When do the next generation GPUs drop?

Best Buy actually has Vega 56 in stock and for “only” $850! Prices may be finally starting to drop a little.

Yeah, that seems ridiculous (to me).

A new young guy in my office (early 30s, super nice but a Jehovah’s Witness of all things) is “part of the (mining) problem” and just told me yesterday that he “scored” by buying TEN 1070s at $699 each (which he claims is the new MSRP – is that true?).

This dude is married with a little girl, and he just blew nearly seven grand on graphics cards. /smh

Maybe he’s actually trying to provoke the End Times. ;-)

It looks like EVGA lists different 1070 cards from $490 to $560 on their site. I bought a EVGA 1070 SC ACX 3.0 when they first came out for $445 on newegg, and it shows as $510 now on the evga site.

No, that isn’t the MSRP. That guy is probably screwed.

Actually I’d misheard and it was $679 a piece (TNY brand), and it’s part of a side business venture he’s got going with a partner with the aim of learning about block chain stuff and becoming a consulting firm on that subject. So maybe he’s not screwed. He’s a very bright guy.

His degree of screwidness depends on how much he can spare seven large.

He sounds pretty confident that they’ll pay for themselves in a year or so.
When I expressed my desire that graphics cards come down out of the stratosphere soon he said that the current situation is the new normal.
Needless to say I hope he’s wrong about that.

Prices are already crashing, he got in late, after everybody else started to leave. That’s why he’s probably screwed.

He’s got a good job here, so I don’t think the loss of the money spent on the cards will ruin him or anything (and he’s probably sharing that with his business partner), but I kinda hope you’re right, although the non-cryptocurrency applications of block chain sound interesting.

They absolutely do sound amazing, and potentially transformative, but nobody has been able to figure out how, exactly. Maybe to secure intellectual property claims, maybe DRM, maybe to authenticate financial transactions, could be a lot of stuff but nobody has really figured it out.

Still, if the prices of graphics cards don’t come down in the next year or so, PC gaming (well, triple A big budget PC gaming) is truly doomed. No more self-building anyway. Unless you’ve got money coming out of you know where.

It’s not that bad of a risk honestly. If he wanted to sell all the cards in three months for example, he’d probably get 80% of what he paid. Even in six months when 2080s are out he’d probably get 50% or more. So that’s the bottom end of what you can lose.

You’re making the mistake of thinking demand and prices won’t drop, when this is already happening.

I think it’s a reasonable estimate the over/under on a 1070 is about $350 dollars in August. About equal chance it could be $200, but also $500, with a spike in the middle of that distribution.

For a used 1070 that’s been used to mine cryptocurrency? I would never pay $350 for that. $200 seems pretty reasonable.

Cryptocurrency prices are bouncing around, but I’m not convinced they will crater anytime soon.

On the other hand, if Ethereum and others move from ‘proof of work’ to ‘proof of stake’ method of generating currency, like they’ve been discussing, that would kill mining in its current form. I’d love to see it happen.

Would you really buy a used card? I assume most have been used for mining, and they don’t have odometers.

I wouldn’t buy one personally no, but if I was tight on cash I would take a gamble on a card at 50% MSRP.

@J_Thomas: The way these things work, as you continue to mine coins it gets continually more difficult. So while cryptocurrency value may not crater, the amount of money you can make via mining will continue to drop, barring any technological advances.

I wonder if nvidia employees can get product. Just got pinged by one of their recruiters. If they allow remote work I might consider it.