Crypto Mining GPU With RGB? ASUS Has You Covered

Jai Barnachia, Tech Times 19 April 2021, 12:04 am

Crypto mining is booming these days, which is why big-name computer hardware manufacturers are joining in on the fray. This time, ASUS wants in on all that goodness.

(Photo : NVIDIA)

TweaktTown reports that ASUS is releasing a crypto mining GPU called the CMP 30HX, with CMP standing for Crypto Mining processor. And it's not just any ordinary, boring mining graphics card too: it's got RGB!

The card itself bears a strong resemblance to ASUS' very own GTX 1660 Super Dual EVO, a non-mining GPU, in terms of cooler design. There are some minor changes, however. According to VideoCardz.com, the card doesn't have any display connection on the I/O, which makes it basically useless for anything other than crypto mining.

As for the official release date, there's still no word from ASUS, but the most likely month is May of this year, reports TechPowerUp.

Hashing out the Specs and Price

There is no official spec sheet yet, so all there is are rumors. Yet according to TechPowerUp.com, the card features a 1530 MHz base clock and a respectable 1785 MHz boost clock on a 192-bit memory bus. It also features 6 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and the same amount of CUDA cores as the GTX 1660 with 1408.

Since the card still hasn't released yet, there's no official review on how good the mining performance is on this specific model. But we do know what the actual GPU die can do, at least: 26 MH/s if you're mining Ethereum, reports WCCFTech. And all that performance can be yours for an alleged retail price of USD $799.

(Photo : André François McKenzie)

Desperate Solution to the GPU Shortage

NVIDIA released the CMP cards earlier this year in a rather desperate bid to stop cryptocurrency mining enthusiasts from snagging graphics cards meant for gamers. This is one of the main reasons why there's a massive shortage of GPUs that's affecting not only NVIDIA, but also their main competitor AMD.

(Photo : Nana Dua)

In fact, another thing that NVIDIA tried was to put a hash rate limiter in the recently released RTX 3060 as an attempt to discourage miners from buying the GPU. Instead, the supposedly 'unhackable' hash rate limiter was accidentally removed by NVIDIA themselves, due to a coding mistake in a developer driver.

Still, NVIDIA isn't likely to stop releasing CMP GPUs anytime soon, with a rumored upcoming CMP 90HX which is based on the powerful RTX 3080, reports HotHardware.com.

RGB Lighting? Really?

Forget everything about this crypto mining card, because it's all about the RGB, right? The lighting that ASUS added on their version of the CMP 30HX doesn't seem to be controllable via software. For those looking to build a mining rig that looks a little gamer-y and want the RGB to be coordinated, it's probably time to look elsewhere.

We don't know what ASUS was thinking when they slapped an RGB strip on this CMP card. Maybe they're trying to reach out to miners who are gamers too? Who knows? What's certain is that with miners coveting the gamer-focused GPUs due to their raw mining power, a lot of them are probably going to give this CMP card and others of its kind a wide berth.

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Written by Jai Barnachia