EVGA is the latest company to reveal a graphics card made specifically for cryptocurrency miners. The company hasn't revealed many details about the card, known only by its 06G-P4-5162-RB part number, but it has shared preliminary specs for the otherwise mysterious device.
In case you haven't been following our coverage of the recent Ethereum boom and its effect on the graphics card market: A cryptocurrency called Ethereum recently hit record-high prices, which led many people to go out and scoop up as many graphics cards as they could in order to "mine" some units of the currency. This has led to price increases or shortages of many graphics cards, and prompted manufacturers like Biostar, Asus, and now EVGA to make products specifically for miners. Other companies, like MSI, have updated old products for better mining performance.
EVGA's mining card is pretty much standard at this point. It doesn't have any display ports, which means it definitely won't be used for gaming, and its small form factor is supposed to allow it to fit in a system filled with other graphics cards. It's based on the GP106 GPU found in Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060s, upon which cryptocurrency miners have pounced like a hungry lion on a fat gazelle. Many GTX 1060s and 1070s have seen drastic price increases or are totally sold out--and signs point to a global GPU shortage exacerbating this issue for a while after Ethereum cools down a little.
Here's the rub: EVGA won't say when, where, or at what price the awkwardly named 06G-P4-5162-RB will debut. Here's what a spokesperson told us:
"Yes, we will have a mining card (with no IO output) that is specifically targeted at Ethereum mining, however, it will only be available for select customers/regions."
This is common among these cards--manufacturers have rushed to announce these products, but they haven't said when they plan to get them into miners' hands. Some don't seem likely to hit the U.S. any time soon, especially if they use a GPU that's currently only available in China, like Biostar's new mining card does. EVGA won't have that problem--it's not like the GTX 1060 isn't available stateside--but that doesn't mean the card will hit the U.S. For now we're going to have to wait and see when manufacturers plan to reveal more information about their trendy products.
| Model | 06G-P4-5162-RB |
|---|---|
| GPU | GP106 |
| CUDA Cores | 1,280 |
| Base Clock | 1,506MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1,708MHz |
| Memory | 6,144MB GDDR5 |
| Memory Bit Width | 192-Bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 192GBps |
| Dimensions (H x L) | 111.15 x 172.72mm |
| Slots | Dual |
