It’d be nice if the manufacturers could somehow figure out a way to churn out a ton of special-purpose crypto-farming cards that do nothing else, and save the actual graphics cards for people needing, well, graphics. But I guess the problem is the GPU chips themselves are the bottleneck?
Do we have a strategic reserve of GPUs, like with oil?
What we need is another player to make that. No chance nVidia or AMD would
We should just outlaw crypto currencies since they are an environmental disaster and contribute no actual value to society.
vyshka
8051
I thought at one point one of them was actually working on a crypto specific card, basically a gpu without the outputs.
A story from last fall about AMD potentially working on one:
recent story about an msi nvidia based card:
Given the bottleneck is chip fabrication at this point, dedicated card alternatives don’t really solve anything.
stusser
8053
It’s mostly fab capacity, yes. Most of it is going to Xbox/PS5 production. But I hear also Apple bought up all the air freight and all the shipping freight is going to PPEs.
When is TSMC Arizona supposed to begin operation?
stusser
8055
That’s 2024, if all goes well. And it’ll be 5nm fabrication which will not be current by then, again if all goes well.
Soma
8056
Intel?
They want to be competitive. “Want” being the operative word, no evidence of competitiveness so far.
I agree they are a blight. Whether outlawing them is a feasible, or even possible, solution is another thing. In this country I seriously doubt there is much we can do about it. Maybe in a more sensible place perhaps.
Not sure if its your intent, but this reads as dismissive and exaggeration. 5 nm may not be bleeding edge by then, but it seems unlikely it will be “not current” (which one may interpret as obsolete).
Aceris
8059
Everyone with a supercomputer should get together and use their processing power to take over and discredit every proof of work based coin. The planet would thank them.
More likely to happen the other way round:
Digital snake oil. P.T. Barnum would be proud.
CPUs and GPUs will always try to be on the smallest node possible for power and density advantages. So it’s unlikely that AMD or Nvidia will design 5nm cards once 3nm is online. So for GPUs (which this thread is about) new 5nm fabs won’t help capacity by then.
stusser
8063
That’s true, and it’s also true it won’t be obsolete by then either. It might even be current if 3nm is problematic which has been known to happen.
schurem
8064
I never understood an iota of this cryptocurrency malarky. Glad to see someone demonstrably smarter than me come to the same conclusion I held on it ;-)
KevinC
8065
I’m just astonished 5nm and 3nm are even possible. I don’t understand the physics of it, I’m just gobsmacked that we’re able to produce these things. How the hell can we produce something 5nm in size, pack billions of them on a chip, and having them react to electricity, etc? I mean, Intel seems to be asking the same thing right now, but damn.
