AMD, Nvidia Coin-Mining Cards Appear As Gaming GPU Shortage Intensfies
IT’S DAMNED NEAR impossible to buy a reasonably priced graphics card right now. First AMD’s Radeon cards disappeared (go.pcworld. com/rcd), then GeForce cards began to dry up too (go.pcworld.com/ gfc). The culprit? Cryptocurrency miners chasing price bubbles in Etherium, Zcash, et cetera. But new mining-dedicated graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia’s hardware partners might help ease the dearth of gaming hardware.
Maybe? Hopefully? Okay, probably not. A swarm of coin-mining cards have hit online e-tailers recently, as AnandTech (go.pcworld.com/ant) reports. Most are based on AMD’s more mining-friendly Radeon “Polaris” GPUs, but you’ll also find a couple of cards based on Nvidia designs. Notably, those use “GP106” branding—that’s the name of the GPU itself—rather than being called GTX 1060 cards.
We’ll get to other crucial differences in a bit. First, here’s a rundown of the coin mining cards available so far—in theory. In reality, they’re already all sold out. Surprise!
Asus: MINING-P106-6G (go.pcworld.com/6g) and MINING-RX470-4G (go.pcworld.com/4g)
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