GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

wanderingbison9 said:Impeach Jensen Huang !!!😁

I suspect his current strategy is working perfectly for the shareholders, though.😁

doduše, this isn't exactly breaking news; it was already all over the headlines.

Can't buy a new Ampere GPU? That's because Nvidia sold them to miners

Who knows how many more rounds they've moved since then.😁

The real issue is that this trend is being driven by massive corporations rather than just individual buyers.

Look, Bitcoin has a hard cap on its total supply. Once it hits that limit, no more coins get minted. Aren't we basically right at that threshold already?

Edit: My bad, we aren't. There's still about 7 years left.😁

https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/...ins-are-there/

Timothy Kim60 said:I guess we messed up by telling people to wait a few months for the new models. Nobody saw this crypto mining boom coming, I suppose...

Literally, you can't buy any high-end GPU right now. Everything is gone.
The used market has also gone completely crazy. Even those old 4GB models like the RX 470 and RX 570, which aren't great for mining anymore, are nowhere to be found.
I remember seeing an R9 380X 4GB for $100 once, but looking now, even that isn't there, just one listed at $233...

A friend of mine in Germany reserved an RTX 3080.
So, I put my own RTX 2070 Super up for sale on eBay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/example-listing-link

It sold in a single day. Today I told him I'd send the money via PayPal, but when he called, they had zero in stock, and even the reserved one was gone.
Damn. Now I have the cash but no card.
Now I have to figure out where to find something at a somewhat normal price.
They have the 3060 Ti in stock, but the price makes it not worth it, I guess.

Everyone went on a massive hardware buying spree because they were stuck at home during the pandemic, and now production is totally maxed out (think PS5, Xbox), plus there's this whole crypto mining craze picking up again since prices are climbing. It’s all hitting at once. There's even a shortage of TVs because of a lack of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chips—from what I've heard, even Huawei is getting blamed because they stockpiled chips ahead of those Trump trade restrictions.

It’s kind of fascinating how helpless we are as a species. You think there's plenty of everything and we just consume, then a few stupid coincidences happen and suddenly you can't even pick up a graphics card. And I'm not even talking about some bottom-tier model; I'm talking about actually wanting to drop decent money on something good, but even that seems impossible right now. 😁

urbanheron4 said:Well, Bitcoin has a hard cap on its total supply, right? Aren't we already getting close to that limit?

Edit: Actually, no, we’ve still got about 7 years to go. 😁

https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/...ins-are-there/

The issue isn't just Bitcoin itself; it's Ethereum. Since Ethereum is essentially ASIC-resistant—meaning you can't mine it with specialized hardware, only with GPUs—it creates this massive surge in demand for graphics cards. Then, people take those Ethereum gains and swap them for Bitcoin, which actually has real-world utility for buying things or just cashing out.

urbanheron4 said:Why?

Because normally, the USA gets the lowest hardware prices thanks to a massive market and low taxes. Combine that with high purchasing power, and Americans just sweep everything up. Now that they’re stuck paying an extra $100 or $200 for a GPU, companies like Microsoft don't find it as profitable to prioritize US stock over the rest of the world. Look at it this way—if the US slapped a 200% tariff on Scotch whiskey, the rest of the world would see prices drop simply because it becomes too difficult to export it to America.

Everything is a mess right now. These tariffs are just a small factor on the global scale, and Biden will probably scrap them. But long-term? It means more hardware for us and less for Americans, since higher prices mean they can afford less within the same budget.

Because of people like this, we can't even look at graphics cards without seeing insane prices.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/graphics-cards-listing

Look, it’s not just about individual players anymore; we’re seeing major corporations start digging into this too. They’re buying up massive quantities directly from NVIDIA before the stuff even hits retail shelves.

$633 1650S.... At this point, the only thing worth posting on this thread is a massive, bolded "DON'T!" at the very top of the sticky, and honestly, that’s all it needs.

What really gets under my skin is the fact that they only sell these things as part of a complete rig. I can't help but wonder if we'll finally see them start selling individual components once this current craze dies down?

wiredotter14 said:Because...

Alright, thanks for clearing that up.

On another note, do these miners even factor in electricity costs? A rig like that can pull an insane amount of power, and there's no guarantee they'll actually break even. Or maybe these people just have access to dirt-cheap electricity somehow.
I was just thinking—right now, in Springfield and the surrounding areas, the power is basically free. It’s not exactly classy or ethical, but someone could really make a killing off it. You find some half-destroyed shack or a tiny fixer-upper, cram 50 GPUs inside that are worth more than the house itself, and just mine for free.

urbanheron4 said:Got it, thanks for clearing that up.

Do miners even factor in their electricity costs? A rig like this can pull a massive amount of power, and there's no guarantee they'll actually break even. I wonder if some people just have access to dirt-cheap electricity.
I was thinking, since everything is currently down in Springfield and the surrounding areas, the power is basically free right now. It’s not exactly ethical, but someone could really take advantage of it. You could just grab a prefab house or one that's half-ruined, cram 50 GPUs inside—which are worth more than the house anyway—and mine for free.

Some people have free electricity or an old meter they can manipulate, while others act like Uber drivers or delivery folks using their own cars without accounting for gas.

urbanheron4 said:Alright, thanks for clearing that up.

Anyway, do these miners actually factor in power costs? A rig like this can eat electricity for breakfast, and there's no guarantee they'll break even. Or do some people just have access to dirt-cheap power?
I was just thinking, right now in a small town in the Midwest and the surrounding area, the power is basically free. It’s not exactly classy or moral, but someone could really exploit that. You grab some prefab or half-ruined house, cram 50 GPUs inside that are worth more than the building itself, and mine for free.

Look, if you're paying $0.33/kWh, a single RX580 pulling 100W nets you about $1/day. An RTX3070 has at least double the hash rate—not sure about the draw—so I don't know if it's even worth mining with these newer cards.

My gaming PC with an RX580 mines Bitcoin, bringing in roughly $3.25/day, while the CPU runs Folding@Home (WHO). I don't even count the power because the rig puts out enough heat to warm the whole room, so I don't need the heater. Back when I was staying in a dorm, the electricity was free, so I didn't even touch the radiator. The bottom line is during these mining crazes, if you snag cards at Ford, you make your investment back in a few months. After that, you just ride it out until you dump the cards in bulk once the profit hits the cost of power. Otherwise, electricity in America is relatively cheap.

urbanheron4 said:Alright, thanks for clearing that up.

On a different note, do you think these miners actually factor in their electricity costs? A rig like this can be a massive power hog, and there’s no guarantee they’ll even break even. Or maybe some people just have access to dirt-cheap power.
I was just thinking—right now, in a small town in the Midwest and the surrounding areas, electricity is basically free. It isn't exactly ethical, but someone could really take advantage of that. You could grab some prefab shack or a half-ruined house, cram 50 GPUs inside that are worth more than the building itself, and mine for free.

Well, what if his massive mining rig ends up being leveled along with the ruins (or turned to dust) during the next big earthquake? 😁

Talk about instant karma.

Timothy Kim60 said:I mean, imagine if his massive mining rig just got crushed by debris or buried in dust during a sudden earthquake in some small town in the Midwest. 😁

That would be karma.

I'm not one for summary judgment, but I think executing people who profit from or steal during natural disasters was actually a solid law.

I heard through the grapevine that the colleague who picked up those two 3090s ended up offloading all his old 1080s and 2080s at once, clearly to some local crypto miner. It really does seem like the mining craze hasn't lost its momentum just yet, wouldn't you agree?
But there's no way he'd be willing to part with his used 1080ti under these current market conditions for anything less than $667...☕

Sent from my iPhone

What would be the purpose of running two 3090s? Surely SLI isn't actually viable for gaming anymore, is it?

No, I was actually talking about rendering in Octane.

Sent from my iPhone

I spotted a listing on eBay for two Radeon RX 480 cards—specifically those AMD models with the blower style cooling—that come with a flashed BIOS optimized for mining, supposedly featuring undervolting and tweaked memory timings. Does anyone know how much of a headache that BIOS might actually be, or is it possible to override those settings using AMD Wattman, or are they essentially hardcoded into the card now? He’s asking $567 per card. Honestly, I can't wrap my head around paying that much; I have a feeling he'll end up dropping the price once he realizes he's trying to sell a blower design to someone like me who knows exactly why a specific setup is needed in the first place.

My RX580 has a modded BIOS set up exactly like that, but honestly, performance is basically identical in games if you aren't messing with undervolting or underclocking via Wattman. (Same performance before and after the mod)
Besides, flashing back to the original BIOS isn't the issue—it’s the risk of playing with the BIOS itself if the card doesn't have a dual BIOS setup. Mine has one, so if I brick one, I just flip the switch to the other one I haven't touched.
But paying anything over $333 for a mining Polaris card is insane, especially with a blower cooler that's been running non-stop. Honestly, unless it's a total steal, I wouldn't buy a card right now. The crypto boom is the worst thing ever for gamers because we haven't seen a supply issue this bad in a long time.

Are those 4GB cards or 8GB? If they're 4GB, I'd rather grab a GTX970 that's less likely to have been mined on and actually comes with a decent cooler.
We should start seeing a ton of 4GB cards hitting eBay soon since you can't mine Bitcoin with them anymore.

P.S.
It's possible the BIOS is heavily modded, like someone set a low max TDP or something, but people don't usually do that since you handle power draw through undervolting and underclocking, not the BIOS. You mod the BIOS primarily for specific memory timings meant for mining. My card runs fine; I've got a mining BIOS from some forum, but there's no guarantee someone didn't go overboard when they were messing with it.