Sapphire Also to Release AMD-based Crypto Mining GPUs

Not a lot of details about the upcoming AMD-based Crypto Mining GPUs from Sapphire Yet, though they have been already listed for pre-order over at Overclockers UK. There are four Sapphire Mining Edition video cards listed that are based on AMD’s Radeon RX 470 GPU with different video memory configurations, all of which are without external video connectors. There is also a single AMD Radeon RX 560 GPU also labeled as Mining Edition, though it is a bit different with a single DVI connector on the back, so it can be used for other things than just crypto mining. It is interesting to note that the Sapphire Mining Edition cards do come with 1 year warranty instead of the regular two or even 3 years warranty that Sapphire cards targeted at gamers usually have (depending on the market).

Sapphire Mining Editions cards:
– Sapphire Radeon RX 470 MINING Edition 8192MB GDDR5 Samsung 7 Gbps (11256-38-10G) – 25-28MH/s ETH
– Sapphire Radeon RX 470 MINING Edition 8192MB GDDR5 7 Gbps (11256-37-10G) – 24-27MH/s ETH
– Sapphire Radeon RX 470 MINING Edition 4096MB GDDR5 Samsung 7 Gbps (11256-36-10G) – 24-27 MH/s ETH
– Sapphire Radeon RX 470 MINING Edition 4096MB GDDR5 7 Gbps (11256-35-10G) – 23-26 MH/s ETH
– Sapphire Radeon RX 560 Pulse MINING Edition 4096MB (11267-11-10G) – 12-15 MH/s ETH

It is interesting to note that the store lists the type of memory on different models and what mining performance they will be able to offer for mining Ethereum (ETH). There are two values that apparently represent the stock and the modified BIOS result, though it is not yet clear if the dual BIOS comes with modified settings, or Sapphire has just left that part to the miners. Unfortunately the prices listed for pre-order are not making these very attractive alternative compared to the regular models, though with the current shortage miners may not care that much as long as there is stock of these new Mining Edition cards from Sapphire available.

Something that is important regarding the warranty of regular Sapphire GPUs that are not originally intended for mining, the website of the company has some additional terms listed about mining usage, here is a quote below.

Warranty may vary from Country/Region, the customer must verify directly with the SAPPHIRE Authorized Dealer/Reseller from where the product was purchased as to the specifics of Warranty provided.

Warranty also varies for products used in Industrial , Block chain and crypto currency mining applications and the customer must verify with the SAPPHIRE Authorized Dealer/Reseller from where the product was purchased for more information.

So make sure you check the warranty information of the seller whether you are buying regular gaming GPUs or any of the Mining Edition cards to make sure about the warranty period you get with each. We have already received reports form users that some retailers are selling GPUs without any mention about warranty getting void on their websites if they are being used for crypto mining and you get that told to you after you purchase the cards and have them shipped to you.

New Optimized Ethminer for Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPUs

There is a new development version of the ethminer 0.11.0rc1 (source) available that brings CUDA performance improvements especially optimized for GTX 1060 GPUs. People are reporting a couple of megahashes increase in the performance of GTX 1060 GPUs over what they are getting with the same settings from Claymore’s ETH miner, some slight, but less performance improvement is observed in GTX 1070. Unfortunately it seems that the performance optimizations submitted by David Li don’t do much good for GDDR5X GPUs like the GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti.

Feel free to test it on your Nvidia mining GPUS and report what and if there is some improvement in the hashrate over your previous settings. If you do make sure you try different value for the --cuda-parallel-hash command line flag (default value is 4), but you can experiment with 1, 2 and 8 and see what works best for you. Again the highest benefits are apparently observed on GTX 1060 GPUs as the performance optimization is apparently targeted at them, though some other GPUs might still benefit a slight boost as well. You can download and try the Windows binary compiled from the latest source below.

– To download and try the CUDA optimized new ethminer 0.11.0rc1 for Windows…

ASUS Mining P106 is a GPU for Crypto Currency Mining

VGA card manufacturers seem to have finally started taking care for the crypto mining market that has been growing significantly lately due to the high profitability for crypto mining. ASUS, one of the top brands not only for VGA, but for other PC components as well has announced their Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060-based mining video card and the product is called ASUS Mining P106. We have already talked about Nvidia’s plans to release a crypto mining oriented GPU for miners based on their GTX 1060 GPU. Originally the plan was to have this product on limited markets and not available in the retail chain, but it seems that this plan can change with ASUS and other VGA brands joining with products that can become available through the usual distribution channels as well.

The ASUS Mining P106 is based on the NVIDIA P106-100 GPU and comes with 6GB GDDR5 that has probably been modified with custom timings in order to increase the hashrate for more memory intensive mining algorithm such as Dagger-Hashimoto (Ethash) used by Ethereum. The GPU Base Clock is 1506 MHz and the Boost Clock is 1708 MHz, the video memory is 8008 MHz GDDR5. The initial information was that the NVIDIA P106-100 GPU should be based on the 9 Gbps version of the GTX 1060, though this might still be true with the memory is apparently at 8 Gbps with more aggressive timings. As expected the ASUS Mining P106 GPU does not feature any kind of video outputs so it is essentially limited to only computing tasks such as mining and will not be an interesting product for gamers that might also want to mine, but still be able to play games.

Other interesting features on the ASUS Mining P106 include the dual ball-bearing fans that are IP5X-certified to be dust resistant and thus offer a longer fan lifespan and this is really important as far as crypto mining goes. ASUS also claims that they have used components that enhance efficiency, reduce power loss, decrease component buzzing under load, and lower thermal temperatures for unsurpassed quality and reliability. There is no mention about warranty period as initially Nvidia had plans to offer their mining GPUs with just 3 months of warranty, though we are hearing that other brands such as ASUS might actually be with 1 year warranty. No word about pricing either, though the mining GPUs should be cheaper than the consumer version of GTX 1060 in order to be more attractive to miners and we are probably going to be seeing them starting to appear on the some markets sometime next month.

ASUS has also announced a second GPU targeted at miners, but that one is really not that interesting like the NVIDIA P106-100 GPU is. The ASUS Mining RX 470 is essentially a standard AMD Radeon RX 470-based video card with 4GB video memory at 7000 MHz, there is no word about improved timings for mining that will result in better performance. The design of the AMD mining GPU is very similar to the Nvidia mining model, though here you have video output connectors and cans till use the card for gaming if you want to. The fans are the same and ASUS claims that the same improved components are being used to offer better reliability for longer term mining usage.

– To get more details about the ASUS Mining P106 GPU on the official website…

How to Keep an Eye On Crypto Token ICOs

Crypto Token ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) are not slowing down and if you need to be able to get a better understanding on the ones that are more interesting and seem more promising, then you need a resource to help you get a better understanding and have a handy calendar when and what is launching and how long it will be available. One such service that we find useful is TokenMarket as it provides information for tokens and crypto currencies launching ICOs, they also have a calendar to help you keep track what to expect and when. Of course you still need to do a proper research in any ICO that you might be interested in, read the Whitepaper, check the Roadmap, see if there is actually something already available to as a products or service (even a prototype or alpha version) and so on. Just like with crypto currencies the advice to not invest more than you can afford to loose in ICO tokens is even more on the spot.

– To check out the TokenMarket website and what information it provides…

Bitcoin VR, a Virtual Reality Bitcoin Block Explorer

Bitcoin VR is an interesting Virtual Reality application available for the HTC Vive VR headset as well as for the Google Cardboard VR platform available to Android mobile device users. It is essentially a visual gamified VR Blockchain explorer where you can can see real time Bitcoin transactions fall from the sky in the form of gems you can grab a gem to see the transaction details or shoot them with a Bow and Arrow.

Bitcoin VR has been developed by MandelDuck, the same guys that did the Sarutobi Bitcoin game that we have covered a while ago. Bitcoin VR is a free application for both the HTC VIVE and the Google Cardboard platforms, so you can download and try for either VR Blockchain explorer if you have any of the two at your disposal. It is interesting and fun to see a different perspective of the transactions that is taking advantage of VR technology, even though it is not terribly useful it is still worth checking out. Do note that the applications for the two platforms are not exactly the same in terms of functionality due to the specifics of the capabilities that they do provide to the user and especially due to the extra level of interactivity provided by HTC VIVE.

SiaCoin (SC) To Get a Dedicated Mining Hardware ASIC Device

The people behind the development of SiaCoin (SC) have tweeted an interesting, but very brief post about an upcoming release of a dedicated ASIC mining hardware intended for mining the SiaCoin tokens. The Obelisk SC1 is supposed to be the first ASIC built for Sia mining according to the official tweet from Sia Tech (@SiaTechHQ). There are no more details revealed at this point, though more information should be made available by the end of the week.

SiaCoin has been getting more attention lately and the price of the crypto tokens has been rising, though releasing a mining ASIC for a token that is intended to be used for renting and leasing file storage is an interesting decision. Having a dedicated NAS device tied to SiaCoin like the MineBox makes much more sense for a service like that. SC can currently be mined using GPUs and not only being earned by providing free space to users that need to host some data and getting paid in SiaCoin tokens in return.

We are going to see what SiaCoin will actually announce and what their upcoming Obelisk SC1 will offer, but the initial user feedback is not that positive as one would expect. Switching to ASIC mining can actually result in negative results with GPU miners moving away switching to other altcoins and not getting into ASIC mining SC. As far as we are aware there are no other altcoins based on the same algorithm and mining like SiaCoin so essentially an ASIC miner will be very limited in terms of usability and may actually reach its end of life cycle much faster than other ASIC miners that can be used for multiple crypto coins that use the same algorithm.

Crypto Ping Telegram Crypto Monitoring Bot

A new and interesting service for the occasional or more serious crypto traders – Crypto Ping Telegarm Bot that tracks crypto prices and gives you trading signals. Do note that the service is not a trading bot that gives you advice on crypto trading, the goal is to provide you only with early warnings about increasing demand on the crypto markets. One more tool to help people with monitoring and analyzing the crypto market to predict price movements and give you a good timing to get in or get out of a crypto currency trading position. Currently the service is in beta mode and free to try, so we do recommend that you give it a go and see if it works for you or not…

Currently the Telegram bot supports monitoring for the following exchanges: Poloniex, Bittrex, Cryptopia and Yobit and gives you signals for the coins traded on them hinting at profitable trades before any pumps actually start. Although the Crypto Ping service is free to try at the moemnt it is also in the process of running an ICO to secure some funds in order to continue the development of the bot and add new features to it. After the ICO is over the tokens that will be distributed will be traded on exchanges and will also be a means to be used for the subscription fee that will be introduced for users willing to continue using the full functionality of the bot.

There aren’t a lot of such services available to the average crypto user that may not be too good at trading or may actually be too afraid to even try doing some trades on crypto exchanges. Should you decide to use a service like that one that gives you trading signals based on market analysis you should still be careful and not go all out You can just check the reliability of the signals by just doing some virtual trades and monitoring the outcome without actually doing some real trades. There is always risk involved, so some signals may not end up that good while others may be really profitable. Again, give the service a try while it is still in beta and free to use and see if it works for you or not.

– For more information and to check out the Crypto Ping Telegram Bot yourself…