Hardware news of July
by MinerGate Mining Pool July, 18, 2018
Hardware is an inherent part of cryptocurrency mining – the stronger system specifications you have, the higher your hashrate and therefore chances for block solving are. That’s why it so important for both solo and pool-involved miners to check out the latest hardware news – both ASICs and CPU/GPU.
We’ve collected the hottest hardware news affecting cryptocurrency mining. To keep you updated, armed and ready for a good fight.
CPU news
Intel 9th generation CPUs officially listed
Intel announced its 9th generation of CPUs, based on the same Coffee Lake S architecture we’ve seen earlier in the 8th generation. These new gen processors are going to become a new mainstream platform of Intel CPUs, bringing alive a new chipset standard – Z390.
There are seven new processors listed in the official documents – five of them belong to the Core i5 family and two more – to the Core i3. There is still no official information about Core i7 and Core i9 flagships, however, their specifications are supposed to be unveiled soon. Earlier this month, it was announced that a new Core i9 CPUs with increased to 8 number of cores is coming to the market, thus making Intel able to compete with AMD Ryzen mainstream CPU series.
New platform standards that come with next-gen Intel CPUs are also pushing motherboard manufacturers to make some impressive changes in their products. The new platform is specified for 14nm process node and intends to support built-in WLAN and Bluetooth 5.0, as well as some advanced media protocols.
There are still no exact specifications for the most interesting of announced CPU – flagships like Core i7 and Core i9 – but the estimated prices for the 9th Generation Intel processors are as follows:
- Core i5-9600K ~$250
- Core i7-9700K ~$350
- Core i9-9900K ~$450
AMD shows their new flagship CPU with 32 cores/64 Thread
Detailed specifications of the new AMD flagship CPU were unveiled. The new chip, called AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X, contains 32-core architecture with 64 Thread and totally 80 MBs of different levels cache (16 Mb of L2 cache and 64 Mb of L3 cache). The base clock of the CPU is 3.4 GHz and a maximum boost clock is 4.0 GHz.
During the Computex 2018, where 2nd Gen Threadripper was shown, AMD presented 2 new chips: flagship 2990X with 32 cores and 64 thread, and a lower configuration – AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970X, with only 24 cores and 48 thread, which is quite close to the main Threadripper’s Intel competitor – high-performance X-series chips with 28 cores and 56 thread.
New CPUs will keep compatibility retained on current X399 motherboards, so there is no necessity for other manufacturers to update their current hardware, however, they’d like to do that to fulfill new chips’ potential. There are still no prices for the new CPU, but based on the 1st Generation Threadripper, it’s going to be around $1,000 per chip.
GPU news
Next-Generation graphics cards by NVidia to be shown at Gamescom 2018
World-giant graphics chips producer – NVidia – is going to showcase the next-gen lineup GeForce GTX 11 on the Gamescon 2018, which will take place in late August. However, there are no detailed specifications or even prices of the new generation of graphics cards. Most likely, the key feature of the new lineup will be 7nm architecture, as well as a higher amount of GDDR.
Micron Technology officially starts GDDR6 mass production
Micron Technology, the transnational semiconductors manufacturer, officially started the mass production of their new GDDR6 memory, which is being used by such major GPU producers, like NVidia and AMD. This technical solution allows increasing video chips performance while decreasing power consumption. New mass production video memory is going to boost memory bandwidth up to 14 Gb/s, what is almost 20% higher than GDDR5X standard.
New GDDR6 memory standard will be used both in consumer market next-generation NVidia and AMD graphic cards and in some other spheres where GDDR bandwidth is highly crucial, e.g. artificial intelligence, networking, machine learning, commonwealth automatization.
AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 – the first 7nm proficient-level GPU
AMD is about to release its new flagship 7nm GPUs, called Pro Vega 20, for the consumer market. The AMD Vega 20 GPUs is already confirmed to be available for server needs, mostly for AI and DNN purposes. New Pro 20 series shows 35% more performance, twice more energy efficient and dens. Radeon Pro Vega 20 expected to feature 4096 stream processors and 32 GB VRAM.
However, prices and release date of the new GPUs are yet unclear. AMD is going to appear on Gamescon 2018 in August and is about to host a separate CPU-featured event at the end of July in Maranello, the domestic region of Ferrari. On both of these events, new GPUs may be announced for the consumer market.
ASIC news
GMO miner B3
GMO Company, a Tokyo-based internet giant, released its new ASIC for Bitcoin mining. The company informed about the ASIC development earlier this year, predicting this miner to become one of the most powerful mining devices on the market.
GMO B3 ASIC miner uses 7nm semiconductor chips. This innovation lets the new hardware show the highest performance and efficiency among all existing ASICs on the market. B3 is the next generation of GMO’s miners – first one, GMO miner B2 was released earlier this summer.
The price for new B3 will remain $1,999, while the performance is almost 50% higher than the previous device’s (24 TH/s in B2 to 33 TH/s in B3). However, energy consumption also increased from 81,2 W/TH to 103 W/TH.
There are all previous model’s features available for new ASIC device – online firmware updates, status monitor, and daisy-chain of up to 32 devices. Sales of the new GMO miner B3 will start in November 2018, while it’s also stated that B2 users will be able to change their current ASIC for the new revision for free.