AMD releases drivers fix for miners

If some miners suspected that some AMD video cards mine cryptocurrency slower than they could, they were true: the company has just released a new update of drivers which helps the GPUs of this company to work correctly when mining digital currency.

This measure is not a change of the corporate policy, mining is still viewed only as a secondary source of income both at AMD and its rival Nvidia. The latter company even advised the retail sphere to prioritize gamers’ demand when selling video cards. Journalists and observers have implied several times that these two companies might suffer in case mining becomes less popular.

Video cards were not designed with mining in mind. Their big computation power comes from the need to load various 3D applications, including video games with good graphics. Currently, Bitmain makes devices intended for mining from the start. Reports about its new Ethereum-oriented ASIC models suggest that their release could hamper the sales of Nvidia and AMD video cards previously used as a main tool to mine Ethereum.

The whole connection of GPUs and cryptocurrency comes from the increased mining difficulty over the years. There were times when a regular office computer CPU could have been used to mine Bitcoin.

Image courtesy of Coolcaesar / Wikimedia Commons