Will Nvidia Take The Cryptocurrency Mining Crown From AMD ?




AMD upto this very moment has been the undisputed winner in terms of miners looking to stock up on new forms of digital currency like Dogecoin and Litecoin. AMD’s Radeon graphics cards possess a secret sauce that allows significantly more powerful compute capabilities, at least the kind required for Scrypt-based mining. That is, until Nvidia released their new Maxwell architecture this week, the watt per hash rate is pretty crazy.
Forbes or Jason Evangelho in specific, posted a small article on this which is an interesting read:
As we learned from my introduction to the GTX 750 Ti, first-generation Maxwell cards exhibit a 35% peak performance boost per core and twice the performance per watt. They also blow Kepler hashrates out of the water. Based on what I’m seeing with the 750 Ti, Nvidia is poised to embarrass AMD in the performance-per-watt race — and that’s a substantial factor when you’re paying the inflated energy bills caused by mining.
Nvidia didn’t breathe a word of Maxwell’s seriously improved hashing ability in their marketing copy or press briefings, but Tom’s Hardware discovered it, and I’ve been able to replicate their findings with multiple 750 Ti cards from both Nvidia and PNY.
What you’re looking at in the image above is a hashrate of about 242kh/s using Nvidia’s reference 750 Ti 1GB graphics card ($139). This is significant for several reasons. First, the 750 Ti is a 60Watt card and doesn’t even require a PCI-E power connector. You could plug this card into a cheap box from HP or Dell with a 300W power supply and have power to spare. Second, the temperature never seems to breach 65 degrees Celsius, and it runs considerably quieter and cooler than the AMD 260x ($119), which achieves a peak hashrate of 206kh/s and consumes nearly 130Watts of power.
“Hold on a minute!” I can hear you saying. “AMD’s 260x is $20 cheaper than Nvidia’s entry-level 750 Ti!” That’s true, but the nominal price difference quickly evaporates when you consider how the 750 Ti sips power, which matters in the long run. Additionally, Tom’s Hardware ran the same mining environment test with AMD’s upcoming Radeon 265 ($149) and achieved a peak hashrate of 252kh/s — and remember that the Radeon 265 is a 150Watt card.
For that same price of $149, here’s what I pulled off with PNY’s 750 Ti 2GB with a moderate (and stable) overclock:
PNY GTX 750 Ti overclocked and using Cudaminer to mine Dogecoin.
A single PNY 750 Ti 2GB graphics card, overclocked and using Cudaminer to mine Dogecoin.
That’s right, 284kh/s, and an even better temperature ceiling of about 56 degrees Celsius. This is consuming less than half the power of AMD’s Radeon 265.
This all leads to a conclusion that’s far from crazy: When Nvidia’s high-end Maxwell cards drop later this year (possibly by late March), they’re going to surpass the hashrates currently possible from AMD, consume less power, and do so while staying cooler and quieter.
One very valid concern for miners and gamers alike is the fear that pricing for Nvidia GPUs will become inflated just as AMD ones have become — caused by a lack of sufficient supply. A representative assures me this won’t happen, and it’s a claim backed up by the fact that Nvidia has much tighter control over their production.
Ancient Guru
Posts: 4541
Joined: 2004-09-30
maxwell on 28nm is so impressive, 20nm it will dominiate. i hope nvidia will price it good as well, one can wish

Maha Guru
Posts: 1940
Joined: 2007-04-12
finally...
Ancient Guru
Posts: 4900
Joined: 2010-10-17
7 single slot ones in my old X58 supercomputer board...

Maha Guru
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Joined: 2005-02-02
Article is a little misleading.
We will talk again when we see high-end in action.
Maha Guru
Posts: 2167
Joined: 2010-01-16
That is very interesting.
750 Ti ($139) 60 Watt = 242kh/s
260 x ( $119) 130Watt = 206kh/s
265 x ( $149) 150Watt = 252kh/s
That watt per hash rate is crazy. Amazing for farming. Even more so when the big boys are out.
Plz don't make these cards ungodly pricey. Sigh.
Maha Guru
Posts: 1066
Joined: 2006-04-25
This is NOT good news. Mining causing our GAMING cards to be priced as much as 50% higher than they should be is really starting to get annoying. This will just make Nvidia cards more pricy as they become popular with miners.
GPUs were already overpriced before bitcoin.
The article claims Nvidia won't let this gouging happen but I'm skeptical.
Ancient Guru
Posts: 5417
Joined: 2011-09-21
Article is a little misleading.
We will talk again when we see high-end in action.
How so?
This is NOT good news. Mining causing our GAMING cards to be priced as much as 50% higher than they should be is really starting to get annoying. This will just make Nvidia cards more pricy as they become popular with miners.
GPUs were already overpriced before bitcoin.
In the next few months the dedicated mining units will be releasing so GPU prices should normalize again.
Maha Guru
Posts: 2167
Joined: 2010-01-16
60 watts is nothing. Where you pay for coins is the power it takes to run your GPU at max power. So for miners they will pretty much need these new GPUs to get the most coins per $ they pay on the electric bill.
Maybe somewhere down the line NVidia and AMD will make a new line of cards made especially for mining. Make the Geforce line gimped for mining to keep prices reasonable.
It's not that hard to imagine, Geforce: gaming, Quadro: Workstation.
Maybe Exonumia: Bitcoin mining.
Ancient Guru
Posts: 8012
Joined: 2012-05-18
This is NOT good news. Mining causing our GAMING cards to be priced as much as 50% higher than they should be is really starting to get annoying. This will just make Nvidia cards more pricy as they become popular with miners.
GPUs were already overpriced before bitcoin.
The article claims Nvidia won't let this gouging happen but I'm skeptical.
Priced higher? So far I saw only newegg doing it..
Ancient Guru
Posts: 6888
Joined: 2011-12-31
God damn miners and their space bucks >_<
Ancient Guru
Posts: 4900
Joined: 2010-10-17
Soon as the miner's catch wind of the this performance the price will go through the roof to reflect demand, so much for the fanboys

Ancient Guru
Posts: 4896
Joined: 2005-12-06
So I should hurry up and upgrade now then. I'm not paying $800-$900 for a card
Maha Guru
Posts: 1047
Joined: 2008-10-13
You must not really look. People on Craigslist are doing it badly, people on ebay are, and even amazon. Hell even TigerDirect has done it here in the states. Its pissing me off to no end. I was gonna get a new AMD gpu but Im stuck on gtx 560ti 448 until then.
This is how I feel!
Maha Guru
Posts: 2397
Joined: 2006-10-14
Wow, if anything is a waste of energy and time. It's this.
Jesus christ, I didn't even know this existed.
I bet bit coins caused global warming.

Maha Guru
Posts: 2269
Joined: 2008-11-29
This is looking great for Maxwell. I think the 750ti would be the perfect physx card. I think i'll buy one for the Witcher 3.