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Posted by tapmybuttons - Mon 10 May 2021 16:26
Ill probably cry when I finally get my hands on a new graphics card from NVIDIA; one can hope hackers don't find a way around the limiter
Posted by Euphonium - Mon 10 May 2021 16:45
I want to know if these anti-mining mods will affect things like folding@home
Posted by watercooled - Mon 10 May 2021 17:23
Euphonium
I want to know if these anti-mining mods will affect things like folding@home
I don't believe so - Ethereum has a very distinctive memory-thrashing usage pattern which makes it easily recognisable. It's one of the frustrating things about it, most of the GPU is practically going to waste when mining, it's more like a “proof of memory bandwidth” algorithm.

It would be good, for the sake of transparency, if other graphics card partners add a suffix like ‘FG’ to their LHR products which we expect to proliferate in the coming weeks.
My view would be to not mention it at all - why make life easier for the ones destroying the GPU market for its intended audience? The cards have never been advertised for their mining ability and the change has been well-broadcasted, so it's tough if miners/scalpers buy a bunch of graphics cards that end up being useless to them. The uncertainty makes it more difficult to hoard supplies.

Nvidia have released a set of actual mining cards largely using older GPUs, possibly part-broken or unsold silicon they'd stocked up on, and not competing for 8nm capacity in any case. Miners are free to source those to burn power with, and it's in Nvidia's interests to protect themselves from another stock disaster should the crypto market come crashing down (again) and the used market gets flooded with offloaded mining GPUs (again) meaning new cards are tough to sell.
Posted by kalniel - Mon 10 May 2021 17:36
watercooled
My view would be to not mention it at all - why make life easier for the ones destroying the GPU market for its intended audience? The cards have never been advertised for their mining ability and the change has been well-broadcasted, so it's tough if miners/scalpers buy a bunch of graphics cards that end up being useless to them. The uncertainty makes it more difficult to hoard supplies.

They'll just hoard them on the off-chance and bin according to hash-rate and sell on LHR versions (which given the second hand going rate for cards, will still net them a profit). I guess the increasing amount of second hand cards in the market *may* exert some downward pressure on scalpers, but I doubt it'd be much. I think making it clear from the start would do a better job of decreasing prices by increasing the supply of first-hand cards.
Posted by watercooled - Mon 10 May 2021 18:22
You're probably right. I wonder what the supply allocation will be between these limited cards and the original ones? I was kinda assuming they were stopping production altogether.
Posted by Usernamist - Tue 11 May 2021 07:45
So are LHR cards any less performant than regular cards for anything other than crypto-mining? Anyone do any serious testing yet?
Posted by watercooled - Tue 11 May 2021 17:09
The mining limiters should not affect any other workloads.
Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH - Tue 11 May 2021 17:13
Posted by Dribble - Wed 12 May 2021 10:44
watercooled
You're probably right. I wonder what the supply allocation will be between these limited cards and the original ones? I was kinda assuming they were stopping production altogether.
They will completely stop selling the non LHR versions - if you want to mine they want you to buy a specialist mining card.
Posted by [GSV]Trig - Wed 12 May 2021 10:54
I disagree with this, especially if they are looking to ‘hide’ which card you have bought.
Posted by DanceswithUnix - Wed 12 May 2021 12:01
'[GSV
Trig;4291861']I disagree with this, especially if they are looking to ‘hide’ which card you have bought.

Seems a pretty clear “You will get an LHR card from now on” to me.
I mean, it's not like you are likely to find old stock is it. So unless you are specifically buying on Ebay for mining purposes you should be fine here.
Posted by Corky34 - Wed 12 May 2021 12:48
So is it actually going to be worth looking on e-tailers sites for graphics cards or will it be the usual “No Stock” and without prices even being listed.
Posted by DanceswithUnix - Wed 12 May 2021 13:10
I think at this point there is so much pent up demand that it might take a while for there to be any stock even if this stops miners from buying cards.

OFC I'm not convinced it will stop them, unless they are all busy trying to buy hard drives for Chia.
Posted by Corky34 - Wed 12 May 2021 16:30
I suspect you're right, we'll probably see new graphics cards before we see e-tailers with stock of current gen cards. :(