Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 Eagle pictured, listed by retailer

[HEXUS]

And Samsung's Exnos / mRDNA SoC plans appear to have been outlined.

Read more.

[cptwhite_uk]

Are we looking at a situation where the latest hardware is effectively bought in bulk by miners and we're going to have to suffice with last gen, ex-mining hardware (for reasonable cost/performance), for the forseeable future? It'll be interesting to see what happens in the GPU used market space when the next generation of GPU's launch - will miners switch as soon as possible and discard their previous cards on the used market - surely we will reach an equalibrium where the demand for mining cards will tail off? I've been a PC gamer for 24 years, and was lucky enough to get a 3060Ti on launch day for £369. I could afford £1000 for a GPU if I wanted, but I'm just not willing to pay these kinds of prices. Surely we're going to reach a point where it's affecting game sales, as the majority are put off PC gaming by the extortionate costs to maintain a viable modern gaming PC?

Where does this all leave the gaming PC community? Playing 2nd fiddle to the Mining community, and having to rely on their cast offs and scraps, with limited amounts of current gen hardware for the lucky few enthusiasts? I'm not sure I see the solution, is there any impetus for manufacturers to even increase production when they can just keep making double (or more) the profit per card at current supply levels?

The whole supply / demand chain seems broken for the last year, and the situation doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Its already listed in Australia at the equivalent of over 600USD!! Considering other PC components are nowhere near as badly affected,it makes me wonder whether we will see the EU,etc stepping in and fining Nvidia/AMD in a few years. This all smacks of the times when RAM,HDDs,etc went up to silly levels in pricing,and there was apparently certain Gentlemen's agreements in place!

[DanceswithUnix]

The whole supply / demand chain seems broken for the last year, and the situation doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon.

Right now it looks like the Ethereum difficulty bomb is set to create the Ethereum Ice Age (jeeze these people are bad at language) in December. At that point, by design, Ethereum should be very unprofitable to mine.

A lot of people have said things like "I shall just switch to Ravencoin", but those people are apparently not that good at maths. The act of everyone switching to alt coins will tank their profitability.

So it looks right now like GPU mining will stop in December.

[cptwhite_uk]

Someone asked when prices will return to MRRP a few months back and I randomly said March 2022, only half joking. At this point it's possible I was right, or even too optimistic.

[DanceswithUnix]

Someone asked when prices will return to MRRP a few months back and I randomly said March 2022, only half joking. At this point it's possible I was right, or even too optimistic.

That's a tricky one, but you could well be about right!

Nvidia will be watching the Eth2.0 transition very carefully, knowing that around Christmas there will likely be a flood of used GPUs hitting the market and a sudden drop in demand. I wouldn't be surprised if they slowed down production to avoid having unsold cards lying around.

Mind you, I thought that the London fork of Ethereum would tank mining, but the value of Eth has risen to the point it is really very profitable to mine still.

[rave_alan]

Mining is like an oil price - there are highs and lows and it is pretty hard to predict the movement for small players, gpu prices will follow this movement in the future too.

[philehidiot]

Are we looking at a situation where the latest hardware is effectively bought in bulk by miners and we're going to have to suffice with last gen, ex-mining hardware (for reasonable cost/performance), for the forseeable future? It'll be interesting to see what happens in the GPU used market space when the next generation of GPU's launch - will miners switch as soon as possible and discard their previous cards on the used market - surely we will reach an equalibrium where the demand for mining cards will tail off? I've been a PC gamer for 24 years, and was lucky enough to get a 3060Ti on launch day for £369. I could afford £1000 for a GPU if I wanted, but I'm just not willing to pay these kinds of prices. Surely we're going to reach a point where it's affecting game sales, as the majority are put off PC gaming by the extortionate costs to maintain a viable modern gaming PC?

Where does this all leave the gaming PC community? Playing 2nd fiddle to the Mining community, and having to rely on their cast offs and scraps, with limited amounts of current gen hardware for the lucky few enthusiasts? I'm not sure I see the solution, is there any impetus for manufacturers to even increase production when they can just keep making double (or more) the profit per card at current supply levels?

The whole supply / demand chain seems broken for the last year, and the situation doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon.

I'm in a similar position. I could afford, with relative ease, the latest gaming hardware. But it's not a lifestyle, it's a hobby. A hobby being ruined by ever more intrusive DRM and large companies acting poorly. So I look at my other hobbies, how much time I spend doing them and whether I'd consider spending that kind of money on something that would last maybe five or so years.

I wouldn't spend a grand on lock picks or locks to pick. I wouldn't spend a grand on a firearm. I wouldn't spend a grand on electronics stuff (I buy the expensive stuff broken and fix it or build it). The *only* situation where I would hypothetically spend such money is on a firearm when I was certain it'd hold its value and be saleable near or at the same price. And that would be with great care, discussion with knowledgable people and a sanity check from several other people. PC gaming therefore is way more expensive than any of my other hobbies. The justification for having a desktop PC is the other uses and I haven't bought a laptop in >10 years to combine the budgets.

I bought my Vega64 because Nvidia's business practices and behaviour towards consumers was diabolical, forcing me to buy the competition's card when it came into a price bracket I decided was commensurate with the performance. The Vega64 will likely be my last gaming card and was bought for 4K gaming (which it does on games of its era) with the knowledge I can drop down to 1080P on a 27" monitor with a perfect 1 into 4 pixel division. I'm heartened to see Far Cry 6 shows 1080P on high quality at 60FPS is doable on a Vega64 (although I gave up on Far Cry 4 after the stupid game mechanics decided someone wanting to explore the world was an abomination and made it so I couldn't travel for 30 seconds before coming under attack so heavy and sustained I was forced to return to a base to rearm - something I found was due to the studio wanting to expose me to more microtransactions or something).

Unless something comes up that allows a decent 1080P gaming experience at decent settings and at a decent price, I will not be purchasing a new gaming card. It's very sad as I've been PC gaming since floppy disks were actually floppy. I don't think I'm being forced out by anything other the corporate greed on the part of almost all the players involved.

There are certainly a lot of people out there who have grown up with gaming like me. Many of these people are likely in a position where they can afford to spend a grand on a GPU, whether I think that is sane or healthy or not. Like it or not, these people are helping to sustain the high prices. I think enough gamers have grown up and got into well paid professions that the target market for the industry has changed.

The manufacturers will charge what the market will bear. Me? I'll likely be gaming on the same Vega64 in 10 years time, having repaired it twice, and I'll be complaining because newer games aren't allowing me to set the resolution to 720P.

[Corky34]

A lot of people have said things like "I shall just switch to Ravencoin", but those people are apparently not that good at maths. The act of everyone switching to alt coins will tank their profitability.

If the stock markets are anything to go by I'm not sure maths/logic enters the picture.

[DanceswithUnix]

If the stock markets are anything to go by I'm not sure maths/logic enters the picture.

It does here.

With Eth a huge number of miners are getting a small slice of a huge pie.

With Ravencoin, a small number of miners are getting a large slice of a small pie.

So right now you get a decent amount of pie in either camp. But if everyone swaps from Eth to Raven, there just isn't enough pie to go around. The slices still take the same amount of energy and hence cost to calculate, but the return becomes insignificant. ISTR all the other minable coins added together are still insignificant compared to Eth.

So switching to another coin only makes sense if the nature of that coin fundamentally changes. That seems unlikely, even with a huge hype train behind it I would say that Chia just isn't taking off for example so I just do't see any contenders surging in popularity.

(and in case you are wondering, yes I am on a diet again and food is kind of on my mind )

[Corky34]

It does here.

I could/should have worded that better TBH. What i was trying to get at is it seems like mining crypto is more about the perception of value than actual value, they don't seem to care what size the pie is or even how big or small their slice is, it seems to be more about other peoples desire to own a piece of it.

[DanceswithUnix]

I could/should have worded that better TBH. What i was trying to get at is it seems like mining crypto is more about the perception of value than actual value, they don't seem to care what size the pie is or even how big or small their slice is, it seems to be more about other peoples desire to own a piece of it.

I know what you mean, I see a frightening level of optimism over fact checking in crypto discussions.

I think most miners are aware of how much electricity it is costing them though, so if they see a fraction of that money coming back from mining I think they'll shut down the rigs pretty quickly!