And even the ones a 3x price are rare on the ground. I can buy a 1050 ti for 350+ or a 1660 for 475+. And both are from third tier vendors.
It’s bizarre - when I was looking-but-not-looking there were GPUs everywhere. When I go looking-to-buy there aren’t any to be found, and price fluctuations of up to 20% from week to week.
CV19 and it’s disruption to supply / availability isn’t helping at all, either.
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So I went way down the rabbit hole on this one.
There is a cryptocurrency that is booming called Etherium. It is optimized for GPU mining. Large corporations have been hedging their fiat currency holdings with crypto. They search for low electricity rates preferably in cold climates and buy hundreds and thousands of cards. Individuals are buying dozens and buying groups are teaming up.
Also,
Chinese New Year.
Also,
Covid both as a source of increased demand and as a disruption to manufacturing and shipping. Not to mention people who have kept their jobs are spending less money and and got stimulus checks to drop on video cards.
Also,
PS5 and the new XBox use the same chips as thw latest graphics cards.
Also,
Bots scouring sites for cards and auto buying for resale on EBay. Its a legit practice but still annoying. And its driven by people with no self control. And screwing people who really need those cards for work.
In addition, the newest cards are the best increase per dollar in performance in a couple generations. Everybody has been running their 10 series or whatever for years and wanted the 30 series right away.
They even rereleased the 1050ti and the i think 5700 cards. But demand for the higher cards has pushed the high prices down the line. And anything with 4gb of memory will work for mining.
But, I mentioned this on one of my gaming facebook pages and a real mensch in Texas has already shipped me a GTX 1070 for $125. That is an upgrade from where I was and should get me through to the end of the current confluence of events.
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You’ll see the same shortages with new vehicles because automakers cut back their orders for the chips to go into their cars and trucks, so chip makers shifted that production capacity over to computers and video cards. The report from Friday is their entire production run for all of 2021 is already spoken for, so they can’t switch back to making car and truck chips.
Yep. I’m reading reports from Ram buyers that any orders placed now that aren’t “sold orders” (meaning the dealer has indicated that the truck is already spoken for, as opposed to ordering a truck for dealer stock) are getting put at the back of the queue, and inventory is very short. In addition, trucks ordered after February 1 with the Towing Technology Group will no longer have the blind spot and crosspath detection included because they’re short on chips for that feature. It’s a separate option you have to specify now.
Very glad I ordered in mid-January, but I really should have done it earlier.
I don’t suppose dealerships will offer a discount on installing that feature later once it becomes available again.
They changed the package code for the towing tech group at a lower price (to compensate for the dropped feature) and introduced a new code for just the blind spot & crosspath detection. So you can still get it it, you just have to ask specifically for it. And the latter is probably tied to the former (I’m guessing, though), so you can’t get the blind spot stuff w/o also having the towing tech group.
…as far as I can tell, I’m getting the feature whenever the truck shows up.
I could not resist - the parts shop had a monitor sale. I now have 2 27" 4k screens. I feel this might be just a fraction excessive…
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I had to swap cubes at work recently (So on the rare times we’re in office there’s separation between people) and absorbed some stuff from a coworker that was unfortunately let go. Grabbed two monitors, but gave up one of mine as it was a previous scavenge attempt and had a weird color cast that couldn’t be fixed.
So now my ‘desk’ setup (for the rare times I’m in) is 2 monitors plus laptop display for my primary and a third monitor for my backup desktop.
That’s nothing, though. I think a few coworkers have this and considered going to 3 monitors, but that’s a bit of work for most laptops to power.
I did just order some replacement speakers for my home office setup as the crappy $15 Amazon-branded ones just aren’t good.
Desktop real estate - the more, the better.
If you are looking to build a PC, you probably should strike two Gigabyte Technology power supplies off your list, no matter how attractive the price may look on Newegg if it’s bundled with a hard-to-get graphics card. Due to a ransomware attack, there’s reason to skip Gigabyte products altogether, as explained below. If you already have one of these PSUs, you should replace it as soon as you can, even if you have to buy a new one from a different company.
The Over Power Protection (OPP) on the GP-P750GM and GP-P850GM power supplies is failing in a catastrophic manner instead of doing a proper shutdown. Meaning, components fail and you see sparks come out of the PSU. Other items in the computer like the video card can also be damaged. That happened for one review company.
Gigabyte was informed privately back in October 2020 by Aris from Hardware Busters that the PSUs were failing under testing conditions so Gigabyte could do their own testing and research. Fast forward to March and the issue wasn’t resolved, so a different review company, Gamers Nexus, joined in with their own testing and also privately gives Gigabyte info on what’s going wrong so they have another chance to fix it.
Fast forward to August and Gamers Nexus makes it public that Gigabyte still hasn’t addressed the problem and they’re trying to avoid the issue. In short, Gigabyte says GN isn’t doing the testing right (apparently because of using load measuring/testing equipment instead of an in-computer setup) and their own extensive testing says in a real-world situation, it’s fine.
However, Gigabyte does make two changes. First is to update the RMA process to handle these models. They had been refusing some RMAs before. It’s a same-for-same exchange instead of like-for-like, where you get the same model of PSU back that you sent in instead of a different model that performs comparably. The second is they adjust the PSUs so the point where OPP triggers at is 110-120% instead of 140-150%. They do not change any of the electrical components in the PSU, as far as I know.
GN pushes back and says this is a reproducible event that can occur under as little as 60% load in as little as five minutes. They state that independent technical engineers and Igor’s Lab doing their own testing are also seeing it. Steve Burke at GN also says it feels like Gigabyte is impugning his credibility, so he’s a bit put out by this and seems more determined to hold Gigabyte accountable. GN publishes a 30-minute uncut speedrun demonstrating the failure. It occurs just after 16:50 in the video and happened after the PSU was powered back on after it successfully performed OPP twice at around 135%. They also have a speedrun of what OPP is supposed to do, which is you can turn the PSU back on and it still works.
It should be pretty clear Gigabyte has a product with a serious design flaw and it isn’t a case of improper product use. Instead of doing a safe shutdown of electricity exiting the PSU, electrical components are physically failing. If the product is going to sacrifice itself to protect what’s connected to it, it doesn’t need to make that known by sparks and noise. Deciding to change the point where that failure might occur is a workaround, not a solution.
Gamers Nexus makes the point several times that instead of trying to avoiding the issue and kind of blaming customers and reviewers, they need to find out what’s causing the problem and actually fix it. They can phrase it in whatever legalese helps them save face, but they need to fix it quick.
The company I work for finds the causes of issues and fixes them. I’ve seen documents that say an issue was spotted on the production line, a correction was made and here’s the serial number where the change was made so you know if the equipment you working at a customer’s location is affected. I also saw one that said there were only a couple of instances of an issue, but they made it a mandatory upgrade, told us which machines required it and gave us a timeline of when the upgrades had to be completed. That particular instance would require a part to be out of place to happen, but I could see how it could occur and the solution was simple. It’s incorporated into all future revisions of that product.
The reason why you might want to skip getting Gigabyte products altogether is because they were hit by a ransomware attack around August 6th. This seems to include the server that RMAs were processed on. Gigabyte employees and customers with an RMA can’t get into it, so no one can see what the status of their RMA is. To deal with this, Gigabyte put up a new RMA server but the old one is stuck in limbo. Anyone that sent in a defective product will have to provide documentation to prove the RMA exists.
The recommendation in this video by JayzTwoCents is if you’ve got a defective item you need to send back, don’t do it yet. The company is still in recovery mode and can’t handle requests very well right now.
Jason Langevin (JayzTwoCents) is also recommending that if you have one of these power supplies, turn off all overclocking and shut the PSU off (not just the computer, the PSU) any time you’re not physically next to it (going to work, going to bed, etc.) so that if it fails, you’ll see it happen and you can take immediate steps. The PSUs are sparking right now. If a fire results, you wouldn’t be home or awake to put it out. It isn’t said there, but I’ll put it out there that you need to know where the fire extinguisher is just in case.
He also states that he stopped reviewing Gigabyte products because there’s been so many problems with them that it’s not worth it to do a review. Even when (or if) they get the PSU problem fixed and recover from the ransomware attack, will their products improve enough to make them a trusted brand again?
Separate issue: Linus Tech Tips reports that GPU chip prices are going up at least 10% shortly. It might end up being double by the time the graphic card is fully manufactured. An MSI GeForce RTX 3090 is currently $3450 on Amazon. Ouch.
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Interesting. Thanks for the headsup.
I put this in the Web Find of the Day thread back in June. Repeated here because it’s more appropriate to have it here.
Linus Tech Tips posted a video yesterday that explains why brand-new computers that should be fast are running slow. It’s because some manufacturers are switching from 1x8 DRAM to 1x16 DRAM that has fewer chips on it. Fewer chips means data can’t be retrieved as fast even though they have the same capacity. A simple swap of the DRAM between an AMD laptop and an Intel laptop moved a 25% difference in performance to the other computer. It can also have the equivalent impact of switching from an NVIDIA 3080 graphics card to a 3070.
He’s recommending that manufacturers of gaming machines specifically list they have 1x8 DRAM as an example of the high performance of their gaming systems. Also recommends consumers check the RAM type when buying either laptop RAM or desktop RAM, with it sometimes being harder to find that info on laptop memory and/or full systems.
I’m picturing the BOFH or an IT tech particularly frustrated with bureaucracy implementing this method of forcing an upgrade:
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I’ll just apply a fully-charged cattleprod to the RAM, CPU(s) and motherboard.
And for good measure, to the PSU as well.
Should cause a “catastrophic” failure without any traces.
Chances are they’ll not get the replacement RAM, CPU and motherboard.
That’s dirty. I realize it’s probably due to the global chip shortage but I don’t expect t hem to go back to 1x8 when it’s over because 1x16 is probably cheaper to make.
Anyone remember when Crysis was straining PC hardware so much that some couldn’t keep up? Well, here we go again. But wait, there’s more!
The new hotness in MMORPGs is New World from Amazon Games. Officially launched on Tuesday. There’s something in the way the game is coded that is causing damage to Nvidia graphic cards. Screen goes black, fans rev up to 100% and when you power back on, pray it isn’t dead. If your prayer isn’t answered, you might just get to see the magic smoke start leaking out of your video card.
It’s primarily happening in the cards that draw the most power: 3090 and 3080, but even 3070 and 3060 cards are being reported as having this happen. Not confined to one brand of graphic cards, either. I didn’t hear mention of any AMD cards in the video.
Amazon’s pointing fingers at the card manufacturers. “It’s gotta be something in your hardware design.” Card manufacturers are pointing fingers at Amazon. “It’s not us, it’s your game.” JayzTwoCents is saying it sounds like something in the game is exposing a hardware issue and they need to put aside the blame to find the cause and fix it.
He’s recommending the following:if you want to play it:
- reduce power limit to 90%
- undo all overclocking
- increase fan speed
- limit FPS in video driver to compensate for the game spiking if FPS is still at the unlimited setting
He owns the game but isn’t going to play it until this is fixed. With as expensive as video cards are now, I wouldn’t risk it, either. The card I bought for $200 a year ago is now over $600 if you can find someone that has one. The chip shortage isn’t going to be solved for quite a while longer, so prices will keep going up. That’s a bigger risk than I’d be willing to take just to play a game.
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Oh wow. Imagine installing the latest game and ending up with a fried video card.
I expect cryptomalware programmers will add this little trick to their arsenal in order to extort money. Don’t want a fried video card? Then pay 5 bitcoin to xyz.
I feel like we should be long past the era where a mainstream user space application can cause hardware damage.
(A driver, some weird hack, sure, I guess. But an application?)
Has Amazon’s game studio done anything impressive yet? I feel like they may be struggling to get started. Even Apple Acade has some interesting stuff on it, albeit bought from others. (Apple doesn’t have an internal game studio to my knowledge.)
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But will it handle Far Cry?