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Sapphire Makes Mining-Oriented Graphics Cards Available for Pre-Order

Raevenlord

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Ah mining. The revival of an old craze. Who doesn't want to make their room's temperature increase to insane levels over the summer in order to cash in on the mining wagon? Who doesn't want to pull their hardware by the ankles and wrists, stretching it in utilization so as to maintain the PoW (proof of Work) cryptographic security in cryptocurrencies? Apparently, a not insignificant number of users and would-be miners does want that. That has, in turn, placed a whole lot of pressure on the graphics card market from both AMD and NVIDIA, with prices climbing and skyrocketing for graphics cards in the $200-$400 price ranges, as you know. It remains to be seen whether the flow of new miners decreases somewhat now, considering the recent market correction (read: dip) in the cryptocurrency market value (down around 42% from the all-time high of 357€ [~$400] of June 12th.)

After ASUS, it would seem like it's Sapphire's time to try and sway miners from their consumer-oriented, gaming graphics cards, through the launch of five different graphics cards models especially geared for mining. These are currently available for pre-order on Overclockers UK, and there are five different products in total, one based of RX 560 silicon, and four different takes on the RX 470 silicon (no, that's not a typo; it really is the 400 series.)



The RX 560 Pulse Mining Edition differentiates itself through the shroud design and the single DVI output (while usual version of this card feature an additional HDMI and DisplayPort ports.) Its 60W TDP should be good enough to provide around 12-15 MH/s through a 1300 MHz boost core clock and 1750 MHz GDDR5 memory (4 GB in size, though, so may want to look here). The usage of a single 90 mm fan to keep the card cool, however, probably means that temperatures won't be as low as they could be.

The RX 470 versions, on the other hand, are interesting beasts. Not only are these based on the original Polaris configuration (geared for lower power consumption and lower clocks than the current RX 500 series), but these lack display outputs (which makes sense for mining rigs.) In addition, and this is the most interesting part, Sapphire is differentiating their RX 470 graphics cards not only by memory pool size (4 GB and 8 GB versions), but also by memory IC manufacturer. Namely, mining-geared RX 470 graphics cards manufactured with Samsung ICs are fetching a 10£ premium over their SK Hynix-enabled brethren, on account of possibility of higher overclocks out of the Samsung ICs (and for those who don't know it, memory speed and overclocking is one of the best ways of increasing hashing power of your graphics card of choice, particularly for Ethereum.) The Samsung versions (260£ and 300£ for the 4 GB and 8 GB versions respectively) are projected to generate 25 to 28 MH/s, while the SK Hynix versions (250£ and 290£ for the 4 GB and 8 GB versions respectively) are expected to generate between 24 to 27 MH/s.

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Can't wait to see young folks buying this to play MineCraft, and them plugging the display input to the igp of the 7700K + ASUS B150 Pro combo.
 
I suppose it's for marketing, but I don't entirely get the point of these. From other articles I've read it doesn't sound like the prices will be different from standard versions. And the lack of output only saves the manufacturer a few dollars, while definitely hurting resale value for the consumer. There would need to be something that more significantly improves mining speeds than just memory you can get on standard cards too.

In the end it's a problem that's likely to solve itself, with coin prices dropping like a rock and difficulty going through the roof with everyone under the sun mining with every card they can get their hands on. The profits were already set to drop quickly just due to difficulty rising from so many people mining now, even without the correction.
 
Can't wait to see young folks buying this to play MineCraft, and them plugging the display input to the igp of the 7700K + ASUS B150 Pro combo.

Though one could essentially route a video output through IGP.
 
In the end it's a problem that's likely to solve itself, with coin prices dropping like a rock and difficulty going through the roof with everyone under the sun mining with every card they can get their hands on. The profits were already set to drop quickly just due to difficulty rising from so many people mining now, even without the correction.

Mining prices aren't dropping like a rock they are correcting as speculators drop out of the market. This is common for all forms of investment.

The difficulty increase isn't affecting much as hash rate on my stuff hasn't dropped. The only thing I am seeing is coin prices reduced to what they were just last month...
 
Who would waste case space and a pci-e slot for mining with 560?
 
@Raevenlord A typo
That has, in turn, placed a whole lot of pressure on the graphics card market from bot AMD and NVIDIA...
and some mumbo-jumbo here
The usage of a single 90 mm fan to keep the card cool, however, doesn't should mean that temperatures won't be as low as they could be.
 
Who would waste case space and a pci-e slot for mining with 560?

Performance to wattage ratio is still pretty good when setup correctly. Also remember these are mostly dies that cannot do gaming clocks stable. Might as well sell everything you can.
 
no 580 ,no discount , no feckin way im buying them then, I have got 580s with outputs on pre-order for less too,, and i know how to tweak them to do better with less power then these, why would you pay more for less??????????????

with nill resale chance if mining becomes pointless, wtf.
 
Too little too late. At least as far as ethereum is concerned, we're already facing dropping performance on AMD cards and the 1060 losing it's usefulness eventually due to not enough vram.
 
Too little too late. At least as far as ethereum is concerned, we're already facing dropping performance on AMD cards and the 1060 losing it's usefulness eventually due to not enough vram.

1060 hasn't changed in performance. Memory controller setup is different.
 
I wish mining didn't involve gaming graphics cards, it raises the prices so high that they become unaffordable. It would be nice to have widely adopted specifically for mining hardware that is more affordable so the gaming graphics card prices are less distorted.
 
When will this mining nonsense end? What a waste of good hardware…
 
1060 hasn't changed in performance. Memory controller setup is different.
I think he means the 3gb vs 6gb version. I'll just take all of my 3gb's and mine another coin.
 
When will this mining nonsense end? What a good chance for profits if done right…
*fixed

Dude, I dont think mining is going anywhere, its kinda mainstream now. Unlike when bitcoin shot up to over $1k some years ago and dropped like crazy. These cryptocurrencies are much more mainstream now.
 
1060 hasn't changed in performance. Memory controller setup is different.
I know, I'm referring to ethereum requiring more vram than the 1060 has in the future.
 
I know, I'm referring to ethereum requiring more vram than the 1060 has in the future.

Maybe. It is an nvidia card the way the memory works isn't mapped the same.

And like @yotano211 said I'll just swap to zcash, lbry, hush etc.
 
Yeah, there's more to mine than just ether. I'll have a lot of decisions to make when it comes time to build rig #2. I must say I'm actually looking forward to these mining cards. Maybe not these ones particularly, but I like the idea.
 
When will this mining nonsense end? What a waste of good hardware…

Yes, because gaming was totally more productive than running a global payment network...

I mean yes, there is a supply contention issue that we need to work out, but we need not act infantile over it.
 
When will this mining nonsense end? What a waste of good hardware…

as a normal gamer that have built his PC this March (yay Ryzen), I'd say to you: don't fight it, join the hype-train!

I've sold my RX580 for $200 more than I payed, then bought a 1070 with the money. Now I have the 1070 (and another 1060) mining the whole day, plus my Ryzen (criptonight). I won't get rich, but this setup is paying a good ~200 USD/month after the power bill - so, again, why complain? put your rig to mine (use nicehash if you don't wanna bother with all the complicated stuff) and profit =)
 
as a normal gamer that have built his PC this March (yay Ryzen), I'd say to you: don't fight it, join the hype-train!

I've sold my RX580 for $200 more than I payed, then bought a 1070 with the money. Now I have the 1070 (and another 1060) mining the whole day, plus my Ryzen (criptonight). I won't get rich, but this setup is paying a good ~200 USD/month after the power bill - so, again, why complain? put your rig to mine (use nicehash if you don't wanna bother with all the complicated stuff) and profit =)
May I ask how much you're generating with that Ryzen, and what chip specifically is it?
 
May I ask how much you're generating with that Ryzen, and what chip specifically is it?
Sure, it's a 1700 running on stock clocks (3.2 GHz base), 8 active processes, using 43W, and mem speed didn't change the scores on my testing.
It's giving me from 1 to 1.5 USD/day (480 h/s average) through the Expensive nicehash way, I'm sure you can get another 20% if you mine on your own.
edit: I took it off nicehash and now I'm mining monero directly with it. Here's my calc (using 25W because my cpu uses 18W idle anyway while mining on the gpus)
https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/xmr?HashingPower=480&HashingUnit=H/s&PowerConsumption=25&CostPerkWh=0.20
 
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