Mining Only Cards, Good for DC?

[dangdongho3]

Did you guys see this story?:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/wccftech-nvidia-mining-only-cards-on-the-way.2508858/

Makes me wonder about such a cards DC potential.

Edited by a spammer later, but reverted by me to the useful thread it used to be - Moderator Ken g6

 

[TennesseeTony]

The cards should be just as useful as the normal cards that they are copies of (with video outputs).

Thanks for stopping in!

 

[StefanR5R]

Have these things ever appeared in retail?
I have read that a variety of mining-only GPU SKUs exists:

• ones with simplified packaging (brown boxes),
• with simplified or specialized coolers,
• with "simplified" I/O bracket, i.e. connectors not mounted,
• marginally modified hardware specs e.g. WRT memory,
• marginally modified BIOS,
  
• any combination of these.

But the main point about these is that they do not go through retailers, or not even through distributors. Large scale miners receive them in bulk from distributors, if not directly from card manufacturers. (This, and not the bullet points above, is how the parties involved are maximizing their respective profits.)

And this means that the DC potential will be there only after these cards are decommissioned and go onto the second hand market. Much like OEM-only SKUs or server equipment.

 

[ao_ika_red]

In my country, it's very easy to find mining / accelarator card, like this one. And based on link provided by OP, it already happened since June 2017. It's just ordinary gpu without display output. As for performance potential, it's just the same.

But, there's also other rumour about specialised mining card (like custom ASIC for bitcoin) from nvidia that will appear this year (it's between Ampere and Turing).