If you've been trying to buy an AMD graphics card in recent weeks you may have actually struggled in some territories, as those looking to use the hardware to mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Byteball, ZCash, Melon, Omni and others, have been buying them due to a surge in popularity and value of the currencies in the last few months. That's because seemingly out of the blue, digital currencies have seen their worth increase by many hundreds of percent, making many of them finally worth mining, since their eventual value works out to more than the electricity used to mine them in the first place.
This is a somewhat surprising turn of events, not just because few expected the currencies to explode as they have, but because it's been a long time since graphics cards were a viable way to mine digital coins. Several years ago they were used by many to mine bitcoins as their value increased, but before long graphics cards just weren't proving to be fast enough and were replaced by ASIC miners which are far more powerful and far more efficient, leading to reduced electricity usage.
However, when it comes to these younger currencies, where there are more coins available to be mined, the trade off is proving worth it and it's leading to GPU shortages in key territories as people build big server farms for mining some of the new upstart currencies.
But what's perhaps more worrying about this trend, is that it might not stop any time soon. As Motherboard reports, some of the unique features of a currency like Ethereum, is that mining doesn't scale with memory, so specialised mining hardware like ASIC rigs may not help increase the speed of mining. That could mean that GPUs remain the best choice for mining rigs in the future, but what does that mean for gamers trying to buy them?
It could lead to them opting for second hand mining systems on auction sites like Ebay, but if you're thinking about doing the same, consider that even if they are relatively cheap, those cards have been running 24/7 for a long time and likely have a reduced lifespan because of it.