Crypto Miners Could Spark New GPU Gold Rush for Nvidia

Feel nostalgic about those days when gamers would blame cryptocurrency miners for GPU shortages?

With its recently unveiled RTX Ampere models, graphics card manufacturer Nvidia is set to revive GPU mining, which seemed to be a relic of the past.

Nvidia's monster GPUs

Nvidia set the ambitious goal of revolutionizing high-end gaming with its super-powerful and relatively cheap GPUs, which it showed off on Sept. 1.

Leading PC publication "Tom's Hardware" recently estimated that those who fork out $699 for the new GeForce RTX 3080 will be able to break even in about ten months solely by mining crypto. In comparison, it could take up to three years to earn your money back with a GeForce RTX 2080.

A Geforce RTX 3080 is capable of achieving an individual hashrate of 115 MH/s, which is three times higher than that of a GeForce RTX 2080.

Although Nvidia’s new fleet of GPUs will not become available until Sept. 17, several posts on Chinese social network Baidu show that local miners have already stocked up on these beasts to mine Ethereum.

Large-scale mining farms are capable of getting cards directly from distributors, which results in shortages and hurts ordinary customers.

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Make mining great again

After delivering more than three mln GPUs during the crypto mining rush of 2017, Nvidia's bottom line then suffered during the 2018 bear market.

As reported by U.Today, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claimed in March 2019 that cryptocurrency was in his company's past.

Due to Ethereum GPU mining hitting its highest level in two years, Nvidia might soon see a second wave of crypto frenzy.