Wait, so there are people who are expecting hardware manufacturers to dictate to users what their products can or cannot be used for? Is this the war on general purpose computing I've been hearing about?
AMD doesn't particularly need to limit RDNA2 mining because those cards are inherently less desirable for miners. RDNA2 is designed around relatively slow memory with a big chunk of on-chip cache to compensate, which works quite well for games but the random memory access pattern of crypto mining blows the cache and bottlenecks on the slow underlying memory bus.<p><a href="https://www.overclock3d.net/news/gpu_displays/amd_s_rx_6700_xt_is_slower_at_mining_than_its_predecessor_-_here_s_why/1" rel="nofollow">https://www.overclock3d.net/news/gpu_displays/amd_s_rx_6700_...</a><p>It's not like AMD is above artificially limiting the performance of certain workloads when it suits them, they do it with CAD applications unless you pay the workstation tax.
This would mean a lot more if ROCM worked on these cards. These cards are capable of a lot but the software stack (OpenCL) leaves a lot to be desired.<p>I don’t know what AMD is doing, to be honest. You would think that they’d want to get this all working ASAP so that they can serve as an alternative to nvidia for ML and gpgpu.<p>I guess there’s so much demand for Nvidia between ML and cryptocurrency and gaming that AMD having feature parity with nvidia in only one subcategory (gaming) is enough to still sell all their production capacity.
Honest question...why are either AMD(or Nvidia) or retailers not raising their prices until stocks build?<p>It seems like econ 101, prices rise when demand outstrips supply. But that isn't happening at the retail level. Instead scalpers are buying them en masse, and doing the price fixing.<p>Something I've always wondered, but wasn't sure who to ask that would know nuances of doing so.
AMD’s reputation keeps growing for me. Recently, they became TSMC’s second largest customer, after Apple. Hopefully, they will be able to resolve supply problems faster than their competitors.
Aren't gamers benefitting from better GPUs? Sure right now the supply is not enough for everyone but at some point the high upfront investments will make it harder and harder to manufacture high end GPUs. Who is going to pay for 7nm,5nm and 3nm GPUs? PC gaming is already quite the niche. NVidia makes more money off of data center cards.
Given how well Nvidia’s attempt worked (<a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/nvidia-accidentally-releases-driver-to-un-nerf-cryptocurrency-mining" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/nvidia-accidenta...</a>), I’m glad they didn’t try. It’s an exercise in futility.
Who is trying to block cryptocurrency mining on video cards and CPUs? Can anyone explain that? I don't buy the "because then gamers can't buy video cards" montra.