AMD Radeon RX 500 series graphics cards, particularly the RX 580 and 570, have been out of stock for weeks now owing to the cryptocurrency mining craze. The market had shifted away from GPU mining a couple of years back after several China based companies launched specialized ASICs that were much faster and more power efficient at resolving the block chain equations necessary to mine Bitcoin and Litecoin, the Gold and Silver of cryptocurrencies.
However GPU mining has seen a massive resurgence over the past little while due to the rising popularity of ASIC resistent coins. Chief among which is Etherium which has seen its price more than triple in a matter of months. AMD's Add-In-Board partners have caught on to this and have already started directly advertising to miners.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday June 06 2017, @01:39PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:56PM
if it buys time until better ways are developed then it's good enough for me. i'm profitably mining because asics resistant coins exist and it's important to me financially.