DigiTimes: Mining Drives Graphics Cards

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According to DigiTimes the want for improved graphics in games is not the only driver for the GPU market-- customers also use graphics cards for Bitcoin mining, following recent price increases for the successful cryptocurrency.

AMD Bitcoin cardFor the curious, this week saw 1BTC reach the record worth of over $2900. Back in March 2017 the price was around $1000, making for nearly a 300% increase in value in the space of 3 months.

As a result, the graphics card market is enjoying "strong" Q2 2017 sales, despite the quarter being the traditionally slow season. The most popular cards for Bitcoin mining are AMD-based, but Nvidia cards also see increased demand despite higher prices. Either way, the increase in the popularity of Bitcoin mining has lead to the two companies planning cards designed specifically for the task.

DigiTimes reports AMD is planning a redesign of the entry-level 400 series cards, while Nvidia is working on a GeForce GTX 1060-100 GPU for mining. The GPUs lack image output, should cost less than the same grade products and are expected to hit the market by end June 2017.

This is not the first time a mining boom lead to a graphics card market boost-- in 2013 the market saw similarly strong GPU demand due to Bitcoin mining. However, related demand cooled off "suddenly," leading to vendors suffering from over-stocked inventory. In addition, many miners sold off their cards to the second-hand market, and since "most" of the cards were still covered by warranty, vendor costs were greatly increased due to maintenance demands. As such, it should come to no surprise that the aforementioned mining GPUs will have a warranty of just 90 days.

Will the 2017 Bitcoin boom be sustained, or will it go bust like it did 4 years ago? Market watchers believe the trend will go on for at least some time, since demand is coming from professional enterprises as well as small companies. Either way the trend is affecting other PC component makers-- such as ASrock, who at Computex 2017 presented a 13x PCIe slot equipped H110 Pro BTC+ motherboard designed as "the ultimate Bitcoin mining motherboard."

Go Graphics Cards Seeing Strong Demand Thanks to Bitcoin Mining

Go ASRock at Computex 2017