Mining machines and cards were unveiled at Taipei Computer Show. Will the next generation of graphics cards restrict mining?

With the popularity of digital currencies such as Bitcoin in recent years, the word "blockchain" has appeared more and more in people's vision. At the Taipei International Computer Show, a feast for the IT industry, blockchain has become one of the themes. So what are the blockbuster exhibits and news about blockchain at the Taipei Computer Show? What impact will these exhibits and news have? Let's talk about it.

Blockchain is one of the six major themes of this year's Taipei International Computer Show

Hardware manufacturers have launched mining products

Digital currency is a typical application of blockchain. The biggest reason why digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are valuable is that they are based on blockchain technology. The algorithm determines the total amount and generation speed of these digital currencies, and they cannot be forged. Therefore, these digital currencies are known as "digital gold". In order to obtain "digital gold", users need to contribute computing power to the blockchain network. The more computing power they contribute, the more digital currencies they can get. This is commonly known as "mining".

GPU is an excellent tool for mining. If you plugged an AMD graphics card into a motherboard a few years ago, you could get a good profit. But now that more and more people are participating in mining, a single graphics card can hardly provide enough computing power. How can more graphics cards be used for mining together? At the Taipei International Computer Show, many hardware manufacturers launched their own solutions.

For example, the mining motherboard launched by ASUS can support up to 20 GPUs running simultaneously. This motherboard uses the H370 chip and is still in ATX format, but unlike ordinary DIY motherboards, it has 20 densely distributed USB ports, each of which can use the PCI-E protocol to transfer GPUs.

ASUS H370 MINING MASTER mining motherboard, supports 20 GPUs

In addition to ASUS, other hardware manufacturers have also launched special mining products. For example, MSI exhibited a specially made mining machine, which uses RX470 + Pentium G5400 as the hardware basis, is specially optimized for mining, and can run for a long time. And PowerColor also exhibited its own mining system, which has not only computing chips but also SSD and memory on a board, which should be very powerful for mining.

Mining products displayed by MSI

Dilan’s mining products on display

Will NV's next-generation flagship GTX1180 block mining?

Miners use graphics cards to mine, which makes ordinary DIY players suffer. Miners swept up all the graphics cards, and it was hard to find a card in the market. The price of graphics cards rose sharply. There was even a spectacle that a RX480/GTX1060 was sold second-hand for a profit after being used for two years. Miners swept up the graphics card market, seriously disrupting the normal DIY market order. For this reason, graphics card manufacturers have also implemented some strategies. For example, NV once launched a mining-specific card without display output, trying to stop miners from snatching the meat from DIY players. But perhaps due to limited GPU production capacity and other reasons, it did not have a very good effect.

At the Taipei International Computer Show, NV showcased the HGX-2 server platform. According to media reports, NV will release the next-generation graphics card GTX1180 on July 30. The media said that this news has been confirmed by some insiders. The GTX1180 will have a very eye-catching feature, which is that it will restrict mining from the underlying architecture, so that the card will not be attractive to miners. Without the competition from miners, the graphics card market is expected to return to normal.

NV released HGX-2 at the previous Taipei GTC and showed more at COMPUTEX 2018

For ordinary DIY players, this news is naturally a major positive. However, it should also be noted that, in fact, AMD graphics cards will be more popular for mining, and AMD has not yet made effective restrictions in this regard. If the next generation of NV graphics cards restricts mining, and AMD graphics cards maintain the status quo, it is very likely that the graphics card market will be heavily occupied by NV due to price reasons. Of course, for graphics card manufacturers, there may be no difference between selling to miners and selling to ordinary players. It doesn't matter who you sell to? But if the market share drops, then the brand recognition will also decline. Is it worth giving up the long-cultivated DIY market for the emerging mining market? I'm afraid it requires graphics card manufacturers to think carefully.

Summarize

The Taipei International Computer Show is still going on, and exhibits and news about blockchain are still coming in. If you are interested in blockchain or related hardware products, you can continue to pay attention to PConline's reports, and we will bring you more relevant news.