The past few weeks have provided a welcome respite for PC gamers and computer developers after two horrible years since the release of the Nvidia Ampere graphics architecture and AMD RDNA2.
Where before we were faced with global shortages and skyrocketing prices thanks to a cowardly mix of different problems, now it's pretty easy to walk into a physical store to buy a reasonably priced graphics card or add one to your shopping cart. online without having to worry about it. it will run out when you complete the transaction process.
Es un alivio para muchos y, sin embargo, todavía me siento nervous. The myriad of issues that caused the original situation have not been fully resolved, which means we could fall back into depressing familiarity when Nvidia and AMD launch their next generation of desktop graphics cards towards the end of este año.
One of the most recognizable plagues was that of crypto mining and the increased demand for GPUs to be used in mining rigs, both in small-scale operations and in warehouses that house industrial mining farms. . Miners have used bots to purchase off-the-shelf stock of desirable GPUs, such as the GeForce RTX 3060 and Radeon RX 6700 XT, before mainstream consumers can complete their purchases.
Opportunists saw this surge in demand and got involved too, which only made things worse. By also buying shares, they could relist the cards on sites like eBay or Facebook Marketplace for a profit, inflating the original retail price by a staggering amount. In its heyday, RTX 3080s were often trading at more than three times their actual price.
How has the cryptocurrency craze affected gamers?
Interestingly, crypto mining itself likely played less of a role in the overall GPU shortage than you might think, given that the global chip shortage was also causing manufacturing delays. However, that hasn't stopped miners from being viewed as public enemy number one by desperate consumers looking to buy a card at a reasonable price.
Nvidia eventually tried to regain some of its lost audience appeal by re-releasing almost the entire RTX 30 series as LHR or "low hashed" versions of the originals, limiting its ability to mine cryptocurrency without affecting game performance. the entire series of RTX 3000 cards contain hash rate limiters (not including the GeForce RTX 3090, as it was deemed too expensive to appeal to the mining market) that limited their ability to mine coins like ETH, but several of these were quickly defeated . . Some programs have been able to unlock cards with 70-80% efficiency in just a few weeks.
Whether it had any real impact is really hard to say, though some credibility to its security was lost when Nvidia accidentally broke its own LHR software with a failed driver update.
In the end, it took almost a year for the LHR software to be fully unlocked thanks to a company called NiceHash, but even that only works on older versions of the LHR algorithm and doesn't include systems running on Linux. Nvidia has been diligent in continuing to update its LHR software, but we don't know if this will carry over to its next generation of GPUs. We emailed Nvidia for clarification, but it's worth remembering that we could see a very similar situation unfold later this year, even as crypto mining continues to lose popularity.
You may think of Bitcoin when mentioning crypto mining, but it was actually Ethereum, the world's second most popular currency, that was giving gamers trouble in 2020. Fortunately, Ethereum started moving to proof-of-stake in late 2021, using validators to find a block based on the number of tokens they have. The current proof-of-work system has computers competing with each other to be the first to solve complex puzzles, allowing miners to use warehouses full of consumer graphics cards to solve these puzzles, mining ETH more heavily in the process.
As ETH transitions to proof of stake, the need to solve these “puzzles” disappears, and the feasibility of mining with traditional methods disappears with it. That said, nothing is stopping Ethereum's success from being replicated by another coin still using the proof-of-work validation method, especially with the lingering threat of a looming financial crisis in the Western world.
It is natural for desperate people to try to make money in a decentralized market, especially after seeing the success of people who invested in Bitcoin in 2009.
This is especially prevalent with the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, a man known to have great influence in the broader crypto market and who may soon turn Twitter into a better optimized platform to deal with evolving digital investment portfolios. All that is needed is a low value coin that is viable for mining with conventional GPUs and it could quickly feel like we are back at the same inevitable hardware shortage.
Stay alert and learn from recent history
I don't want any of this to sound scary. In fact, I was relieved to be able to report lower GPU prices and improved availability after spending most of the last two years writing about the market slump for new and established PC gamers back then that only they wanted to buy a new graphics card. but I don't want to be lulled into a false sense of security by this current respite.
In order to escape from the same situation as it unfolds, we need a perfect storm to work in our favor. We need supplies of the next generation of GPUs to be plentiful (which could be affected by the recent Covid-19 lockdowns in East Asia where most of the hardware is made), we need the crypto market to remain stable or spiral down to deter potential investors, and we need these new graphics cards to be reasonably priced at launch and then somehow remain so despite strong demand.
AMD has made it clear that consumers can use their cards for whatever they want because they bought them outright, so it's unlikely that Team Red will implement a deterrent similar to Nvidia's LHR algorithm, and Intel seems to share this sentiment after announcing that ARC Alchemist desktop graphics cards will be released without any cryptocurrency mining disabilities.
If Nvidia decides to transfer LHR technology to the Lovelace generation of cards, it will be on their own, but that's not necessarily bad news. If preventative measures work, no one loses, as miners will be forced to bid on Intel and AMD to supply their farm equipment, while gamers, developers and desktop builders can source material from Team Green, which could put him in a better position. public position than its rivals.
While this is all speculative, it's important to stay vigilant in the coming months as interest in the next generation of graphics cards grows, so that you're in the best possible position to buy one at launch.
If we can take anything useful from the last two years, it's that getting a Founders Edition GPU direct from the manufacturer was one of the only ways to get a card at MSRP, which might be your best bet to avoid months of misery trying to upgrade your system. current. Start warming up your fingers now for quick additions to the basket...just in case.
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