Tuesday, June 6th 2017

NVIDIA, AMD to Launch Mining-Oriented Versions of Their GPUs

You must've heard the news of increasingly tighter supply on AMD's video cards. This is kind of a "hello darkness my old friend" kind of moment, since we've seen this happening before. However, these days, the problem looks to be exacerbated with the increase in digital currencies - it's not just Bitcoin now. Ethereum and Zcash have come in to fill customer's desire for a lower entry, ASIC-resistant mineable cryptocurrency. And with the currencies' exploding pricing, people are once again looking to enter the mining craze - to ride the crypto wave, so to speak. All higher-performance graphics cards since the R200 series are flying off the shelves and second hand markets, and as we speak, virtually all RX 580 models are out of stock on Newegg. And while AMD graphics cards have historically been leagues better than their NVIDIA counterparts in mining environments, recently some specialized miners have surfaced, tailored for the Pascal architecture (more oriented to Zcash, though.)
As a result, demand for AMD graphics cards is straining and suffocating supply, and it could be that NVIDIA will go the same route, should recent optimizations continue. It would seem that both companies understand the strain this puts on general customer who really just want to play a game with their graphics cards, but are finding pricing and availability an insurmountable challenge. Both companies are thus reportedly working on specialized editions of their graphics cards specially geared for cryptocurrency mining. These would apparently eschew any gaming capability, and likely display output connectors as well, which are unneeded for mining farms. NVIDIA is said to be prepping a special edition GeForce GTX 1060 with their GP106-100 GPU, and AMD is rumored to be working on some adaptation of their Polaris graphics cards as well. Sources point towards only 90 days warranty on these NVIDIA GTX 1060 cards, which will also be cheaper than gaming models, and be distributed by add-in board partners.
Sources: Videocardz, Newegg, Coinbase Market History
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57 Comments on NVIDIA, AMD to Launch Mining-Oriented Versions of Their GPUs

#51
cdawall
where the hell are my stars
EarthDogYou're a Cuda Miner.

That is all.

:D
I am, I have fallen in love with how well nvidia cards just work for this. No fighting the driver crashes, having to have a screen plugged in to overclock etc.



Oh and your face is a cuda miner
Posted on Reply
#52
medi01
At least in Germany, all Polaris cards are sold, all Pascal in stock and at pre-mining craze price points, so, for some reason, cuda miners don't chase nvidia cards that much.
cdawalldriver crashes
What year is it...
Posted on Reply
#53
cdawall
where the hell are my stars
medi01What year is it...
The same year it always is the year AMD's drivers don't work correctly.
Posted on Reply
#54
dalekdukesboy
cdawallThe same year it always is the year AMD's drivers don't work correctly.
:laugh:
Posted on Reply
#55
verycharbroiled
notbMost importantly, these cards ought to be built for heavy load 24/7. They should survive a bit longer than gaming variants and this "a bit" could easily cover the lower resale price.
Also even if they mine just 10% faster than gaming models (for the same price), it'll make an enormous difference in the long run.
a mining card should be beefed up compared to a gaming gpu as it will see 24/7 use at near max load.

upgraded vrms, memory cooling, larger cooling system with ball bearing fans, extra pcie jack. maybe a pcie 1x connector instead of 16x.

should be interesting how they build it and at a decent cost (ie cheaper that a gaming varient.
Posted on Reply
#56
cdawall
where the hell are my stars
verycharbroileda mining card should be beefed up compared to a gaming gpu as it will see 24/7 use at near max load.

upgraded vrms, memory cooling, larger cooling system with ball bearing fans, extra pcie jack. maybe a pcie 1x connector instead of 16x.

should be interesting how they build it and at a decent cost (ie cheaper that a gaming varient.
So far all of the rumored pictures show forced air cooling based heatsinks designed for server chassis on a pcie 16x slot.
Posted on Reply
#57
notb
cdawallSo far all of the rumored pictures show forced air cooling based heatsinks designed for server chassis on a pcie 16x slot.
It would be quite interesting to know how much production cost can be saved once you get rid of all video-oriented features. It's not just the cost of chips and interfaces - it's also licenses and patents needed. Moreover, you don't have to do much marketing (cards are being bought anyway), you don't have to stock them for long and so on.
It might turn out that making a really robust, enterprise-grade GPGPU costs just as much as a well featured gaming model.
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