If you're a PC gaming and computer hardware enthusiast like me you've probably noticed the steep rise in graphics card prices. In the past, AMD cards were the best to use and yielded the best results while mining, but with Ethereum blowing up recently, mining farms are forced to look elsewhere as the AMD cards are sold out everywhere. As a result, they the farms started buying up the latest 10-series from NVIDIA, quickly diminishing the stock of cards out there.
This REALLY sucks for people building their own gaming computer. The NVIDIA 1060 for example was the go-to budget builder GPU and was sold for around $250. Now they can be seen going for $350 to even $400! That is if you can even find them for sale.
The manufacturers are watching and observing very closely and have FINALLY started announcing dedicated cryptocurrency mining GPU's! ASUS being one of the top aftermarket cooling brands for graphics cards has come out with the MINING-P106 with increased efficiency for mining!
According to ASUS, the new graphics card uses the foundation of the 1060 chip but promises up to 36% hash rate while mining, all while being rated for around the clock up time.
I am sure that other companies will follow ASUS in this venture and begin releasing their own dedicated GPU mining cards. Hopefully this will start bringing the prices of gaming-GPU's down to their normal price.
Thanks for reading!
- Nick
PS: First post on the steemit platform! :)