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Cryptocurrencies have taken over for the time being and this has siphoned off all consumer cards into large scale operations. Did NVIDIA have a solution? Hey … I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a solution rather than a PR move to win the hearts and minds of the consumer. Has the fight against cryptocurrency mining ever been a priority for NVIDIA? We don’t know the answer for sure, but it probably wasn’t.
What does a cryptocurrency mining boom normally look like? And how does this affect NVIDIA?
Prior to the current boom, cryptocurrency mining was popular in late 2017 and early 2018, when Bitcoin peaked at $ 20,000. We’ve learned a lot since then about how the market searches for graphics cards during and after the boom. The most sought after card at the time was the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with an MSRP of $ 800. We quickly saw what happened with the cards which doubled and tripled in price due to the very high demand from miners.
Source: Investopedia
NVIDIA watched it all unfold and stood idly by the whole situation, but to their surprise, once Bitcoin’s value plummeted, the entire card market exploded in their face. NVIDIA had plans to release the RTX 20 series of cards, but these cards had a higher price tag and insufficient performance gains compared to the previous generation. By many accounts, many considered the 1080 Ti to be the best card in every way. The launch of the 20 Series card compared to other launches would be classified as a flop.
The end of the crypto boom caused mining operations to sell all of their mining cards. A wave of used 10-series cards have become available on the second-hand market. For anyone building a system, the 10 Series cards were the best choice because they were priced below MSRP in the used market. The boom in older cards overshadowed the launch of the 20 Series with a wave of more affordable options from the previous generation that everyone was happy about.
Hash Rate Limiter is a weak attempt to win the hearts of consumers and the CMP series seeks to kill the used GPU market
As described above, the crypto boom a few years ago gave everyone a baseline of what another crypto boom would look like, but NVIDIA has witnessed it as well. Their response this year has been to launch mining maps and limit the mining power of consumer maps. The CMP series and hash rate limiters via VBIOS and software were their solutions. Some people have praised them, but they don’t deserve that praise. It was just a publicity stunt that hid their true intentions. NVIDIA’s real intentions weren’t to help consumers and fight the crypto boom. It was about organizing the market so that something similar to the RTX 20 series would not happen again. The end of a crypto boom always results in the sale of cheap cards in large quantities and this overshadows new releases from NVIDIA. NVIDIA does not want a saturated market when launching its new products, which is why the CMP series was born.
If we look at hash rate limiters, their simply ineffective and a ploy to please consumers. The hash rate limiter is just bad. I can’t say it any other way. It only targets Ethereum mining and is still profitable on a large number of other cryptocurrencies. CryptoLeo tested the hash rate limiter on the 3060 and found that it was only for Ethereum and the 3060 was still profitable in many cases and could earn up to $ 6.5 per day. I agree that developing something to limit all currencies is extremely difficult, so we can appreciate an attempt. Limiting the hash rate only limits the retail consumer who wants to mine on the side because large-scale operations may break the limiter.
But as most millennials know, while SecuROM can be hacked, just about anything can.
– Usman Pirzada (@usmanpirzada) February 18, 2021
I can overcome the hash rate limiter because it is quite difficult to succeed. However, I am really angry with the CMP series because at the end of the day there is nothing positive about them. I would even go so far as to say that this is NVIDIA’s anti-consumer behavior. The CMP series will reduce the amount of stock for consumer boards as they use very similar silicon, but the board itself can only be used for mining. Silicon is not finished, but the way it is made makes it increasingly difficult to keep manufacturing at the same rate.
Why is this bad, you ask? It’s quite simple, the current mining boom will end at some point and the cards will flood the market. What happens when the CMP cards are no longer useful? Gamers and consumers cannot use CMP cards for anything, so they are either recycled or dumped in a landfill. May I add that it’s also bad for the environment, but it’s definitely good for NVIDIA’s bottom line. Older cards are normally passed to budget makers, but now budget makers don’t have that option anymore. If the market isn’t saturated with graphics cards before a launch, the product they launch will fare better. Each card seen in the photos will be sold in the used market for a discount so that consumers can buy them. What happens when this rack is full of CMP cards? All the cards end up in the trash because consumers cannot buy them.
Even the specs are below par on the CMP data board, leading us to believe that lower matrices will find a way to access more cards. The CMP series is ultimately an economical strategy to kill the resale market and promote the purchase of new NVIDIA cards at launch. Once the crypto boom is over, CMP cards go into the trash and less used cards are flooding the market. It’s a win-win for NVIDIA, but it’s bad for the environment and bad for the consumer, but does it matter? Absolutely not, Nvidia’s bottom line and shareholders will be very happy with their increased returns.
The hash rate limiter and the CMP series have come with mixed reactions. Some praise it while others see it as an economic gesture against consumers. At the end of the day, it’s up to people to decide whether or not they like this decision from NVIDIA.
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