Cutting corners: In November, Sapphire began rebranding AMD mobile GPUs as dedicated mining hardware. It was a successful endeavor and the two GPUs they released have been priced above others with similar capabilities. But this month, the prices of both have toppled down to about MSRP.
On paper, the Sapphire GPro X080 and X060, are only marginally different from AMD's Radeon RX 6700M and 6600M, respectively. All four are in the mid-range performance category.
Sapphire launched the X080 with an inflated MSRP of €750 ($850) but it quickly jumped over the €1,000 hurdle. A month ago, it was around €1,200, but it plummeted down to €765 ($865) in early February and has stayed there since.
Also read: GPU Availability and Pricing Update: February 2022
Meanwhile, the X060 launched at €550 ($620) but was brushing up against €900 until recently, when it slipped down to €700 for a week, and then fell again to €500 ($565), where it's held steady.
| X080 | X060 | |
|---|---|---|
| Compute Units | 36 | 28 |
| Stream Processors | 2304 | 1792 |
| Clock Speed | 2132 MHz | 2044 MHz |
| Memory | 10 GB of GDDR6 | 8 GB of GDDR6 |
| Default Hash Rate* | 38 MH/s @ 165W | 28 MH/s @100W |
| Ideal Hash Rate* | 42 MH/s @ 93W | 29 MH/s @ 60W |
Part of the decline can be attributed to the general downwards trend in GPU prices, but dedicated mining hardware appears to be falling faster than gaming hardware. It seems like interest in mining is beginning to wane as prices fall and Ethereum gets closer to transitioning to proof-of-stake.
Nvidia's CMP series seems to be faring a little better, but they've been falling in price, too. Quite a few second-hand CMP cards are being sold by miners scaling down their operations while they can still fetch a good sum for their hardware.
With a little luck, that'll push more GPUs down to MSRP this year.
Image credit: Vagelis Lnz