It is hard to find a card, when can I buy the original price graphics card?
Editor's Note: This article comes fromBlock beats BlockBeats (ID: BlockBeats), reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
Block beats BlockBeats (ID: BlockBeats)
Block beats BlockBeats (ID: BlockBeats)
, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
In the early morning of September 2, 2020, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang took out the RTX 3080 from the kitchen behind him, and officially announced the launch of the "GeForce RTX 30 Series" graphics card based on the Ampere architecture.
After the price was announced, countless graphics card enthusiasts cheered. The official price of RTX 3070 is 40% of the previous generation flagship card RTX 2080 Ti, but the performance is almost the same. While the performance of the RTX 3080 is 40% higher than that of the RTX 2080 Ti, the price is only 55% of the latter.
Affected by the press conference, Nvidia's stock price rose by 3.37% that day, and continued to jump by 3.8% the next day, setting a record high.
No one would have thought that such a high-performance graphics card could not be bought at the original price. This series of graphics cards was dubbed "air graphics card" a few months later.
As Nvidia's old rival, AMD also released its own new generation of "Radeon RX 6000 Series" graphics cards on October 29 of the same year when the RTX 30 series was released.
However, the shortage of RX 6000 series graphics cards is even worse than that of RTX 30 series graphics cards. The number of graphics cards used in media evaluations even exceeds the number sold on the entire network, so it is also ridiculed by netizens as "void graphics cards."
It is difficult for people who do not understand the graphics card market to imagine that the non-public version of the RTX 2080 released 2 years ago was priced at 6,499 yuan, and now, 2 years later, this graphics card can still be sold for 8,000 yuan in the second-hand market. This is simply giving money.
The graphics card in 2020 is like the coconut shoes in 2019. It was sold out as soon as it went on sale, making it an excellent financial product.
Why can't you buy a graphics card?
When it comes to mining, most people respond to Bitcoin mining. In fact, it is not the case. The graphics card mining of Bitcoin was eliminated many years ago, and the current application-specific integrated circuit mining machine, referred to as ASIC mining machine.
Image source network
Now when we talk about graphics card mining, we are basically talking about Ethereum (ETH). Of course, there are many other currencies that are also mining using graphics cards, but considering factors such as liquidity, market value, and yield, most graphics cards are used for Ethereum mining.
In addition to desktop graphics cards being used for mining, a large number of notebooks are currently bought by miners for mining because of their powerful mobile graphics cards.
image description
Image source network
Ethereum's increased computing power in the past six months is equivalent to 1.3 million Nvidia RTX 3080
In the past year, the computing power of Ethereum has increased by 130.46%, reaching 361 Thash/s, which is equivalent to 6 million Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics cards.
ETH computing power growth trend in the past year, source: BitinfoCharts
Calculated from September 17, the official release date of Nvidia RTX 3080, the computing power of the entire Ethereum network has increased by about 130 Thash/s. If it is fully converted to Nvidia RTX 3080 (calculated at 100 Mhash/s), then there will be an increase of about 1.3 million.
Of course, this does not mean that the main source of the increase in Ethereum computing power during this period is the graphics card. For example, the Innosilicon A10 Pro+ mining machine launched by Innosilicon has the computing power equivalent to 7 Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics cards. Previously, Linzhi, a mining machine company founded by Chen Min, former CTO of Canaan Technology, a US listed company, has launched Linzhi Phoenix, an Ethereum ASIC chip mining machine. It is reported that the computing power of the mining machine is equivalent to 27 Nvidia RTX 3080. However, Rhythm BlockBeats asked the miners about the details of the mining machine, and many miners said that they had not seen the actual mining machine.
Insufficient production capacity is the main factor for the shortage of graphics cards
A large number of graphics cards are used for mining is a market factor rather than the main factor that actually leads to the shortage of graphics cards. The sooner miners buy graphics cards, the sooner they can benefit from mining. For miners, the graphics card is their productivity tool, so they are willing to buy a graphics card within a certain range higher than the official price, which makes it impossible for ordinary users (such as gamers or scientific researchers, etc.) The price is reasonable (beyond the scope of this article).
If manufacturers can increase the supply, then both miners and ordinary users can get reasonably priced graphics cards. Therefore, the imbalance between supply and demand is the main reason for the shortage of graphics cards.
In 2020, due to the epidemic, the overall global demand for the chip industry will rise. As Bloomberg recently reported, the global semiconductor industry is facing a crisis of core shortage. According to public information, Nvidia RTX 30 series graphics cards are manufactured by Samsung and adopt 8nm process. The current foundry that meets this manufacturing process is the S1 factory in Giheung, South Korea, which is a production line built in 2005. In March 2020, employees at the factory were infected with the new crown virus, but officials said that the operation of the factory will not be affected.
Source: Samsung
The reason for AMD's shortage is the same. AMD's RX 6000 series graphics cards are all manufactured by TSMC and use the 7nm process. However, TSMC's production capacity is only about 150,000 wafers, of which AMD's CPU Ryzen 5000 series and graphics card RX 6000 series only have a production capacity of about 30,000 wafers. The remaining production capacity is allocated to game consoles from Microsoft and Sony.
When can I buy graphics cards at full price?
According to previous experience, there are only two possibilities for ordinary users to buy graphics cards at the original price. One of them is that the price of tokens mined using graphics cards has plummeted, and miners are unprofitable, so they sell their graphics cards and no longer buy new graphics cards from the market in large quantities; user needs.
When the mining disaster comes, it may not be possible to buy the original price graphics card
Since October 2018, the computing power of the entire Ethereum network has begun to experience a huge decline. In less than half a year, the computing power of the entire network has dropped by 50%.
Referring to the price of Ethereum, it can be found that the rise in the price of Ethereum leads to the growth of computing power, but the impact of the decline in the price of Ethereum on computing power has a serious lag. As the price of Ethereum drops step by step, miners will turn off their mining machines and sell their graphics cards after reaching a certain threshold. It is also called "mining disaster" when miners sell their mining machines regardless of cost.
Assuming that the current difficulty and computing power of the entire Ethereum network remain unchanged, the electricity cost is calculated at 0.34 yuan/kWh, and the price of Nvidia RTX 3080 is 8,500 yuan. Without considering the sale of second-hand graphics cards, the current payback period of this graphics card is 99 days .
Rhythm BlockBeats made the impact of changes in the price of Ethereum on the return cycle of using RTX 3080 under the above hypothetical conditions:
Increase output or launch special mining cards
Increasing production is obviously the best solution at present. However, as mentioned above, the current demand for chips from all walks of life in the world exceeds its production capacity, and it is obviously impossible to increase the production of graphics cards in a short time. In a recent interview, both Nvidia and AMD said that inventory will be extremely tight in the first quarter of 2021, and graphics card shipments are expected to be further delayed than expected in the coming months.
In addition to increasing production capacity, providing graphics cards dedicated to mining is another solution. This method was also used by Nvidia in 2017.
As far as Nvidia and AMD are concerned, they don't like the influx of miners buying their graphics cards. Because as a consumer electronics product, a specific group of miners holds a large number of graphics cards, which may destroy the strategy and product price positioning previously planned by the manufacturer. Take the "dessert-level" graphics card GTX 1060 6G launched by Nvidia in 2016 as an example. The official price of its non-public version is 1999 yuan. However, when the Ethereum mining boom came, the card was priced at more than 3,000 yuan for a long time, exceeding the price of Nvidia's sub-flagship graphics card GTX 3070 Ti at 3,499 yuan. When the mining disaster came, the market was flooded with a large number of GTX 1060s with triple-digit prices.
The most direct result is that the most popular graphics card in the hands of gamers on the market today is the GTX 1060. According to the latest data from January 2021 on Steam, the game platform with the most users, 9.75% of the users on the entire platform currently use GTX 1060. It should be noted that Steam has 120 million monthly active users.
