GeForce price heading up due to mining!

[gman5250]

I have always considered myself to be a fairly well educated and well-rounded person. Honestly though, I'm simply unable to wrap my mind around just what precisely this whole "Bitcoin Mining" is all about.

All I know is that one has a computer spinning "something" through intense computations, and somehow "generating" revenue in the form of Bitcoin(s).

It all sounds to me as though some algorithim is spinning "gold" out of "fried electrons" or some other such magical process.

There were stories about three years ago about the Chinese boom markets. Even the street peddlers had little PDA's inside their fruit stands and were furiously "spinning" trades on the Chinese exchanges. Everyone was on a trading high, then of course the big corrections came and they all went TU.

Now it's Bitcoin and Cyber currency boutiques where millennials have their faces glued to the little blue screens...spinning...mining...spinning...mining. It's basically "du jour" day trading, but the SEC is not regulating how many trades a non licensed "trader" can make in a day. So...the legions of crypto traders press the prices up and up, at least in theory.

Along comes something like the Ethereum "flash crash" that cleaned a lot of clocks. The exchange, and managers scratch their heads while everyone else runs for the Prozac. Bottom line is that the entire process of giving everyone a haircut via a digital naked short takes a few seconds. The engineer of the flash does quite well, the rest are stuck with a an expensive video card that now is of no use to them...so they take up flight simming.

Watch for the same sort of thing to hit Bitcoin at some stage.

All of this money is an illusion. As long as the QE money keeps coming in, the game will keep re-booting in various incarnations.

The mining angle is clever. Many of these traders will go on margin as long as the game is on the upswing. That margin money goes on the books of the banks, who monetize it ten times over on their asset sheets as real money, then lend it out legitimately...if there is such a thing. The banks show massive earnings and everyone thinks things are great.

The reality check comes when some savvy analyst arrives at the conclusion that things aren't great...like in 2008. One person triggered that entire landslide. Watch the movie "The Big Short" if you want to see an absolutely dead nut accurate telling of that tale.

The bond/derivatives bubble is massively larger than the Sub Prime loan bubble that blew in 2008. The potential for an implosion is beyond anyone's ability to comprehend or predict.

The good news is this. In economic "hard times", people turn to entertainment and alcohol.

I figure that the virtual airplane business has a very bright future!!!!

 

[gman5250]

It's fickle stuff! Current as of now is $340 up 1.19%.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/

As long as you stay away from margin, trade live and don't place any stop loss/stop buy orders you should be OK. I did that whole trading thing for about 15 years. I don't have the temperament for it any longer.

 

[TuFun]

As long as you stay away from margin, trade live and don't place any stop loss/stop buy orders you should be OK. I did that whole trading thing for about 15 years. I don't have the temperament for it any longer.

About the closes I got to anything market wise is the company 401K. Don't like how its effecting the video card prices and availability. Do look forward to the Volta cards though.

Here's were all those video cards are going....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLVELIXjs0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJgWqbZBn6I

https://www.facebook.com/tech4gamers/videos/915414541933067/

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/when-bitcoin-mining-gets-really-serious-lol.html

 

[sixstrings5859]

This is bad news for someone,like me,saving up money to build their own gaming computer. Time to check out the pawn shops for one and upgrade when i can. Maybe in time things will calm down. One can only be hopeful.....

 

[gman5250]

I'm hoping that the GeForce GTX 1080 TI is not one of these sought after cards. I've put that one on my "indispensable" list. That's a big chunk, but amortized over the life of the card it's almost justifiable. I'm blessed...my wife is supportive of my expenditures on the "work" system. If we need it...we find a way.

 

[TuFun]

Here's an article showing different video cards and how much they can generate Ether.

1080 Ti is like number two on the list, but AMD cards seems to be the best price/performance.

But they are hard to get, so the Geforce cards are sought after now. They are now tweaking the
Geforce 10 cards to generate up to 32 MH/s.

This just plain crazy!!!

http://www.legitreviews.com/best-gpu-ethereum-mining-nvidia-amd-tested_195229

 

[Naismith]

I have tried, but try as I may I fail to understand this Mining carry-on and how certain cards are unavailable because of it.

 

[gman5250]

Errrrr......welllllll. I have to agree with you Ted, it's just plain crazy.

I am in complete support of open source, Tellinger style contributionism theory, crowd funding, micro loans and the rest...IF...IF...IF...they are segregated from the institutional elements that have a nasty habit of crashing the party and walking off with the silverware.

The idea of using a gozillion video cards to perpetuate the mining of these intangible assets, be it Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any of the plethora of eventual knock offs, is a complete disconnect for me. It strikes me as something akin to stapling a few million butterflies on a 747 and giving it an airworthiness certificate. I just don't trust the thing.

The technology is super flawed and vulnerable to everything from hacks, to EMP or Solar storms...and....BIG AND...every so often someone quietly plugs in a bit of code that does exactly what happened three days ago. The nature of the average guy on the street is to leverage everything he has on the latest "sure thing". When the instantaneous corrections come these guys are, in reality, collateral damage. The guys on the inside consolidate the assets back to themselves, while the street "miner" is SOL.

I looked into the Ethereum "flash crash". It is exactly what Nathan Rothschild "allegedly" did on the London exchange in 1815. Same thing happened twice in the early 1900s, and again on October 19, 1987. The crashes are intended to collapse demand for the "commodity", tank the price, call in the loans and use that money to buy the asset back for pennies. What used to take days, months and years now happens in the space of time it takes to leave your laptop to take a leak.

In my limited understanding, I would look at the evidence and arrive at the conclusion that the established banks and state entities are not going to let any alternative, no matter how well intentioned, threaten the existing monopoly on global economics. Therefore, I would not personally invest my time and energy in something like Etherem or Bitcoin.

That said, it is always an extremely good idea to keep your head on the swivel and cover your six. Looking at the 4+Quadrillion dollar bond/derivatives debt bubble, and the shenanigans of the various global economic entities attempting to keep the eight hundred ton gorilla in it's cage, it maybe might not be a bad idea to have a look around at what is developing elsewhere.

Following the alternative economic models, just in case the current paradigm becomes unstable, could be considered due diligence.


Back to the point, and that last video Ted.

I look at the Bitcoin and Ethereum charts and they are carbon copies. In the case of Ethereum the chart indicates that the big rise has taken place and now the chumps are running in (with their newly acquired and tweaked video cards) and making their big play. The charts are showing clear consolidation, showing wild volatility under heavy volume. In tech analysis that's the signal to run for the door. Throw in the massive swings and spinning tops last week, finish it off with conveniently timed digital "haircut" and you have the whole picture. That ship is going to the bottom.

Pity about all of those fried GPU's though. Not even worth picking up on Ebay...lol


IMO...

 

[n4gix]

I'm hoping that the GeForce GTX 1080 TI is not one of these sought after cards. I've put that one on my "indispensable" list. That's a big chunk, but amortized over the life of the card it's almost justifiable. I'm blessed...my wife is supportive of my expenditures on the "work" system. If we need it...we find a way.

I'm expecting delivery of my new flightsim machine next Wednesday (28th). It is an i7-7700k 32GB DDR4 with an MSI GeForce 1080Ti (11GB), 240GB SSD and 3TB WD HD.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XGXDXZF/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My primary development computer died (main HD failure) so I'm working now on my backup dev computer. Fortunately all my mission critical files are kept off-line on DB so nothing but time has been lost. My current sim machine will be 'demoted' from it's current task to become my primary dev machine once the new rig is set up.

The only "odd thing" about this new computer is that there is no optical drive at all. Indeed, there isn't even any provision in the case to add any accesories, much less a DVD/Blueray optical drive/burner...

...the which will make installing the nine-DVD double density FS Global Ultimate Next Generation a bit of a challenge!

 

[gman5250]

Could you keep us up to date on the 1080 TI performance Bill? I'm able to run the 64bit sim relatively well with the GTX 780, but video work is suffering because I can't maintain consistent 60 FPS when the settings are in the high ranges.

I'm almost ready to pull the trigger on the new card as well.


..."nine-DVD double density FS Global Ultimate Next Generation"...Holy Cow!

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hey Bill.

Nice system. A new external DVD RW should be had for $15-25. If your cables are long enough you could Frankenstein something. I guess DVDs are for dinosaurs like us. I'm thinking of a similar system from CyberpowerPC. They can build a system and ship it for less than I can build it myself.

Dick

 

[n4gix]

Hey Bill.

Nice system. A new external DVD RW should be had for $15-25. If your cables are long enough you could Frankenstein something. I guess DVDs are for dinosaurs like us. I'm thinking of a similar system from CyberpowerPC. They can build a system and ship it for less than I can build it myself.

Dick

Cyberpower PC has some excellent reviews so that's a major reason for buying this prebuilt system. It's not only the cost that's a factor, but also the fact that they only build the systems after one places an order, and they throughly burn in the system before shipment. More critical for me is that the time spent "building my own" would cost more due to the loss of productive time (aka: Opportunity Cost).

What is ironic about the lack of a DVD though is that all of the customary "bloatware" is not pre-installed, but instead is provided on...

...CDs/DVDs!

I'll check around to see if anyone local has an external DVD available, otherwise I can use the drive in any of the other computers on my LAN to install them.

 

[n4gix]

Could you keep us up to date on the 1080 TI performance Bill?
..."nine-DVD double density FS Global Ultimate Next Generation"...Holy Cow!

Yes, I will report back on how well the 1080Ti performs. As for FS Global Ultimate et cetera, I picked up this set at the 2016 FlightSimCon in Connecticut a few weeks ago. The authors were present (nice Austrian gents!) and had it for $65 for the set ($20 discount for the show).

One of the reasons for the rather HUGE number of disks is that worldwide bathometry is included for use in P3D, and 1m LIDAR mesh data wherever it was available. The next best resolution came from NED and CDED DEMs generated from contour maps. The rest is from STS-99 SRTM.

 

[gman5250]

One of the reasons for the rather HUGE number of disks is that worldwide bathometry is included for use in P3D, and 1m LIDAR mesh data wherever it was available. The next best resolution came from NED and CDED DEMs generated from contour maps. The rest is from STS-99 SRTM.

That set sounds extremely nice. There has been a terrain anomaly right in my KMMH backyard since FSX, and it still persists in P3Dv4. FTX Global Vector has always been the fix, with the Pilots Mesh integrated in the package.

One project I have been sitting on is an ultra high definition 64 bit ready Photo Real scenery that covers a huge area around KMMH. It covers the Minarets where they filmed the Wizard of Oz mountain scenes. Due west of that is Yosemite.

So far I have hand annotated a couple of hundred square miles using massive PR tiling. Trees are accurate for elevation...something other devs have neglected.
The resolution is actually tight enough to see hiking trails, rocks and ground detail clearly. A mesh like the one you picked up would be perfect. The scenery is so good, a climber could pick out a climbing route...1M would bring the scenery up to a fine polish.

P3Dv3 handled the package OK, but there was no way to avoid OOM once you moved out of the area into another i.e. ORBX Nor Cal. Just too much for the VAS. The 64 bit platform crunches it just fine and the 1080 TI should handle the GPU loads with room to spare.


I'll look forward to your feed back...thanks Bill.


KMMH HD

 

[n4gix]

The new Cyberpower computer was delivered yesterday, but it will be tomorrow before I can even try it out...

The video card has one HDMI port, three Display Ports, and one DVI-I port. None of my existing monitors will fit any of those ports, so I had to order two "Display Port to VGA" adapters that should be delivered in tomorrow's mail. I also ordered a USB3 external DVD drive.

Although the system is very well built, it appears that more thought was put into making it pretty with really neat cable management, there is absolutely no provision for expanding with additional drives. There are only two 'slots' for the provided SSD and HD. There are four unused SATA ports (3, 4, 5, 6), but nowhere to put any more hardware! Oh the empty space is there, but no brackets on which to secure additional drives...

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi Bill.

When ordering from the CyberPowerPC website, they allow customization that allows selecting a different case. With Amazon, you just get what they have in stock. If you buy a new case, it could cost you around 50$, plus the hassle of moving the parts to the new home. Or you could keep adding external USB devices. It would have been nice if Amazon warned about the lack of expansion options, but mid-towers are often cramped.

Dick

 

[gman5250]

A new box is a challenge, no matter how thoroughly we prepare in advance. The pain will be forgotten once you get a few hours in the seat with that card.

My development box is also my sim box, a situation I want to change when I can make that happen. Looking at it from all sides, I think building my own box will be the strategy best for me. Of course, I may regret that decision once all the components arrive. lol

In light of this thread, I think that getting that card ASAP is going to be a good decision. I can plug that card into P3DV4 now in the current box, then move it to the new box when I get to building it. The GTX 780 can run the current development box nicely if it is purely dedicated to design work.

 

[n4gix]

It would have been nice if Amazon warned about the lack of expansion options, but mid-towers are often cramped.

Unfortunately, buying direct was not an option for me. My Amazon Visa is near max, but I have a separate Amazon "Store" account that has thus far been untapped.

This case is a large tower, so there is a TON of empty space in the case for an accessory rack. Sorry for the crappy photo from my phone, I got some nicely lighted pictures from my Fuji 18MP camera, but the software for xfering to the computer is on the cooked hard drive...

But, you can see the Black Hole near the front...