In addion to the AMD-based mining graphics cards based on the RX 470 Polaris silicon that have appeared online, NVIDIA and its partners are launching cryptocurrency mining cards based on GP106 and GP104 GPUs. Devoid of any GeForce or GTX branding, these cost controlled cards focused on mining lack the usual array of display outputs and have much shorter warranties (rumors point at a 3 month warranty restriction imposed by NVIDIA). So far Asus, Colorful, EVGA, Inno3D, MSI, and Zotac "P106-100" cards based on GP106 (GTX 1060 equivalent) silicon have been spotted online with Manli and Palit reportedly also working on cards. Many of these manufacturers are also also planning "P104-100" cards based on GP104 or the GTX 1070 though much less information is available at the moment. Pricing is still up in the air but pre-orders are starting to pop up overseas so release dates and prices will hopefully become official soon.

These mining oriented cards appear to be equipped with heatsinks similar to their gaming oriented siblings, but have fans rated for 24/7 operation. Further, while the cards can be overclocked they are clocked out of the box at reference clock speeds and allegedly have bolstered power delivery hardware to keep the cards mining smoothly under 24/7 operation. The majority of cards from NVIDIA partners lack any display outputs (the Colorful card has a single DVI out) which helps a bit with ventilation by leaving both slots vented. These cards are intended to be run in headless system or with systems that also have graphics integrated into the CPU (miners not wanting to waste a PCI-E slot!).

Base Clock Boost Clock Memory (Type) Pricing ASUS MINING-P106-6G 1506 MHz 1708 MHz 6 GB (GDDR5) @ 8 GHz $226 Colorful P106-100 WK1/WK2 1506 MHz 1708 MHz 6GB (GDDR5) @ 8 GHz ? EVGA GTX1060 6G P106 1506 MHz 1708 MHz 6GB (GDDR5) @ 8 GHz $284? Inno3D P106-100 Compact 1506 Mhz 1708 MHz 6GB (GDDR5) @ 8 GHz ? Inno3D P106-100 Twin 1506 MHz 1708 MHz 6GB (GDDR5) @ 8 GHz ? MSI P106-100 MINER 1506 MHz 1708 MHz 6GB (GDDR5) @ 8 GHz $224 MSI P104-100 MINER TDB TBD 6GB (GDDR5X) @ ? ? ZOTAC P106-100 1506 MHz 1708 MHz 6GB (GDDR5) @ 8 GHz ?

Looking at the Nicehash Profitability Calculator, the GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 are rated at 20.13 MH/s and 28.69 MH/s at DaggerHashimoto (Etherium) mining respectively with many users able to get a good bit higher hash rates with a bit of overclocking (and in the case of AMD undervolting to optimize power efficiency). NVIDIA cards tend to be good for other algorithms as well such as ZCash and Libry and Equihash (at least those were the majority of coins my 750 Ti mined likely due to it not having the memory to attempt ETH mining heh). The calculator estimates these GPUs at 0.00098942 BTC per day and 0.00145567 BTC per day respectivey. If difficulty and exchange rate were to remains constant that amounts to an income of $1197.95 per year for a GP106 and $1791.73 per year for a GP104 GPU and ROI in under 3 months. Of course cryptocurrency to USD exchange rates will not remain constant, there are transactions and mining fees, and mining difficulty will rise as more hardware is added to the network as miners so these estimated numbers will be lower in reality. Also, these numbers are before electricity, maintainence time, and failed hardware costs, but currently mining alt coins is still very much profitable using graphics cards.

AMD and NVIDIA (and their AIB partners) are hoping to get in on this action with cards binned and tuned for mining and at their rumored prices placing them cheaper than their gaming focused RX and GTX variants miners are sure to scoop these cards up in huge batches (some of the above cards are only availabe in large orders). Hopefully this will alleviate the strain on the gaming graphics card market and bring prices back down closer to their original MSRPs for gamers!

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What are your thoughts on all this GPU mining and cryptocurrency / blockchain technology stuff?