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Graphics AMD Bitcoin Power The Almighty Buck Technology

NVIDIA To Launch Graphics Cards Specifically Designed For Digital Currency Mining (cnbc.com) 105

Posted by BeauHD from the sole-purpose dept.
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.
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NVIDIA To Launch Graphics Cards Specifically Designed For Digital Currency Mining More

NVIDIA To Launch Graphics Cards Specifically Designed For Digital Currency Mining

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  • If you care that much buy a dedicated asic to do it.

  • NVidia is too slow - All mining will end soon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Karganeth ( 1017580 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @05:10PM (#54701327)
    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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by AnonGCB ( 1398517 )

      You have no idea what you're talking about.

      Proof Of Stake is garbage and bitcoin will not be moving to it

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Lol, some people are so desperate to seem like they are knowledgeable, they spew stupid everywhere.

        There is no such think as proof of stake, its just a very terrible PoW and thus will never be used in any significant manner.

        And Eth is an expensive joke.

    • 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.

      Ah, proof-of-stake, the new fancy cryptocurrency tech introduced with Peercoin [wikipedia.org] in 2012.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      you have no idea what you are talking about if you think that bitcoin has even a percentage of a percentage of a chance of moving to proof of stake. everyone who knows anything knows that proof of stake is worthless. the only reason vitalik is championing it is because he loves silver bullet solutions to perpetual motion problems. we will "solve the mining problem" with proof of stake. we will "solve the scaling problem" with sharding. this is coming from the guy who before ethereum he was executing a scam

    • Can't cryptocurrencies be mined in the cloud, so that one can mine them, then move them to whatever expense accounts one needs?

      • Yes, but the cost of a VM in AWS or Azure with a high-powered GPU is significantly more than the return you would get from the cryptocurrencies it produced.

    • As I understand it proof of stake always fails because nothing prevents double spending by devious miners/minters.

      The real problem is that the work done by bitcoin is useless work. What one needs is to convert it to useful work. And not just useful work in the public interest, like say SETI at home, but useful work that have actual value, and hopefully value close to the energy input.

      I've listened to the Etherium tech talks and while it seems like a bunch of smoke and mirrors as described by it's enthusia

  • Not going to help for long... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mal-2 ( 675116 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @05:13PM (#54701339) Homepage Journal

    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.

  • Pure marketing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by locater16 ( 2326718 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @05:16PM (#54701365)
    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.

    • Re:Pure marketing (Score:5, Informative)

      by Woldscum ( 1267136 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @05:43PM (#54701491)

      Not true. They are using chips that would have been shit canned because of bad display controllers. It is a Win Win If the prices are low enough. The clocks are slower because they are compute only now. Sapphire is making a 470 also.

      https://www.pcper.com/news/Gra... [pcper.com]

      • Huh? Ok, salvage identical, makes sense with the display controllers. Still no better for miners unless they can pick it up cheaper, but makes sense from the AIB point of view.

    • 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.

      Other computationally intense tasks could use cards of this nature as well, image processing, computer vision, etc. Pretty much anything that lends itself to parallel processing. Think of the specialized parallel processing machines based upon GPUs, this is just a consumer oriented version.

      Maybe PR statements about cryptocurrency are pure marketing but the underlying hardware is not. It has uses beyond the crypto mining "fads" that come and go with 10x spikes in cryptocurrency pricing that temporarily ma

      • Other computationally intense tasks could use cards of this nature as well, image processing, computer vision, etc. Pretty much anything that lends itself to parallel processing. Think of the specialized parallel processing machines based upon GPUs, this is just a consumer oriented version.

        Exactly. GPGPU was conveived years before Bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies in general are a neat application of preexisting tech such as public key cryptography, p2p networking and GPGPU. It's just that most people attracted to cryptocurrencies are unaware of this wider computing background. For instance, the forums are full of Linux newbies struggling to ./configure; make, as bleeding-edge software is generally distributed in source form. Of course it's great to see new people learn Linux, but it would be even ni

  • Joe Kennedy moment (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @05:20PM (#54701387) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • +1, Insightful

      Also, you should really really invest in Boolberry [boolberry.org].

    • I think it's much more likely (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @06:59PM (#54701789)
      that the political family connections [wikipedia.org] 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".

      • that the political family connections [wikipedia.org] 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".

        They story gets even better. Joe Kennedy gets rich on insider trading, then becomes the first SEC chairman and proceeds to outlaw the very trick that allowed him to become rich.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by snickers ( 36112 )

          That's why he was appointed by Roosevelt. Joe Kennedy knew all the tricks about insider trading and hence how to regulate the stock exchange.

          • I want to base my entire political and social system on it's the occasional pang of conscience from a member of the ruling elite.

            • I want to base my entire political and social system on it's the occasional pang of conscience from a member of the ruling elite.

              Did you first check whether it's a historical truth that much of human enlightenment has depended upon this exact thing? Because if you didn't, you might be throwing the only successful system we've ever had out the window with the bath water.

              Show me the political system that hasn't depended upon this, and presently works better than the current environment of anti-bipartisan Amer

              • not in the real world. What's really needed is a scientific approach to society. Which is to say: Recognize that no system will ever be prefect and will require constant adjustment. Accept that you can be wrong and that there is no bedrock to stand on. You're standing on a bedrock of Libertarianism. It'll crumble and when it does you won't move. What's worse, you'll grab everyone around you and try to force them to stand on that crumbling infrastructure with you.

                Until we are each and every one a God unt

  • Non-graphics uses for GPUs have been around since 2004 or so. I recall Nvidia releasing headless GPUs for these purposes years ago. I also believe the numerous scientists and engineers using GPGPU don't have much idle time to spare, as supercomputer time is expensive.

    So I'd really like to know what makes these GPUs mining-only. In my understanding, it's either an ASIC for a specific algorithm, or a general-purpose GPU which could be used for science/tech and mining alike.

    • It's a GPGPU without the stability and mathematical rigidity of a Tesla or similar systems. You could still use it as a regular GPGPU for non-mining although there is little use for those on desktops.

      So yes, it is the same thing as a GeForce but it has all the things for DP and HDMI removed (so you're saving a couple of bucks on licensing, parts, solder and testing) and probably overclocked a little bit too.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @05:29PM (#54701421)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • the greed is probably as old as humanity.

    • But oh no... gotta waste the world's resources on make believe instead for personal greed.

      Rules of Acquisition #10: Greed is eternal.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      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.

      Let's for the sake of argument say that all the 21 million Bitcoins was mined at no profit at $3000/BTC in electricity for $63 billion, a ridiculous exaggeration but whatever. It's still only about 1/10th of the US military budget for one year. If you want to count money wasted on make believe I'd start with religion, including the money spent because other nutcases are religious like the IS. More greed, less god has made the world a more peaceful place because money is color blind. It takes humans to hate.

    • Could make a better case against high frequency trading. Plus, mining is mostly neutral, just a waste of electricity. HFT on the other hand destabilizes the entire economy and sucks money out from between beneficial investors and companies.

      Also, my opinion is that folding@home can find some new drugs like was done with imatinib [wikipedia.org]. To "cure cancer" though would require a new technology, it's not going to be beaten across the baord with rational drug design like you get from solving protein structures. Would
    • as are the ransom payments, which is why both currencies exist as more than a curiosity. Wanna stop both? Legalize drugs, implement Nordic style drug rehab everywhere and take care of your poor (especially the well educated ones that can't get jobs) so they stop looking to shady ways to make a living.
    • Look at gridcoin

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Don' tell me to do with MY computer. Do it yourself then.

    • Might as well have said, "Let them eat cake!" If all of the humans were to volunteer for worthy causes instead of wasting the world's resources on gainful employment, all of those good causes would be solved!

      GPU miners aren't getting rich from any of this. They're trying to make some living money in a world fucked up by the astronomical greed of a tiny fraction of humanity.

  • To the business of mining the issue is how long does it take to make a return on my investment? You want to make money, you need to have a hardware setup that makes it pay to mine... Pay the hardware costs and the power bill.

    BitCon (and other mined currencies) already have scads of mining hardware setups that can produce hashes for less power and cost than I could ever imagine a GPU would be capable of. I've already seen the price dropping on USB hashing ASICS on E-bay so much that new ones are no longer b

  • Not NVIDIA.... (Score:3)

    by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @06:18PM (#54701643)

    NVIDIA isn't launching shit, ASUS is making mining cards from both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

  • Are they really GRAPHICS cards then, or really "DIGITAL CURRENCY MINING" cards?

  • One of the reasons GPU mining is preferable over ASIC (and up to a point FPGA) mining is that the leftover GPU can be resold at a used marketplace, keeping some of its value. This is more of a "hedge" against a probable market crash.

    On the other hand dedicated cards have almost no resale value (maybe 10% compared to 50% of a one year old GPU), taking away a huge value from the initial investment.

    Of course there will be some buyers, but I personally will stay away from them, unless they come with a 40% disco

  • So, if one of these cards costs $500, and it can generate $500 in Bitcoin in 6 months, why are they selling it instead of using it? They should stop retail sales immediately and focus on making Bitcoin!

    OTOH, if the card can't pay for itself, why would anyone invest in it? This is a conundrum.

    It sounds very much like the TV huckster who wants to show us how to make millions in real estate. If he knows this secret, why is he wasting time with us?

    • Actually, having a mundane job teaching people something means that the real estate or stock market are not your primary income (even though it may be 2x what you get from teaching). Depending on your tax laws, that can mean that all your real estate income is considered 'capital gains', and taxed as such. If you stop teaching, then it's capital gains and income, which can mean you end up paying more tax. In some jurisdictions having 100% of your income from capital sources can be enough to suspect criminal

      • In some jurisdictions having 100% of your income from capital sources can be enough to suspect criminal behaviour (because the state just can't understand how someone doesn't have a 9-5 job that pays a regular salary).

        The state doesn't understand retirement or trust funds? Can you name one of these alleged jurisdictions?

    • Two reasons:

      1. A $500 card can only generate $500 in bitcoins in 6 months when it also sucks down $500 worth of electricity.
      2. Generating fiction is non-tangible. You still own something which value is tied to speculation, a speculation that is affected by the sale of your product. If you created a new mining process that could instantly extract all the coal from the ground, would you use it and bankrupt yourself in the process or would you try and sell it to as many people as possible and watch the chaos e

  • CNBC Headline is VERY misleading! (Score:3)

    by zifn4b ( 1040588 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @08:09AM (#54704119)
    This article is bullshit. In the beginning it says:

    Nvidia will release graphic cards specifically designed for cryptocurrency mining through its partners, according to a source familiar with the matter.

    Name your source or it didn't happen. Then further down in the article it contradicts itself by saying:

    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.

    It also clearly says ASUS __ONLY__ has announced a specific card with this purpose in mine, specifically the MINING-P106-6G. The more logical explanation for this is that modern graphics cards contain APU's not GPU's that can be used for high speed general purpose computing like Physics calculations. We already know this. Because ASUS decided to use it for this purpose doesn't say anything about AMD or NVIDIA endorses this or created reference boards for this purpose. The article is clickbait GARBAGE! I'd be highly skeptical of CNBC for having poor journalism at this point.

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