Neo Cyrus:

And I'll complain about weather while I'm at it, it's been averaging worse than -20C all week (-23C right now). I'm sure you're cold too, but that doesn't make me any less cold. Sad, bigly. Someone send me something warm, a building sized stack of $100 US bills will do.

Look on the bright side though, good time to squeeze that OC some more. 😀

D3M1G0D:

I'll believe it when I see it - if I recall, it was supposed to switch to PoS last year but it never happened. Also, when ETH mining comes to an end the miners will move on to other minable coins, so GPU shortages may still be a thing.

It's not far off, they are testing it now behind the scenes. https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-soon-launch-first-casper-testnet/

D3M1G0D:

Once PoS is implemented, it will no longer be possible to mine Ethereum using GPUs (mining will be replaced by "staking", which is based on how much Ethereum you hold, not how much work you do). It will essentially make all GPUs useless for Ethereum mining.

That... sounds really weird. I'll look further into it. Thanks.

D3M1G0D:

I regularly order things from Newegg.ca for a fair price. Frankly, when I hear about some of the prices in Europe, I feel somewhat thankful.

Their prices include taxes, we pay another 13% including on top of the shipping cost which is taxed as well, and again, it's all relative. If you think their prices are fair check out their US prices for the same items. Half the time they're nowhere near the same.

The fundamental question re these crypto mining generated shortages seems to be: "does mining benefit much from ram?" Intuitively I would think not. Its doing tough math on a limited data set? A clue is I hear many miners use even as few as 4x pcie3 lanes per gpu, which indicates limited IO of data to the gpu. I suspect miners are buying 8GB cards when all they want, is the powerful gpu & nominal ram. IMO, many more gpu cores could be produced and sold, but for the shortage of ram. If so, why not 2GB Vega 64 e.g.? Even if 2GB is underweight, does mining really require all ram to be superfast gpu ram? There are ways of extending gpu cache using cheaper system ram and nvme storage.

msroadkill612:

The fundamental question re these crypto mining generated shortages seems to be: "does mining benefit much from ram?" Intuitively I would think not. Its doing tough math on a limited data set? I suspect miners are buying 8GB cards when all they want, is the powerful gpu & nominal ram. IMO, many more gpu cores could be produced and sold, but for the shortage of ram. If so, why not 2GB Vega 64 e.g.? Even if 2GB is underweight, does mining really require all ram to be superfast gpu ram? There are ways of extending gpu cache using cheaper system ram and nvme storage.

FYI, Ethereum mining is heavily dependent on memory. Mining software typically loads the DAG into memory, and the size is continually growing (you need at least a 3 GB card now, and 4 GB will be the minimum before too long). The latency and clock speed of the memory also matters greatly so having a large amount of very fast RAM is mandatory for a good mining GPU.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01LWQGIUR/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ordered this in December @£585.00..today it is £625.31....???

And potato chips are no longer .50 cents either.

Always coming up with silly excuses to raise prices... this is getting old fast!

D3M1G0D:

FYI, Ethereum mining is heavily dependent on memory. Mining software typically loads the DAG into memory, and the size is continually growing (you need at least a 3 GB card now, and 4 GB will be the minimum before too long). The latency and clock speed of the memory also matters greatly so having a large amount of very fast RAM is mandatory for a good mining GPU.

Ta for the response. You dont really say why tho. even 4gb is half what one must buy in an 8gb only (so far) vega card or 1080. In theory this allows double the number of gpuS to be sold to miners with the same amount of scarce ram. There has been talk of special mining models. Is it absolute? Would 3x 2gb gpuS beat 1x 8gb gpu? I assume there are mining "apps", and naturally they would orient themselves to the properties of mainstream gaming cards, which tend to big ram. can you suggest any links or search terms?

Neo Cyrus:

I don't know squat about that, please explain how that will stop people from using standard GPUs to mine? I'm sure the majority of the planet have it far worse than Canada. It's all relative. The difference is I live an hour's drive away from the US in a first world country that has no reason not to be much like the US in almost every way if properly governed. Importing things here doesn't actually cost squat or require much of anything to accomplish, it's just all fees the government charges to prevent said importing otherwise no one would buy anything here. And with our wages? The wages just went up this month, and I only know of it for Ontario. Some places had (have?) an $8 minimum wage in areas which that can't even buy a sandwich. It doesn't matter how big the wages sound like to other countries when it's not enough for their specific areas to have a roof, heating, and food beyond cup noodles and dirty tap water. I know everyone thinks Canada is all roses and rainbows, but it's not as great as the government likes the world to think. Like the myth that we have some super health insurance. Not even getting an eye exam is free unless you're too young to get one, or if you're already dead. Anyone who actually needs it has to pay. I have private health insurance on top of the "free" insurance and I still don't have crap covered. Let me put it this way, it's often much cheaper to take a drive to the US, buy the stuff there, drive back, and pay the border fees. That includes time spent, having to eat out which is half the price or less than it is here, spending money on gas which ends up not being much because you can fill up on the US side which is practically free. And when I mention these things, I mean for the identical stuff, same items purchased as the point of the trip, same tier gas, exact same restaurant food except the portions there are often much bigger. And I'll complain about weather while I'm at it, it's been averaging worse than -20C all week (-23C right now). I'm sure you're cold too, but that doesn't make me any less cold. Sad, bigly. Someone send me something warm, a building sized stack of $100 US bills will do.

Thank you im glad someone understands how canada works

Neo Cyrus:

That leaves Amazon who only has stock of nVidia cards, no Vegas, and NewEgg who again don't have Vega.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/ https://www.bestbuy.ca/ http://www.canadacomputers.com/ https://www.pc-canada.com/ And it doesn't stop there. Please don't pretend Canada is lacking in online electronics stores. Amazon and newegg are definitely not the only ones around.

TheDeeGee:

Finally some good news.

Won't change anything, and anyone thinking that is good news is clearly showing how little they know about cryptocurrencies. When/if etherium becomes unmineable, other cryptocurrencies will fill the gap. In fact, they already have. For instance: It's already, with a GTX 1080 ti anyways, more profitable to mine 26 other coins then Etherium. And with a Vega56 there are 8 more profitable coins to mine. Now, you may say, 8 isn't a lot, not like Nvidia. Sure, but i didn't say the difference. In both of those scenarios, mining Etherium is around $4.50 in profit per day. Whereas, if you go to the top 3 coins, for either the GTX 1080 ti or Vega56, you're looking at around $7 per day in profits. So this idea that Ethereum going away from GPU mining will have any impact on GPU mining, you guys really need to get your heads out of your ass and actually know what you're talking about before you talk or make opinions about it. Just so everyone is aware, incase you think that maybe bitcoin, litecoin, bitcoin cash, and ethereum are the only cryptocurrencies out there (maybe i just listed more then you thought existed already): There are over 1300 different cryptocurrencies. Obviously, most are worthless, many have been abandoned (but still exist and most of the time can still be mined and change in value even if the developers have abandoned it) but not all has, and quite literally, any one of them, even if worthless now, could spike in value tomorrow, and cause another gold rush.

DW75:

Actually, NCIX is now bankrupt, but yes, we have quite a few other online stores.

Oh, is that the website he was talking about? Interesting, though that doesn't exactly say they will absolutely be gone. If i'm not mistaken, bankruptcy does not necessarily mean the end of a company. If they do though, i won't be surprised. At the very least, ncixus.com has had horrible, horrible customer service. I once ordered something from them, the warehouse they shipped it from was a city away from me, and it took 3 weeks to get to me. Their reasoning? "Sorry we don't have control over that, your product is there and has been the whole time, but we do not control when they ship it out" What i also find strange is, the US website: https://www.ncixus.com/ no longer works, but the Canadian website https://www.ncix.com/ Does, yet also i'm seeing they supposedly no longer take orders? If that's true i don't understand why their website is still up with prices and everything...

DW75:

Sadly, they continued listing items in November and December which were not even in stock, and many people lost their money. A large amount of customers who were unaware of the bankruptcy ended up ordering items which did not exist. That money was used to pay off some of the debt to the creditors. It is quite a bad situation for Netlink Computers. They are in debt for over 35 million dollars.

That's crazy.

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msroadkill612:

Ta for the response. You dont really say why tho. even 4gb is half what one must buy in an 8gb only (so far) vega card or 1080. In theory this allows double the number of gpuS to be sold to miners with the same amount of scarce ram. There has been talk of special mining models. Is it absolute? Would 3x 2gb gpuS beat 1x 8gb gpu? I assume there are mining "apps", and naturally they would orient themselves to the properties of mainstream gaming cards, which tend to big ram. can you suggest any links or search terms?

As I mentioned before, the DAG needs to fit inside the memory, and it is continually growing. Miners buy 8 GB cards to be future-proof.

Aura89:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/ https://www.bestbuy.ca/ http://www.canadacomputers.com/ https://www.pc-canada.com/

Best Buy is not really a PC shop here, they may or may not have some parts occasionally. CC LOL, look at their GPU prices, ever, not just now during this mining craze. Never heard of PC Canada, they don't appear to have a physical store, and Tiger Direct is dead nonsense, try assembling a PC from what they offer and see what happens. In fact, try it with any of those you listed. So no, they're not literally the only options, I obviously didn't mean it literally. They're the only semi-almost-sane options, or in many cases the only places you can get the parts you need.

gerardfraser:

A few more Canadian stores.

Great, go shop there, let me know how that goes. I'm sure Best Buy and Dell are going to sell me those motherboards, RAM, and CPU I need. Btw, a bunch of those are the same company. Such as Dell being... Dell. And many of those companies were NCIX and are dead now. Don't worry, I'm sure the ones which lead to 404s since they're companies that haven't existed for years will be more helpful, especially the Mac one. The others which don't have functional sites, nothing to worry about, buy some $900 GTX 1050s from them. Edit: I stand corrected. There may be viable shop out of that list that actually has stock of stuff as possibly sellable prices and ships.

Neo Cyrus:

Best Buy is not really a PC shop here, they may or may not have some parts occasionally.

I don't really disagree with that since it's really not a PC shop here either, they are generally too expensive, past MSRP, even when GPU mining/inflation of GPUs were not happening. That being said, technically, you can buy PC parts from them.

Aura89:

I don't really disagree with that since it's really not a PC shop here either, they are generally too expensive, past MSRP, even when GPU mining/inflation of GPUs were not happening. That being said, technically, you can buy PC parts from them.

I'm aware. But I'm obviously talking about legit computer shops you can buy the parts you need from. The only computer related thing in my life I've bought from Best Buy is a keyboard. And it wasn't even until recently that they started bringing in random video cards I looked through the giant list the guy posted, and the ones which aren't 404s or dead companies are dubious at best with useless inventories and/or pricing. Canada Computers is semi-viable assuming you buy your GPU elsewhere. But it will come at a premium cost, especially since they don't match anyone but NCIX/Direct Canada/Hundred other names all the same company/ and they're dead. Memory Express seems possibly viable as well, I've only seen bad prices, but it's something. So there's that I guess, no one's heard of them, they obviously have no stores here, but hey if they actually sell components that's something. Thanks for the list... I think?

Talking about mining... It can really come to sudden end and hard crash of its market. Since cryptos do not have any real property, they have only "desire" value. And that is made of reasons why people want to own such currency: - Making Anonymous financial transactions (pick your reason) - Not trusting their primary currency (paranoid) - Expecting to realize profit by selling it later (creating economic bubble) Now, anonymity. Only minimum of actual users consider that as needful. Even less do not trust their government(bank) issued money to point that they'll think its value will tank to nothing thanks to some hyperinflation. But extremely large number of people dealing in any way with crypto of any kind expect profit. They expect easy effortless money in return. That makes External value of cryptos Purely driven by Supply/Demand. But since demand based on desire for easy profit is reason for spike in value of cryptos. Moment those people see reason to sell it in volume is moment it will all crash. At some point there will be saturation of what are people willing to pay per unit. At that point all those who got it purely for greed will try to sell. Who's going to buy at that point? (Since demand at given price was already saturated.) Price goes down, panic level goes up. Pressure rises... One crashes and trust which is reason for this spike in value goes away for all. I write it from perspective of someone who is advocating against this blind devotion. I know some otherwise very intelligent people who spell unsubstantiated beliefs about almost magical properties of cryptos that they may be down right imbeciles. I always say: "If you want to get some money from it. Invest that what you are willing to throw away from window. Once value goes up a bit, sell all. At that point you realized profit. And do not buy it again till you have actual use for it."

Neo Cyrus:

I'm aware. But I'm ob. viously talking about legit computer shops you can buy the parts you need from. The only computer related thing in my life I've bought from Best Buy is a keyboard. And it wasn't even until recently that they started bringing in random video cards I looked through the giant list the guy posted, and the ones which aren't 404s or dead companies are dubious at best with useless inventories and/or pricing. Canada Computers is semi-viable assuming you buy your GPU elsewhere. But it will come at a premium cost, especially since they don't match anyone but NCIX/Direct Canada/Hundred other names all the same company/ and they're dead. Memory Express seems possibly viable as well, I've only seen bad prices, but it's something. So there's that I guess, no one's heard of them, they obviously have no stores here, but hey if they actually sell components that's something. Thanks for the list... I think?

Yeah i'm there with you on that list, i don't understand it, only because...well...where did the list come from? every place i mentioned before were ones i had actually gone to and made sure were actually still alive... My only point on what i personally had posted was the fact that i have heard from many canadian friends that there are no places for them to buy electronics from other then amazon and newegg, and that has always bugged me when that is said simply because i know that is untrue. The fact that you guys are, in general, overpriced, is an issue. It's an issue in every place it is done, specifically, if there is no reason for it, such as import costs and whatnot to drive up the cost.

Fox2232:

Since cryptos do not have any real property, they have only "desire" value.

AKA, USD. And quite frankly, aside from some computer components, gold as well. Gold may be physical, but its price is purely based off of desire value. But USD (and many other currencies) are not based off of gold, or anything, for that matter. The paper money is worthless by itself, the coins are borderline worthless by themselves other then scrap value. Overall, money itself does not have any value, it only has a desire value. As to the rest of your comments, i would say you are mostly correct if it were just like the previous times bitcoin rose in value. Bitcoin has crashed, what, 3 times? Those previous times, no much else had any value or interest at all. It's not just bitcoin this time. It would require every single cryptocurrency to crash and burn for what you're saying will happen, happen. And if bitcoin crashes, i'm sure it'll take some with it, but all? We've already seen in the recent, relative crash where bitcoin went from 20K to around 13K, that affected a lot of coins, but not all. Decred, as an example, is at an all time high and continues to increase. Siacoin, another example, is skyrocketing in value. Those are only two coins, what about the other 1300+? I'm not saying what you're saying "won't" happen, the problem is, there's no point trying to predict a future you can't predict. There's no point for you saying it'll end, and there's no point for me saying it definitely won't. Put simply, no one knows what will or won't happen. If they did, specifically the nay sayers, bitcoin would have crashed last march, never gone past 1K, died in 2011, etc. etc. etc. It's completely pointless to say one way or another what will or won't happen.