Major graphic card makers to see shipments decline by 40 per cent

[DanceswithUnix]

In a nutshell, computer performance is lasting longer. My GPU is now 4 generations old and can still handle everything. Only people needing higher framerates/resolutions , or specific computation actually need to upgrade.

Or like in my case VR headsets, which are selling quite well it seems.

[phoenixmystic]

Who actually hikes the prices up?
Is it Nvidia/AMD, the card manufacturers or the retailers like Scan?

It is usually the retailers, but I would not be surprised to find out Nvidia & Co have a least cashed in on it a little.

[Wozza63]

The reward will be halved this year for mining with gpu so we will see a drop off in prices going into 2019. The fear I have is AMD is promoting CPU for mining, will we see a sharp rise in their upper end cpu lineup?

Threadripper can be promoted for that and kept separate from the lower end Ryzen's. Yes I believe that the AMD supplies haven't got back down to a decent level as the drop is so soon they paid full whack and are reluctant to lose money. NV appear to be sold at more of a mark up and there is more wiggle room at present - we all know that mining has stifled a lot of innovation in this market as the artificial high prices mean they are reluctant to shift prices along and change things as people were just buying them anyway but I can see some sanity appearing of the news is to be believed. A 40% drop will force changes....just how long till they filter down is the issue

CPU mining will never make sense. It's not just the cost of the CPU. You might be lucky to get a motherboard with 2 CPU sockets. so for each of those you need a motherboard, a good cooler, a stick of RAM and a PSU. That's a lot of cost that will always be beaten by a GPU unless an RX 580 hits £1000+.

[3dcandy]

CPU mining will never make sense. It's not just the cost of the CPU. You might be lucky to get a motherboard with 2 CPU sockets. so for each of those you need a motherboard, a good cooler, a stick of RAM and a PSU. That's a lot of cost that will always be beaten by a GPU unless an RX 580 hits £1000+.

Horses for courses...I can't see the point of tying up 8 gpus etc. etc. to heat the atmosphere, use a load of electricity to gamble that the cryptocurrency will rise enough for you to make some cash and not lose it when the inevitable dip happens. I don't have enough disposable income to gamble and doubt I ever will

[DanceswithUnix]

It is usually the retailers, but I would not be surprised to find out Nvidia & Co have a least cashed in on it a little.

Sadly for them probably not much. It takes about 3 months from blank wafer to packaged and tested chips, so volume manufacturers buy silicon by contract with prices fixed some 6 months to maybe a year in advance to make sure they get what they need. So in contract terms the blip in graphics card prices was probably too fast for AMD and Nvidia to react much. Any chips left over that weren't sold under contract they could have sold at a higher spot price, but that won't be the bulk of sales.

But that Sapphire graphics card I fancy: the silicon would have gone from AMD to Sapphire, then a pallet of cards from Sapphire to distribution channel, then cards from distribution channel to retailers. It isn't a simple chain, they will all be taking a cut inflating the price.

[Pob255]

Sadly for them probably not much. It takes about 3 months from blank wafer to packaged and tested chips, so volume manufacturers buy silicon by contract with prices fixed some 6 months to maybe a year in advance to make sure they get what they need. So in contract terms the blip in graphics card prices was probably too fast for AMD and Nvidia to react much. Any chips left over that weren't sold under contract they could have sold at a higher spot price, but that won't be the bulk of sales.

But that Sapphire graphics card I fancy: the silicon would have gone from AMD to Sapphire, then a pallet of cards from Sapphire to distribution channel, then cards from distribution channel to retailers. It isn't a simple chain, they will all be taking a cut inflating the price.

This.

So few people seem to realise the full complexity of the supply chain.
Also they seem to not understand the scale of mining.

The vast majority of this has not been made by "john smith" who's got a single pc/shelf rack setup with 8 cards, it's the BIG mining setups
Big mines use warehouses or entire floors of office buildings, fill them with rack after rack which is filled with cards.
They don't buy retail, they go straight to the distributers or manufactures if they can.
They buy card in the hundreds, maybe even 1000’s and where out bidding the retailer/regional retail distributers
The big mining operations where buying the cards, trying to out bid each other to be the first to exploit the high crypto prices
The exact numbers are not known as they are very secretive, Enigma, one of the largest, started in 2015 with a mine of about 700 GPUs and currently have “several more, larger operations”

[peterb]

This.

So few people seem to realise the full complexity of the supply chain.
Also they seem to not understand the scale of mining.

The vast majority of this has not been made by "john smith" who's got a single pc/shelf rack setup with 8 cards, it's the BIG mining setups
Big mines use warehouses or entire floors of office buildings, fill them with rack after rack which is filled with cards.
They don't buy retail, they go straight to the distributers or manufactures if they can.
They buy card in the hundreds, maybe even 1000’s and where out bidding the retailer/regional retail distributers
The big mining operations where buying the cards, trying to out bid each other to be the first to exploit the high crypto prices
The exact numbers are not known as they are very secretive, Enigma, one of the largest, started in 2015 with a mine of about 700 GPUs and currently have “several more, larger operations”

And it gets even more complex - retailer X buys 10 cards at (say) £200 a pop - thats £20,000 he has tied up in stock. He might have that on credit - so he possibly has a debt to finance, or if cash, he has lost the interest he might have earned on that. Then he isn't just stocking one card - he is stocking others to give customers a choice - and the costs multiply. - and then he may be stocking other components as well.

One way round that is to reduce the number of a particular item held as stock, or perhaps act as a middleman - he doesn't hold any stock, but gets it shipped from a distributor and just acts as a sales channel, or only gets parts to order.

[pp05]

CPU mining will never make sense. It's not just the cost of the CPU. You might be lucky to get a motherboard with 2 CPU sockets. so for each of those you need a motherboard, a good cooler, a stick of RAM and a PSU. That's a lot of cost that will always be beaten by a GPU unless an RX 580 hits £1000+.

The argument is you are buying a 8/16 core cpu, most of those cores will be doing nothing. If you allocate a few cores to mining it will pay off the cost of your cpu within 2 years.

[Spreadie]

Just watch as all the thrashed ex-mining cards flood onto the the second hand market.

If I upgrade in the next two years, the card will be brand new.

[dandyp]

True, but it depends just how cheap they go. If you get something crazy like a 1070 for £200 that only lasts you 2 years...might still be worth it.

[Xlucine]

The argument is you are buying a 8/16 core cpu, most of those cores will be doing nothing. If you allocate a few cores to mining it will pay off the cost of your cpu within 2 years.

Assuming you break even on the power costs

[ik9000]

In a nutshell, computer performance is lasting longer. My GPU is now 4 generations old and can still handle everything. Only people needing higher framerates/resolutions , or specific computation actually need to upgrade.

The ability to do more, much much more, is there but the big gaming houses are SFAIK targeting console markets. That caps the bar at a given level according to the system spec of the console. And with fewer independent houses out there to really do a new Far Cry/Crysis game changer things won't progress nearly as quickly. What was the last game people can think of that truly broke the mould, and had people amazed at the graphics to the point where a system update was absolutely necessary to be able to play it at all. SFAIK it was Crysis right?

[big_hairy_rob]

Or like in my case VR headsets, which are selling quite well it seems.

Aye, though I still consider it somewhat a fad as I'm yet to see anything that appeals to the masses, and until that happens the majority have no reason to upgrade

The ability to do more, much much more, is there but the big gaming houses are SFAIK targeting console markets. That caps the bar at a given level according to the system spec of the console. And with fewer independent houses out there to really do a new Far Cry/Crysis game changer things won't progress nearly as quickly. What was the last game people can think of that truly broke the mould, and had people amazed at the graphics to the point where a system update was absolutely necessary to be able to play it at all. SFAIK it was Crysis right?

The market has significantly changed over the last 3 or so years, with the emphasis on portability. Games such as Fortnite which once would had to set new standards, work by being accessible from quite literally everything. While I agree that Crysis was probably the last system breaker, others may come about, but I cannot see this as being the priority of the AAA developers... all while the market has been artificially sustained by Gold farmers

[saldos]

This.

So few people seem to realise the full complexity of the supply chain.
Also they seem to not understand the scale of mining.

The vast majority of this has not been made by "john smith" who's got a single pc/shelf rack setup with 8 cards, it's the BIG mining setups
Big mines use warehouses or entire floors of office buildings, fill them with rack after rack which is filled with cards.
They don't buy retail, they go straight to the distributers or manufactures if they can.
They buy card in the hundreds, maybe even 1000’s and where out bidding the retailer/regional retail distributers
The big mining operations where buying the cards, trying to out bid each other to be the first to exploit the high crypto prices
The exact numbers are not known as they are very secretive, Enigma, one of the largest, started in 2015 with a mine of about 700 GPUs and currently have “several more, larger operations”

BBC Click today had a good piece about a warehouse of desktops in Iceland... worth a view if you're interested in seeing a 'small' mine.

[DaMoot]

Whine, whine, whine. Go ahead and buy all the new old generation cards up now that there's stock. Those of us who are smart are largely waiting for the new generation of GPUs.

[Phage]

Whine, whine, whine. Go ahead and buy all the new old generation cards up now that there's stock. Those of us who are smart are largely waiting for the new generation of GPUs.