Just in time for the Ethereum market crash, the Chinese mining company Bitmain has unveiled its Antminer E9 Ethereum miner.
according to the company’s Twitter announcement (opens in new tab), the mining rig is intended to completely surpass any GPU setup, and it claims that the new mining machine can match the performance of 25 GeForce RTX 3080s. Mentioned claims, as impressive as they are, seem accurate as an Antminter is capable of 2400MH / s compared to an RTX 3080s 100MH / s.
#BITMAIN announces # ANTMINERE9, equipped with a hash rate of 2400M, 1920W power consumption and power efficiency of 0.8J / M, using the Ethash algorithm for ETH / ETC. E9 is equivalent to 25 RTX 3080 graphics cards. The sale starts on July 6 at 09:00 (ET). pic.twitter.com/PU9lvtNEELJuly 5, 2022
This is not the first time Bitmain’s Antminer E9 Ethereum miners have been mentioned, as the company first revealed its existence back in 2021. The rigs are priced at $ 9,999 (approximately £ 8,300 / AU $ 14,500), which is significantly less than a similar number of RTXs. 3080s sold for Founders Edition MSRP at $ 699 (about £ 580 / AU $ 1000), which would come out to around $ 17,500.
This makes Antminer ETC / ETH Miner E9 43% cheaper than buying the corresponding number of RTX 3080 cards, and power consumption is also dramatically lower.
Miner E9 claims to have a power consumption of only 1920W for 2400MH / s, compared to 25 RTX 3080 cards running at 224W each to achieve 97.88MH / s per card for a total hash speed of 2447MH / s. However, RTX cards use 5600 W of energy for the slightly higher speed. This makes something like the Miner E9 a far more attractive investment for cryptocurrencies that are more concerned with profit maximization and efficiency than raw top-line performance.
The fact that there is a mining rig that can so efficiently accommodate dozens of the best graphics cards hopefully means that there will be so many more available for PC gamers to buy, and that does not even include the fall in demand for graphics cards from cryptocurrency .
Analysis: The effects of cryptocurrency on mining rigs
So why should Bitmain take up its Antminer mining rig again after more than a year of silence? Most likely, the huge delay came from Bitmain using them to mine Ethereum even before the massive crash that wiped out 75% of the value of the cryptocurrency.
And now they are most likely seeking to recoup these losses, just like how many crypto miners are desperately trying to unload their used GPUs. Due to the fact that the return on mining is significantly lower now than it was in 2021, the price will determine how well Bitmain’s rig will even sell.
And considering that the Linzhi “Phoenix” ASIC miner cost $ 11,300 and $ 13,700 at a time when the currency was still profitable, that means Antminer will most likely have to sell much cheaper to even be remotely viable.
Although everything bodes well for the GPU market, since the existence of more dedicated ethereum mining rigs that can outperform any graphics card, combined with the current decline in crypto, means we will hopefully see even more of them back in the hands of the players. Whether this will help reduce some of the ecological impact of this whole situation, seen by the sharp decline in carbon emissions since the crash began, however, remains to be seen.
