Slashdot Mirror
NVIDIA To Launch Graphics Cards Specifically Designed For Digital Currency Mining (cnbc.com)
Digital currency mining is in high demand, causing GPU prices to skyrocket. Nvidia is planning to capitalize on this trend by releasing graphics cards specifically designed for cryptocurrency. From a product listing on ASUS' website: "ASUS Mining P106 is designed for coin mining with high-efficiency components --
delivering maximum hash-rate production at minimum cost. ASUS Mining P106 enhances the megahash rate by up to 36% compared cards in the same segment that are not tailored for mining. The new card is also engineered to be seriously durable, enabling 24/7 operation for uninterrupted coin production." The ASUS Mining P106 uses an Nvidia chip, according to the specifications page on the website. CNBC reports: Nvidia, AMD and ASUS have not officially announced the digital currency mining cards, according to their website press pages. It is not certain when the cards will be available for sale. Nvidia is likely making the cards designed for this use so that the surging digital currency demand doesn't affect its ability to serve the lucrative PC gaming market.
Selling shovels to gold miners is a much better and more profitable business than gold mining.
Cryptocurrencies are moving towards being mineless. Most of the newer cryptocurrencies can't be mined and bitcoin and ethereum and moving towards an upgrade that will remove mining to a much more efficient system (that uses less than 1/1000th of the energy mining does). They are moving to a "Proof-of-stake" system from a "Proof-of-work" system.
It is the nature of cryptocurrency mining that the more people mine, the less each one gets in actual value. Making the hardware cheaper will let more people in, but will also reduce the payoff.
I understand why nVidia would want to "protect" its graphics cards from being snapped up for off-label uses, and I imagine AMD would like to do the same, and this should work -- for them. But for the miners (especially the ones who already bought hardware), it's going to dilute the value of mining significantly.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
This is pure marketing on the part of ASUS, all they did was cut out all the display ports and call it "Mining oriented!" It doesn't really do anything beyond a normal GTX 1060. It should be noted that AIBs have almost no control over GPUs, they are there to slap branding on it and take over warranty duties. They're a bit like car dealerships, in that they're middle men and I'm not sure why they exist anymore. Which isn't to say AMD and Nvidia won't be putting out newer GPU types that'd get more out of AI/Sim/Mining etc. eventually. Just that they haven't yet, and so any claim that an AIB has is bullshit.
In 1929 when Joe Kennedy (JFK's dad) was getting his shoes polished, the shoe shine boy told him a tip about some hot stocks to buy. That's when he realized it was time to GTFO of the market, and so he remained a rich man and later was able to finance his son's career in politics.
If all the graphics card used by the miners were put to use for folding@home or SETI, we would have cured cancer, Parkinsons, and Alzheimers by now.. .... AND we would have found aliens.
But oh no.... gotta waste the world's resources on make believe instead for personal greed.
Humanity sucks.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
that the political family connections he had tipped him off so he could get out of the market before it crashed. But hey, the shoe shine story sounds much happier and lets go on us pretend we're not an oligarchy where privilege and nepotism are weighted more than good sense. I suppose if I was going to pass a story down I'd pick it instead of "nepotism".
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Are they really graphics cards if you can't do graphics on it?