"enough people decided to try their lack" ... of common sense around investment vehicles, it seems! It's a typo (it should be "luck", not "lack"), and a very appropriate one indeed.
Probably. While x1 is a lot narrower than normal, most science apps load all the data onto the GPU at startup, crunch independently of the CPU (give or take writing an occasional checkpoint to disk) until completion, and then send the result back to the CPU to report. However if you care about science in general, as opposed to a single project or just fake internet points in specific, lots of distributed computing projects are doing work that can't be made to run on a GPU efficiently. Which means that there is a need for balanced computing systems for distributed computing projects. Also, enough GPUs to fill an 8/18 card system is still going to be stupidly expensive to build and operate.
OTOH miners are also dumping GPUs; and as long as you can live without the warranty there're real deals to be had there. Combined with a 15% off coupon I got a pair of GTX 1070's for $430 shipped (one MSI, one Gigabyte). Zotak/PNY cards were $10-20 cheaper; but used and no warranty transfer made me want to go for better regarded brands even at a slight premium.
This should be a roughly power neutral upgrade for the GTX980/RX460 in my 2nd/3rd boxes; while netting about 66% higher output for those two boxes combined. The 980's permanently retired due to age and declining energy efficiency, although I might try flipping it to recover a bit of what I've spent on its replacement. I'll probably hold onto the 460 as a spare though, because it's not worth trying to flip.
I picked up a 1070 for $200 on facebook market. Guy had a dozen of them from mining he gave up on. It's worked fine the last month. It's a founders edition so it technically has a warranty and the cooler is very good (appears to be a vapor chamber titan cooler) so I'm not too concerned with longevity.
GTX 1050 Ti is pricey mainly because it runs very well for a card that does not require additional power connectors. In other words, if one is looking to build a low power PC, it may be a good candidate especially if you want to game on it as well. It's significantly better than AMD's RX 550/560, and any integrated graphics out there.
These weren't mentioned but there's some amazing motherboards based on a PCIe card. I think these are awesome. I've seen about 5 variants, mostly built around the J1900 CPU. I hope I can grab a few cheap to play around with clustering.
Why does this article about GPU mining reference Bitcoin so much or conversely not mention actual Bitcoin ASIC hardware prices? It seems like the author is confused as to how people were mining Bitcoin vs other cryptocurrencies over the last year and has conflated the two. All the Cyrptocoin values are linked, yes, but the cost of mining hardware isn't. You haven't been able to mine Bitcoin in any viable way with GPUs for years.
True, Bitcoin needed ASIC hardware, do not think people were buying GPUs to mine BTC. The real deal will be when these miners start dumping their overpriced gear on ebay.
To be honest, this is a crash that is expected to happen, regardless if mining took off or not. The bonanza can only last as long as there's strong demand. But demand can't remain strong forever. With so many manufacturers rushing in to try to get into the action, it's not surprising many are left bruised by the sudden plunge in demand.
The main concern now is whether or not cryptocurrencies will endure the various peaks and slumps for long enough to emerge as a useful form of exchange for other goods and services. With the exchange rate swinging so wildly, its just another form of high risk investing rather than a useful, practical way of purchasing products. For adoption to work, people will need a much lower variance in order to be able to depend on it to buy a package of potato chips or accept it as a form of payment for work they perform. I'm not taking a paycheck in crypto coins, for instance, if I don't know whether it will be worth enough to buy a car or a candy bar when I'm ready to spend it. If crypto can overcome the prospector boom-bust mentality, it may eventually be able to serve its intended purpose.
I'd love to hear and see a true miners story. You know joe soap who thought wow , a money printing machine. I looked at Bitcoin in the early days and didnt really understand how it was being controlled/priced so stayed out.. I think GPU users were mining ethereum and all the other rubbish. And imagine those wise heads who bought GFX cards with no outputs , to save a few bucks.LOL. You can still find keyser pushing the whole Crypto-shill, replace the Dollar, in 2020 ?
Hindsight is always 20/20. I have a similar story, I deliberately sat out from the Bitcoin craze exactly for the reason you stated. Oh well, better luck next time!
If you want to save the planet, start with real estate. Over 6,000 acres of land in the US are developed daily, according to a recent scientific presentation I ran across. McMansions, strip malls, gas stations, and the like may be attractive but they carry a much larger price tag than people want to think about.
A moratorium on the development of natural acreage would go a long way toward preserving the planet. But, the new dictator in Brazil wants to sell the Amazon to Amazon and corporations are cheering.
As for dirty money... last time I checked the United States was the world's largest weapons dealer and the largest per-capita imprisoner. China's own government admitted that most of its soil is heavily polluted a number of years back. There is a lot of dirty money out there and it has nothing to do with crypto.
In the grand scheme of things, I agree that crypto coins are pretty far down there on the list of problems. They do make narcotics, ransom attacks, and pornography easier to obtain to a certain extent, but only as long as they have some form of value. They are seemingly a waste of electrical energy we can dedicate to something more useful. However, the fact that crypto currencies keep anarchists and other nefarious sorts happy by giving them a pressure relief valve of sorts is beneficial to the rest of us and that has to be worth something. Besides, from what I've been reading, at least Bitcoin transactions are getting followed back to the owner of the wallet so they aren't as bulletproof as people might think. Arrests are happening and the weaker, non technical links in the chain are easy enough for law enforcement to exploit.
If people really "cared about the planet" then they would oppose state and private debt before anything else, for these constitute unfunded resource consumption in the extreme. Nobody does though, they want their phones (look up how many are thrown away each year), TVs & cheap holidays, and they'd rather continue to live with the illusion of an infinite welfare state and overly generous retirement pensions.
China is an interesting case. They do a lot sometimes to tackle pollution (world leaders in solar panel research), much of which involves dealing with corruption, but they don't do it out of concern for the environment, rather it's about maintaining social stability, and it's not universally applied, depends on the nature of the issue and where it's happening. An angry rural poor can be a problem. However, business is largely unregulated, so it's a huge and complex issue. Cultural attitudes towards such notions though are not the same, in ways that are hard for westerners to understand. Besides, we in the West are hardly in a position to criticise when we're spending trillions each year on unfunded resource consumption, too afraid to genuinely deal with the real problems we have. Also worth noting that moving people en mass from 3rd world to 1st world nations (as the UN/EU are doing), where their resource comsumption will increase by an order of magnitude, is an incredibly stupid idea if one cares about the environment; it's also a massive brain drain on the origin nations (I thought taking resources from the 3rd world was a bad thing? Or doesn't that include its people?) and at the same time absorbs incompatible cultural elements which creates further problems, including criminal behaviour. All these policies are government controlled programmes; we would do well to ditch the fantasy that the state is capable of genuinely caring for the environment, because the people who run these structures mostly don't care.
There's so much hypocrasy and virtue signaling that surrounds environmental discussion, decisions and policy. People choose to believe the problems are simple and so are the solutions, because it makes them feel better. Have to laugh at the morons who park in a queue at a recycling centre in their SUV with the engine running just to drop off a small bag of plastics.
>(I thought taking resources from the 3rd world was a bad thing? Or doesn't that include its people?) and at the same time absorbs incompatible cultural elements which creates further problems, including criminal behaviour.
Uhhh... OK. Immigrants from foreign nations aren't inherently immigrating "incompatible" cultural elements nor are they inherently criminals. That's WHY there's the whole immigration screening process to begin with. Legal immigrants are screened for their criminal backgrounds and such before they're ever formally accepted for immigration from one country to another. Druglords and and mafia members don't suddenly immigrate scot-free at a whim.
Get off whatever you're smoking man, this is an article about mining tech getting devalued due to large drop offs in mining interest.
I'm tempted to pick up one of those just to have proper expandability.
I used to have a video card and 3-5 accessory cards in my machines back in the day. Admittedly I don't need a NIC, sound card or modem in my machine, but I *still* find myself running out of slots after only adding a tuner or two on a full ATX board. It's stupid.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
30 Comments
Back to Article
Carmen00 - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link
"enough people decided to try their lack" ... of common sense around investment vehicles, it seems! It's a typo (it should be "luck", not "lack"), and a very appropriate one indeed.FunBunny2 - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link
about to post a comment, but thou be-est first. I would have said it was a Freudian Slip.PeachNCream - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link
There are a significant number of typos in this article.kaidenshi - Sunday, December 30, 2018 - link
Sadly, even just writing about mining temporarily drops one's IQ significantly.Gastec - Wednesday, January 30, 2019 - link
Were you writing about yourself, username "kaidenshi"?Charlie22911 - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link
Are there any distributed computing projects that could take advantage of these without being limited by the PCIe x1 connections?DanNeely - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link
Probably. While x1 is a lot narrower than normal, most science apps load all the data onto the GPU at startup, crunch independently of the CPU (give or take writing an occasional checkpoint to disk) until completion, and then send the result back to the CPU to report. However if you care about science in general, as opposed to a single project or just fake internet points in specific, lots of distributed computing projects are doing work that can't be made to run on a GPU efficiently. Which means that there is a need for balanced computing systems for distributed computing projects. Also, enough GPUs to fill an 8/18 card system is still going to be stupidly expensive to build and operate.OTOH miners are also dumping GPUs; and as long as you can live without the warranty there're real deals to be had there. Combined with a 15% off coupon I got a pair of GTX 1070's for $430 shipped (one MSI, one Gigabyte). Zotak/PNY cards were $10-20 cheaper; but used and no warranty transfer made me want to go for better regarded brands even at a slight premium.
This should be a roughly power neutral upgrade for the GTX980/RX460 in my 2nd/3rd boxes; while netting about 66% higher output for those two boxes combined. The 980's permanently retired due to age and declining energy efficiency, although I might try flipping it to recover a bit of what I've spent on its replacement. I'll probably hold onto the 460 as a spare though, because it's not worth trying to flip.
speculatrix - Saturday, December 29, 2018 - link
You could build a nice tvheadend server with the motherboard that offers half a dozen PCIe sockets.Samus - Saturday, December 29, 2018 - link
I picked up a 1070 for $200 on facebook market. Guy had a dozen of them from mining he gave up on. It's worked fine the last month. It's a founders edition so it technically has a warranty and the cooler is very good (appears to be a vapor chamber titan cooler) so I'm not too concerned with longevity.0ldman79 - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
The PCIe interface is only used for data input and results.The computation is done on the cards, even once you get out of mining.
marees - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link
Why is the 1050ti overpriced despite stiff competition from 570 ?Is it because the PSU requirement is cheaper !?
watzupken - Saturday, December 29, 2018 - link
GTX 1050 Ti is pricey mainly because it runs very well for a card that does not require additional power connectors. In other words, if one is looking to build a low power PC, it may be a good candidate especially if you want to game on it as well. It's significantly better than AMD's RX 550/560, and any integrated graphics out there.0ldman79 - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
MIners are probably still using it as well.The 750 ti and 1050 ti were two of the most efficient cards out there.
CheapSushi - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link
These weren't mentioned but there's some amazing motherboards based on a PCIe card. I think these are awesome. I've seen about 5 variants, mostly built around the J1900 CPU. I hope I can grab a few cheap to play around with clustering.Flunk - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link
Why does this article about GPU mining reference Bitcoin so much or conversely not mention actual Bitcoin ASIC hardware prices? It seems like the author is confused as to how people were mining Bitcoin vs other cryptocurrencies over the last year and has conflated the two. All the Cyrptocoin values are linked, yes, but the cost of mining hardware isn't. You haven't been able to mine Bitcoin in any viable way with GPUs for years.mpbello - Saturday, December 29, 2018 - link
True, Bitcoin needed ASIC hardware, do not think people were buying GPUs to mine BTC.The real deal will be when these miners start dumping their overpriced gear on ebay.
watzupken - Saturday, December 29, 2018 - link
To be honest, this is a crash that is expected to happen, regardless if mining took off or not. The bonanza can only last as long as there's strong demand. But demand can't remain strong forever. With so many manufacturers rushing in to try to get into the action, it's not surprising many are left bruised by the sudden plunge in demand.PeachNCream - Saturday, December 29, 2018 - link
The main concern now is whether or not cryptocurrencies will endure the various peaks and slumps for long enough to emerge as a useful form of exchange for other goods and services. With the exchange rate swinging so wildly, its just another form of high risk investing rather than a useful, practical way of purchasing products. For adoption to work, people will need a much lower variance in order to be able to depend on it to buy a package of potato chips or accept it as a form of payment for work they perform. I'm not taking a paycheck in crypto coins, for instance, if I don't know whether it will be worth enough to buy a car or a candy bar when I'm ready to spend it. If crypto can overcome the prospector boom-bust mentality, it may eventually be able to serve its intended purpose.dromoxen - Sunday, December 30, 2018 - link
I'd love to hear and see a true miners story. You know joe soap who thought wow , a money printing machine. I looked at Bitcoin in the early days and didnt really understand how it was being controlled/priced so stayed out.. I think GPU users were mining ethereum and all the other rubbish. And imagine those wise heads who bought GFX cards with no outputs , to save a few bucks.LOL. You can still find keyser pushing the whole Crypto-shill, replace the Dollar, in 2020 ?niva - Wednesday, January 2, 2019 - link
Hindsight is always 20/20. I have a similar story, I deliberately sat out from the Bitcoin craze exactly for the reason you stated. Oh well, better luck next time!abufrejoval - Sunday, December 30, 2018 - link
I sure would like having cryptocurrencies or rather their trade be made illegal in all major economies.Way too much dirty money and anything you can throw into the gears of the Ransomware industry is doing a lot of good.
And there is so many better uses for electricity!
Oxford Guy - Sunday, December 30, 2018 - link
If you want to save the planet, start with real estate. Over 6,000 acres of land in the US are developed daily, according to a recent scientific presentation I ran across. McMansions, strip malls, gas stations, and the like may be attractive but they carry a much larger price tag than people want to think about.A moratorium on the development of natural acreage would go a long way toward preserving the planet. But, the new dictator in Brazil wants to sell the Amazon to Amazon and corporations are cheering.
As for dirty money... last time I checked the United States was the world's largest weapons dealer and the largest per-capita imprisoner. China's own government admitted that most of its soil is heavily polluted a number of years back. There is a lot of dirty money out there and it has nothing to do with crypto.
PeachNCream - Sunday, December 30, 2018 - link
In the grand scheme of things, I agree that crypto coins are pretty far down there on the list of problems. They do make narcotics, ransom attacks, and pornography easier to obtain to a certain extent, but only as long as they have some form of value. They are seemingly a waste of electrical energy we can dedicate to something more useful. However, the fact that crypto currencies keep anarchists and other nefarious sorts happy by giving them a pressure relief valve of sorts is beneficial to the rest of us and that has to be worth something. Besides, from what I've been reading, at least Bitcoin transactions are getting followed back to the owner of the wallet so they aren't as bulletproof as people might think. Arrests are happening and the weaker, non technical links in the chain are easy enough for law enforcement to exploit.mapesdhs - Wednesday, January 2, 2019 - link
If people really "cared about the planet" then they would oppose state and private debt before anything else, for these constitute unfunded resource consumption in the extreme. Nobody does though, they want their phones (look up how many are thrown away each year), TVs & cheap holidays, and they'd rather continue to live with the illusion of an infinite welfare state and overly generous retirement pensions.China is an interesting case. They do a lot sometimes to tackle pollution (world leaders in solar panel research), much of which involves dealing with corruption, but they don't do it out of concern for the environment, rather it's about maintaining social stability, and it's not universally applied, depends on the nature of the issue and where it's happening. An angry rural poor can be a problem. However, business is largely unregulated, so it's a huge and complex issue. Cultural attitudes towards such notions though are not the same, in ways that are hard for westerners to understand. Besides, we in the West are hardly in a position to criticise when we're spending trillions each year on unfunded resource consumption, too afraid to genuinely deal with the real problems we have. Also worth noting that moving people en mass from 3rd world to 1st world nations (as the UN/EU are doing), where their resource comsumption will increase by an order of magnitude, is an incredibly stupid idea if one cares about the environment; it's also a massive brain drain on the origin nations (I thought taking resources from the 3rd world was a bad thing? Or doesn't that include its people?) and at the same time absorbs incompatible cultural elements which creates further problems, including criminal behaviour. All these policies are government controlled programmes; we would do well to ditch the fantasy that the state is capable of genuinely caring for the environment, because the people who run these structures mostly don't care.
There's so much hypocrasy and virtue signaling that surrounds environmental discussion, decisions and policy. People choose to believe the problems are simple and so are the solutions, because it makes them feel better. Have to laugh at the morons who park in a queue at a recycling centre in their SUV with the engine running just to drop off a small bag of plastics.
JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
>(I thought taking resources from the 3rd world was a bad thing? Or doesn't that include its people?) and at the same time absorbs incompatible cultural elements which creates further problems, including criminal behaviour.Uhhh... OK. Immigrants from foreign nations aren't inherently immigrating "incompatible" cultural elements nor are they inherently criminals. That's WHY there's the whole immigration screening process to begin with. Legal immigrants are screened for their criminal backgrounds and such before they're ever formally accepted for immigration from one country to another. Druglords and and mafia members don't suddenly immigrate scot-free at a whim.
Get off whatever you're smoking man, this is an article about mining tech getting devalued due to large drop offs in mining interest.
cbm80 - Monday, December 31, 2018 - link
I didn't know people were still calling crypto prices "exchange rates". Made me chuckle.0ldman79 - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
I'm tempted to pick up one of those just to have proper expandability.I used to have a video card and 3-5 accessory cards in my machines back in the day. Admittedly I don't need a NIC, sound card or modem in my machine, but I *still* find myself running out of slots after only adding a tuner or two on a full ATX board. It's stupid.
0ldman79 - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
Here's a question, can a standard card mount to those boards?As in can I use a PCIe 1x card in a case without the extension?
sorten - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link
"The 6-way frame for mining rigs that used to cost $100 in March, is now available for $36, a nearly three times decline."What is a three times decline? The decline in price was 64%, correct? (100 - 64) / 100 = 0.64.
octal - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link
It made me cringe too. The article was written by someone who should never be allowed to write anything again, ever.