GPU Availability and Pricing Update: November 2021

[RudyBob]

I downloaded NiceHash and was mining ether in minutes being paid in Bitcoin (Tom's Hardware has a nice intro piece). NiceHash takes a small cut for the making it simple you can avoid that fee if you want to soend a lot of time digging into how mine.

It varies due to changing crypto prices but the 3080 makes about $8/day so after 300 days it paid me back. (Range I have seen is $5-15/day but it is usually around $8)

Thanks....how does it wear and tear on the video card? Is mining like playing an intensive vid game?

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Thanks....how does it wear and tear on the video card? Is mining like playing an intensive vid game?

It can wear some on your GPU fan since it's running 24/7. Ether mining is mostly VRAM dependant so you overclock the VRAM and underclock the GPU as low as possible (using MSI afterburner) so my GPU fan runs at ~35% mining which is actually less than a demanding game due to the underclock. Tom's Hardware has some good articles with more details. Reading them is what got me started.

 

[Crinkles]

Thanks....how does it wear and tear on the video card? Is mining like playing an intensive vid game?

Graphics cards don't run out of gas, they're on and running while producing income.
Create a reduced lifespan scenario: Normal life = 10 years/120 months.
Reduction in lifetime/value = 1 month per month used for mining.

Actual mining use - 20 = 120-20 = 100.
Remaining: 100/120 = 83.3%
GFX Card Cost: $1200.
Units: 144,000 - 120,000 = 24,000.
Reduced Value: $1000 / 83.34%
Cost of mining: $200 / 16.17%
Recover cost is offset by total runtime.

Plug in values you like for the above.
$8 each week = $416 (per year). Don't transpose weeks for months. A graphics card can't perform at a 'consumption' rate faster than 1 for 1, it's probably less at lower utilization %'s.

 

[RudyBob]

Graphics cards don't run out of gas, they're on and running while producing income.
Create a reduced lifespan scenario: Normal life = 10 years/120 months.
Reduction in lifetime/value = 1 month per month used for mining.

Actual mining use - 20 = 120-20 = 100.
Remaining: 100/120 = 83.3%
GFX Card Cost: $1200.
Units: 144,000 - 120,000 = 24,000.
Reduced Value: $1000 / 83.34%
Cost of mining: $200 / 16.17%
Recover cost is offset by total runtime.

Plug in values you like for the above.
$8 each week = $416 (per year). Don't transpose weeks for months. A graphics card can't perform at a 'consumption' rate faster than 1 for 1, it's probably less at lower utilization %'s.

I really like how you have done the math and presented it. Fine Job and I hope you make some good $$ Thanks for filling me in

 

[ubronan]

Lol already hoping for the next paper launch at super insane prices
A great article about virtual not available hardware or at super prices by scalpers who buy them all and keep the prices on the moon level for how many years now ?!
On the other hand no games are made for 5 years now in a row which make me feel that is a game I want. All is online and multi players which I do not want
I have no need for multi play nor another version of the same thing but with a new or just another name change.
It seems game developers are no longer able to create something what does renew the game world so we are stuck at all the same stuff. When I look at a demo it instant shows it is again the same thing with same figures and same goals. So freaking boring.
If we look at global warming then crypto coins are one of the most dangerous as big as the global destroyers. There is so much power waste on this that we can not even really calculate how many is being spoiled on this insanity. I admit I have been in crypto a while but after I detected the insanity behind this power wasting enerby slurping monstrousity I stopped and pulled out. There are hundreds of so called coins invented most do die pretty quick and for what feeding the greed of mankind. As I think it never will become a real solution ever.
Sure the blockchain is a solution and has made it to usefull purposes but for the rest crypto is a fail as it just produces massive heat without any real purpose besides massive greed.
I have hundreds of people in my surrounding using their own computers to produce crypto and they actually sell the cards back to the second hand as gamer cards.
Which is for the ones buying them a card who have been running to its limits so you gotta be really lucky not getting a damaged card. Many of the gpu's I used for mining died. The cards I wanted sell where tested by me and most cases gave artifacts if you tried games and some could not even show simple programs without issues. So I sold them as damaged cards, which made a few people happy as they survived long enough.
But I never will buy a second hand gpu ever again, as most are used to mine coins on them.
Hell some even try to mine coins on their cpu hoping to get some of the value out of the coins.
In most cases a lost attempt as many of those coins loose value and new ones keep popping up constant. And there of course enough victims left to get into this world of criminality.

 

[Hysc84]

Wake me up when GPU $ spikes end

 

[ubronan]

Thanks....how does it wear and tear on the video card? Is mining like playing an intensive vid game?

The reality is that it depends how much you push the card, if you undervolt and underclock it will do fine but you have to be lucky.
In the periods I mined many cards got damaged by the constant high stress on the cards, they ran high speeds for make them profitable as some coins disappeared or the value dropped like a rocket, so ended as pretty crappy only working for mining cards.
Artifacts and crashes of normal programs and games, made it clear to me that the stress on the cards is absolute much more than when you game.
People writing here that the cards they mine are not damaged but its utter nonsense, with mining the cards are 24 hours stressed, and that is what they are not made for. Even if you are a gamejunk like I was who played at least 10 hours a day. You never run the cards at 100% all day NEVER EVER. people need sleep and food and drinks so the machine powers all down as the game is not active or closed completely.
So reality is that all cards used for mining are damaged, some will die sooner than later.
It depends alot on luck and how well and the quality of the products are/where.
I ran 20 cards and only 3 could run games.
After a some time of mining when they do not make enough money to be profitable , that miners sell them to people who have no clue what it does to the card is a fact.
They want the most profit even if they scam people who do not know they are buying a heavy used card. Because that is what it is scamming
If they are lucky they get away with the card doing everything, but my experience with my 20 nvidia cards showed that 17 of them gave huge problems if people would want to play heavy games on them.
I ran them 2,5 years at mining all day and made enough to buy 60 cards back.
And I really sold them as damaged cards for a small price and used the 3 good ones for friends who could not afford such a costly card.
I warned them that the card could become a problem in time, but they accepted the cards at less than half the price of a second hand card on the market.
For me it did not matter I had made a huge profit and had replaced the old with new ones.
It is all about the enormous greed of people, those claiming that the cards are undamaged are in my opinion not people I want to know or like.
If you do mining you should buy special miner cards till they are unusable and then return them to scrapping and buy new ones that is what people should do, but most people are way to greedy..
Everywhere I see the same bragging about selling the cards with huge profits...
If you tell me otherwise your a liar < PERIOD >

 

[ScottSoapbox]

I really like how you have done the math and presented it. Fine Job and I hope you make some good $$ Thanks for filling me in

I thought I'd also add the risk involved. The money you make mining is dependant on the price of crypto and the mining difficulty factor. The difficulty factor can change due to the crypto coin changing its rules (Ether keeps moving out the date of such a change) and how many miners there are - getting into the details of why doesn't matter as much as for our purposes as knowing it can change.

So the risk is that prices go down and/or mining difficulty goes up which means you make less per day on your GPU. It is even possible that it goes down enough that you make nothing I.e., less than the price of electricity. So just be aware of that risk when considering buying a new card for gaming + mining.

I could afford to just buy the overpriced GPU so for me, mining was just a bonus. But one way you could assess the risk would be to assume that mining would work for 6 months and then stop making any money and would you be OK with that as an outcome.

 

[RudyBob]

The reality is that it depends how much you push the card, if you undervolt and underclock it will do fine but you have to be lucky.
In the periods I mined many cards got damaged by the constant high stress on the cards, they ran high speeds for make them profitable as some coins disappeared or the value dropped like a rocket, so ended as pretty crappy only working for mining cards.
Artifacts and crashes of normal programs and games, made it clear to me that the stress on the cards is absolute much more than when you game.
People writing here that the cards they mine are not damaged but its utter nonsense, with mining the cards are 24 hours stressed, and that is what they are not made for. Even if you are a gamejunk like I was who played at least 10 hours a day. You never run the cards at 100% all day NEVER EVER. people need sleep and food and drinks so the machine powers all down as the game is not active or closed completely.
So reality is that all cards used for mining are damaged, some will die sooner than later.
It depends alot on luck and how well and the quality of the products are/where.
I ran 20 cards and only 3 could run games.
After a some time of mining when they do not make enough money to be profitable , that miners sell them to people who have no clue what it does to the card is a fact.
They want the most profit even if they scam people who do not know they are buying a heavy used card. Because that is what it is scamming
If they are lucky they get away with the card doing everything, but my experience with my 20 nvidia cards showed that 17 of them gave huge problems if people would want to play heavy games on them.
I ran them 2,5 years at mining all day and made enough to buy 60 cards back.
And I really sold them as damaged cards for a small price and used the 3 good ones for friends who could not afford such a costly card.
I warned them that the card could become a problem in time, but they accepted the cards at less than half the price of a second hand card on the market.
For me it did not matter I had made a huge profit and had replaced the old with new ones.
It is all about the enormous greed of people, those claiming that the cards are undamaged are in my opinion not people I want to know or like.
If you do mining you should buy special miner cards till they are unusable and then return them to scrapping and buy new ones that is what people should do, but most people are way to greedy..
Everywhere I see the same bragging about selling the cards with huge profits...
If you tell me otherwise your a liar < PERIOD >

Very informative. This should be an article on Techspot or anywhere. Thanks

 

[Crinkles]

Very informative. This should be an article on Techspot or anywhere. Thanks

I will add some thoughts here; running mining hardware and software is a /new thing/ to a PC user. It seems strange or foreign at first - but after getting some experience and reading in, the mysterious part becomes clear.
You're always in control. If you want the software shutdown, it can be shutdown. Most miners (the software) are command-line type programs with a Windows interface. It's operated through the interface buttons and menus but a command line can be used to control, configure, re-configure, start/stop, and do a lot more.

These are options and the options are power tools for an operator, who must decide what to mine, how long, GPU utilization %', how many GPU's to use, set temp limits, and more! Good software can even overclock GPU's for better performance - which equals more money!

Basically a mine sits online until the mining 'machine /GPU Mine' is instructed to create a DAG file by the pool it's connected to. The hashes that earn money$ are generated by running math on that DAG file. When a hash is generated (similar to a game object, perhaps) from it, the hash is uploaded to the mine's Pool for a check. If the hash is authentic, coin is moved to your account. The amount of coin you earn is (in currency) transferred to your wallet at your personal settlement time.

So..
Mine > listens (on network)
Software > receives work
GPU > performs work
GPU > hash hit
Software > uploads hash
Mine > Receives reward

As you can see the 'mining' software is just a mid-level manager for workers. The mine ownerBigBoss is the Mine Operator. For the person who's intrigued enough by this to attempt to be paid for processing data with computer, this is A way to get there.

 

[RudyBob]

I will add some thoughts here; running mining hardware and software is a /new thing/ to a PC user. It seems strange or foreign at first - but after getting some experience and reading in, the mysterious part becomes clear.
You're always in control. If you want the software shutdown, it can be shutdown. Most miners (the software) are command-line type programs with a Windows interface. It's operated through the interface buttons and menus but a command line can be used to control, configure, re-configure, start/stop, and do a lot more.

These are options and the options are power tools for an operator, who must decide what to mine, how long, GPU utilization %', how many GPU's to use, set temp limits, and more! Good software can even overclock GPU's for better performance - which equals more money!

Basically a mine sits online until the mining 'machine /GPU Mine' is instructed to create a DAG file by the pool it's connected to. The hashes that earn money$ are generated by running math on that DAG file. When a hash is generated (similar to a game object, perhaps) from it, the hash is uploaded to the mine's Pool for a check. If the hash is authentic, coin is moved to your account. The amount of coin you earn is (in currency) transferred to your wallet at your personal settlement time.

So..
Mine > listens (on network)
Software > receives work
GPU > performs work
GPU > hash hit
Software > uploads hash
Mine > Receives reward

As you can see the 'mining' software is just a mid-level manager for workers. The mine ownerBigBoss is the Mine Operator. For the person who's intrigued enough by this to attempt to be paid for processing data with computer, this is A way to get there.

This is another great description of just what the heck is going on. I'm grateful cause I was never going to look into it and today I can think and speak about mining with some assurance and accuracy because of some excellent posts. Thank You

 

[STbob]

"Despite these price increases, Nvidia GPUs are still selling for some of the lowest prices we’ve seen in 2021"
LOL what a turd article. Over 2x the retail price on a OLD product. Wow some of the lowest prices in 2021 is that suppose to get people excited. Just stop with that non sense.

You would have to be insane to think that is a good deal paying 2x the price for OLD product. (30xx) series are old tech. I'll sit out forever using my 1080GTX at 1080P. The game makers can start making better games that continue to play well on old hardware and just forget about new cards all together.

 

[Bittertaste]

Smart people will turn to console gaming until criminal prices fall.
PC gaming will be hit hard....Can be the end of pc gaming very soon.

 

[muzicman82]

This industry is beyond ****ed up. I can't even believe it has come to this. I don't understand why retailers or even manufacturers aren't controlling this better (or at all). All it might take is for retailers or direct manufacturers to allow you to pre-order a card, or two, but not a dozen.

I refuse to pay non - direct street prices with these sorts of markup, which is also a gamble with warranty. And since others keep paying these stupid prices, this won't stop.

Turns out the only reliable way I've found to get a card is to buy a system with a card and find buyers for the rest of the parts... Or keep the system for something else, perhaps an upgrade.