Monday, March 8th 2021
AMD is Preparing RDNA-Based Cryptomining GPU SKUs
Back in February, NVIDIA has announced its GPU SKUs dedicated to the cryptocurrency mining task, without any graphics outputs present on the chips. Today, we are getting information that AMD is rumored to introduce its own lineup of graphics cards dedicated to cryptocurrency mining. In the latest patch for AMD Direct Rendering Manager (DRM), a subsystem of the Linux kernel responsible for interfacing with GPUs, we see the appearance of the Navi 12. This GPU SKU was not used for anything except Apple's Mac devices in a form of Radeon Pro 5600M GPU. However, it seems like the Navi 12 could join forces with Navi 10 GPU SKU and become a part of special "blockchain" GPUs.
Way back in November, popular hardware leaker, KOMACHI, has noted that AMD is preparing three additional Radeon SKUs called Radeon RX 5700XTB, RX 5700B, and RX 5500XTB. The "B" added to the end of each name is denoting the blockchain revision, made specifically for crypto-mining. When it comes to specifications of the upcoming mining-specific AMD GPUs, we know that both use first-generation RDNA architecture and have 2560 Stream Processors (40 Compute Units). Memory configuration for these cards remains unknown, as AMD surely won't be putting HBM2 stacks for mining like it did with Navi 12 GPU. All that remains is to wait and see what AMD announces in the coming months.
Sources:
Freedesktop, via Phoronix, VideoCardz
Way back in November, popular hardware leaker, KOMACHI, has noted that AMD is preparing three additional Radeon SKUs called Radeon RX 5700XTB, RX 5700B, and RX 5500XTB. The "B" added to the end of each name is denoting the blockchain revision, made specifically for crypto-mining. When it comes to specifications of the upcoming mining-specific AMD GPUs, we know that both use first-generation RDNA architecture and have 2560 Stream Processors (40 Compute Units). Memory configuration for these cards remains unknown, as AMD surely won't be putting HBM2 stacks for mining like it did with Navi 12 GPU. All that remains is to wait and see what AMD announces in the coming months.
50 Comments on AMD is Preparing RDNA-Based Cryptomining GPU SKUs
really quite sad to see this. oh well, at least my rig is done being built. i do think it's a crappy business move though. the silicon foundries are already too busy and can't keep up with anything, why add another SKU at all...doubtful, this is your assumption... any evidence to back that up? also doesn't explain TSMC factory time which is allocated to the max for good chips, not enough time for even the good chips, so even if your argument is true, it doesn't bypass my argument. there are plenty of good chips ready to go, TSMC just is overloaded.
And, again, it's not a farfetched idea that the GPUs going on these mining cards are defective in some way that they wouldn't quite make the cut to go on a full gaming card. So really they're salvaging silicon that otherwise would have went to waste and giving it to miners. This actually helps increase availability for everyone.I believe this is what was being said last time we were seeing crypto mining cards. It's a common practice in the silicon industry to see chips not good enough for the intended product to go to some lessor product. Intel F/KF series is a perfect example. Bad iGPU, so they make a new SKU to sell the chip with the bad iGPU.
Not sure what you're saying with your argument about TSMC. Just because they're overloaded doesn't mean they are making 100% good chips. In all manufacturing, not every part is perfect. Why wouldn't you be trying to find ways to use the less than perfect parts, if you could?
Yes, TSMC are damned good at what they're doing, but even they have defect rates. It might only stand at 0.09 defects per square centimetre on the 7nm node, but that's enough for it to be flawed chips. Their 5nm node apparently improves upon this, but it doesn't mean it's flawless.
This is obviously why all companies have chip binning at a certain point.
It doesn't work as you seem to think it does, this is why both AMD, Nvidia, Intel etc. have multiple SKUs of the same chip, as this is a means of recovering chips with slight flaws in them.
The chip flaw could be anywhere really. So say you get a chip flaw in the display output bit, that could never become a GPU, but it would be fine as a mining chip. There might be another flaw that means the chip has half of its PCIe lanes disabled or the video encoder or just about anything else that's relevant to a GPU, but not a mining chip.
So it's very possible that both AMD and Nvidia has stacks of these chips that were going to be junked, that they're now screening to see if they can be used for these stupid mining cards.
It's literally a gold mine for these companies as they can recover parts that would otherwise have been useless to them and only incurred a cost.
I mean, they make a lot more on selling defect chips to miners, than making keychains out of them.
www.anandtech.com/show/16028/better-yield-on-5nm-than-7nm-tsmc-update-on-defect-rates-for-n5
fuse.wikichip.org/news/2567/tsmc-talks-7nm-5nm-yield-and-next-gen-5g-and-hpc-packaging/
Who'd of thought.
See, nobody cares.
Binning. Read a bit.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning#In_semiconductor_manufacturing
:sleep:
Again, let's not forget there are applications for cards that might not involve gaming or mining that these cards could be used for.
Willingness to support the underdog goes only so far. AMD GPU division is acting like they're top kids on the block regardless of owning only 16% of "street corners" and inferior stuff to sell. Sure they'll be able to sell their "shit" during product scarcity, but every street dealer will tell you're gonna get your ass beaten up the moment supply catches up with demand : )
I have yet to catch wind of anything recently coming through there from AMD's side for GPUs. Even if they did get in some 6800 or 6800XT cards, they're all going for around $900+.....no thank you, they can keep their overpriced GPUs and same with Nvidia.