Nvidia and AMD are working on mining only cards as we speak. They are simply gaming cards with no outputs. Once they reach the shelf the issues will be resolved.
If those cards arrive in significant volume, the miners will buy them all, and then also buy all of the gaming cards for good measure. Mining-only cards (or more properly compute-only) may provide a way for AMD or Nvidia to sell defective GPUs where the defective portion doesn't affect mining, but that will be the extent of it.
The AMD Vega Frontier Edition is still selling at MSRP. Last week it sold $100 under MSRP.
I'm showing them on Newegg at $999 USD today for the air cooled model, and on Amazon for $1,799 for the liquid cooled model.
AIB models with better cooling are $100-300 more than the Newegg price.
Don't know where you are finding them at MSRP - not that I don't believe you, you can still find 1070s, 1080s, 580s, etc at MSRP. Just not very often, and when you do they are typically gone within seconds.
Bah. . I am still holding to it flattening out around 7K but it hasn't helped much. . is it too much to wish that they will overproduce just as bitcoin gets boring? My fan started making a bad noise
It already kinda did. With SKorea banning anonymous bank accounts and India allegedly moving in similar direction, the value of ALL cryptos fell by 50%(!). The thing is, they were so overvalued that even when cleft in twain, they still remain quite valuable.
Other countries need to follow suit so this silly crap ends already.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
It already kinda did. With SKorea banning anonymous bank accounts and India allegedly moving in similar direction, the value of ALL cryptos fell by 50%(!). The thing is, they were so overvalued that even when cleft in twain, they still remain quite valuable.
Other countries need to follow suit so this silly crap ends already.
Banning anonymous bank transactions isn't the same as banning cryptocurrencies or blockchain.
Perhaps you don't understand the appeal of cryptocurrency and why the value fell so much when S.K banned anonymous accounts?
In either case it's a step in the right direction.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
It already kinda did. With SKorea banning anonymous bank accounts and India allegedly moving in similar direction, the value of ALL cryptos fell by 50%(!). The thing is, they were so overvalued that even when cleft in twain, they still remain quite valuable.
Other countries need to follow suit so this silly crap ends already.
Banning anonymous bank transactions isn't the same as banning cryptocurrencies or blockchain.
Perhaps you don't understand the appeal of cryptocurrency and why the value fell so much when S.K banned anonymous accounts?
In either case it's a step in the right direction.
I understand there is an element that enjoys anonymous transactions, but that isn't the complete reason blockchain crypto currencies are a thing. Let me know in a couple of months if you were right, or dreaming. We can revisit this again.
Dunno what's in your pipe that you're smoking but I didn't make any predictions here?
My comments simply goes to express my opinion that if cryptocurrency dips low enough, and hopefully the bubble pops, in this case due to less appeal or perceived value, then there might be less miners and gpu can come back down to reasonable prices.
Now will this happen at all..dunno no one really does at this point regardless of which way it goes.
Will it happen in the next few months or years dunno either and for the same reason.
You seem to have some kind of beef with me personally since my previous post on page 3 when I showed prices of gpu were still ridiculous after some people here predicted they would settle down and I told them they were not.
You even replied to me like I was somehow saying or predicting or hoping the prices of the next gen cards would be any different when I know this is likely to remain till cryptocurrency crashes and the mem shortage resolves.
Perhaps you just like to quote people to tell them stuff they already know in the hopes it makes you appear smarter than they are?
Believing that mined cryptocurrencies are going to go away is a much weaker claim than believing that all blockchain is going to go away. What happens to GPU prices is about the former, not the latter.
Nvidia and AMD are working on mining only cards as we speak. They are simply gaming cards with no outputs. Once they reach the shelf the issues will be resolved.
If those cards arrive in significant volume, the miners will buy them all, and then also buy all of the gaming cards for good measure. Mining-only cards (or more properly compute-only) may provide a way for AMD or Nvidia to sell defective GPUs where the defective portion doesn't affect mining, but that will be the extent of it.
Samsung's decision to produce mining specific cards (RISC based I believe) is probably more significant (Samsung's chip revenue having exceeding Intel's last year).
Nvidia and AMD are working on mining only cards as we speak. They are simply gaming cards with no outputs. Once they reach the shelf the issues will be resolved.
If those cards arrive in significant volume, the miners will buy them all, and then also buy all of the gaming cards for good measure. Mining-only cards (or more properly compute-only) may provide a way for AMD or Nvidia to sell defective GPUs where the defective portion doesn't affect mining, but that will be the extent of it.
Samsung's decision to produce mining specific cards (RISC based I believe) is probably more significant (Samsung's chip revenue having exceeding Intel's last year).
It depends on which cryptocurrency we're talking about. There have been ASICs for Bitcoin for several years now, so that's nothing new. If they're going to build an Ethereum-mining ASIC, then I'd be very curious how they're going to do that.
Sure dude. Dorothy called. She found Toto and she's ready to go.
here, I'll explain a bit again. You're directly implying that there will be a change because you think this is some sort of fad driven bubble that a few banking regulations are going to bring down. That's complete fantasy.
The technology driving crypto currency is huge and is also used in other applications. It's not going away thus the demand for chips will not go away.
Additionally the fabs that supply gpus and memory also have heavy demand from sectors like mobile. That's going nowhere but up.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is no likely relief in sight and certainly no plausible avenues for that brought up in this thread. Do you think the market is going to magically rectify itself over this? Not anytime soon.
I'll explain again toto....... I know this.
I was implying that I would like for the "bubble" to pop in the sense that tom, dick and harry would stop farming in their moms basement...go look at gpu reviews and see how many talk about mining and therefore take some pressure off the gpu market. Now even if this happened I doubt it would make a huge impact.
Now is this hope unlikely? It sure damn is maybe I should have pointed out the bloody obvious, I have said it before and will say it again I'm not going to hold my breath on any changes soonish.
All this still doesn't change one fact..the sooner the big countries start make regulations and decide their stance on cryptocurrency the better.
The problem here is that you have gotten the impression and have spun some narrative that I am naive or just plain stupid and have been saying the opposite when I haven't.
From page one I have been arguing that prices are going up not down even after Quiz stated, "blabla its not bitcoin its etherium", cause you know we all have to be anal when people "say bitcoin" when they actually mean cryptocurrency..
I would like to know how the fuck you think me saying that banning anonymous accounts is a step in the right direction equates into anything you seem to "think" I am saying.
Hell I would like to know how you make the mental leap from me posting the prices of gtx 1060 having gone up yet again compared to when I bought a 1060, for my son as mentioned in page 1 of this thread, to me hoping this is going to change anytime soon or I think a few regulations are going to make all cryptocurrency crash for sure?
You're reading far far too much between the line instead of just taking what I am saying at face value.
Like that first post I made in page 3. I point out that yet again that prices are not going down and in fact seem to be going up and you somehow take to to think I am saying or hoping for the opposite.
How about this.... stop talking shit and stick to what I actually said and stop trying to mind read me from across the vastness of the web.
Christ go back to page 3 and just look at your response to my post showing the prices of gtx 1060 have went up again. You can see right there from that post of yours that you are hell bent on trying to fit me in some BS narrative you have created.
Stop trying to read in bewteen the lines cause frankly you suck at it.
Now lets look at the only post I made that might have confused you shall we?
It's not going to stop. There's no end in sight. This isn't a "oops this generation of cards got screwed, wait until the next" sort of thing.
The light at the end of the tunnel...
Well that's not entirely true, if the cryptocurrency bubble can crash then prices would go back to normal and actually follow MSRP.
It's pretty clear that you're the one making major implications here and
that is that cryptocurrency is here to stay for a long long time enough
so that there's "no light at the end of the tunnel".
I don't
even get why you responded to me with this post of yours as my post that
you quoted was just me updating some pricing on some gtx 1060 and
showing the prices went up so I dont get the relevance?
Like I said you seem to have something to prove to me or something...
Nevertheless I replied to that snarky post by saying that your
statement wasn't entirely true as IF...note the keyword here is IF the
crypto bubble would crash it would probably see prices coming down.
Which
you can't now deny would be true as you have just said prices wouldn't
go down because "crypto here to stay, no light at the end of the tunnel
etc".
Now maybe I should have pointed out this wasn't happening
anytime soon but I thought hey anyone reading this thread from page one
would have guessed by now this was pretty much my position and didn't
try and belabor the obvious.
Post edited by Asm0deus on
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Nvidia and AMD are working on mining only cards as we speak. They are simply gaming cards with no outputs. Once they reach the shelf the issues will be resolved.
If those cards arrive in significant volume, the miners will buy them all, and then also buy all of the gaming cards for good measure. Mining-only cards (or more properly compute-only) may provide a way for AMD or Nvidia to sell defective GPUs where the defective portion doesn't affect mining, but that will be the extent of it.
Samsung's decision to produce mining specific cards (RISC based I believe) is probably more significant (Samsung's chip revenue having exceeding Intel's last year).
It depends on which cryptocurrency we're talking about. There have been ASICs for Bitcoin for several years now, so that's nothing new. If they're going to build an Ethereum-mining ASIC, then I'd be very curious how they're going to do that.
Agree - and Samsung have provided no details.
Two takeaways for me: 1. The bad news. This means the market for ASICs - and hence mining as a whole - is big enough for Samsung to be interested. In Q3 last year for example ASIC manufacture was estimated to be worth $350-400M to TSMC. And this is in addition to the value of any graphics cards that are being diverted to mining. So if nothing changes the pressure on graphics cards looks set to continue.
2. The good news. As you say ASICs for mining are not new. However what potentially is significant is that Samsung are huge with manufacturing capacity that can fulfill large "on demand" orders. Its memory division reported $69B - billion - in revenue last year - so far larger than the current ASIC market + diverted graphics cards. So if - if - Samsung do decide to "step on the gas" they could make an impact.
As you say though we don't know and Samsung are not saying. Maybe they will decide its not profitable! Or maybe (hopefully!) this is a market that they have decided to enter. Be a few months I assume before we know more.
Just three months ago I bought a MSI GTX 1050ti for like $179 dollars if I recall correctly. It also had a $25 dollar mail in rebate which I should be getting in like one week. So in the end the GPU only costed me $154 dollars.
Just three months ago I bought a MSI GTX 1050ti for like $179 dollars if I recall correctly. It also had a $25 dollar mail in rebate which I should be getting in like one week. So in the end the GPU only costed me $154 dollars.
That's for a lower end card that had an MSRP of $139 without rebate way back in 2016.
I don't know the specifics of the various mining algorithms, but it would stretch my imagination significantly to try to think of one that, for whatever reason, would run great on a GPU, but couldn't be made to run on a more cost effective dedicated device, such as an ASIC. I've heard memory is the reason existing Bitcoin ASICs don't work, but it's hard to imagine that you can't just ... add some RAM to it.
If ASICs don't work for whatever reason, something else will, and will be more cost effective than throwing hundreds of consumer GPUs in on backplanes in groups of 6-8, each with their own CPU, PSU, and other overhead. Maybe even straight side-binned GPU chips, RAM, and an ARM controller on a common PCB and custom lite linux kernal on a small bit of PCB-mounted SSD storage. Think Google Datacenter level of use .. there's a lot of money in overhead there, and mining very rapidly gets to that level (why, I still can't quite understand, except people thinking they are creating money from nothing and want to jump in on it)
I do mostly understand what Asm0deus is saying about the bubble popping. That doesn't have to be strictly a financial bubble:
- either the money will get big enough that development of such dedicated devices will be done, and then mining will only be performed by a few big entities (those who helped fund the development, and those rich enough to buy into it later on). It happened with Bitcoin, it would be naive to think it can't happen with Ethereum or any other software-derived blockchain - no matter how the creators may have originally intended to try to keep it from going that direction.
- or the difficulty ramps up until eventually "consumer" grade hardware doesn't cut it anymore, and more of the hobbyiests back out as it takes more and more hardware to make a decent profit, and then we are back to the few big miners controlling the majority of the creation.
- or, the financial bubble pops, and people just don't see a return in the effort any longer and just stop mining.
I think blockchain is probably here to stay in some form or fashion, and there is value in i cryptocurrency as a concept. I think the entirety of current existing cryptocurrencies are all going to be near-worthless, later if not sooner.
I think 1 or 2 is more likely to happen before 3 does.
I don't know the specifics of the various mining algorithms, but it would stretch my imagination significantly to try to think of one that, for whatever reason, would run great on a GPU, but couldn't be made to run on a more cost effective dedicated device, such as an ASIC. I've heard memory is the reason existing Bitcoin ASICs don't work, but it's hard to imagine that you can't just ... add some RAM to it.
Generally true, but the advantage of a GPU is that it's general purpose, and therefore capable of supporting a variety of cryptocurrencies, which means that miners don't need to put all their eggs in the same basket.
It's completely possible to produce a general purpose chip which doesn't have the graphics stuff that's unused by mining, and it will be a smaller chip, but it will still be a complex one, much more so than Bitcoin ASIC's. So while it's not out of the question, I think that most big companies capable of creating such a chip realise that mining is stupid, and would rather not jump into it. (Although I suspect that there are smaller companies trying to get this done.)
While I think that mining will die, I don't think that crypto will die, and some of it might retain some value. Ethereum is planning to go the proof of share way, and I'm sure others will adapt. What its value will be in the long run, I can't say, but I think that Ethereum has enough meat (unlike pretty much all other crypto) that it could retain some value.
I don't know the specifics of the various mining algorithms, but it would stretch my imagination significantly to try to think of one that, for whatever reason, would run great on a GPU, but couldn't be made to run on a more cost effective dedicated device, such as an ASIC. I've heard memory is the reason existing Bitcoin ASICs don't work, but it's hard to imagine that you can't just ... add some RAM to it.
If ASICs don't work for whatever reason, something else will, and will be more cost effective than throwing hundreds of consumer GPUs in on backplanes in groups of 6-8, each with their own CPU, PSU, and other overhead. Maybe even straight side-binned GPU chips, RAM, and an ARM controller on a common PCB and custom lite linux kernal on a small bit of PCB-mounted SSD storage. Think Google Datacenter level of use .. there's a lot of money in overhead there, and mining very rapidly gets to that level (why, I still can't quite understand, except people thinking they are creating money from nothing and want to jump in on it)
Bitcoin mining is about doing a bunch of SHA-256 hashes. That's very heavy on shuffling bits around in fixed patterns and xoring them together. You can readily make an ASIC that flies that that and blows away all general purpose hardware.
Ethereum mining is about doing random lookups into a table that is about 3 GB as fast as you can. That's heavy on memory bandwidth, so to get good performance, you basically want either GDDR5 or HBM2. Which companies in the world are competent to build a good GDDR5 or HBM2 controller? Basically AMD and Nvidia.
If AMD wanted to, they could probably build an Ethereum-mining ASIC that was basically a Vega 10 but tossed out most of the GPU but had custom logic for the Keccak rounds and kept the memory controllers and a PCI-E x1 interface. Maybe they could get the same performance as a Radeon RX Vega 64, but while using 50 W and 100 mm^2 of die space. Nvidia could probably do something like that, too.
But the advantage of such an ASIC would be the same performance as a GPU in less wattage and die space. It wouldn't be getting 50 times the performance of consumer hardware like with a Bitcoin-mining ASIC. So you kind of could build an ASIC for Ethereum, but very few companies would have the expertise to do so and it wouldn't have anywhere near the same upside as with Bitcoin.
If AMD or Nvidia believed that Ethereum mining was still going to be eating up all of the GPUs three years from now, then maybe they would create such an ASIC. But if you start today and then have a product ready to bring to market in two years after Ethereum prices have collapsed, then you just spend $50 million in development on a product that no one wants. That's quite a risk, and for a product that maybe saves you $50-$100 as compared to selling an ordinary GPU.
What makes more sense is having mining bins of existing GPUs. For example, if AMD makes a Vega 10 GPU and the chip works great except that the video decode block doesn't work, they'd normally have to toss that in the garbage. Similarly for a tessellation unit, a rasterizer, or some other things. Or if enough compute units are defective that they can't sell it as a Vega 56.
What they could do instead is to make a mining-only version of the Vega 10 GPU that disables all of the fixed-function graphics stuff and maybe has only 48 compute units enabled. If 5% of the Vega 10 dies that come back from the fabs would be able to fit such a bin but were otherwise getting thrown in the garbage, then maybe you can sell those dies as a mining-only GPU. Of course, the extra binning also has a cost, so it's not automatic that this makes sense to do, and some depends on yields.
I don't want to see Bitcoin just below $7500. I want to see Bitcoin below $100 and Ethereum below $10. Realistically, Bitcoin at $1000, Ethereum at $100, and the rest of the mined cryptocurrencies seeing similar drops would probably be enough to end the mining craze. But I want to see them drop far enough to convince people that it's not coming back.
What affected crypto-currency prices are the changes to how different nations deal with the currency and a couple bits of bad news about stolen coins. More than likely it will continue to climb after the adjustment. Just like how every time the fed has a meeting, leading up to it sees the value of the dollar go up and after they announce no rate hikes gold goes up.
I know it's customary to tell folks "don't hold your breath", but actually... hold your breath, it would be funnier.
Block-chain cryptocurrency is based on nothing, and so long term it will be worth nothing.
Fundamentally, any currency that deflates from $100 to $20,000 is absolutely worthless as a currency long term. Deflation is the worst possible scenario for currency in modern economies. Currency is supposed to be used for trade, not itself viewed as a commodity.
Bitcoin and its numerous copy cats were doomed to fail from the moment they were created. Sure, a bunch of people will get rich off them ... with money spent by suckers who are investing real dollars into them now because they don't understand basic economics.
You want to know what else is worth nothing? MONEY. Ever since it got separated from gold, it's worth what exactly? 1 result of a formula? Wtf.
Its worth as much as your way of life. Without it, we'll be like ants in a colony or we'll be living in a new dark age.
Hopefully either way... someone will have saved some books
I know it's customary to tell folks "don't hold your breath", but actually... hold your breath, it would be funnier.
Block-chain cryptocurrency is based on nothing, and so long term it will be worth nothing.
Fundamentally, any currency that deflates from $100 to $20,000 is absolutely worthless as a currency long term. Deflation is the worst possible scenario for currency in modern economies. Currency is supposed to be used for trade, not itself viewed as a commodity.
Bitcoin and its numerous copy cats were doomed to fail from the moment they were created. Sure, a bunch of people will get rich off them ... with money spent by suckers who are investing real dollars into them now because they don't understand basic economics.
You want to know what else is worth nothing? MONEY. Ever since it got separated from gold, it's worth what exactly? 1 result of a formula? Wtf.
The difference is a government (or other entity) is willing to stand behind their currency. The full faith and credit schtick.
Now maybe you don’t believe in the power of a legitimate government to artificially create value in currency. But it doesn’t really matter what you or I think — it matters what the banks and lenders and corporations think. And if they can get someone bigger than they are to take the liability - that’s where they are going to put their business.
I know it's customary to tell folks "don't hold your breath", but actually... hold your breath, it would be funnier.
Block-chain cryptocurrency is based on nothing, and so long term it will be worth nothing.
Fundamentally, any currency that deflates from $100 to $20,000 is absolutely worthless as a currency long term. Deflation is the worst possible scenario for currency in modern economies. Currency is supposed to be used for trade, not itself viewed as a commodity.
Bitcoin and its numerous copy cats were doomed to fail from the moment they were created. Sure, a bunch of people will get rich off them ... with money spent by suckers who are investing real dollars into them now because they don't understand basic economics.
Dude if you're going to speak about blockchain currency don't start with "it's based on nothing" or "currency not viewed as commodity" because it shows;
You don't know what the hell you're talking about and coming from a position of hyperbole and ignorance
You've never held a piece of plastic or paper in your hands and used it to buy anything
You're the genius who calls every SUV a "Jeep" or every gaming system a "Nintendo"
I'm no expert, nor am I placing hard bets on the future of any currency (well I am but skeptically) but saying silly "IDK WTF I'm talking about" statements about currency several times doesn't make it any more valid than the first round of blithering.
I'm not saying you don't have any valid points to make but you sure as hell ain't making any. It's all reading like:
"MP3s are dumb because they're not real."
There's legit brilliant people behind some intriguing white paper that's powering some of this stuff. I think it's wiser to research them as opposed to a couple of folks ermahgadding like dumb blondes because they can't buy graphics cards right now.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
Comments
AIB models with better cooling are $100-300 more than the Newegg price.
Don't know where you are finding them at MSRP - not that I don't believe you, you can still find 1070s, 1080s, 580s, etc at MSRP. Just not very often, and when you do they are typically gone within seconds.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
In either case it's a step in the right direction.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
My comments simply goes to express my opinion that if cryptocurrency dips low enough, and hopefully the bubble pops, in this case due to less appeal or perceived value, then there might be less miners and gpu can come back down to reasonable prices.
Now will this happen at all..dunno no one really does at this point regardless of which way it goes.
Will it happen in the next few months or years dunno either and for the same reason.
You seem to have some kind of beef with me personally since my previous post on page 3 when I showed prices of gpu were still ridiculous after some people here predicted they would settle down and I told them they were not.
You even replied to me like I was somehow saying or predicting or hoping the prices of the next gen cards would be any different when I know this is likely to remain till cryptocurrency crashes and the mem shortage resolves.
Perhaps you just like to quote people to tell them stuff they already know in the hopes it makes you appear smarter than they are?
Maybe you just think it cool to be snarky or borderline trolly...that said troll on?
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
I was implying that I would like for the "bubble" to pop in the sense that tom, dick and harry would stop farming in their moms basement...go look at gpu reviews and see how many talk about mining and therefore take some pressure off the gpu market. Now even if this happened I doubt it would make a huge impact.
Now is this hope unlikely? It sure damn is maybe I should have pointed out the bloody obvious, I have said it before and will say it again I'm not going to hold my breath on any changes soonish.
All this still doesn't change one fact..the sooner the big countries start make regulations and decide their stance on cryptocurrency the better.
The problem here is that you have gotten the impression and have spun some narrative that I am naive or just plain stupid and have been saying the opposite when I haven't.
From page one I have been arguing that prices are going up not down even after Quiz stated, "blabla its not bitcoin its etherium", cause you know we all have to be anal when people "say bitcoin" when they actually mean cryptocurrency..
I would like to know how the fuck you think me saying that banning anonymous accounts is a step in the right direction equates into anything you seem to "think" I am saying.
Hell I would like to know how you make the mental leap from me posting the prices of gtx 1060 having gone up yet again compared to when I bought a 1060, for my son as mentioned in page 1 of this thread, to me hoping this is going to change anytime soon or I think a few regulations are going to make all cryptocurrency crash for sure?
You're reading far far too much between the line instead of just taking what I am saying at face value.
Like that first post I made in page 3. I point out that yet again that prices are not going down and in fact seem to be going up and you somehow take to to think I am saying or hoping for the opposite.
How about this.... stop talking shit and stick to what I actually said and stop trying to mind read me from across the vastness of the web.
Christ go back to page 3 and just look at your response to my post showing the prices of gtx 1060 have went up again. You can see right there from that post of yours that you are hell bent on trying to fit me in some BS narrative you have created.
Stop trying to read in bewteen the lines cause frankly you suck at it.
Now lets look at the only post I made that might have confused you shall we?
It's pretty clear that you're the one making major implications here and that is that cryptocurrency is here to stay for a long long time enough so that there's "no light at the end of the tunnel".
I don't even get why you responded to me with this post of yours as my post that you quoted was just me updating some pricing on some gtx 1060 and showing the prices went up so I dont get the relevance?
Like I said you seem to have something to prove to me or something...
Nevertheless I replied to that snarky post by saying that your statement wasn't entirely true as IF...note the keyword here is IF the crypto bubble would crash it would probably see prices coming down.
Which you can't now deny would be true as you have just said prices wouldn't go down because "crypto here to stay, no light at the end of the tunnel etc".
Now maybe I should have pointed out this wasn't happening anytime soon but I thought hey anyone reading this thread from page one would have guessed by now this was pretty much my position and didn't try and belabor the obvious.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Two takeaways for me:
1. The bad news. This means the market for ASICs - and hence mining as a whole - is big enough for Samsung to be interested. In Q3 last year for example ASIC manufacture was estimated to be worth $350-400M to TSMC. And this is in addition to the value of any graphics cards that are being diverted to mining. So if nothing changes the pressure on graphics cards looks set to continue.
2. The good news. As you say ASICs for mining are not new. However what potentially is significant is that Samsung are huge with manufacturing capacity that can fulfill large "on demand" orders. Its memory division reported $69B - billion - in revenue last year - so far larger than the current ASIC market + diverted graphics cards. So if - if - Samsung do decide to "step on the gas" they could make an impact.
As you say though we don't know and Samsung are not saying. Maybe they will decide its not profitable! Or maybe (hopefully!) this is a market that they have decided to enter. Be a few months I assume before we know more.
If ASICs don't work for whatever reason, something else will, and will be more cost effective than throwing hundreds of consumer GPUs in on backplanes in groups of 6-8, each with their own CPU, PSU, and other overhead. Maybe even straight side-binned GPU chips, RAM, and an ARM controller on a common PCB and custom lite linux kernal on a small bit of PCB-mounted SSD storage. Think Google Datacenter level of use .. there's a lot of money in overhead there, and mining very rapidly gets to that level (why, I still can't quite understand, except people thinking they are creating money from nothing and want to jump in on it)
I do mostly understand what Asm0deus is saying about the bubble popping. That doesn't have to be strictly a financial bubble:
- either the money will get big enough that development of such dedicated devices will be done, and then mining will only be performed by a few big entities (those who helped fund the development, and those rich enough to buy into it later on). It happened with Bitcoin, it would be naive to think it can't happen with Ethereum or any other software-derived blockchain - no matter how the creators may have originally intended to try to keep it from going that direction.
- or the difficulty ramps up until eventually "consumer" grade hardware doesn't cut it anymore, and more of the hobbyiests back out as it takes more and more hardware to make a decent profit, and then we are back to the few big miners controlling the majority of the creation.
- or, the financial bubble pops, and people just don't see a return in the effort any longer and just stop mining.
I think blockchain is probably here to stay in some form or fashion, and there is value in i cryptocurrency as a concept. I think the entirety of current existing cryptocurrencies are all going to be near-worthless, later if not sooner.
I think 1 or 2 is more likely to happen before 3 does.
It's completely possible to produce a general purpose chip which doesn't have the graphics stuff that's unused by mining, and it will be a smaller chip, but it will still be a complex one, much more so than Bitcoin ASIC's. So while it's not out of the question, I think that most big companies capable of creating such a chip realise that mining is stupid, and would rather not jump into it. (Although I suspect that there are smaller companies trying to get this done.)
While I think that mining will die, I don't think that crypto will die, and some of it might retain some value. Ethereum is planning to go the proof of share way, and I'm sure others will adapt. What its value will be in the long run, I can't say, but I think that Ethereum has enough meat (unlike pretty much all other crypto) that it could retain some value.
So much for "demand drives costs down". Free market and shit yay \o/
Ethereum mining is about doing random lookups into a table that is about 3 GB as fast as you can. That's heavy on memory bandwidth, so to get good performance, you basically want either GDDR5 or HBM2. Which companies in the world are competent to build a good GDDR5 or HBM2 controller? Basically AMD and Nvidia.
If AMD wanted to, they could probably build an Ethereum-mining ASIC that was basically a Vega 10 but tossed out most of the GPU but had custom logic for the Keccak rounds and kept the memory controllers and a PCI-E x1 interface. Maybe they could get the same performance as a Radeon RX Vega 64, but while using 50 W and 100 mm^2 of die space. Nvidia could probably do something like that, too.
But the advantage of such an ASIC would be the same performance as a GPU in less wattage and die space. It wouldn't be getting 50 times the performance of consumer hardware like with a Bitcoin-mining ASIC. So you kind of could build an ASIC for Ethereum, but very few companies would have the expertise to do so and it wouldn't have anywhere near the same upside as with Bitcoin.
If AMD or Nvidia believed that Ethereum mining was still going to be eating up all of the GPUs three years from now, then maybe they would create such an ASIC. But if you start today and then have a product ready to bring to market in two years after Ethereum prices have collapsed, then you just spend $50 million in development on a product that no one wants. That's quite a risk, and for a product that maybe saves you $50-$100 as compared to selling an ordinary GPU.
What makes more sense is having mining bins of existing GPUs. For example, if AMD makes a Vega 10 GPU and the chip works great except that the video decode block doesn't work, they'd normally have to toss that in the garbage. Similarly for a tessellation unit, a rasterizer, or some other things. Or if enough compute units are defective that they can't sell it as a Vega 56.
What they could do instead is to make a mining-only version of the Vega 10 GPU that disables all of the fixed-function graphics stuff and maybe has only 48 compute units enabled. If 5% of the Vega 10 dies that come back from the fabs would be able to fit such a bin but were otherwise getting thrown in the garbage, then maybe you can sell those dies as a mining-only GPU. Of course, the extra binning also has a cost, so it's not automatic that this makes sense to do, and some depends on yields.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hopefully either way... someone will have saved some books
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Now maybe you don’t believe in the power of a legitimate government to artificially create value in currency. But it doesn’t really matter what you or I think — it matters what the banks and lenders and corporations think. And if they can get someone bigger than they are to take the liability - that’s where they are going to put their business.
I'm no expert, nor am I placing hard bets on the future of any currency (well I am but skeptically) but saying silly "IDK WTF I'm talking about" statements about currency several times doesn't make it any more valid than the first round of blithering.
I'm not saying you don't have any valid points to make but you sure as hell ain't making any. It's all reading like:
"MP3s are dumb because they're not real."
There's legit brilliant people behind some intriguing white paper that's powering some of this stuff. I think it's wiser to research them as opposed to a couple of folks ermahgadding like dumb blondes because they can't buy graphics cards right now.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯