The cryptocurrencies are generally on a record course. Although it has Bitcoin have experienced a slight downturn in the last few days, Ethereum but continues to scratch its record. As far as that goes, it doesn’t look like any relief on the graphics card market for us gamers for the time being.
The Antminer E9 from the Chinese manufacturer Bitmain should now provide some remedy. According to a short YouTube video (embedded below), the ASIC computer should provide the cryptomining power of 32 Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080 and 25 RTX 3090 – and cost significantly less.
ASIC steht für application-specific integrated circuit, in Europe: application-specific integrated circuit. In contrast to freely programmable circuits, ASIC machines can only perform one special function. That in turn makes them particularly efficient.
But can this really relax the situation on the graphics card market or is that just a drop in the ocean?
Link to YouTube content
According to the video, the Antminer E9 has a hash rate of 3.0 GH / s – pronounced: three billion hashes per second. Individual graphics cards, on the other hand, are measured in millions of hashes per second (MH / s):
The RTX 3080 achieves around 94 MH / s, the RTX 3090 around 120 MH / s. Nvidia’s CMP 30HX, which is specially tailored for mining cryptocurrencies, achieves 26 MH / s – 115 of these would be needed to replace the Antminer E9.
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How much does the Antminer E9 cost in comparison?
- The cheapest RTX 3080 costs loud Geizhals.de currently 2,100 dollars. 32 of them would come to 67,200 dollars.
- The cheapest RTX 3090 catches the Price comparison portal according to around 2,700 dollars, which would correspond to 67,500 dollars for 25 pieces.
It can be assumed that miners will receive corresponding discounts by buying larger quantities, but the Antminer E9 should represent the significantly better offer.
Can the Antminer be a relief for players?
If it can be manufactured in sufficient numbers, the Antminer E9 could definitely take some of the strain off the graphics card market. However, comparable devices such as the Linzhi Phoenix in view of the current situation did not seem to have contributed much to the relief.
Our conclusion is therefore: It will probably only be a drop in the bucket – but we are all too happy to be taught better.
26:05
The real reasons for the hardware shortage
However, crypto miners are not solely to blame for the current difficult situation. You can find out what else is contributing to the hardware shortage in the video embedded above.
