NVIDIA Mining Chip Revenue Dropped 77% in Q4 FY2022

[Tsing]

Image: NVIDIA



NVIDIA’s family of dedicated GPUs for professional mining, the CMP HX series, has turned out to be less of a lucrative business venture than the company might have anticipated, according to the latest financials divulged in NVIDIA’s fourth quarter and fiscal 2022 earnings report.



As highlighted in coverage by FX Empire, NVIDIA’s mining chip revenue cratered in the fourth quarter of the year, dropping from $105 million to a relatively disappointing $24 million. This represents a 77% drop in value versus what the mining GPU segment managed to achieve in the previous quarter.



NVIDIA’s CMP HX mining series comprises four models. The flagship model is the 90HX, a dedicated GPU for mining that features an Ethereum hash rate of 86 MH/s, 10 GB of memory, and a power specification of 320 watts.



NVIDIA Mining Chip Revenue Plummets by 77% to...

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[Brian_B]

Because they were buying graphics cards instead.

 

[Endgame]

They need to commit to preventing mining on GPUs before the mining cards will really take off

 

[Brian_B]

They need to commit to preventing mining on GPUs before the mining cards will really take off

Or make the mining GPUs more financially attractive than video cards

 

[Riccochet]

Yeah, the mining cards were considerably more expensive than just buying two 3060's for the same hash rate. The 90HX street price is like $1700-1900, while two 3060's can be had for $1200-1300. And the two 3060's would use less power than the single 90HX.

Those cards were DOA when they were introduced.

 

[Endgame]

Or make the mining GPUs more financially attractive than video cards

The idea is that miners will pay basically anything, so you want them paying ~3x or more over a gaming GPU. The only way that really happens is if they can basically shut out mining on GPUs though. Perhaps the real way out is to make the 4k GPUs mining only and sell the 3k cards as gaming cards for another 2+ years.

 

[Zarathustra]

Or make the mining GPUs more financially attractive than video cards

Nah. This is nvidia we are talking about. They will always choose to artificially block something on a one card so they can sell another for more money, rather than making the other card actually worth it.

I mean, they ahve been doing this for decades with Quadro cards. They at least used to block hardware antialiased lines on non-Quadro cards intentionally to sabotage the use of CAD and 3D Modeling software forcing professionals to buy Quadros.

 

[Brian_B]

The idea is that miners will pay basically anything

True, but they will almost always buy whatever has the best ROI - @Riccochet points out a great example there. They will pay more for a better hashing card, but only if it has a better ROI

 

[Endgame]

True, but they will almost always buy whatever has the best ROI - @Riccochet points out a great example there. They will pay more for a better hashing card, but only if it has a better ROI

Right. So to get the maximum profit from miners, Nvidia basically has to make the gaming cards have extremely low hash rates to the point they cost more in power than what they can generate in coin. Then they can change whatever they want for their mining cards

 

[Brian_B]

Right. So to get the maximum profit from miners, Nvidia basically has to make the gaming cards have extremely low hash rates to the point they cost more in power than what they can generate in coin. Then they can change whatever they want for their mining cards

That’s what they tried with the LHR models — except it was able to be bypassed in some instances, in others even with the LHR the hash rates were still attractive price points, and the limiter only targeted specific mining algorithms.

So it was essentially lip service, not a real technical attempt, I have to admit.

Bottom line is nVidia doesn’t care who buys the cards.

 

[Denpepe]

So it was essentially lip service, not a real technical attempt, I have to admit.

Well silicon is designed years in advance, doubt you can make big changes once you are in full production, maybe for future series they can do something more substantial (if they care enough that is)

 

[Endgame]

.

Bottom line is nVidia doesn’t care who buys the cards.

I wouldn’t say that is accurate. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t have Quattro. I’m sure there is a team of accountants at NVIDIA projecting how much revenue is being left on the table selling miners gaming GPUs instead of higher margin mining cards.

 

[Zarathustra]

Bottom line is nVidia doesn’t care who buys the cards.

They only care if they think they can force miners to pay more for more expensive cards, if they stop them from buying gaming ones.

 

[Grimlakin]

Basically what they really need to do is make the Quatro line of cards so stiltedly good at mining so as to see a spike in those cards selling through while the consumer grade cards can be used for gaming and web cam and noise elimination.

 

[Stoly]

That’s what they tried with the LHR models — except it was able to be bypassed in some instances, in others even with the LHR the hash rates were still attractive price points, and the limiter only targeted specific mining algorithms.

So it was essentially lip service, not a real technical attempt, I have to admit.

Bottom line is nVidia doesn’t care who buys the cards.

No company cares who buys their stuff. Do you really think AMD/intel are any different?

 

[Riccochet]

Another thing which drove the HX cards in 2021 was availability. They were easier to get compared to gaming cards. Now that supplies of gaming cards is somewhat better the HX cards won't sell.