https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/gpu-sales-big-gamers/
 
This is an interesting article as it discusses that the limits some sales retailers are putting on video cards actually hurts the gamer because large mining businesses are buying video cards in huge bulk. That means more cards for them.

Fed up with GPU prices? Crypto-rig builder says gamers must suck it up and mine

kram36
Gamers are mad at miners, but if they could get cards at MSRP would they even care about miners? What they should be directing their displeasure at is the lack of stock causing the cost to be so high. AMD and nVidia need to produce more.

The point is irrelevant, since miners have helped create a bad situation for gamers. And lack of stock? Sure because the miners buy everything.
 
 

Seems very clear in the article that this GPU inventory control issue -->is Out of Control ---> in the distribution chain.
 
Manufactures need to make a clear effort to thwart this type of behavior; if they are serious about wanting to make an impact and stop most cards going to a select few.
 
"Pure capitalism" and "What the market will bear" --->  hard at work ?
 
(excerpt, from link in OP)
 
“We spend a lot of money with the right people to get the stuff and obviously it’s as difficult for us as it is for other people,” he said. “We’ve reached a scale now [though] where we get a lot of preferential treatment, and ultimately it’s a case of getting that hardware out to people and doing it as quick as we can. So even now in the midst of the shortage, we’re the only company to keep units on stock.”

AMD and Nvidia have tried to limit GPU sales to crypto-miners.
 
I call horsecrap.......

GTXJackBauer
Don't forget the scalpers.  The scalpers are purchasing from certified retailers as well to clueless customers who can be found violating forum ToS and complaining how horrible EVGA is in the Warranty section from time to time.

EVGA has cut the scalpers out.......by becoming the scalpers themselves.

I noticed a lot of people selling their video cards on several forums.
Lots of GTX 1060, 1070 cards as well as AMD cards popping up for sale.
People are listing 5 to 10 cards at a clip.
 
I think changes are coming to the mining and folding/boinc community.
Electric companies are starting to charge hi energy user an extra fee/higher rates on their bills.
Upstate NY because of cheap electric by the hydro dams, miners are setting up large farms.
The towns are are outright banning mining. They rent commercial bldgs and use so much electric the whole town has to pay more on their bills. Towns get cheap electric up to a set amount of megawatts per month.
When the usage is over that, they raise the rates and everyone pays more.
Miners rent the bldgs, and do not create jobs, do not add to the community and cost the people living there more for their electric..
Who will continue folding or crunching if they have to pay extra for my electric. For what I do, I get a letter in the mail every 2 months, as we all do here telling us what we use vs our neighbors. I always use 50 to 100% more than most of my neighbors. And I do not fold everyday, and I crunch less than I used to.
I know of other states starting to look at high electric users and what they can do to stop it
They do not want to build more power plants and bigger distribution systems.
 
This will be bad for science research if they hit us hard with fees.
 

kram36
Gamers are mad at miners, but if they could get cards at MSRP would they even care about miners? What they should be directing their displeasure at is the lack of stock causing the cost to be so high. AMD and nVidia need to produce more.

The question is how much more is enough to fill the miner need and make gamers happy? Also what happens if the mining bubble bursts? All the sudden NVIDIA and AMD have tons of product not selling and they lose millions.

if AMD/nVidia really wanted to limit, they could do with drivers, but because a quarterly statement matters to any profit-oriented organization, they aren't going to.

I have no sympathy for entitled customers that think miners will ruin PC gaming when most gamers don't DIY or GTX1060 on up.

candle_86
no if Nvidia follows through on a mining edition gpu, they could then driver limit geforce cards from mining, and force the miners to pay for the mining edition card. If I was nvidia I'd also price that card the same as a Quadro

I doubt EVGA will want to cripple their folding team, will they?
They have made a lot of money off of the folders over the years and made loyal customers.
They sponsor the 2nd largest team there is in the world, they will not put the hurtin to their own team.
Cripple the cards so they can not mine, they will not be able to fold or do BOINC either, so much science research power will be lost.
This too shall come to pass and the gamers will just have to wait it out like the rest of us.
Video cards are not just made for people to play silly games with.
 

bobmitch
Crypto-miners seem to be willing to pay whatever the price tag.  They have caused turmoil for all normal users / purchasers at this point and don't even seem to care.  I am not surprised by this article at all...

WRONG.
Most crypto miners are VERY VERY sensitive to high prices - which make it take a lot longer to pay off the card.
 
To limit mining use of a cards, AMD and Nvidia would have to completely disable ALL OpenCL access - which would kill their sales to data centers, AI "deep learning" groups, and other such non-mining COMPUTE USAGE of the cards.
Not happening....
 
Note that it's not Nvidia or AMD that are coming up with the "mining edition" cards to date, it's the THIRD PARTY MANUFACTURERS like Sapphire, Inno3d, ASUS and such - with a possible exception for the P102 which has conflicting information on if it actually has fewer cores than the 1080 TI gpu or if it's just a BIOS limitation that shuts down one or more CUs to save power.
 
Mining demand for GPUs is ALREADY dropping as profitability has dropped the last 2+ months - but that's a lot more help for AMD than for Nvidia as most miners want AMD cards to mine with due to the fact they generally have a shorter "achieve 100% ROI" timeframe.
 
 
Folding is VERY small potatoes by cryptomining standards - there are quite a few GPU farms that have more cards in use than all folders COMBINED.
If I were to swing my current Nvidia GPU collection back at folding, I'd probably crack the Top 10 and EASILY make it into the Top 20 (like I was somewhere in the Top 20 when I dropped OUT of folding, but I've added a lot of cards since then) - and I'm running a VERY SMALL farm by "professional" cryptocoin mining standards.