graphic card
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AMD and Nvidia Dive Into the Graphics Card Mining Business

Graphics card manufacturers Nvidia and AMD are preparing to release models of their cards for cryptocurrency mining. They have began to eye the digital coin market, because customers have been buying up cards to the point of depleting their supply. 

Also read: Global Supply of Graphics Processing Units Depleted Due to Mining Craze

According to a Videcardz press article, both companies plan on releasing a version of theirAMD and NVIDIA Dive Into the Graphic Card Mining Business cards in order to satisfy people’s hunger for mining cryptocurrencies. The site said, “Nvidia is said to launch GeForce GTX 1060 with GP106-100 GPU, a custom edition for mining. This card would lack display connectors and most likely it would not support any gaming at all. According to our sources, these cards, unlike normal editions, would only have 90 days warranty.”

According to these circulating rumors; AMD is also planning to produce a Polaris model for mining, but there are currently no more details on the nature of this miner. Some good news is that the Nvidia graphic card miners will be cheaper than their gaming counterparts.

AMD Stock Price Climbs

As a result of all the people desiring these cards for use in mining, the stock price of AMD has climbed 7% on Tuesday. According to various news sources, this increase stock price occurred as the demand for their product has skyrocketed. The demand comes, of course, as a result of people buying cards for the purposes of mining.

An AMD spokesperson provided CNBC with a comment,

“The gaming market remains our priority. We are seeing solid demand for our Polaris-based offerings in the gaming and newly resurgent cryptocurrency mining markets based on the strong performance we are delivering

GPU’s not Suitable for Bitcoin Mining; That’s “Fake Fews”

It is good to remember, however, that these GPU miners are not being used to mine bitcoin, but rather to mine ethereum and other altcoins. During the early days of bitcoin mining these GPU’s were hot products and almost always sold out.AMD and NVIDIA Dive Into the Graphic Card Mining Business

According to Jamie Redman, writing for bitcoin.com; “Back in the early days throughout 2010 through 2013 graphics cards were a hot item when it came to bitcoin mining accessories. During that time many manufacturers and suppliers constantly ran out of stock for AMD series graphics cards, Nvidia, and other types of GPUs. Since then within the current bitcoin mining environment, most miners have pivoted to using application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)”

Also, a recent article came out from barrons.com suggesting that news sites have been releasing “fake news.” Allegedly, these sites are saying that the graphics cards have been being used to mine bitcoin. The article read, “Steves writes it’s ‘fake news’ that either Nvidia’s or cards from AMD are being used to mine Bitcoin.” The site continued, “Alluding to ‘reports’ to that effect, Steves writes today that ‘this is not the case as Bitcoins are mined using ASICs and without becoming too technical about the terms, mining Ethereum is ‘ASIC resistant’ making it unprofitable.'”. Even so, there have been some instances of ASICs or sorts directed toward Ethereum’s algorithm.

Regardless of the fake news, it is interesting to see these manufacturers starting to produce cards specifically for the purpose of mining altcoins. No telling where the future will go in terms of GPU mining setups.

What do you think of this graphic card use craze? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and rebeltech.co.za

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  • Khurram Javed

    About time companies take notice. Excellent

  • This is exactly what I need, Application Specific Hardware. No more tweaking gaming hardware, clocking and cooling mods and dummy video plugs. Finally, the right hardware for the right job. Hopefully, they will not disappoint us hardcore miners with poor performance and high prices.

    • EDDIMUNDO

      This is not application specific hardware. GPUs are general purpose chips. All they are doing is altering drivers and removing display ports so people don’t flash the mining cards for gaming

      • I disagree. And, we should wait. My call for AS in CPU/GPUs is obviously clarion. And, obviously the time is due. Whatever the VGA manufacturers do, I encourage Application Specific cards with miners and clock tools packaged and embedded where possible. Otherwise you are correct, it will be just another VGA and stripped of capability. If you are right, the effort will fail before it begins. I would be more optimistic and hope for Single Board PC-like and Application Specific for mining as the press releases come out, you should comment for. If they completely miss the boat then we just continue as is, I tweak and burn therefore it mines my application specifically.

        • EDDIMUNDO

          Dude stripping the display connectors doesn’t make it an ASIC. The chip is still the exact some one in Geforce GPUs

          • I am sure more than that will and should happen. So, instead of arguing with an SOC designer maybe you should tell me how an ASIC is made. I guarantee it is just such modifications that lead to a solution. Why are you so against it?

          • EDDIMUNDO

            Ah you’re a funny one of course your an SOC designer lol. Guess that’s why you can’t distinguish an ASIC from a GPU. If a GPU was an ASIC it wouldn’t be able to encode video, render 3d models and performing the training of neural nets all in one. Since this taks require different instruction set extensions and functional unit. Hence the GPU is a General purpose programmable chip. Before pretending to be something you aren’t try doing. some background research first lmao. Oh btw if ASICs are general purpose, care to explain why Google’s TPU a textbook example of an ASIC can’t run non tensorflow applications lmao.

          • ASICs do encode and decode video and have been central to routers and switches for decades, maybe you should spend more time studying…instead of coding in sandboxes built for your amusement. I can tell you dabble in coding…extend your library…there is more to the world than the sandbox you know. Google makes items for your consumption and to guide consumerism. Their back-end processing network is full of purchased products from devs like me and many many others. Study how Qualcomm became the giant in comms, ASICs. Study how AMD, became an alternative to Intel or how Motorola became the challenger to Intel. Its all about extending in the footprint of designing better hardware and creating new concepts in ASICs and FPGAs. So, open your mind, solve problems, stop arguing while stuck in the sand…box. I can’t explain your failure to extend yourself nor can I explain what google is doing or releases. I started with excitement for Video Card manufactures to finally use the development they have in CPU/GPU, Single Board PC, and SOC and I will stay right there working on my own farm to employ new ideas. Your misunderstanding of what an ASIC is and what FPGAs are is a wonder of what you think a CPU is. Never-mind, the issues you have with understanding the process of Hardware Design. You have been arguing within the steps of the process to a specific duty for an ASIC and its eventual offering to the periphery of connections and computational work. It seems if you do not have a driver and an interface for your sandbox, it must not be possible. Now, I urge you to believe in the impossible. Why, because there is nothing impossible once your set your mind on a solution. Find an engineer that can endure you and you will find more possibility to work with. Again, at least Google is trying and I guess without your approval.

          • ASIC is just what the acronym represents. Application Specific Integrated Circuit and that is all it is. An FPGA is all it is and a GPU is soooo general it cannot be specifically defined but it is when applied specifically to an operation that is repetitive specifically operating. As, well does FPGA when logically programmed to use a field of gate arrays for a function or operation. A Central Processing Unit is so specific that it required its own supporting hardware to communicate, manage, and prioritize computation efforts. As it does that, it requires, ASICs, FPGAs, Memory Arrays(which are specifically running timing operations in a way to store values), communication buses(which nowadays require ASICs and FPGAs because of the higher clocking rates). You are surrounded by the thing you deride, ASIC. Give me your PC and allow me to turn off all your hard arrays and you will have a space heater.

          • EDDIMUNDO

            An FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) is entirely different from CPU, GPU, DSP, etc. in the sense that it is not a processor in itself i.e. it does not run a program stored in the program memory. In layman’s terms, an FPGA is nothing but a bulk of reconfigurable digital logic suspended in a sea of programmable inter-connects. A typical FPGA may also have dedicated memory blocks, digital clock manager, IO banks and several other features which vary across different vendors and models. Since they can be configured after manufacturing at costumer’s end, they can be used to implement any logic function (including but not limited to a processor core). This makes them ideal for re-configurable computing and application specific processing. Intel has recently announced a new range of Xeon Processors with integrated FPGA so that each chip can be configured at run type depending upon application needs.

          • You are correct. This is good. Have to throw in Dedicated Protocol CAM-ing for Crypto and timed pattern matching. FPGAs can be a developers playland before dedicating a map for an ASIC or SOC. Not all FPGAs are built the same. The articles original intent was to report on manufacturers focusing on developing a miner specific card and I still hope they use every tool and try to think outside of their current roadmap. NVIDIA has as they have ventured into CPU framework and in some cases, not so popular, into Single board pc, tablets, and phones. AMD, of course has been there for quite a long time. I think I still PING them in some of my configs.

          • TheBendixSA .

            Patrick Little you MONG, we don’t want more ASIC, we WANT GPU’s on the emerging crypto’s there are currently over 20 different algo’s on nicehash alone, why THE FUCK would i want an ASIC and lock myself into a SINGLE algo, when a GPU can handle 8, 9 or more different algo’s? so if your touting for another ASIC solution whats the point? for what algorithm will you aim it? SHA256? that’s what current ASIC’s do? or you gonna lock into scrypt? we WANT diversity right now, not 1 or 2 algo’s but as many as we can get, hell i would sell my 1080’s tomorrow for cards that can handle EVEN more different algos even if they are slightly slower, because in future you want to be able to jump to other algo’s to stay in the black, you guys are arguing around a hole and missing the whole fucking point.

          • Wow, heated on assumption. Where have I said they should ASIC to one algo. I think you have been treated poorly by Chinese simpletons who cant see past their chopsticks. I do think you miss the technical point by being a consumer of locked in ASICs, too simple and to expensive. I am very happy for all this debate. I hope you as well find more vision past what you have been served to date.

          • TheBendixSA .

            Are you serious? you want AS or NOT? AS by definition is a IC that is locked to one MAYBE two aglo’s(in our case of mining, so its great for like scypt or sha256) otherwise it’s not really AS now is it? you might know more about SOC, but you are NOT about to school me on algo’s and you are NOT going to run 8-9 algo’s on a IC that has been made AS, thus ASIC. your OWN quote: “This is exactly what I need, Application Specific Hardware.” To me that sounds like you want an IC that has been made AS to handle VERY specialized tasks, and by definition cannot deal with tens of different algo’s. for you to have a device that can handle the big 9 algo’s it HAS to be a GPU, simple as that, those algo’s VARY WILDY as in night and day in the way they work, you simply cannot optimize for one without losing performance in half of the rest of them, which kills your mining versatility. ASIC is dead, the home players want to mine lbry for breakfast, switch to equihash for lunch and check out profits on dagger or X11 later that same day, it’s the only reason they are making a resurgence, algo jumping righ now is where it is at, and GPU’s rule that roost, a single 1080ti RAPES a antminer s7 profit wise right now on nicehash, not just becuase of speed, but because it can play the game on a different level. gtfo with ASIC.

    • EDDIMUNDO

      GPUs are not ASICs they are General Purpose programmable processors. That’s why stream processors/CUDA cores can be reprogrammed to perform various roles. An example of an ASIC is Google’s TPU

      • I get it, you must be afraid your GPU is going to be replaced. It won’t and it will always require additional CPUs and probably a few ASICs, FPGAs and memory Arrays to complete its tasks.

        • EDDIMUNDO

          Lol okay. Please look up GPGPU. Also if GPUs are ASICs why would Nvidia and AMD promote them as an alternative to ASICs?

          • Never said GPUs are ASICs, never took my cards apart and scoped them to find out. I would assume smartly that AMD and NVIDIA have built significant APIs for graphics control and custom cell type boot ROMs with room to dedicate BIOS within a range of configurable API Calls, so Software developers can rely on a video card series to support their game or application for a longer period of time. Also, would allow AMD and NVIDIA to support newer hardware or wider hardware BoMs in case they lose hold of primary and secondary parts supplies. Longevity and Market hold is a huge affect on Dev cycle and choices. If I helped make an API to support video game software developers I would definitely make it more flexible for the wider community of game players and their peripherals to integrate more with a wider community, hence more Sales. And if it became more Specific, I would and can see a huge advantage to lock in that crowd and guide them to my “GPU”. As we all know, this has been successful. I think they could do the same with mining cards.

        • EDDIMUNDO

          ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) is a chip that is custom designed for a specific application. It is normally designed by a company for a specific use or for a specific customer alone. It is customized for an application and hence can be designed to meet the power and performance of that specific application.

          • You are getting close. The article was revealing a specific customer, we the miners. I have been in R&D for two companies that built ASICs and SOCs for the wider market as well as for honed end consumer off the shelf devices. One was a high performance Asynchronous Network Protocol Multiplexer for on the fly QoS and the other a powerline wireless network device. I do not know if NVIDIA will change its outlook on their use of GPU designs, but they could. I can see for your concern you would like them to keep the multipurpose characteristics making the hardware flexible for other uses. They do this now with drivers and bios. I have yet to see their full API released, I see hints of it in their tools for use as a graphics card.

  • Ricky Bickerton

    Just don’t buy the first batch they rush to production, they probably using 1060 as nobody is buying them compared to the 1070 and 1080, let them get first batch out the way and buy up the 2nd card they release as as per usual it will have any issues fixed. But definitely good I can see MSI getting straight on this heavily.

    • Agreed. But, EVGA GTX 1060 SC pulls 290-300h/s EWBF zcash miner @ 180-200USD and 110W@ 52C. Not a bad baseline to keep under a dollar a hash and cool. Its going to be exciting to watch which supplier produces the best implementation.

  • The problem is that market forces will *always* compensate. So the more mining is done, the less profitable it will be, no matter what the cryptocurrency price (though of course it’s hard to argue with the prices now, and I am bullish on them). Still, it’s hard to imagine any end-user population making real money for long, else corporations will come in, as they have with Bitcoin, and set up huge farms that deplete end-users from the capacity to make money. It may last a little while though, so jump in as fast as you can — contrary to the advice I see below, which is to wait for the ‘second batch’, which is reasonable from a QA stand-point, but not a profit one.

    I strongly suspect there will be far more people who *hope* to profit, but never do, and *that* will be the market these companies are after.

    • Miners will know if the offering profits. If they do offer such a card I will test it mercilessly to find its weakness and longevity. Hashmarks will be posted and challenged. I do hope to profit and currently everyday my hope is rewarded. Capacity is Power Surplus. Without sufficient Amperage and low price in electricity, I concur that you do not have a chance. And very slight chance to profit with a 1-3 card rig setup. If you look for ROI within a year, you must be mining nonstop in a pool that you share above 0.03% for bitcoin and 0.3 percent in ZEC or ETH. And, those numbers are changing every week. A single card is not a rig I would envision. The manufacturers should focus 6-7 cards as a rig. I am sure they would. It would be exciting if the cross fire PCM ports were employed which could give current mining software a challenge in an area that only the hardware designers would have leverage and may promise higher hash rate as the video ports and array are freed or eliminated as they currently do with Single Board PC offerings. The PCM bus is used for interfacing peripherals. It would be very possible to be motherboard-less and mounted to a passive PCI backplane with PCM interconnects handling IRQ and DMI and one master CPU/GPU for comms and CLI for all cards employed. Essentially, what I do with my farm now. But, I have to employ extensive Gaming motherboards for PCI bandwidth to support 7 cards at 1X PCI speed and install a cheapo Celeron and minimum DDR memory, all really only employed to host VGAs and Debian and comms. About, $300-500 in each rig dedicated to minimal work that could be picked up by the VGA easily if integrated with the proper focus. We need to help them not belittle the manufacturers, they have had the ability. And now with ASIC resistive crypto, the current shortages in high end VGA cards, the soaring price evaluation, they now have an imperative. You the smart consumer has spoken, keep talking. Anything is possible, there really is no limit in Computational Design. Give the coders and miners better hardware, protocols and networks and the crypto-transaction time and volume will grow.

      • You are right.. it all comes down to the cost of electricity.

      • How are you able to overcome the power cost issue? Lucky low-cost power or else?

        • The only solution to cost of electricity that I a have found is low cost areas outside of were I am in Los Angeles and gaining a 2 for 1 advantage with step up transformers; taking 480V to more windings and tapping output to 240V. That way you can support more load and take advantage of the efficiency and siemens of the transformer to use more current than is reflected to the supply meter. Cooling and Heat exhaust is a major battle when you get enough of the miners together in one spot. An A/C unit costs the same to run as one of my miners. And two exhaust fans, always running, costs one miner’s worth of power. If ASICs are used and compared to the only example we have in Bitcoin, the mining becomes more efficient. You are right that it is a huge looming issue compared to what we know now about power consumption with Equi- and E-hashers in CPU/GPU format. They are more costly in everything, more heat, more footprint, high power consumption. But for right now more payback. Going ASIC or Soc or whatever the techies want to call it, smaller footprint, would be beneficial only if it addresses power consumption and footprint. I would hope manufacturers see these mining issues as characteristics of design. If they do not mine, they will not and fail in sales as the new units are tried and tested.

          • David Neff

            Patrick, Are you inthe U.S.? I have a few questions you might be able to help me out with. djneff01@verizon.net Thanks

  • Kory Graham

    They can’t make it so much faster that i would feel safer with a 90 day warranty then my 1095 i get when i buy the 3 year from evg, just saying.

  • Arturas Dovidaitis

    Failture!!! And 101 times failture! :). In my experience people invest in GPU mining because they know – if something go wrong then these cards can be sold to gamers, graphic editors and etc. This step looks like ASIC. If something goes wrong with the cryptos – your cards will be worth not more then the pile of metal trash 🙂

    • TheBendixSA .

      you have a brain.

  • Brice Fleckenstein

    Basing a “mining card” on the 1060 is a waste of time, Miners have pretty close to ZERO interest in this low-end of a card. Such a card will have ZERO effect on the GPU shortage.
    1070 pulls over 400 sol/s on ZEC even with low power usage settings, but a lot of miners that use NVidia at all are looking at the 1080 or even the 1080ti for their rigs based on return vs cost FOR THE ENTIRE SYSTEM.

    The majority of miners build rigs of 6 cards using risers, not single card rigs – the minumum for a “serious” mining rig is 3 cards, and that’s a minority of us that don’t like the issues with riser rigs.

    The large majority of cryptocoins do not have ASIC available – however, the majority of cryptocoin VALUE at this point is mined using ASIC (Bitcoin and SHA256-based coins like Namecoin, Litecoin Doge and other Scrypt-based coins, DASH and the other X11 coins).

    If AMD is stupid enough to base a “mining card” on the 460 or 560, they’ll have the same issue – ZERO interest from the miners and ZERO effect on the GPU shortage.

  • I wonder where you all have been for the past ten years, obviously just recipients of very bad hardware design. Its all about the hash to dollar you spend and ROI. You all are feeding the frenzy by paying way too much for the cards. I think 85 cents a hash is all you should spend, but I routinely see morons spending over two dollars a hash for new and even used overheated dust bunny collectors. If you want to keep the ASICs out or whatever you think of a virtual mapping “GPU” that mirrors the same exact core over and over again until it runs out of memory, then stop paying more than what you need to and wait for something better. A better miner is what you want; one that supports more than one software miner application, one that supports more than one algorithm map, one that supports more than one algorithm at the same time, one that stays cool, one that uses less than 90 Watts, and one that just plain hashes it’s fans off at 700-1200h/s consistently. I forgot to mention the card has to be inexpensive and plentiful. I assume you all want it to clean your room, too. Your expectations will have to endure the learning curve of the Marketer and Salesman, because the Development Department doesn’t run the show. Profit rules the day and you all have made those tigers pretty damn hungry with your insatiable purchasing habits, high expectations, and gullible-ness to their shim sham terminology and wizz bang heat pipe creations. Just focus on the essentials and if you don’t like what they offer, just don’t buy it. But, I know you will.

    • Gustavo Lourenço

      And where shall one find such a miner? I’m just making a BP to mine Cryptos in my country, our energy cost is U$0.06 kwh. But, its been difficult a miner, first i was thinking about ASIC, mainly the S9, but after some research i found that a lot of people is choosing GPUS. If you could assist me in anything ill apreciate the advice!

      • Sure. Of course, for bitcoin it is ASIC and the infamous S9 and the best place to get one for the right price is direct from their webpage which if I mention it here will be flagged a SPAM. I have tried several times to mention the infamous company in many different commentaries here and I am always flagged as SPAM. Unusual for this NEWS Medium as they are into mining and employ the same miner. The power supply is key, you want to supply two at a time on 240VAC. The infamous Blade 2880 power supply is crucial to keep the watts low. For Altcoins ETH and ZEC there is only one solution and that is Video Gaming Cards that have over 1100 cores and clock rates above 1.2Ghz I prefer GTX (numbers ommited as they were flagged as SPAM, Disqus doesn’t allow discussion) in TI, SC, SSC, and FTW as they run cooler and can be found at less than a dollar hash brand new direct from manufacturers. Motherboards I prefer are (numbers ommited as they were flagged as SPAM, Disqus doesn’t allow discussion) chipsets as you will find 7 card support. You require at a minimum, depending upon power requirements per card, a power supply to give you 1000W and above in 7 card format. Also, to support your mining effort as a beginner always look up the (name ommited as is was flagged as SPAM, Disqus doesn’t allow discussion) OS. That OS is probably the only one that will give support for all types of Video Cards and many miner applications. While you are looking for motherboards make sure you get M.2 SSD support. Also, headless emulation FIT and putty remote terminal will be your friends. Well, let’s see if my advice gets through the SPAM detectors. Good Luck! And, welcome to mining!

  • Peter Parker

    It makes me real angry that people are using gaming cards to mine cryptocurrency, as I am building a pc that needs a good graphics card, as I do animation. It sucks that these prices have gone from as little as $210, all the way to $500!? This won’t do as I am on a budget and won’t be able to afford it until after school starts, so I may have to wait until I can do what I need to do, delaying my work. I hope they release one specifically for mining so that I can actually afford a good pc.