Items tagged with mining
In this episode of HotHardware's 2.5 Geeks, we invite Andy from eTeknix to join us for a lively discussion about crypto-mining and GPUs, limited or unlimited hash rate products, shortages, and how the industry should best solve this problem?! Show Notes: 01:52 - HotHardware Destiny 2 Talon Gaming PC Giveaway With Falcon Northwest, AMD And Bungie! 02:57 - Introducing Andy from eTeknix 03:39 - Intel Core i9-11980HK Preview: 8-Core Tiger Lake-H Unleashed 07:23 - Intel Optane Memory H20 Review: Performance Where It Matters 12:31 - Qualcomm's Snapdragon 778G 5G SoC Packs Potent Performance Punch For Mid-Range Phones 16:18 - NVIDIA Officially Goes All-In On GeForce RTX 3080, 3070, 3060 Ti Lite Hash...
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Cryptocurrency mining seems to be just one factor behind the shortage of graphics cards on the market today, and many gamers have rejoiced at anything that might make cards more accessible. Limiting mining on consumer cards is a big deal for manufacturers, too, since they want to sell their own specialized CMP lineups of mining cards. NVIDIA, the maker of GPUs like the CMP 30HX, wants to protect its own bottom line, too. In short, everyone has their own angles, but many parties are in full agreement that limiting mining on consumer graphics cards can go a long way to shifting the balance back to gamers. Now, the first wave of crypto-gimped high-end hardware is on the way. GALAX doesn't...
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Last week we learned that NVIDIA's Ethereum crypto mining limiter might have possibly been broken. However, we quickly discovered that a GeForce RTX 3060 using the Octopus algorithm with the Conflux alt-coin was incorrectly cited as mining for ETH. Now, there is more evidence that the inevitable has finally happened. The folks over at PC Watch claim to have cut through NVIDIA's ETH restrictions, and it is simple to achieve. According to the report [via Google Translate], "The specific method is not introduced here, but it does not require modification of the driver or BIOS, and anyone can easily do it with a little effort." Given that there doesn't appear to...
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The graphics card shortage we find ourselves in this year is at least partially caused by cryptocurrency miners snagging mass amounts of cards with bots, or by other means. That sort of GPU gluttony does not come without consequences, however, as Iran is now finding out. With over a dozen large crypto-mining operations based in Iran, the power needed may have caused blackouts across the middle-eastern country. Since mid-January, it seems that rolling blackouts have plagued Iran, but this is not a new occurrence for the people. However, this is on top of the coronavirus battle, U.S. sanctions, and other issues that put the country under stress, and people are looking to place blame. According...
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One of the biggest criticisms of cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin in particular, is the highly volatile nature of digital coins. However, that's for investors and miners to worry about. A larger concern that is starting to draw increased attention is the power usage that comes from mining cryptocurrencies on a large scale. Over in Washington, where power is relatively cheap compared to other parts of the country, there's a twofold concern—that power bills will go, and that electric utilities will not be able to keep up with demand. These are not new concerns. It was reported earlier this month that Plattsburgh, New York placed an 18-month ban on new commercial cryptocurrency mining operations...
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Cryptocurrency mining is a phenomenon that many gamers and even some cities are having issues with. Gamers aren't happy because the miners are buying up all the graphics cards out there and making them hard to find and driving prices up. Some cities aren't happy because the miners are slurping up vast amounts of electricity and raising the rates for everyone in the town, this is exactly what happened in a small New York town recently. That said, for those that are willing to make an effort, even if on part time basis, re-purposing your gaming system can be a worthwhile and profitable effort, so long as cryptocurrency values hold up to recent volatility. Perhaps another answer...
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Plattsburgh, New York is city that has just over 30,000 residents, and those citizens recently saw their power bills unexpectedly increase due to a problem that is starting to affect more people in the United States. We're talking about cryptocurrency mining, of course. Plattsburgh has placed an 18-month ban on new commercial cryptocurrency mining operations after the city was forced to buy additional power to keep up with demand, in turn causing everyone's rates to go up. For gamers, the rise in cryptocurrency mining means that the hot graphics cards that we'd like to get our hands are hard to find and often priced through the roof. However, not everyone needs a graphics card. But electricity...
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The effect that cryptocurrency mining has had on the graphics card market has been so extreme, very few people could have predicted it. GPUs that were as easy to purchase as a gallon of milk became as hard to find as the hottest deal at Best Buy on Black Friday. In addition to the rarity, inflated pricing has been a real issue as well, with many GPUs costing twice as much (or more) than their intended MSRP. A $649 GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, for example, can currently be had as "cheap" as $900, and that's a relative bargain compared to some of the other pricing we've seen. It's not hard to find the same GPU going for $1,300+ at virtually any e-tailer. One of the saving graces for gamers has been companies...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, Marco, Paul, and Dave get in the mood for V-Day and also chat about AMD's Raven Ridge Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G desktop APUs, a rumored NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2080, Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 performance benchmarks, creepily clever dog robots, a couple of new SSDs from Samsung and Intel and more... Show Notes: 03:01 - AMD Ryzen 5 2400G And Ryzen 3 2200G Review: Raven Ridge Desktop Debuts 19:06 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2080 Rocking GA104 Ampere GPU Rumored To Arrive In April 31:23 - Qualcomm Snapdragon 845: Benchmarking A Hot Rod Mobile Chip 41:08 - AMD Threadripper Cryptocurrency Mining: How To Pay For A CPU In Just Months 49:02 - Intel...
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In the span of a few short years, cryptocurrency mining went from being virtually unknown to making making waves in the tech community. While mining may not have caught on with mainstream audiences yet, the entire market has been affected by the new-age gold digging. GPU prices are particularly affected, with many models costing twice as much on the market as their SRPs would suggest. Fortunately, the same price hikes have avoided CPUs, even though they can prove pretty potent in mining. Clearly, many people want a piece of mining, including those who are in a position to take advantage of a really sweet computer -- or many computers. We're not talking malware-infected miners here, but actually...
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It looks as though it isn't just the Dow Jones that is having a crappy day in the financial world. Bitcoin, which was trading at close to $20,000 in late 2017, has come crashing down to earth in the past few weeks. Just last week, there panic coursed through the market which caused the cryptocurrency to drop below $10,000. Today, Bitcoin dropped under $7,000. According to Coindesk, Bitcoin is currently at $6,784, which represents a 17 percent drop for the day. Bitcoin hasn't seen these lows since it began a meteoric rise back in mid-November 2017. For those keeping score, Bitcoin has lost roughly half of its value since the start of 2018... ouch. When the new year started, Bitcoin had a market...
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The effect cryptocurrency mining has had on the PC gaming industry, specifically the now sky-high cost of graphics cards, is profound. However, someday mining algorithms may change enough such that GPUs aren't the only non-specialized compute engines capable of processing cryptocurreny hash algorithms effectively, or at least aren't so dominant. That said, one fairly popular coin that's based on a CPU-optimized algorithm right now is called Monero. Monero or XMR utilizes the CryptoNight hashing algorithm (as do a few other altcoins). It also just so happens that AMD's Threadripper family of processors is relatively adept at mining it, or so we've learned recently. We've shown you some of the...
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We know all too well about the dangers of cryptocurrency mining malware that can invade our PCs. We've also seen unscrupulous websites that run mining software in the background, sapping valuable resources. Now, it seems as though we need to be on the lookout for mining malware that can invade our smartphones. Kaspersky Lab warns that the malware, Tojan.AndroidOS.Loapi or "Loapi", is targeting the Android platform. The security firm warns that Loapi can be distributed via advertisement campaigns (which can cause redirects to malicious websites that download infected packages to your device). But Loapi can also be distributed via fake/unofficial app stores and fake applications posing as the real...
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All statistics are notable in their own right, but once in a while, one comes along that seems downright mind-boggling. Take this one: 500 million people are currently affected by unauthorized cryptocurrency mining. Remember when pop-up ads were the biggest offense? That's child's play. If you run into a website running a mining script, you'll be paying real money by way of a higher power bill. AdGuard, a company specializing in blocking unwanted scripts from websites, has just released a report on its research which includes the 500 million stat above. That's far from being the only interesting stat, however. 220 of the top 100,000 websites (per Amazon's Alexa ranking system) currently have...
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It has been hard for months now for PC enthusiasts and gamers to find the video cards they want, because miniers have been buying them up to mine whatever their preferred cryptocurrency might be. Back in late September, we talked about prices for GeForce GTX 10 Series video cards possibly climbing due to a DRAM shortage and Ethereum miners. Now we have some new dedicated cards for miners coming to market from Inno3D that won't help the DRAM shortage, but might at least lure miners away from the cards gamers are searching for. These are P106 mining cards, which are essentially stripped down NVIDIA GTX 1060 graphics cards with no connectivity for hooking up your monitor. The cards have a scant...
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What is a blockchain? When considering cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, it's best to first understand the underlying technology and framework that makes their existence possible. At its core, a blockchain is a what is described as a "shared ledger" technology that is used to record the complete history of transactions that have been made. More importantly, this ledger cannot be altered in any way, making it ideal for historical analysis and peer review. When it comes to everyday transactions -- be they financial, inventory or even account-based, traditionally, each party that is involved keeps a record of the transaction. Having these multiple ledgers can lead to discrepancies in transaction...
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If you’ve been keeping up with the cryptocurrency market at all over the past few years, then you’ll recognize Bitcoin as the posterchild for the digital currency movement. However, in recent months, Ethereum has been surging in popularity as more miners have discovered the relative ease in which money can be made using off-the-shelf hardware components — namely mid-range graphics cards. In addition to the hardware that you’ll need to purchase (or repurpose) for mining, there’s also energy consumption to keep in mind. Even though mining GPUs like the ASUS MINING P106 and Biostar Radeon RX 470D have been designed and optimized for efficiency, electrical consumption is still a big cost that must...
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Since its debut in 2009, Bitcoin has enjoyed a massive share of the cryptocurrency market to the point where it almost seemed untouchable. While there are many different cryptocurrencies out there, none have been a serious threat to the big B. That is until now. The mighty alternative to challenge Bitcoin as of late is called Ethereum, a cryptocurrency that's been around for just under two years. If you've been partaking in the Internet at all lately, you've probably found mention of the hot new currency unmissable. Many have begun wondering how they can dive in and strike it rich with Ethereum (including those who avoided the Bitcoin bandwagon entirely), and that's beginning to show in the currency's...
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With the popularity of upstart Cryptocurrencies like Ethereum on the rise and the value of well-established currencies like Bitcoin steadily increasing, there is new-found interest in Cryptocurrency mining. If you remember, a few years back, Cryptocurrency miners caused a shortage of AMD GPUs, which resulted in such high demand that what were supposed to be relatively affordable graphics cards ultimately sold at price points significantly above their MSRP. Over time, GPUs were supplanted by more power-efficient FPGAs and ASICs specifically designed for Bitcoin Cryptocurrency mining, but changes in the market have once again made GPUs a viable solution.MSI Radeon RX 580As such, there is another...
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As more and more online retailers warm up to the idea of accepting Bitcoin currency, widespread acceptance is still a long way off. This is especially true of Russia, which just dropped the ban hammer on Bitcoins on the basis that it runs afoul of existing laws. Russia actually went one step further and called the digital currency "suspicious." The announcement was made by the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation. Serving as justification for the ban is the fact that the Central Bank of Russia views Bitcoin as a money substitute, which is restricted under Russian law. Image Source: Flickr (antanacoins) Russia isn't the only territory to ban Bitcoins. The virtual currency is also unwelcome...
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