Every Radeon RX 580 was sold out since the day it launched, despite the fact that this is only a slightly improved 2015 design of the Radeon RX 480. The fact that it is mining well boosted its sales. A quick search on the e-tail platforms will reveal that GPUs are selling for more than twice the suggested e-tail price since the demand is enormous.

System integrators and especially the do-it-yourself market are suffering hard, but, then again, Nvidia and AMD are making money. Both companies really said that the distribution should prioritize gamers, but it is hard to tell a gamer and a miner apart. The only obvious difference is that the miner usually wants more than a single card, but a miner could have a few friends who could help buying cards if one per customer is the rule.

Anyway, sales are exceptional, but it goes to the wrong people. Nvidia and AMD are making the tools and it is up to customers to use them. Selling only to miners can be as absurd as a weapons manufacturer trying to sell its products to people who will do good things with it.

Both Q4 and Q1 2018 were and will be great quarters for Nvidia and AMD GPU sales. There is no doubt about it. Nvidia has a new architecture planned for the second part of 2018 while AMD will present its 7nm AI Vega in the by the end of the year.

With bitcoin dipping, some people might be scared and realise that the cryptocurrency market is as volatile as a non-cooled nuclear core. Retailers, e-tailers, distributors and  manufacturers will enjoy it until it lasts, at least until the first wave of thousands of dead mining cards don’t start coming back.

In the last few days, the cryptomarket has started to go massively down, something that will definitely scare away some customers from GPUs. This is unlikely to massively affect this quarter but it will definitely reflect on second quarter and the rest of the year.