Are you suggesting the high-end semiconductor shortage was caused by crypto? I don't think so. When you have Apple buying out the entire 5nm TSMC capacity for a year/more - in direct competition with NVidia, it's a hard proposition to make. And it's not like the GPU vendors were unhappy about the high prices and/or tried hard to get more production capacity.
BTW you don't mine Bitcoin with GPUs, that's impossible for at least 5+ years now. Bitcoin is mined with ASICs that are using older production nodes (+-30nm and the like).
The semiconductor shortage? No. The GPU shortage, and the insane prices also due to scalpers abusing the shortage?
100%. yes.
Shall we pretend you replied in good faith to a post asking "Same as people were free to buy graphics cards for gaming in the last couple of years?", genuinely misunderstood the question, genuinely missing the "graphics card" and thought only of the general semiconductor shortage in your answer?
Well my point is, you make GPUs in the same factory where you make CPUs and networking chips. So first have a look at what happened there - e.g. a massive new client has appeared and booked out the entire capacity that usually Nvidia and AMD were getting. Are you saying this 100% surely had zero impact?
And again, I was talking about Bitcoin, and you don't mine it with GPUs, and ASICs don't compete with GPU production capacity. So who replies in bad faith? I'm happy to believe the other commenter genuinely missed me talking about Bitcoin, so I mentioned it again. Then you come here with your attack...
Fair point about Apple buying out the output of TSMC's 5nm line - but Nvidia used Samsung's 8nm process. One could argue some orders were displaced due to TSMC being booked out, thus crowding Samsung's capacity as a cascade effect, driving prices up, or that Nvidia would have used a different process or booked capacity on both factories if it was possible.... but on the other hand Apple likely financed the entire 5nm line (it's pretty much in line with their operational model and they did it in the past - although I'm writing with no evidence it took place in this specific occasion), so an argument could be made that such 5nm line wouldn't have even existed for a further year or 2 hadn't Apple basically paid for it.
I don't know precisely what's the net impact of all of the above, but I have reasonable suspicion it it pales compared to the miner-induced shortage (which enabled scalping - it would have hardly made sense otherwise).
And while I agree bitcoin hasn't used GPU mining in ages, you were replying to a graphics card related question, and the entire thread is about Ethereum PoW (GPU mined) being sunset with this merge.
I personally know people who were successfully mining crypto using GPUs in the last couple of years. If it was Bitcoin, Ethereum or Doge, I don't know and it doesn't matter to me. As soon as the crypto prices came down this year, they sold their GPU collection. So saying that miners used only ASICs is not true.
Yes, there was a semiconductor shortage, but miners made the situation worse for others because they each used tens of GPUs instead of just one as a normal person would for gaming or graphics work.
My friends who have an AI company bought out these miners by the dozen and are running it for training - and yes they got it by offering more money than gamers and buying the whole lot, so gamers got the short stick again.
Why is that not bad? I don't see where the value for society got so much better, if that's the measure you're using - I'd rather have someone run the Ethereum blockchain than generate catgirl porn pictures. But even that is IMHO more useful than a bunch of guys gaming, at least more people get to feel the effect of a GPU than if it was owned by a gamer and only ever used for his eye candy. Games also could simply use the available resources better and then the gamers wouldn't need such absurdly overpowered hardware.
Overall, I think we shouldn't be measuring usage of GPUs, solar panels or any other products like this and definitely shouldn't be saying who has a right to have it and who doesn't, or for what prices - that gets us into nasty situations with only nasty answers.
This is a product like any other, gamers don't have any right to get cheap GPUs. Somebody else offered more money for it and the vendor didn't take the low-end market - that's just how it is.
