrency miners from across the world purchased hardware in bulk in search for quick and easy profits.
This has forced the prices of most modern AMD and certain Nvidia GPUs to skyrocket, but now these GPUs are starting to saturate the used market as more and more Ethereum miners sell up and quit mining. Some other miners are starting to look at other emerging Cryptocurrencies, though it is clear that the hype behind Ethereum is dying down.
Earlier this week Ethereum's value dropped below $200, as soon as the currency experienced a new difficulty spike, making the currency 20% harder to mine and significantly less profitable. This combined with its decrease in value has made mining Ethereum unprofitable for many miners, especially in regions with higher than average electricity costs.
Now Ethereum is valued at less than $150, with the currency costing $134.97 at the time of writing, which is less than half of the currency's peak value. The currency has the potential to bounce back, though it is difficult to see the currency go back over £250 [sic*] in the near future.
On second-hand sales websites like eBay and Gumtree, we have seen a lot of new GPU listing appear in recent days, with plenty of used AMD RX series GPUs appearing over the weekend. More hardware is expected to hit these sites over the coming days as some miners wind down their operations, though many will simply move to a more profitable currency or to invest their computing power into an emerging Cryptocurrency that has the prospect of high values in the future.
Recent related Ethereum/GPU coverage: Ethereum Mining Craze Leads to GPU Shortages; and Cryptocoin GPU Bubble?
[* I'm not sure where they got a pound value from, or why, but a little bit of research shows ethereum peaked at $401 on June 13. (Needs javascript from *.coindesk.com and *.hotjar.com). Ooops, spent too long editing this, it went out before I'd completed my changes, sorry -- Ed.(FP)]
Another slow news day; yet another sign language glove. But this time it is different!
Specifically, the DailyFail covers a New Scientist report about US$100 gloves which translate ASL [American Sign Language].
It is perhaps not as medically useful as a rectal haptic logging device or stroke recovery glove, perhaps not as visionary and audacious as the 1989 Nintendo Power Glove, but perhaps some of the numerous sign language gloves can be used as ambidexterous VR gloves? Likewise, when the crypto-currency market crashes again there'll be a huge surplus of GPUs for VR.
Full disclosure: I'm easily amused; especially with purile jokes about cyber logging and stroking aids. However, in the last two months, I filed a haptics patent (which started as a purile joke). Also, I'm working on a US$300 immersive sound system and I'll have a large number of spare I/O pins.
Some time ago, I wrote that I had given up on Ethereum. While the problems coming from the DAO hack are now in the past Ethereum has had a few other problems.
Granted, these problems have nothing to do with Ethereum itself. They are all exploits in the surrounding ecosystem. Hacking the CoinDash website to replace their public wallet address was particularly cheeky. This all reminds me of tales of the Wild West, when money was transferred between banks by stagecoach or by train. The technology simply didn't exist to provide the necessary security way the heck out on the prairie.
Seems like that's where we are now. The necessary technology does not exist, to provide the security that currencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin really require. Website hacks are a dime a dozen, and when a hack can be worth $millions... The same for software: When professional programmers still write code vulnerable to SQL injection - when our platforms even allow this as a possibility - then we simply do not have the technology to secure the stagecoach.
Previously:
$30 Million Below Parity: Ethereum Wallet Bug Fingered in Mass Heist
Hacker Allegedly Steals $7.4 Million in Ethereum During ICO
Used GPUs Flood the Market as Ethereum's Price Crashes Below $150
Ethereum Mining Craze Leads to GPU Shortages
Ethereum Unusable, DAO Refunds Possible
AMD turned a profit last quarter:
2017 has been a great year for the tech enthusiast, with the return of meaningful competition in the PC space. Today, AMD announced their third quarter earnings, which beat expectations, and put the company's ledgers back in the black in their GAAP earnings. For the quarter, AMD had revenues of $1.64 billion, compared to $1.31 billion a year ago, which is a gain of just over 25%. Operating income was $126 million, compared to a $293 million loss a year ago, and net income was $71 million, compared to a net loss of $406 million a year ago. This resulted in earnings per share of $0.07, compared to a loss per share of $0.50 in Q3 2016.
[...] The Computing and Graphics segment has been a key to these numbers, with some impressive launches this year, especially on the CPU side. Revenue for this segment was up 74% to $819 million, and AMD attributes this to strong sales of both Radeon GPUs and Ryzen desktop processors. Average Selling Price (ASP) was also up significantly thanks to Ryzen sales. AMD is still undercutting Intel on price, but they don't have to almost give things away like they did the last couple of years. ASP of GPUs was also up significantly, and the proliferation of cryptocurrency likely played a large part in that. Operating income for the segment was an impressive $70 million, compared to an operating loss of $66 million last year.
When AMD turns a profit, it is news. Stocks still plunged on concerns over future growth. Citi Research has predicted big losses for AMD as Intel ships its Coffee Lake CPUs.
Previously: AMD Ryzen Launch News
AMD GPU Supply Exhausted By Cryptocurrency Mining, AIBs Now Directly Advertising To Miners
AMD Epyc 7000-Series Launched With Up to 32 Cores
Cryptocoin GPU Bubble?
Ethereum Mining Craze Leads to GPU Shortages
Used GPUs Flood the Market as Ethereum's Price Crashes Below $150
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and 56 Announced
First Two AMD Threadripper Chips Out on Aug. 10, New 8-Core Version on Aug. 31
Cryptocurrency Mining Wipes Out Vega 64 Stock
AMD Expected to Release Ryzen CPUs on a 12nm Process in Q1 2018
Shipments of GPUs are being slowed down or suspended in light of a slowdown in demand driven by cryptocurrency miners:
Taiwan-based graphics card makers including Gigabyte Technology, Micro-Star International (MSI) and TUL are expected to see their shipments for April plunge over 40% on month, as many clients have suspended taking shipments in response to drastic slowdown in demand for cryptocurrency mining machines, according to industry sources.
Channel distributors and larger mining farm operators have cut orders with makers of mining graphics cards and mining motherboards or asked them to suspend shipments due to the crypto mining craze waning abruptly from the beginning of April, the sources said.
Quite a few mining farm operators have even stopped purchasing graphic cards, as they are awaiting the rollout of Ethereum mining machines by China's Bitmain in the third quarter of 2018. They anticipate mining rewards to pick up gradually in the third quarter, as Bitcoin and Ethereum values may rebound following sharp declines seen in early 2018, the sources indicated.
Previously: AMD GPU Supply Exhausted By Cryptocurrency Mining, AIBs Now Directly Advertising To Miners
Cryptocoin GPU Bubble?
Ethereum Mining Craze Leads to GPU Shortages
Used GPUs Flood the Market as Ethereum's Price Crashes Below $150
Cryptocurrency Mining Wipes Out Vega 64 Stock
GPU Cryptomining Hurting SETI and Other Astronomy Projects
Related: AMD Profits in Q3 2017
(Score: 5, Informative) by MrGuy on Monday July 10 2017, @03:17PM (6 children)
At least as far as Ethereum goes, these are a terrible investment.
Currently, Ethereum (and many other crypto currencies) use a "Proof of Work" [wikipedia.org] system - you "earn" new currency by doing work to prove the integrity of the blockchain. This kind of "mining" is what heavy GPU is useful for - the more powerful your rig, the more work you can do, and the more currency you can earn.
Ethereum has announced they're switching to a new Proof of Stake [github.com] based system, which (unlike PoW) does NOT reward processing power - it rewards investment. Rather than mine currency with processing power, you mine currency by buying ether and putting that ether down as effectively collateral behind a given block. It's more like earning interest in a classical sense.
So, ethereum is very soon going to get out of the "massive GPU power = wealth" system, which will put a lot of these big heavy GPU mining rigs out of work as far as directly creating ether. There are other cryptocurrencies that still use PoS, and you can still currently exchange them for ether, so it's not like these will sit idle. But the return on them will depend on the demand for those alternate currencies, and I have a feeling that the owners of huge rigs will quickly crash the market in those currencies as soon as they turn their attention to them.
Maybe PoS will flame out and PoW will return to dominance, and the golden age of GPU miners will return. But if I have $100k to potentially spend, I wouldn't put it into a big mining rig these days.
Another helpful article on PoW" rel="url2html-17708">https://www.ethnews.com/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake-explained">PoW [soylentnews.org] vs. PoS.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Monday July 10 2017, @03:19PM
Apologies - I butchered that last link.
https://www.ethnews.com/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake-explained [ethnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @05:58PM (3 children)
Everyone that does the most basic research knows that ethereum is supposed to be moving from PoW to PoS. They are dragging ass at it though. As you mentioned, there are plenty of alt coins to address that particular issue, too. Also, what kind of whore didn't move to ethereum classic when the fork happened anyways. Oh that's right, a bunch of windows using gamers who don't care if a financial or government power can basically go rewrite blockchain history b/d they feel like it, as long as they get their 30 pieces of silver.
PoW isn't dying, overall, any time soon. I don't know why every time there's an article anywhere about how demand is high for mining cards, someone has to spew FUD about how "your're going to lose all your money". Anyone who has jr. high math can figure out if they will turn a profit or not. This is not that complicated or secret info only for insiders.
That being said, the market is not doing that great recently and could continue it's downward trend. That would make all the weak hands sell their miners/cards. This could bring prices down and when the stripped down miner cards come out, prices could go lower.
I'm going to mine regardless and continue to buy new cards and build miners. I came in late(i wasn't interested in bitcoin as it offered no built in privacy. now there are alt coins for that.), so if the prices go to shit and miners sell their cards, the mining difficulty will go down too. I could mine like that(lots of coins but at low coin prices) for a year or two until the prices go back up and then it's almost like i got in early.
This whole cryptocurrency "craze" is not going away. There are too many cryptocurrency/blockchain/ledger/distributedDB based platforms and apps being built for this to go away. This is "web 3.0" (or at least partof it) and the evolution of currency(and possibly many other social structures). Nothing's going to stop it. It could retract significantly as all the light weight miners and speculators freak out, but that's it. It will come back up eventually and PoW will likely still have a place at the table. Anything's possible, but several of these alt coins have looked at PoS and purposely decided to stick with PoW for their particular case.
Whether the people end up with something they can used to increase their freedom from usurers and the thieves in government remains to be seen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @06:14PM (1 child)
But where is the new Silk Road? I want to order some NBOMe. Maybe a few Quaaludes for old time's sake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @11:41PM
you can buy drugs in nxt's exchange. never done it though. it's not very fleshed out yet and maybe just honeypots.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday July 10 2017, @10:18PM
Perhaps we'll get lucky and all the hand-me-down ex-mining cards will become cheap gaming cards on ebay for the masses.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday July 10 2017, @06:27PM
Work for the sake of proof of work is terribly wasteful. Put your rig on FAH and get Curecoin while actually doing something useful.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @04:26PM
On the front page, pin the GPU shortage story and the Larsen C calving story.
(Score: 2) by cosurgi on Monday July 10 2017, @04:26PM (6 children)
Guys who want to mine whatever cryptocurrency should first learn about difficulty mechanisms. Seriously. Usually they pay something like 5000 USD, to see that few months later their monthly payout falls below 1 USD. It has always been (since 2009) more profitable to buy some cryptocurrency instead. Just have a look at the price graphs (of whatever cryptocurrency you want), and the difficulty graphs, and do your math based on hashes per second, and speed of hardware available at that time.
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#\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday July 10 2017, @04:45PM (2 children)
I'm wondering how many of the mid-sized miners are just IT guys who don't pay a dime for the GPU power they contribute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @05:25PM
Careful there, Bob. A few of those bioinformatics startup fealls saw The Producers one too many times and aren't too shy about driving a Porsche on their way to "cure cancer".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @05:26PM
Loads of cryptocurrency mining is done via bundled crapware and outright botnets too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheB on Monday July 10 2017, @05:36PM (2 children)
Mining is risky. If your calculations don't have you making profit within 9 months you should probably stay away.
Some people do get lucky and invest in hardware at the right time.
A friend of mine purchased $12k worth of ASICs in January and has made $24k worth of coin in 7 months.
After operating costs that is about $7.5k profit so far this year.
He was lucky. BTC has doubled in price, his average daily BTC reward has only dropped by ~7%
The same hardware now cost twice as much and has a shorter potential lifetime of profitability.
It's a risky game to play but some people do make money... until they reinvest all their earnings back into equipment and the market shifts.
Things to watch out for:
-Difficulty goes up over time with more rigs mining.
-New hardware makes old hardware less profitable. Electricity costs end up being more that you can expect to mine.
-Coin prices fluctuate.
-BTC rewards halve every 4 years.
-Potential regulations.
-Ease of cashing out.
...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @08:46PM (1 child)
Think about it.
If you make GPUs that give a massive advantage in mining, then do you
10 sell these GPUs
20 use the GPUs for a few months until they're non-competitive then goto 10
Once the competition field is equal there's less money in mining, so that is the point to sell the useless shit.
(Score: 2) by TheB on Tuesday July 11 2017, @11:47AM
ASIC miner manufacturers sell the hardware for less than they would make mining themselves to mitigate risk.
Guaranteed profit now as opposed to potentially 5%-20% more in 2 years.
It allows them to make more chips now than they could if they were mining, resulting in more profits for themselves.
Most of the time people would be better off investing in the stock market than taking on the manufacturer's risk.
It isn't a bad idea for gamers with $500 GPUs sitting around to mine while not playing games.
If enough gamers do so, GPU mining could become unprofitable again. This keeps the transaction verification decentralized.
Won't work with bitcoins or other SHA256 crypto currencies though. ASIC dominate there and without another large use for them professional miners can continue to exist.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tibman on Monday July 10 2017, @05:10PM
Time to sell those old GPUs while you can. Graphics tech ages very badly in terms of resell. This is the only time where selling your used GPU will net you double what you bought it for. If the mining craze will hold on for another month, i'll buy an RX Vega and sell off this RX 480 for the same price.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @05:28PM (8 children)
It's all shitcoin. Bitcoin was the exception, not the rule.
You aren't going to get rich from mining this stuff.
On the bright side, it will soon be a buyer's market for used video cards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @06:03PM
another lazy ass (or malicious bankster shill) who hasn't bothered looking into the assets that are being built on the platforms while shilling for bitcoin, the only coin not implementing new features.
(Score: 2) by cosurgi on Monday July 10 2017, @06:11PM
You didn't check what's about the last ethereum surge? It's a complete Turing machine inside blockchain. That includes ability to implement namecoin or a citizen ID like in Swiss city of Zug: http://www.stadtzug.ch/de/ueberzug/ueberzugrubrik/aktuelles/aktuellesinformationen/?action=showinfo&info_id=383355 [stadtzug.ch]
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#\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
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(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Monday July 10 2017, @07:08PM (5 children)
On the bright side, it will soon be a buyer's market for used video cards.
No, it won't. The summary clearly says that these new GPU cards are tailored for cryptocurrency mining rather than video usage, so they're not going to be of much use to people wanting to use them for actual video. It mentions having fewer video ports, for instance. If a GPU card only has one video port, for example, that's rather useless for most people who want high-end video cards for video, since everyone has multiple monitors these days. (People who don't care about multiple monitors don't buy high-end GPU cards, they just use the built-in Intel graphics.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @07:43PM
Back in the day, we would have two or more cards for one monitor. Anyone remember CrossFire or SLI?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @08:54PM
I hope and pray the miners keep pushing GPU compute speeds. Couldn't care less for VGA ports or whatever.
Give us compute compute compute for scientific applications. This is how science progresses, by begging richer fools to believe in their own dreams. Yes you can be a millionaire, buy more cards, demand progress, etc. Incidental shit like magical brain scans, nuclear power and intercontinental flight are boring side-shows. Just line pockets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @09:15PM
I daisy chain three Dell monitors from one displayport.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday July 10 2017, @09:19PM
I wonder if these coin-cards are compatible with the multi GPU systems I'm familiar with as a gamer (Crossfire or SLI). If that is the case then having one conventional card for your displays and multiple slave cards to improve performance could save some money.
Although, I do have a Crossfire compatible mobo now and I've not been thrilled when I run it. It does give a serious performance boost, but at the expense of noise, heat and power. If used cards really drop in price then I could see myself running Crossfire again.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday July 10 2017, @10:22PM
At work I have three monitors. At home it's a single ultrawide. One output's fine for that.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @09:21PM (3 children)
With so much fluctuation going on in these markets (>10% change in a day), trading can be way more profitable than mining.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @11:50PM
i was planning on doing that but it's too much stress for me. i'm just going to mine and hold the 10-15 coins i have right now, longish term. more predictable and steady, comparatively speaking. but, if you're already used to trading GUIs and you don't mind staying on top of it or leaving your coin in online exchanges, then more power to you. you're braver than i am.
please don't buy/trade in coins that help fund the enemies of humanity (banks, etc).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 11 2017, @08:48AM (1 child)
I'd like to tell you about this fabulous place called Vegas...
Seriously what is the next word? Get rich fast _____? ... it's scam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 11 2017, @10:54AM
The often heard argument of people who don't understand markets (and their emotions).
Beside the fluctuations in the market you also have a huge crowd of trader wanabees who follow each other without understanding what they are actually "investing" (speculation is the right word here) in. They also end in loosing money often, as they are very predictable. I started with bitcoin when it was worth a few cents, in the years the valuation of my assets have increased over 4 million Euro (starting with a few hundred euro). I use that to pay myself a salary of 2500 EUR/month, and I'm happy with that. Some of my friends went into the mining... they always see me as "the rich guy". Costs for equipment, place to put them, power price and effort are a heavy pressure on profits for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @09:35PM
1849.