Time to shop for "used" high end GPU ?

[BravoV]

As hell breaks loose in crypto, currently I'm watching, lurking, stalking and salivating seeing the price of high end GPUs in used market locally here, and its crashing like crazy, yay !!! 

Sorry, not a believer in crypto here, but you "crypto-nites" have my sympathy though.

As I used to be on red camp (AMD), its just keep seeing those 4 digits priced when new nVidia GPUs, crashed into 3 digits priced, even they're relative new 1 or 2 years since its released, and its very-very tempting.

Any recommendation or maybe open discussion on buying used GPU ? As I'm not too familiar or following on the latest situation in GPU's matter.

PS : I don't play games though, install and used them for my kid to use it for chemical software simulation thingy, remotely.

[pcprogrammer]

Hmm that is interesting. Just before the covid / chip shortage madness began I was looking into buying a mid range GPU to improve game playing a bit. Prices were still reasonable, but availability was zero.

A month or so further down the line availability was still zero, but the prices had more than doubled, so I gave up. Might look into it again.

And yeah, about the crypto thing, on the one hand I wished I had bought some back in 2003 or 2004 and sold them earlier this year on it's high, but it is kind of silly money. Probably quite a few people who are in deep now.

[JPortici]

Sorry, not a believer in crypto here, but you "crypto-nites" have my sympathy though.

Not mine. pushing a boulder up a hill and let it roll down is more useful. At least you exercise.
Crypto finally crashing means we will be able to afford GPUs at decent prices. We've been holding back on new PCs for too much time already.

[NiHaoMike]

Not mine. pushing a boulder up a hill and let it roll down is more useful. At least you exercise.
Crypto finally crashing means we will be able to afford GPUs at decent prices. We've been holding back on new PCs for too much time already.

I'd like to see the return of energy efficient cryptocurrencies, directly addressing the main problem with most cryptocurrencies. Maybe someone will figure out how to make that happen without introducing the problems that prevented energy efficient cryptocurrencies from being successful in the long run.

I quite liked the cryptocurrencies that were mined using smartphones. Unlike GPUs, mining smartphones are cheap and don't use much energy. Good smartphones never performed well enough relative to their price so nobody bought those for mining. The popular phones for mining were the $10 and under deals that barely worked well as phones. Those against providing smartphones to children at a young age would even say that making those cheap phones harder to get is a good thing.

[Mechatrommer]

Not mine. pushing a boulder up a hill and let it roll down is more useful. At least you exercise.
Crypto finally crashing means we will be able to afford GPUs at decent prices. We've been holding back on new PCs for too much time already.

I'd like to see the return of energy efficient cryptocurrencies, directly addressing the main problem with most cryptocurrencies. Maybe someone will figure out how to make that happen without introducing the problems that prevented energy efficient cryptocurrencies from being successful in the long run.

your illusion. anyone who dont understand the law of supply and demand will doom to fail.. maybe your best bet will be when quantum computing arrive in our doorstep. but then crypto value will crash downhill due to aforementioned supply and demand law that will force the oldcomers to sell out their old tools anyway (GPU, FPGA whatever) btw i scored a mining RX580 for $100 and RX470 for $50 last time before covid hits, but they are not 100% ok, some of the display ports dont give any output, in case they gone totally blank, i'll need to keep my oven ready, ymmv.

Well you provided your own answer -- you're not gaming, but it is for a particular simulation software usage.

maybe looking at current used HP Z800/820 workstation market? i bought one $500 incl shipping half globe with 12 core 12GB RAM installed (upgraded to 72GB ram) with that exact reason in mind, when i want to do some serious shit mutilation. and also where the RX580 sits in right now. for simulation, for game and for heavy 3D CAD. ymmv.

[NiHaoMike]

your illusion. anyone who dont understand the law of supply and demand will doom to fail.. maybe your best bet will be when quantum computing arrive in our doorstep. but then crypto value will crash downhill due to aforementioned supply and demand law that will force the oldcomers to sell out their old tools anyway (GPU, FPGA whatever)

The energy efficient cryptocurrencies are limited in other ways such as IP address, thus far how such a limit is enforced turned out to cause other problems.

I would like to see cryptocurrencies that are "mined" by hosting content, effectively providing an incentive to build a decentralized alternative to Youtube and whatnot.

[BravoV]

@evb149, thanks for the lengthy reply.

No, I am not going to spend 4 digits on "used" GPU. Its just I keep seeing those GPUs priced crashing "significantly".

Yes, I'm aware of cloud computing, heck, even my kid's uni has a massive cluster computer to do their simulation.

But lots of red tapes involved, and sometimes, whenever there is a need for quick proof of concept and light task, running on dad's computer is .... should I say .. convenient.   

Again, thanks for the insight though, yeah, currently keep watching as the price keeps falling, maybe I should wait further.

[Haenk]

To my understanding, large distributors are currently forced to stockpile huge numbers of midrange and highend Nvidia cards; while AMD is seriously ramping up production.
Plus the mining of ETH is now "cost below value" (for non-subsidized or non-stolen electricity), so a lot of ETH farms are selling their used cards.

I assume the prices will go further south.

[BravoV]

I assume the prices will go further south.

Thats my "prediction" too, and I'm not in need or rushing to get them anyway.

Wishing they will crash harder ...   

[tszaboo]

Miners are preparing to the upcoming "proof of (mis)stake" change, which means that GPU mining ETH would never be profitable.
Which could come or could be delayed again, it doesn't really matter, what matters is what they believe.
Other coins are tiny fraction of the market cap of ETH, so mining them en-masse is not viable.

AMD cards have crashed more in price as far as I can see. But I don't think it will stop there, since there will be an immense amount of cards entering the market. Plus, they've been increasing the MSRP of these cards by 50% per generation, so they are way overpriced in the first place.
Used card prices are still a joke here, they are advertised above the prices of new cards in the shop. Wake up call.

[Mechatrommer]

Miners are preparing to the upcoming "proof of (mis)stake" change, which means that GPU mining ETH would never be profitable.

i think miners already realized that at least 2 years ago (when i grabbed rx580 and rx470) and i suspect even much much earlier. serious miners will go/suggest to FPGA/ASICS based, there are videos already about that..

Used card prices are still a joke here, they are advertised above the prices of new cards in the shop. Wake up call.

thats why i guess why i cant find the same price that i bought the cards 2 years ago, the sale of used mining GPU is slowing down and the price has increased. i only found those cards at the price of 2 years ago but advertised as damaged/not working/for spare today.

quantum computing promises even worse prospect on crypto more than what i have imagined...
https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/tech/quantum-computing-bitcoins-crypto-encryption
https://www.analyticsinsight.net/quantum-computers-might-be-used-to-crack-cryptocurrency-encryption/
if its true, miners should materialize their crypto money before its too late...

[Bud]

All quantum will do is give birth to quantum-resistant encryption. Neither cryptocurrency or PKI would go away. They will employ qjantum safe algorithms and continue.

[Berni]

your illusion. anyone who dont understand the law of supply and demand will doom to fail.. maybe your best bet will be when quantum computing arrive in our doorstep. but then crypto value will crash downhill due to aforementioned supply and demand law that will force the oldcomers to sell out their old tools anyway (GPU, FPGA whatever)

The energy efficient cryptocurrencies are limited in other ways such as IP address, thus far how such a limit is enforced turned out to cause other problems.

I would like to see cryptocurrencies that are "mined" by hosting content, effectively providing an incentive to build a decentralized alternative to Youtube and whatnot.

They are designed to raise the mining difficulty when there is more computational power on the network so it doesn't make it mine faster, also mining rewards usually go down with time and be replaced by transaction fees (at what point no new coins are created). So it is not all wrong, but they indeed are massive energy hogs that burn gigawatts for basically nothing.

There are alternatives to this "proof of work" model. Such as the "proof of storage" model where large amounts of hard drive space is used instead. This has the potential to store useful data on it, tho still has an energy footprint once you put enough hard drives in a pile, but at least it can do something useful.

The alternative that actually gained some traction is "proof of stake" where nodes have to hold a large amount of the coin to be allowed to participate in verifying transactions. They make money by sharing the transaction fees. This has the smallest energy footprint since a node can be just a simple computer with no special hardware. The largest successful implementation of this is the BinanceSmartChain and a few others also hit the top 10 crypto currency list. Etherium is on its way towards this method too. So this is another source of pressure for miners to sell GPUs.

Mining is certainly not a easy get rich scheme. Tho if you have a lot of gaming PCs laying around it might be useful as house heating in the winter, since even if you turn 0 profit you still win because the heat it made was free.

[NiHaoMike]

They are designed to raise the mining difficulty when there is more computational power on the network so it doesn't make it mine faster, also mining rewards usually go down with time and be replaced by transaction fees (at what point no new coins are created). So it is not all wrong, but they indeed are massive energy hogs that burn gigawatts for basically nothing.

The smartphone mined cryptocurrencies like Perk are (in a way) "proof of IP(v4) address". (More accurately, it's still "proof of work" but with restrictions of how much work can be done on a single IP address.) With restrictions where only known residential IP addresses are allowed, it would be difficult to build large mining clusters thereby avoiding what happened to Bitcoin. The pitfall is that enforcing such a limit so far brings unwanted side effects. Of all those cryptocurrencies, Swagbucks has been the one that lasted the longest but even that became unprofitable to mine after a few years.

Another way to make an energy efficient cryptocurrency is "proof of useful work" such as Curecoin/Foldingcoin. Still energy intensive but it's useful work so it's more efficient.

I suppose my idea of "mining" by hosting content would essentially be "proof of (data) ownership".

[Berni]

They are designed to raise the mining difficulty when there is more computational power on the network so it doesn't make it mine faster, also mining rewards usually go down with time and be replaced by transaction fees (at what point no new coins are created). So it is not all wrong, but they indeed are massive energy hogs that burn gigawatts for basically nothing.

The smartphone mined cryptocurrencies like Perk are (in a way) "proof of IP(v4) address". (More accurately, it's still "proof of work" but with restrictions of how much work can be done on a single IP address.) With restrictions where only known residential IP addresses are allowed, it would be difficult to build large mining clusters thereby avoiding what happened to Bitcoin. The pitfall is that enforcing such a limit so far brings unwanted side effects. Of all those cryptocurrencies, Swagbucks has been the one that lasted the longest but even that became unprofitable to mine after a few years.

Another way to make an energy efficient cryptocurrency is "proof of useful work" such as Curecoin/Foldingcoin. Still energy intensive but it's useful work so it's more efficient.

I suppose my idea of "mining" by hosting content would essentially be "proof of (data) ownership".

Limiting mining to residential IP addresses just rewards people with botnets. If there is no significant computation requirement it is a lot easier to hide the process on the host machine.

There are prof of storage coins that reward holding actually useful data. This is things like FileCoin using IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) to host files in the internet in a decentralized way. There is also the BitTorrentToken coins that are 'mined' by basically letting your torrent client accept 'bribes' from other clients for bandwidth priority on whatever you are seeding.

None of these seam to have gained that much popularity tho.

[NiHaoMike]

Limiting mining to residential IP addresses just rewards people with botnets. If there is no significant computation requirement it is a lot easier to hide the process on the host machine.

That's prevented by limiting how many IP addresses can be on an account, with the account tied to at least an email address and in some cases also to a SMS number or verification by mailing a postcard to a physical address. Thus far, that could only be achieved by making it a closed ecosystem which limits their success in the long run.

[tszaboo]

Limiting mining to residential IP addresses just rewards people with botnets. If there is no significant computation requirement it is a lot easier to hide the process on the host machine.

That's prevented by limiting how many IP addresses can be on an account, with the account tied to at least an email address and in some cases also to a SMS number or verification by mailing a postcard to a physical address. Thus far, that could only be achieved by making it a closed ecosystem which limits their success in the long run.

Nobody cares about your phone mined crypto. If people would care, then it would show on it's marketcap.
The entire concept is bad. Plus it sis super centralized, to make sure someone with a computer doesn't decimate the mining for everyone else. It's just bad.

[NiHaoMike]

Nobody cares about your phone mined crypto. If people would care, then it would show on it's marketcap.
The entire concept is bad. Plus it sis super centralized, to make sure someone with a computer doesn't decimate the mining for everyone else. It's just bad.

It did have one (exactly one) advantage: it's far more energy efficient than the usual cryptocurrencies. When Swagbucks was at its peak in 2017, mining it would return more profit per energy used than commuting 20 miles round trip to a $50/hour job in a Prius, even if the energy used by the workplace is completely ignored.

[Haenk]

Back on topic, I heard nVidia is now facing massive problems with overcapacity; they booked a sh*tload of 5nm production capacity at TSMC a long time ago, but are still sitting on heaps of unsold cards; TSMC would not let them cancel the booked capacity (only if they could provide another customer taking over the capacity, probably not going to happen). I'd expect some really massive price drops soon.

[BravoV]

Back on topic, I heard nVidia is now facing massive problems with overcapacity; they booked a sh*tload of 5nm production capacity at TSMC a long time ago, but are still sitting on heaps of unsold cards; TSMC would not let them cancel the booked capacity (only if they could provide another customer taking over the capacity, probably not going to happen). I'd expect some really massive price drops soon.

Yep, thats why I will wait, and also news that US economic indicator just released today that its now in recession, expecting this oversupply coupled with both crypto crash, will collapse GPU price even further.