Major Video Card Supplier Enters Cryptocurrency Mining Business

Sapphire Technology, one of the largest suppliers of AMD-based video cards in the world, has announced that it’s officially entering the cryptocurrency hardware business. The Hong Kong-headquartered company is launching a flagship mining rig.

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A New Player Enters the Field

Sapphire’s new rig, the INCA CS-14 Block-Chain Compute System, features 14 RX 470 GPUs and comes preloaded with the Linux operating system and mining software. It is expected to deliver a hash power of 410 MH/s, plus or minus 5 percent, with power consumption set at roughly 1,950 watts. The company claims it has put “over 15 years of know-how manufacturing state-of-the-art graphics cards” into the development of the new cryptocurrency mining rig.

The system appears to be designed with professorial mining farms in mind, as it employs a range of data-center optimization technologies. It is compatible with standard racks made by most vendors, the airflow is optimized for large configurations, all the cables are installed in one direction, and it enables power management and monitoring down to the individual mining rig outlet.

Mining Is Still a Growing Sector?

Sapphire’s decision to enter the cryptocurrency mining hardware business is a surprising show of confidence in the future growth of the sector. Much of the recent news about mining has been less than positive, to say the least, with bear market prices pushing many operations below profitability. For example, earlier this month it was revealed that weak demand from GPU miners has been one of the leading contributing factors to the slump in sales for graphic cards manufacturers such as Asus and Gigabyte, which are struggling with unsold inventory.

“The blockchain market is a very exciting space to be in and as this nascent industry continues to grow, it represents a significant opportunity for Sapphire,” commented Adrian Thompson, global vice president of marketing at Sapphire Technology. “Sapphire graphics cards are renowned in the industry for pushing the boundaries of performance, innovation and engineering quality and we are looking to leverage this experience and expertise to create industry leading Blockchain systems for commercial mining operations.”

Is this a good sign that GPU manufacturers believe a recovery is coming soon? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Sapphire Technologies.

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