Discover the two major competitors and suppliers of graphics cards for mining Ether: AMD and Nvidia. Their many products are undergoing changes that will bring major benefits for miners. The market for crypto-currencies and Ether is a major challenge for the GPU giants.
graphics card
Ethereum graphics card (source Papergeek)
Competition from the giants
Several GPU suppliers offer Ethereum miners good value for money. The choice of companies and the contracts signed with Ethereum are therefore crucial steps in ensuring that the blockchain functions properly. There are two major suppliers of graphics cards used to mine Ether: AMD and Nvidia.
Number 1: Nvidia
Nvidia Corporation is an American company that manufactures processors and graphics cards for games consoles and PCs. It is currently the world’s largest manufacturer of graphics cards. The company’s biggest customers for GPUs are video gamers, who the company intends to encourage. However, the designer has seen its most loyal customers disgruntled following a shortage of certain graphics card models. In fact, it was the crypto-currency miners, most notably Ether, who caused these stock-outs. Nvidia has reacted by increasing production to satisfy all cryptocurrency consumers, as well as gamers.
The new measures
To compensate for the use of graphics cards exclusively by miners, Nvidia has decided to introduce measures and regulations for its cryptocurrency software. One of these regulations is to reduce the suitability of the card by almost 50%. The company’s aim is to dedicate its products primarily to video game players. This decision puts a considerable brake on minors, much to AMD’s delight.
However, in February this year, the manufacturer decided to lift these restrictions in order to meet the needs of minors. An update was therefore made to the drivers of recent RTX 3060 models. This new decision is not insignificant, given that in the fourth half of the year, miners accounted for nearly $300 million in sales.
What about AMD?
AMD, or Advanced Micro Devices, is an American manufacturer of computer products, in particular microprocessors and graphics cards. AMD is now the direct competitor of the giant Nvidia. It has also benefited greatly from the measures taken by its competitor in February, bringing it a large number of new minors.
It should be noted that AMD has also decided to limit the use of cards and reduce their appeal. However, it has not opted for a measure as radical as that of its rival. The manufacturer assures that these limits concern all users of the cards and are not intended to disadvantage crypto-currency miners alone. Despite their policy, AMD is applying improvements for gamers on future models. Unfortunately, these improvements do not apply at all to miners of crypto-currencies such as Ether.
For miners, getting graphics cards is as tricky as ever: they are repeatedly out of stock, models are rare, and it’s hard to get them without breaking the bank… However, Ether miners and graphics card suppliers are hoping that the update to the Proof of Stake network will improve the situation in the future.
Let’s take a look at some of the key concepts you need to know, such as mining, miners, graphics cards and how Ethereum works, to understand what’s at stake.
What is mining?
Mining is an essential activity for many blockchains. However, mining is not involved in all crypto-currency networks. For example, Stellar Lumens bypasses mining in the operation of its network, using the open-source process. So mining is not essential, but it is still the most widely used method, used by around fifty crypto-currencies today.
Mining involves solving a multitude of complex mathematical equations. Each step taken by a network user is checked by a miner. While waiting for the miner to take over, the operation in question is protected and stored in the network. Once validated by the miner, the transaction is added to a block that includes other transactions, and the block is then added to the network.
The role of the miner
Mining is carried out by miners, and may be a job or just a secondary activity. Either way, anyone can be a miner. To do so, you need powerful, fast computer equipment, a good Internet connection and a good grasp of algebra. If you want to mine, you should also be aware that it’s an activity that consumes a lot of electricity! The miner is also responsible for tracing the origins of the transaction to prevent fraud on the network.
Speed
Mining must be fast and efficient to ensure that a user’s transaction is processed correctly. Very often, users’ transaction fees depend not only on the type of transaction but also on the time they choose for it to be processed by the miners. So it is the users of the blockchain who set the pace for the miners’ activity.
Remuneration
There are sometimes very large numbers of miners on blockchains. They are also paid, so this is a real professional activity. Several factors are taken into account when determining remuneration:
The number of transactions processed
The size of the transaction (how many coins are involved in the exchange)
The speed with which the transaction is examined and validated by the miner. The faster the miner, the higher the payout. So it’s often a race!
Graphics card and GPU
To mine we use powerful computers or what are known as mining rigs, computer devices designed for mining. It doesn’t matter what the miner chooses as a tool, the important thing here is that he has graphics cards. Graphics cards are commonly used for video games. To mine, you need very powerful graphics cards. More precisely, the graphics card is an extension of the computer that generates a visible image on your screen.
It is made up of two main parts, the first of which is called the GPU, or Graphic Processing Unit. The GPU’s function is to develop 2D and 3D graphics calculations. Although the GPU is only a component of the graphics card, the term is often used to designate the card as a whole. The second component is the memory, which communicates with the GPU and then stores and transfers the images produced to the computer. In addition, miners need to choose graphics cards that are suited to their activities and to the crypto-currency to be mined.
Ethereum
Ether is a cryptocurrency, but it is also a blockchain, Ethereum, which uses the mining process. Ethereum is one of the many networks that need graphics cards to function properly.
How is Ethereum mined?
Ethereum is mined using the Proof of Work process. For the miner, this involves finding the right hashing function, known as the hash. Another process is currently being developed, which is less onerous and less energy-intensive: Proof of Stake. What’s special about Ethereum is that users can view their transactions as they are being validated via the peer-to-peer network. Users therefore have access to the server, which is made possible by mining, among other things.
