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BOTTOM OF GPU MARKET TO CLEAR CRYPTO CRAZE?

An interesting development has arisen in the cryptocurrency world. Lower end GTX 1060 cards with 3GB of VRAM could soon flood the secondhand market and become available in stores once again due to, of all things, a recent Windows update.

ASIC resistant cryptocurrencies like the popular Ethereum use lots of VRAM, and the amount of VRAM required grows over time as the difficulty in mining them increases. Currently Ethereum requires a bit over 2.3GB of VRAM, which is well under the 3GB limit of the cheapest GTX 1060’s. However, Windows also needs to reserve some VRAM for itself for OS GUI operations ( and this is presuming you’re not doing anything else on the system that might also use VRAM). A recent Windows 10 update sees Windows reserve more than 660MB for itself, pushing it over 3GB total, effectively ruining the mining efficiency of that card in Windows 10.

Linux and Windows Server OSs remain unaffected so there is a little life still there for these cards, but their time is running out. N ow miners hunting for maximum efficiency will presumably be looking for the next best card in the form of the 4GB RX 570.

Low-end cards like the GTX 1060 are growing in popularity with crypto miners