Possible solution for insanely priced AMD cards

Hardware Hub GPU
1

A while back ago, AMD radeon cards were amazing for the money and were a great bang for the buck option for any budget.  A run a 7870 GHZ in my system and for $185 + Four free games I am very pleased with it.  

But now as you all now, Litcoin mining really took off and miners are buying AMD cards by the crate.  Prices have sky rocketed and for some of them they are just not worth it anymore.  The R9 290 for example was a great card for about $400.  Now some of them are over $600!  

Now I believe a solution would be to sort of "Tax the miners".  Not government taxes but a small fee that goes to AMD or the retailers to just to keep the price down and for everyone to enjoy AMD's great cards.  It could be something very minor like 5 cents for every dollar worth of litcoins mined.  

So let me here your thoughts on this.  And also what ideas do you guys possibly have?  

2

HAHA. No.

That wouldn't even be possible because AMD isnt affiliated with a coin. It's just that AMD cards work well for it.

The prices are high because of supply and demand. People REALLY wanted AMD cards, so they raised prices, like any business would. They raised prices because people are willing to pay them.

When peple stop buying them, prices will go down.

3

I just hope the raising in prices give them a boost in revenue. maybe a boost to make some snazzy stuff like what Nvidia is doing.

4

It could. But I don't think they need it. Mantle, regardles of how well it works, is going to boost sales drastically.

5

so should we sell whatever amd cards we have now, and when prices go back down to normal rebuy, or reinvest that money?

6

I'll believe AMD prices will drop when RAM prices drop. They went chasing after the marketshare, and are now doing what any business would do. Why do you think they re-branded so many cards? New paint job, then back to the car lot.Somebody will buy it.

7

Never drag the U.S. government into anything. It will only drive the price higher. Personally if the amd card prices do not come down, i see 780s in my future.

8

never said anything about the government.  Please no government.  Anything but the government.  

And as for the 780 part, same here!  

9

Well, you said tax.

10

tax is just another name for theft. and please don't ever try to regulate what little freedom the market currently has. 

11

Tax is how government gets their money yes. but the US being unique to this? no

12

Didn't mean exactly tax.  I could have possibly used a better term.  

13

Well It's just a thought I had while walking home from school on a rainy day.  Just wanted to share and get your guys's two cents.  

Actually the more i think about it, the less sense it makes.  

15

So tempted to throw my 7870 on Ebay for the price I bought it, and maybe even more to get a GTX 780.  

16

Future tip; don't buy a used AMD card that was used for mining

18

If this mining shit continues, AMD will end up being like Apple; overpriced cards. Unless the supplies for their manufacturers will get into shape ASAP. People really need to use their brain that the more brand new AMD cards are taken for the sake of mining for lazy revenue, the more stress it's putting in the manufacturer's supply chain. Want to start off mining on a budget? Buy some used AMD/ATI cards and deplete their lives out of it, saving mercy for the chains.

Look, in the future, we might have more and more ASIC manufacturers for each or every crypto, depending on how the economy goes so they can start up their own business. Butterfly Labs are getting rocks fallen onto their heads, I'd imagine.

19

As of now, ASICs for Scrypt arent around.

20

They exist but are not publicly available.

21

A "tax" in this scenario wouldn't work,i think.

It's the miners that are driving up the prices.You want to stop that?Make the coin worthless. No point solving the symptom when the real problem here are the coins.

Whether this will become popular opinion,i know not. I'm not into the mining scene so i don't know what the hoo-haa is.

22

With all this coin mining, I'm constantly reminded how lucky I was to grab a high-end AMD card for next to nothing just before all this bit-coin mining exploded. 

Very tempted to sell my 7950 (bought for only $169) and grab something even faster from Nvidia (GTX 770/780). But the thing is I'd rather stick with AMD GPU's because of mantle. It's a tough call.

Honestly, I don't mine any coins and have no desire to. To me and many others, GPU's are for gaming and seeing all these cards being used for anything but just seems like a big waste and it's making it very difficult for those of us that just want to game to obtain the cards we want.