NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is 3X faster than a GeForce RTX 2080 at Ethereum mining
While NVIDIA has bragged about how the GeForce RTX 3080 is up to twice as fast as a GeForce RTX 2080 in games, it seems that the GeForce RTX 3080 has another ace up its sleeve: Ethereum mining. A miner has claimed that the GeForce RTX 3080 is capable of 115MH/s, which is more than 3X higher than the 35 to 40MH/s that the GeForce RTX 2080 cards are capable of.
Whether this will trigger a stock shortage due to the cards being snapped up by miners remain to be seen, but hopefully we will not see a repeat of 2017, which saw graphics cards sold out everywhere as miners grabbed every card they could to mine Ethereum. Prices of graphics cards rose to ridiculous heights, simply due to the shortage as well as the exorbitant rates that miners are able to justify.
There might be some reprieve for gamers though, as the high power consumption of the GeForce RTX 3080 might turn away miners. A higher power consumption will mean that miners have to upgrade their power supplies, which mean higher costs of upgrading their miners with the GeForce RTX 3080. Hopefully that is enough to deter them as we definitely want to be able to get our hands on one, to actually game on it.
According to Tom’s Hardware’s calculations, it will take about 274 days for a miner to recoup the costs of getting a GeForce RTX 3080, versus the 933 days it will take for a GeForce RTX 2080 to earn back the $699 price of the card.
Pokdepinion: I hope NVIDIA will do something to prevent all these cards from going to miners.
