AMD In The Race for Crypto GPU Market Share

With the current bull-run in the crypto market there has been a large increase in crypto mining activities. And as it stands AMD wants to get into the crypto mining market with a GPU specifically made for mining Ethereum.

AMD’s old, new GPU

The AMD Navi 10 & 12, originally only made for Apple Macbook Pro could become the company’s first mining-specific GPU. The card has no video outputs and doesn’t support VCN (Video Core Next) which is needed for gaming. AMD also plans to introduce new architecture and repurpose these cards to combat Nvidia’s similar market offering in an attempt to gain a share of the crypto mining market.

Nvidia Takes the Side of Gamers

Recently Nvidia announced that they will be adding limiters to their gaming specific GPUs like the RTX 3060 and new RTX 3080Ti. These irremovable limiters activate when specific parts of the Ethereum mining algorithm are detected, then reduces the hash rate by 50%, making it wildly inefficient to mine with them. This move is mainly aimed at Ethereum miners, which means miners could still use them for other coins without worrying about the limiters.

Last week we announced a new line of NVIDIA CMPs or cryptomining processors. Shipments will start in March.

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Nvidia on PC Gamer

Due to the demand for graphics cards globally (not just for mining) there is a shortage in supply, which in turn is pushing up prices. This is one of the reasons Nvidia and AMD have decided to sell dedicated mining GPUs.

Since the pandemic began there has been a surge of people playing games, with hours played on Steam increasing by 50%, this means there are a few new gamers out there who needed GPUs.

Bitcoin mining rig manufacturers have seen a massive surge in demand since the price of the leading crypto asset skyrocketed. Companies such as Canaan Creative have placed significantly sized mining rig orders while other companies like Bitmain are completely sold out.
Global Times

An important thing to remember is that with the coming Ethereum hard fork the network is beginning its migration over to PoS, and should be completed by 2022. This means that miners will need to move to Bitcoin or any other PoW powered coin in order to mine for profits.