Cryptocurrency Miners Buy New RTX Ampere Laptops To Bypass GPU Shortage

by



[ad_1]

In a word: Nvidia’s new RTX mobile GPUs began to be available worldwide last week in a handful of attractive new gaming laptops. But in some areas the version has been mutilated by Ethereum miners purchasing them directly from manufacturers.

The price of Ethereum quadrupled in 2020, and after a sudden acceleration in January, it broke its previous all-time high at the end of 2017. The rise has helped the cryptocurrency mining industry experience an unfortunate revival that could lead to to a repeat of the 2017 disaster.

Normally, it is only possible to profitably operate with desktop GPUs sold alone. Pre-built systems and laptops have higher markup and include components that are not useful to minors. But those drawbacks have recently been negated, partly because of the rise in crypto prices, and partly because of the performance improvement offered by newer versions of Nvidia GPUs.

RTX 3060 Laptop GPU can match faster / more expensive GPUs from previous generations, and should are becoming available in more affordable laptop models than the RTX 2070 or 2080.

It has therefore become profitable to operate inexpensive gaming laptops. Some miners in China have bought shipments of new laptops and put them in dedicated mining racks. The pictures below are of brand new laptops, possibly with an RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 inside.

Mining has also become easier. A mining rig can be set up in a matter of minutes using simple (evil) software and informative (evil) articles from unsavory news sites. It’s so easy you can do it on the go, as one Chinese content creator shows in this hilarious video.

If you don’t want to watch the video in Chinese, here’s a sneak peek: She just bought a new Asus laptop with an RTX 3060, and she picked it up at a Starbucks. I plugged it in. I started mining Ethereum. I brought a coffee. I did some work. And two hours later, she has collected the price of the coffee and she goes home. It’s ridiculous.

Fortunately, laptop mining is unlikely to be profitable except on a large scale in specific regions, so it shouldn’t affect global availability. But it highlights the power of cryptocurrencies.



[ad_2]

Source link