NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards dedicated to cryptocurrency mining announced on the ASUS website
As we reported earlier this month, AMD and NVIDIA are considering launching graphics cards specifically designed for cryptocurrency mining. This thesis has just been confirmed, and the two manufacturers have apparently decided to launch them in partnership with other companies in the industry. Two new products dedicated to cryptocurrency mining have recently appeared on the ASUS website, another leading graphics card manufacturer. The products named ASUS Mining P106 and ASUS Mining RX 470 are respectively based on NVIDIA P106-100 and AMD Radeon RX 470.
AMD, NVIDIA and ASUS have not yet officially announced their optimized graphics cards for cryptocurrency mining. But the CNBC daily said it had confirmed the existence of the product ASUS Mining P106 by a source with knowledge of the case. There is, however, no clarification on the availability of these graphics cards for cryptocurrency miners.
Sources: CNBC, ASUS Mining P106, ASUS Mining RX 470
07/06/2017: AMD and NVIDIA may soon launch optimized graphics cards for Bitcoin mining
The value of bitcoin has been growing since the beginning of this year. Bitcoin has indeed started the new year by breaking the $ 1,000 mark, reaching its highest level in three years. Last May, bitcoin rose to more than US $ 2,000, a record that has not been reached since the launch of cryptocurrency in 2009. However, it is not about to stop, as it is now approaching US $ 3,000, with a value of about US $ 2900 posted on the bitcoin.fr site on June 6th. Apart from bitcoin, there are also cryptocurrencies like ether that are also gaining popularity.
With the rise in values of these cryptocurrencies, AMD and NVIDIA are preparing graphics cards specifically designed for cryptocurrency mining, according to DigiTimes, a site specializing in semiconductors and electronics. For information, mining is an essential activity for many cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. It consists of users using the computing power of their machines to check, record and secure transactions in the blockchain. In return, minors are remunerated, for each newly validated block, by newly created bitcoins and the transaction fees processed.
According to DigiTimes, AMD and NVIDIA may soon launch their graphics cards dedicated to cryptocurrency mining in late June. It would be GPU with reduced specifications and reduced prices. They would come in response to a strong demand from Bitcoin miners with the sharp rise in the value of electronic money. This demand is also likely to strengthen graphics card sales in a second quarter, which is generally a rather shy season.
In 2013, the market also benefited from a wave of strong demand for graphics cards due to the Bitcoin mining. However, the trend cooled sharply when the value of bitcoin fell sharply at the beginning of 2014; the use of GPU becoming less economical for many. With this strong and prolonged rise in the value of bitcoin, it seems that mining with GPU will be more and more economically viable and interesting, especially since the graphics card processors are powerful enough to perform calculations quickly.
According to DigiTimes, AMD plans to modify its entry-level graphics cards from the 400 series and NVIDIA also plans to launch the GeForce GTX 1060-100 GPU for mining. However, both GPUs will not have ports for outputting images. They will be reduced to the essentials and optimized for cryptocurrency mining, to guarantee lower prices than equivalent products. They will only benefit from a 90-day guarantee, since the graphics cards of the miners operate intensively 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. They therefore have a shorter life span than graphics cards with normal uses.
Outside of GPU providers, motherboard vendors also want to get involved in dance. At the latest Computex (computer and high-tech trade show held in Taiwan), ASRock presented a new motherboard dedicated to cryptocurrency mining. Its H110 Pro BTC + motherboard with 13 PCI Express slots and the Intel H110 chipset should allow users to install standard graphics cards. The ASRock graphics card provider has even demonstrated its H110 Pro BTC + motherboard dedicated to minor users and has shown how to undermine cryptocurrencies and win bitcoins effectively. ASRock has not specified the price of the card yet or the date of its availability.