AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X CPU has become a popular mining option, earning more profits than the fastest GPUs, as the crypto craze once again picks up.
CPUs More Viable Than GPUs In Certain Mining Algorithms, Crypto Rises From The Ashes As Bitcoin Hits $73,000 US
It’s not the first time that CPUs are used for crypto mining but with the recent rise of Bitcoin, surpassing $60K and hitting up to $73K US, it looks like the mining craze has returned even if for the time being. This has led to people dusting off their old mining systems and firing them back up to earn the crypto gold while the craze lasts.
This has also led to the rise in demand for AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs in certain currencies such as Qubic which takes advantage of AVX2 or AVX512 instructions which the Zen 4 architecture is very good at since it is the only client and widely available option that supports the ISA. Intel gave up on offering AVX512 support in its client offerings since Alder Lake CPUs despite the chips having the necessary capabilities were blocked due to clients buying Core CPUs over Xeon chips which cost more.
Image Source: Profit-Mine
Previously, AMD’s CPUs were used for Raptoreum mining algorithms which took advantage of the massive L3 caches featured on Ryzen & Threadripper chips, especially the 3D V-Cache parts which have large pools of cache stacked on top of the chips.
If you search up the current mining profit rates, the Qubic (QBIC) coin generates a mining profit of around $3 US (24 hours) using the chip which includes the electricity cost when running the chip at 170W. Given the fantastic efficiency that AMD’s Zen 4 CPUs have to offer and their ability to offer the same or very similar performance when down-clocked to 65-100W, the 16-core behemoth and the rest of its siblings become a viable solution for such algorithms.
Image Source: MinerStat
With AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPUs, you can generate almost twice as much profit in crypto mining versus using the flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU which offers a maximum profit of $1.7-$1.9 US in currencies such as PYI and NEX. The GPU has a maximum power draw of 450W & also features a 3.5x higher price ($559 US vs $2000 US).
Now I understand, 7950X is the king in Qubic mining. https://t.co/r8Uo79B6C6
— MEGAsizeGPU (@Zed__Wang) March 12, 2024
The heightened demand for AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs including the Ryzen 9 7950X has led to a temporary shortage of the chip in the US market. Other markets are affected too though not as much at the moment. The crypto craze has just picked up recently so as more people get the news of this, we can expect a widened shortage for these chips.
Furthermore, if more mining algorithms take advantage of AVX512 instructions, then it looks like things won’t be great for AMD’s Zen 5 CPU supply as Kepler_L2 reports that the next-gen AMD chip architecture is going to offer twice the AVX512 performance of Zen 4 and that’s going to be a major benefit in crypto mining.
Zen5 LHR ????
— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) March 12, 2024
Yup. Most CPU mining algos use AVX-512, where Zen5 has 2x perf of Zen4.
— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) March 12, 2024
The AMD Zen 5 CPUs are expected to launch in both Ryzen desktop and laptop CPUs later this year so it looks like we may see AMD implement a certain hash restriction similar to NVIDIA’s LHR in its CPUs to tackle the use of its consumer chips in crypto mining though AMD has taken little action to divert its products from mining use in the past.