The mystery of unavailable graphics cards

[Jerry.C]

Ever since Christmas I've been trying to buy a new Geforce 1060 graphics card, but it doesn't seem to work out.

At first, I tried to get the 3GB version but as it happened it wasn't available anywhere for a decent price. Then in mid January the prices started to climb in an insane fashion by almost 50% and in the end the cards virtually vanished.

Then I tried looking for the 6GB variant and virtually the same happened. Everywhere I looked the card wasn't to be had and online the prices started climbing.

By now the cards have become so hard to get and so expensive that I decided to wait until the situation normalizes again.

Does anyone know what's going on here? This whole situation feels strainge.

[leileilol]

Supply & demand. Cryptocurrency madness has gone corporate over the past month. Your best bet is to:

- wait for a decent card WITHOUT OpenCL (unlikely)
- wait for cryptocurrency to wear its welcome and bomb (likely)
- buy a prebuilt OEM PC (farmers don't care about those, so those with nice video cards are spared)

[Graf Zahl]

Some strong government regulation of that insanity is long overdue...

[Reactor]

I don't think it'll do much good if "da gubbmint" is to intervene. In fact I firmly believe it'd deepen the bitcoin-madness even more.
I do have a somewhat good idea tho: Order one from a country, whose currency is much much lower than euro. Hungary, for instance. Compared to German wages, Hungarian electronic devices and computer parts are dirt cheap, because people make less and less money each year, thanks to the Victator. We have quite a few supporters in computer shops near Island's Beauty, so if everything else fails, I could look around a bit for ya. There is no guarantee that exact graphics card you're looking for is in store, but...well...at least you could try.
If everything else fails,you could look for a used one, but that should be the last resort.

[Graf Zahl]

I don't think it'll do much good if "da gubbmint" is to intervene. In fact I firmly believe it'd deepen the bitcoin-madness even more.

That may be, but this is just as dangerous as all the other recent speculation bubbles that all ended up in a disaster where the common public had to pay for the damage these gamblers caused. I wouldn't care one bit if it was all nicely insulated, but the effects this is having on things that normal people tend to buy it becomes a massive problem. And it's always the normal people which have to pay for these greedy bastards.


Well, I just can't wait for the current bubble to burst and many idiots losing lots and lots of money.

[Reactor]

Heh heh heh I'm with you Historically, such things die ugly deaths. Remember the tulip craze in the Netherlands, or the Floridan house bubble? Or the Ponzi-scheme for that matter? For a short time, they fluorished, and then fell flat on their faces. This cryptocurrency crap is yet another ballooon which is bound to pop on a lovely day.

[4thcharacter]

cryptocurrency

Already happened.

BICONNEEEEEEEECT

Tho, I think not all cryptocurrency is bad and only time will tell.

[Reactor]

Woooooo, lookee here guys! Google knows a thing or two with its word associations...

[insightguy]

Ya know, if the entire cryptocurrency madness finally hits it's peak (basically people run out of currency to mine), then we now have a shit ton of people selling their cards for lower prices because heck, there is no way they can sell it at a mark up due to being second hand, imagine the flooding of the market with 1080's at 1/3 of the price.

Might seem shitty now, but who knows? we might get a high supply market with a low price soon.

[wildweasel]

Ya know, if the entire cryptocurrency madness finally hits it's peak (basically people run out of currency to mine), then we now have a shit ton of people selling their cards for lower prices because heck, there is no way they can sell it at a mark up due to being second hand, imagine the flooding of the market with 1080's at 1/3 of the price.

Might seem shitty now, but who knows? we might get a high supply market with a low price soon.

But those are gonna be heavily used cards - do you really want to buy a video card, even at 1/3 the price, that'll probably last you all of a year before finally suffering heat-death?

[Reactor]

Ye, not to mention there shan't be any warranty on them. Meaning if you purchase one, and they become out of gear - which is more than likely - then you won't get a nickel back, and will be stuck with a piece-a-shit graphics card.
Sure, everyone loves cheap stuff...but cheap stuff mostly comes with a price.
I'm thankful the shit didn't hit the SSD-HDD or power supply market yet!

You know...after all these failed Ponzi-schemes and popped get-rich-scheme balloons, you'd expect people to be smarter and more cognizant about what they invest into. Especially if such things can literally devastate an entire country (Albania). But I guess some people shall never learn. If suckers never run out, so won't scammers.

[Bigger C]

I can't wait for cryptocurrency to achieve a modicum of sanity both for the above reason and so that people start realizing the real handiness is in blockchain itself, because THAT part looks interesting.

And man, I lucked out building my PC when I did in 2017 instead of recently.

[Caligari87]

From what I hear, cards used for mining probably won't be in too bad of shape because the miners undervolt and they run constantly instead of peak-lull-peak-lull so there's less thermal expansion cycle damage.

I'd be okay buying a cheap mining card.

[Graf Zahl]

I can't wait for cryptocurrency to achieve a modicum of sanity.

I doubt this will ever happen. If you really think about it, cryptocurrency is a lot about making money out of nothing. This will inevitably attract people which do not have a well-established relationship with sanity.

Ultimately, there is no genuine value backing them. This is totally unlike stocks, which are backed by a company's inherent value and real currencies which are backed by a country's entire economic standing. These things only have value because there are people which believe it needs to have value. Many of them right now are speculators. With their actions they will drive up the price short term because they expect some financial gains, but have no interest in the product itself. Once it becomes uninteresting to speculate on, or these people find more profitable targets, they will pull out their money. In other words: Unlike stock market bubbles or bubbles in other markets based on some real world economy, you do not have an artificial price inflation of maybe 10-30% but more like 90-99%. So the fluctuations are a lot larger and the risk of losing one's investment is also. If this 'market' is ever to find some 'sanity' it would have to be shut down for not being viable.

[Reactor]

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole scheme of overpricing the graphics cards would come straight from the manufacturers to artificially drive up the prices, because...well, they're a bunch of greedy rats. Also it wouldn't be so bad if they'd lower the price of something else (SSDs for example) in return. But of course they won't - they wanna have 100% profit on this graphics card cryptocurrency craze, not just 99%.
I'd love to hear the opinions of Eruanna and Gez on this as well. I wonder what they have to say about this.