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Comment by segmondy | Hacker News Reader

I wanted to buy 2 1080 for deep learning experiments, but that's going to have to wait.

I picked up a used 32core 128gb server for $1000 recently... It's only a matter of time before these 1080 will be sold for pennies on the dollar.

If your lively hood doesn't depend on it, wait.

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I understand most people are wishful to see Cryptocurrencies crash but what if it doesn't?

What would happen if Crytpo booms big time?

In terms of graphics cards? Well presumably if cryptos keep driving up demand for an extended period of time, then nVidia will just increase production. Right now they haven't increased production because they think it's a bubble.

>> Right now they haven't increased production because they think it's a bubble.

Much more complicated than that. They haven't increased production because there is a RAM shortage and collusion is suspected. Samsung is the bottleneck, not Nvidia. This is changing as Samsung already announced they will increase production over time as Hynix continues to eat into their profits despite being inferior.

It's not as simple as cryptocurrency-haters would like to make it sound.

New cards will come out, which will make the current cards obsolete.

First, segmondy didn't attribute future low GPU prices to a cryptocurrency crash. Second, it isn't necessary for a crash to happen to collapse demand for GPUs.

Bitcoin isn't driving GPU demand; Bitcoin is mined with ASICs. Ethereum is mined with GPUs, a consequence of deliberate design. However, when `Casper' lands (Ethereum's Proof of Stake scheme) mining will end, and so will the extreme demand for GPUs. If that happens Ebay will fill up with thousands of discrete GPUs and you'll buy them with a song.

Nobody buys 24/7 gpus if they cost more than 10% of the original (before crypto crazy) price.

Undervolting or not, running your card 24/7 makes them worthless.

Because of the spectre/meltdown mitigation, I would expect that we would see a sharp fall in price of used servers that use the 6th generation and before.

from where might I ask did you buy that server

I don't have a link to that deal but buying quality used hardware isn't difficult or expensive.

I built a Quanta Open Compute node with 12 physical cores (24 logical with HT) and 96GB of RAM for around $350.

There are many companies selling Sandy/Ivy Bridge-EP Xeon servers for pennies to the dollar.

For example in the UK/EU: www.bargainhardware.co.uk/e5-2600-lga2011-series-machines

Amazon, I bought a HP Z820

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