The price of graphics cards is rising wildly.Buying a graphics card is better than buying a Moutai?

Zhao Jianfei didn't expect that the hesitation a few months ago because of a few hundred dollars would make him unable to afford a new graphics card now. Seeing that the unit price of RTX 3080 has risen all the way from 7,000 yuan a year ago to 15,000 yuan now, Zhao Jianfei began to worry about whether to upgrade the computer that has been used for two years.

RTX 3080 is a core graphics card released by NVIDIA in June 2020. When it was officially launched in China in September, the official sale price was 5499 yuan. In December last year, Zhao Jianfei planned to upgrade the RTX 2070 graphics card in the computer. He clearly remembered that he asked three or four offline sellers at that time, and the unit price of RTX 3080 was close to 6,000 yuan at that time. Before the Spring Festival this year, the unit price of RTX 3080 has risen to 7,500 yuan.

Zhao Jianfei told the reporter of "China Economic Weekly" that he thought the price was unreasonable at the time, and wanted to wait and see again. Unexpectedly, not only did he not wait for the price to be reduced, but he waited for it to be close to double the price at that time. What Zhao Jianfei didn't expect was that it wasn't just the new graphics card that had increased in price. The RTX 2070 in his computer that used to cost less than 5,000 yuan can now be sold for nearly 6,000 yuan on the second-hand market.

South Korean teen arrested by police for stealing graphics card: Amid the cryptocurrency boom, as the price of computer graphics cards used to mine cryptocurrencies soared, a teen was arrested by police for habitually stealing graphics cards from computers in his room. Incheon Michu Hall Police Station announced on the 28th that it is investigating and arresting him for habitual theft. He is accused of stealing four graphics cards worth 7 million won four times from a motel in Incheon, including the Michuhol district, from early May to mid-June. (Yonhap News Agency) [2021/6/28 0:11:03]

In March 2021, due to the hot sales of graphics cards, a computer store put the main graphics card in a prominent position in the store

Prices are skyrocketing, Xianyu will set a "cooling-off period for graphics cards"

The graphics card is mainly responsible for the graphics calculation processing of the computer. For professionals working in visual design editing and gamers, having a high-performance graphics card is especially important. Generally speaking, a graphics card with good performance can improve image and video processing capabilities, and can also make games run more smoothly.

A reporter from "China Economic Weekly" recently visited offline digital shopping malls in Beijing, Shanxi and other places. Faced with the reporter's demand to purchase RTX 30 series graphics cards, most dealers said that they did not have them in stock and would have to wait a week at the earliest, and the price would depend on the market at that time. Some dealers directly told reporters that the current price is too outrageous. If it is not urgent, you can wait until the second half of the year to see if the price will drop.

Nvidia has released the latest limited mining graphics card RTX3080Ti and RTX3070Ti: On June 1, Nvidia officially announced the latest graphics card RTX3080Ti and RTX3070Ti. The RTX3080Ti is equipped with 12GB GDDR6X video memory and will be released on June 3 with a suggested price of 8899 yuan. The RTX3070Ti is equipped with 8GB GDDR6X video memory and will be released on June 10, with a suggested price of 4499 yuan. As previously reported, RTX3080Ti and RTX3070Ti will limit Ethereum mining at three levels: hardware, BIOS and drivers. [2021/6/1 23:01:58]

It is out of stock offline, and it is also hard to find a card on the online shopping platform. On the Jingdong shopping website, among the official AIC (close partner) stores of Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI, the RTX 3080 is priced at around 15,000 yuan, and it can only be reserved, not in stock. In some third-party dealer stores, the reporter found the spot goods that are on sale, but the price is much more expensive than the official store, ranging from 18,000 to 20,000 yuan.

On April 9, data from the second-hand e-commerce platform Xianyu showed that the average transaction price of graphics cards has risen by nearly 1,060 yuan recently, nearly doubling compared with the same period last year. At the same time, the transaction volume of graphics cards on Xianyu has risen for five consecutive months, and it even showed a soaring trend in March. In this regard, Xianyu will set a "cooling off period" to cool down, calling on users to purchase rationally.

Miners found a way to bypass the "NVIDIA graphics card limit Ethereum mining": March 10 news, miners found a way to use a custom mod to bypass the "GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card limit Ethereum mining" method. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 has a transfer speed of about 40-45 MH/s, but once mining starts on the graphics card, the speed drops to 20-25 MH/s. The mod helps miners to unleash the full hashing potential of GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards up to 50 MH/s. (WCCFtech)

According to previous news, the high-end graphics cards RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti of the chip giant Nvidia will be equipped with the Ethereum mining limit function, that is, the computing power of the graphics card cannot be used for mining. At the same time, all 30 series high-end graphics cards produced by Nvidia in the future will be equipped with the Ethereum mining limit function. [2021/3/10 18:32:57]

The reporter combed and found that since the official launch in September last year, the unit price of RTX 30 series graphics cards has at least doubled in less than half a year. At the same time, the unit price of RTX 20 series graphics cards has also increased by about 50%. Even the RTX 10 series, which has been discontinued, has a recycling price of nearly 2,000 yuan in the second-hand market. Gamers joked: "The value preservation is comparable to Maotai, and the growth rate catches up with financial management."

AMD wants to increase graphics card production to satisfy digital currency miners and gamers: According to News.Bitcoin, in order to meet the shortage in the graphics card market, the American semiconductor company AMD plans to increase the sales of graphics cards. AMD's graphics division generated nearly $1 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2017. Unlike rival Nvidia, which restricts the sale of graphics cards to miners, AMD said it will treat them equally and try to meet the needs of various users. AMD CEO Lisa Su pointed out that the supply of graphics cards in the market is "much lower than we expected." [2018/2/2]

In addition to NVIDIA, the graphics card released by AMD, another development giant, is also hard to find in the market. The RTX 6700xt released in January this year has a unit price of 3,999 yuan. The current market price has been around 7,000 yuan, which has nearly doubled.

At such a high price, graphics cards are still in short supply. Many gamers said that they only saw the price increase, but not the real graphics card. Graphics cards are dubbed "air cards" by gamers, invisible and intangible.

Along with the price of the graphics card, there are also memory, power supply and chassis. In the DIY gamer market, these parts are indispensable to form a high-performance computer. The reporter learned from some businesses that mainly customize computers that the price of a complete assembled host has risen by nearly 30% since the Spring Festival this year.

Maingear launched a new ACM mainframe, which can install 8 graphics cards: Maingear cooperated with e-sports betting brand Unikrn to launch a new ACM mainframe (Advanced Crypto Miner), ACM can install up to 6 GPUs, and ACM Pro is larger and can be installed The rack can hold up to 8 graphics cards. [2018/1/27]

The above-mentioned merchants stated that the complete mainframes currently sold in the store are completely "eating money", and the price can be kept down by relying on the inventory of graphics cards purchased in the past. If players want to DIY a computer by themselves, the configuration and performance of the computer will undoubtedly be greatly reduced under the condition of limited budget.

Is it hard to find a card, is it the "pot" of chip shortage, or is "mining" too fierce?

The supply of graphics cards is in short supply. Is the production capacity limited or the demand is too strong? A few days ago, AMD publicly stated that the global demand for graphics chips for PCs and game consoles continues to expand, and many graphics card markets will face supply shortages in the first half of this year. According to the analysis, the serious shortage of some materials and components of the graphics card OEM is the main reason for the insufficient production capacity of the graphics card.

Generally speaking, a graphics card is usually composed of bus interface, PCB board, GPU (display chip), video memory and other parts. One of the most critical chips is currently in a state of global shortage.

Taking NVIDIA as an example, the GPU developed by it is mainly manufactured by Samsung, and the latest graphics card adopts 8nm manufacturing process. Since last year, Samsung has repeatedly reported insufficient production capacity and low yield rate of 8nm process. Insufficient chip supply has also caused NVIDIA's GPU production to be lower than expected.

According to reports, NVIDIA has been working hard to increase production since the second half of last year. In the fourth quarter of 2020, it provided about 9.1 million GPUs for desktops, and its shipments increased by about 1 million year-on-year, but it still cannot meet market demand. In October last year, NVIDIA CEO Huang Renxun revealed at the GTC conference that the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 graphics cards are expected to continue to be in short supply within the year. Huang Renxun emphasized that what these two graphics cards encountered was not a "supply problem", but that the market demand "far exceeded expectations".

The reporter learned that the reason why the current market demand is so strong is that on the one hand, newly released games such as the popular "Cyberpunk 2077" have put forward higher requirements on the performance of graphics cards; on the other hand, due to the market value of cryptocurrencies Stimulated by the gold rush, many "mine owners" began to buy graphics cards on the market.

The price of graphics cards is rising, and it is hard to stop the enthusiasm of "miners" to buy

"Mine owner" refers to the funder who provides the environment, equipment and other conditions for mining. The so-called "mining" refers to the use of computers equipped with high-performance graphics cards to obtain digital currency according to specific algorithm programs. Through a large number of calculations, the accounting right to create a new block and the cryptocurrency reward of the block can be obtained. The earliest cryptocurrencies were mined using computer CPUs. As the difficulty increased, mining machines (computer equipment used for mining) gradually developed to mine using GPUs, the core components of graphics cards.

The reporter learned that due to the continuous increase in the computing power of the entire Bitcoin network, dedicated mining machines can now be used for Bitcoin mining. At present, the miners who use GPU mining in the market mainly target Ethereum.

Currently, the price of ether has soared from $700 at the beginning of the year to nearly $2,000. Driven by huge profits, mine owners began to snap up graphics cards in large quantities. A mining machine needs to install 8 to 10 graphics cards. The demand of mine owners has obviously exceeded the normal market demand. Even the second-hand graphics cards eliminated by Internet cafes have become their targets.

Even when the price of graphics cards has nearly doubled, mining is still profitable for mine owners as long as the computing power is appropriate. A mine owner told the reporter of "China Economic Weekly" that, taking a mining machine with 8 RTX 3080s as an example, based on the current market price of 15,000 yuan per unit price, after removing the consumption of electricity, the calculation is based on the current price of Ethereum. It probably takes less than 100 days to pay back. If Ethereum continues to maintain its current upward trend, the time to pay back will be even shorter. Even if prices drop later, used graphics cards can still be sold on the second-hand market. "For mine owners, unless there is a 'mining disaster', mining must only make money but not lose." The mine owner said.

"You can't stop caring about cryptocurrencies. It's a global social and economic phenomenon. I care about it and I don't mind talking about it... The era of GPU computing is coming, and it's a super trend." NVIDIA CEO Huang Renxun once said before, "Some people buy GPUs for deep learning, some people buy them for playing games, and some people buy them for mining. For the mining market, we must also pay attention to its existence and ensure sufficient Inventory to deal with."

In order to maintain the normal order of the graphics card market, NVIDIA and AMD are also trying to make some efforts. At present, NVIDIA has launched a series of processors CMP dedicated to mining cryptocurrency Ethereum, including CMP 30HX, 40HX, 50HX and 90HX. These graphics cards are specially designed for large-scale mining without graphics processing or display output. In addition, NVIDIA has also launched the RTX 3060 with limited mining performance. According to NVIDIA's settings, once it is detected that the graphics card is used for Ethereum mining calculations, the mining performance will be limited to about 50%, thereby preventing miners from rushing to buy products.

The mine owner mentioned above told reporters that NVIDIA’s ideals are full, but the reality is cruel. In fact, mine owners don't really care about the limited performance of RTX 3060. "If one fails, I will install two, and now there are cracked versions on the market." As for the CMP specially designed for mining, the mine owner said that he would not consider it, because these graphics cards can only be used for mining. "Second-hand circulation The value is terrible".

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