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ASRock to Launch Four New Mining GPUs

According to a leaked presentation slide, ASRock will soon release four new mining GPUs. The news comes just a week after the American motherboard manufacturer published details of a new range of gaming graphics cards.

ASRock Comes Into the Crypto Space Swinging

Early last month, DigiTimes reported on rumours that ASRock was going to enter the cryptocurrency space. It now appears that these rumours have been confirmed.

The new graphics cards from ASRock first appeared via a leaked Tweet by user VideoCardz:

Aaaand the reason why ASRock enters 'graphics' card market is…
They could've waited at least a week with 'Phantom Gaming Mining' announcement. pic.twitter.com/KmRoDDmhVe

— VideoCardz.com (@VideoCardz) March 28, 2018

As you can see, the slide lists far more information than what buyers are used to when selecting which GPU to use for mining cryptocurrencies. The full engine clock speed of each is listed, along with the memory specs of the new units. In addition, each of the GPUs has the manufacturer of the memory included: SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron.

For crypto miners, the manufacturers make a big difference to the utility of the whole unit. Samsung are generally deemed to be the highest-end pieces of hardware. This is because their VRAM is hugely overclockable. This translates to greater profits for miners which, after all, is the aim of the game.

According to an article in Forbes, those seeking to build mining rigs will often unbox new units and check the precise specs before making the decision of whether or not to keep the hardware. The piece alleges that miners who discover their new GPUs use Micron memory will actually send them back since they are less profitable than either Samsung or SK Hynix.

According to the slide, three of the new cards have 4GB of memory and the fourth is a hefty 8GB. All four use the Radeon RX 570 as a base and have a default clock speed of 1244MHz.

Judging by the above specifications, the new ASRock mining-specific GPUs are clearly a strong entry into the cryptocurrency mining sector of the graphics card industry. However, according to the Forbes piece, Radeon cards, like the ones in the new ASRock units, are considered to be superior for mining Ethereum. With the recent controversy over the Bitmain release of ASIC cards specifically designed to mine Ethereum, the demand for new entries into the market remains to be seen.

As well as a potentially shrinking demand, there might also be a reduction in supply. The DigiTimes rumour article from last month claims that AMD has no plans to increase production of their GPU units. This means those that are produced will have to be shared with an additional manufacturer – ASRock.