Crypto-Driven GPU Crash Makes Nvidia Miss Q2 Projections By $1.4 Billion (arstechnica.com) 46
In preliminary second-quarter financial results announced today, Nvidia's year-over-year growth is "down from a previously forecasted $8.1 billion, a miss of $1.4 billion," reports Ars Technica. "Nvidia blamed this shortfall on weaker-than-expected demand for its gaming products, including its GeForce graphics processors." The full results won't arrive until the end of the month. From the report: Nvidia pointed to "a reduction in channel partner sales," meaning that partners like Evga, MSI, Asus, Zotac, Gigabyte, and others were selling fewer new GPUs than anticipated. This drop can be attributed partly to a crash in the value of mining-based cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum -- fewer miners are buying these cards, and miners looking to unload their GPUs on the secondhand market are also giving gamers a cheaper source for graphics cards. "As we expect the macroeconomic conditions affecting sell-through to continue, we took actions with our Gaming partners to adjust channel prices and inventory," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. That means we may see further price drops for existing GeForce GPUs, which have already been dropping in price throughout the year. Some cards still haven't reverted to their originally advertised prices, but they're getting closer all the time.
In better news for Nvidia, the small overall increase in revenue [$6.7 billion] is driven almost exclusively by the company's data center business, including GPU-accelerated AI and machine learning applications and GPU acceleration for cloud-hosted virtual machines. Nvidia's data center revenue is projected to be up 61 percent from last year, from $2.37 billion to $3.81 billion. Nvidia will supposedly launch its next-generation RTX 4000 series GPUs later this year. Based on the new Lovelace architecture, these GPUs may appeal to some gamers who originally sat out the RTX 3000 series due to shortages and inflated prices and are now avoiding the GPUs because they know a replacement is around the corner.
In better news for Nvidia, the small overall increase in revenue [$6.7 billion] is driven almost exclusively by the company's data center business, including GPU-accelerated AI and machine learning applications and GPU acceleration for cloud-hosted virtual machines. Nvidia's data center revenue is projected to be up 61 percent from last year, from $2.37 billion to $3.81 billion. Nvidia will supposedly launch its next-generation RTX 4000 series GPUs later this year. Based on the new Lovelace architecture, these GPUs may appeal to some gamers who originally sat out the RTX 3000 series due to shortages and inflated prices and are now avoiding the GPUs because they know a replacement is around the corner.
Nvidia is fine. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they're just making sure they still have a spot reserved in the semiconductor breadline. :)
Receiving a little extra free money never hurt anyone.
Re: (Score:2)
It hurt us a great deal in the 2016 elections when the Russians hacked our elections and installed their puppet viceroy.
Does your inability to live in reality cause you to post unrelated topics? Maybe it's a symptom of your failing cognitive abilities, but this is a story about a chip maker believing that the crypto-mining days of glory would never end. Misjudging the market is one thing, but a $1.4 billion swing and miss is pretty crazy.
Now that I think about it, you and Nvidia seem to suffer from similar cognitive maladies... maybe you aren't as off-topic as you seem...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The bulk of the money is for semiconductor manufacturing, but the bill also included money for R&D tax credits. At my previous job, people involved in R&D work had to document how they're time was being spent, in part for internal accounting of projects, but also because their pay could be partially refunded in the form of R&D tax credits.
While nVidia contracts their manufacturing to external foundries (TSMC), they almost certainly benefit from the R&D tax credits.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While the language is slightly loose- it's for "Research and development in the advancement of semiconductor technology".
A new video card GPU isn't what they have in mind. Whether it will be abused is another story, but as it stands, there's no obvious route for Nvidia to get a penny of this money.
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of governments are handing out billions in tax dollars to their semiconductor industry, and those subsidies have made it a lot cheaper to set things up there. That's why they have the global dominance of it. Did you think there's something magic about Taiwan that makes it an ideal spot for fabs? If the USA wants any kind of semiconductor independence we have to do it too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Your point being? They play rough and invest money in things that really matter to a small island. How should the USA respond?
Just Intel (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I just finally got a used one under $200... and the most I've ever spent on a GPU was like $165 for a Permedia 2 6MB.
I went from two pre-overclocked 950s (one was a warranty replacement for a 750Ti) to a pre-overclocked 1070 and everything old is new again.
I sure did learn my lesson about SLI though... it's poop
So when will prices be normal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Prices have dropped some but not really to "normal" let alone "we have a glut to get rid off, please take them" levels.
All these bastards still want the profit filling their ass even though it was never a real sustainable situation in the first place.
I guarantee these fuckers are going to throw away most of the cards they have stacked up. They will write it off before saturating the market with reasonable prices.
Lower the prices, jackasses.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I actually can't afford it which is why I want them to lower their prices. The GPU I'm using right now is 10 years old.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Allow me to unpack my tiny violin (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? After years when you couldn't even get a contemporary GPU if you sold a kidney for it you're complaining about sales returning to sane levels?
Fuck you.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see the part where they're complaining. They're doing the perfectly normal process of explaining projection misses, and re-establishing expectations for industry.
Re: (Score:2)
In a purely capitalist world, profit would actually be an anomaly. A perfectly balanced capitalist world would eliminate profit immediately by creating more supply as soon as there is any, with the demand side immediately shifting to take advantage it.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not an occupation. It's a task. And yes, it's perfectly normal.
Re: (Score:2)
Heck you can make it a 4 nanometer violin [pcmag.com]. Now that's tiny!.
"Gaming Products" (Score:4, Insightful)
When most of your GPU's are bought by people trying to make a buck off of crypto, are they really "Gaming Products?"
--
The No. 1 cause of forest fires is trees. - Pat Paulsen
Re:"Gaming Products" (Score:5, Interesting)
I read in May that nVidia was paying a ~$5M fine for not disclosing to shareholders that their "gaming" business had become closely tied to the price of cryptocurrency. Apparently, they internally knew and discussed this, but didn't think it warranted even a small print mention in any SEC filings. It seems so obvious to any of us trying to buy a graphics card in the last 5 years, but you'd be surprised to see how financial analysts and "experts" in nVidia stock seemed completely unaware of this fact. With NVDA stock price plunging falling recently, it's served as a good reminder that stock analysts and financial writers know very little about their subjects.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. They're just also cryptocurrency mining products.
If they weren't gaming products, gamers wouldn't be pissed off at miners for driving up the prices.
Re: (Score:3)
When most of your GPU's are bought by people trying to make a buck off of crypto, are they really "Gaming Products?"
Gaming the financial markets? Sure.
Re:"Gaming Products" (Score:4)
Yes, in the Las Vegas sense of the word "gaming".
It's all fake numbers. (Score:2)
They are just back to normal. The mining craze was just a fad.
They still use GPU's for mining? (Score:2)
I thought dedicated ASICs took over from GPU's years ago, just like GPU's took over for CPU's.
Re: (Score:1)
For bitcoin that is correct. There are however other algorithms/coins were GPU mining is profitable or at least was.
Re: (Score:3)
Also, the BTC progression was CPU -> GPU -> FPGA -> ASIC
Was active up until the FPGA days before selling my Butterfly Labs miners (and coins) for a tidy profit. Wish I had held them until now though (sold when they were $70-100).
not unexpected (Score:2)
I got an email from EVGA (Score:2)
And they are slashing prices (which were exorbitant) on the RTX 3080 and higher series of cards. A thousand friggin' dollars off their 3090 Ti cards. Some pretty good deals on their heaviest duty Platinum tier PSU products too, but that's another story.
So I guess between all the used mining cards getting unloaded, a lot of people finally getting a 3xxx series card over the last year, and nVidia's upcoming 4xxx series looking promising, nVidia has to unload its existing chips to its partner companies like EV
I am glad they lost $1.4B (Score:2)
They courted the crypto miner rather than me for 2 fucking years and now they expect me to welcome them back with open arms? Fuck you Nvidia. Go sleep with the crypto miners, you are no longer welcome in my home.
Breaking up is hard to do
Crypto-Driven GPU Crash Makes Nvidia Miss Q2 Proje (Score:1)