Worldwide graphics card supply is a big ol' dumpster fire right now, and is likely to be the same for the foreseeable future. So finding any GPU in stock I guess can be called a win. But it's a damning indictment of just how bad the GPU crisis has gotten that rumours of Nvidia expanding the supply of the TU117-powered GTX 1650 to the desktop market are causing some excitement.
Yay, a graphics card you might actually be able to buy, even if it's one you might not actually want to.
The Turing GPU is the lowest spec silicon of the last generation, but was reportedly undersupplied to the desktop market, and skewed towards mobile because it was such a big seller in terms of budget gaming laptops. You can still buy a whole host of GTX 1650 notebooks right now, and they're fine, but comparatively slow next to the latest silicon.
But that means the GPUs themselves are still getting manufactured in decent numbers and, given the dearth of desktop cards, it looks like Nvidia is starting to skew production the other way again in order to increase the supply of the chips into the desktop DIY market.
The report suggests that the increased supply will take hold from April into May, delivering more GTX 1650 cards into the hands of budget PC gamers everywhere.
And it likely will go into the hands of gamers, not because of some smart hash rate limiter, or some clever anti-miner retail shenanigans, but because it is—if you'll pardon the language—too shit for Ethereum mining. That 4GB framebuffer and the fact it will only get you some 16 MH/s at best, means it's not really ideal for mining.
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Even Nvidia's weakest CMP GPU offers 26 MH/s; that's a mining-focused card that looks like it's 100 percent based on the GTX 1660 Super silicon.
Though I expect if someone wanted to buy tens of thousands GTX 1650 cards it could probably still turn a profit somewhere along the line, but that seems like a whole lot of effort. Still, tough to get too excited about the potential increase in supply of one desktop weakheart GPU. Well, unless your current card has died and your entire rig is down because of it.
But possibly the most depressing part of this depressing story is that the pricing for the GTX 1650 is actually going to be increased from its $150 origins. This story has come from Chinese media, however, so it's not totally guaranteed the extra desktop supply will happen globally, but we're all suffering so there's a good chance it will.
