stusser
8066
It’s a huge engineering challenge, we thought we’d reached the limits of silicon years ago. And we still will at some point, need to move to some new substrate.
vyshka
8067
I know Seymour Cray was trying to work with gallium arsenide at one point, and it has been used in some dsp applications, but I don’t know if much ever came of it. It will be interesting to see what engineers come up with.
stusser
8068
I think ultimately it’ll be carbon, either in nanotubes or graphene layers, but little progress has been made so far. Research on that stuff speeds up as it gets progressively harder to shrink silicon processes. Or maybe it’ll be black phosphorus, or something else we haven’t heard of yet.
I’m definitely not smarter, just less concerned than most people with looking like an idiot when I say something stupid.
Any currency–bitcoins, dollars or seashells–is only as valuable as the confidence of the holder and the culture he trades in. Dollars used to be backed by gold, but that isn’t worth any more than the confidence in it as a standard–its not like we needed an entire fort of it for conductivity reasons. Now the dollar is based on our faith in the US government to back it up.
The way to do away with cryptocurrency is to destroy confidence in the return.
It’s basically setting a pile of money on fire and pretending the ashes are somehow now more valuable than what you started with despite not being usable for anything.
morlac
8072
This. All currency is presently malarkey because none of it is backed up by gold anymore. Just keep printing!
Well, I’m not sure “malarkey” is the word I’d choose; gold and silver are not inherently valuable, either, except as raw materials in certain industries. They do have the benefit of being durable and things humans decided a long time ago worked pretty well as money. But their actual value is still based on the willingness of people to trade usable things for quantities of shiny metal bits.
Menzo
8074
Good news for those Bitcoin miners buying up all the 30XX cards!
PS - if you thought competing with miners for cards when Bitcoin was at $30k was tough, wait till you see what it’s like with Bitcoin at $50k.
The 3070 I got: $790.
The 2080S I sold: $780.
¯\_(ツ)__/¯
stusser
8076
Well it’s not a huge upgrade, but for ten bucks, why not?
rei
8078
Some mfr like Asus did make output less cards
This seems weird based on the research I’ve done on ETH mining but whatever helps.
Edit: Missed this good quote
Nvidia said that the latest chip in its gaming graphics cards series, the RTX 3060, would be modified when it’s released later this year so it won’t mine ether effectively. Cards that have already been sold, like the RTX 3070 or RTX 3080, do not have the same limitations, the Nvidia representative said.
stusser
8080
Ethereum mining is memory-intensive, so they could be taking GPUs that weren’t good enough to meet gaming requirements and dropping them onto custom PCBs without video outputs and tons of RAM, then selling them at a lower price.
Maybe. I guess I’m curious if this is more than just an attempt at signalling for miners to stop taking up stock because ethereum has several initiatives that will reduce mining profitability and outright remove it entirely soon (proof of stake is already ramping up). So this isn’t a long term viable play unless it can be used for more than just Ethereum, though that’s the main one that’s actually profitable with GPUs atm.
stusser
8082
If it really is Nvidia selling poorly binned GPUs that wouldn’t cut it for gaming, I imagine it would be quite profitable for them.
Haha maybe, but looking at their offerings (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/cmp/) it’s pretty crappy (depending on pricing I guess).
For reference I get 54MH/s on my 3070 (I did not buy a 3070 for mining and just started doing it cause I have one, it’s profitable, and easy while I"m working anyway). All at 140W (though I’m undervolted).
I suspect this won’t do a thing to demand. It’s like adding more lanes on a highway in LA. You’re not easing traffic. You’re just inviting more drivers.
Tim_N
8085
For reference I can get with a custom overclock/undervolt 110MH/s with a 3090 and only using 310W. Compare that with their 86MH/s which uses 320W. But yeah, I guess it depends on prices.
(I am not a miner please don’t shoot me, just tried it the last day out of curiousity!)
