Bitmain Antminer E9 Is As Powerful As 25 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090s In Cryptocurrency Mining

Cryptocurrency has skyrocket in value and this month alone, we saw the sale of $30 million worth of NVIDIA CMP series mining cards to the Hut 8 Mining Corp. and the seizure of 300 stolen NVIDIA CMP 30HX cryptocurrency mining cards. Now, Bitmain has just teased the Antminer E9 Ethereum miner which has a hash rate of 3 GH/s.

Could The Antminer E9 ASIC Cryptocurrency Miner Be The Solution To The GPU Shortage? - Unlikely, But It's Still A Possibility If The Stars Align For Bitmain

The Bitmain Antminer E9 is an ASIC miner aimed at Ethereum and it reportedly delivers a hash rate of up to 3 GH/s in Ethereum mining. That much mining power is the equivalent of 25 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090s (120 MH/s per 3090) or 32 RTX 3080s (94 MH/s per 3080). In terms of NVIDIA mining cards currently available, the Antminer E9 is equivalent to 115 CMP 30HXs (26 MH/s per 30HX). The Antimer E9 is also going to draw a lot of power at 2,556W, but it has an efficiency of 0.85 J/M. With that much power, the Antiminer E9 could make around $236 per day with a $.13 per kWh (average cost of electricity in the US) electricity cost factored in.

If the 3 GH/s hash rate claim is true, that will make the Antminer E9 the most powerful ASIC cryptocurrency miner on the market. It would be out the Linzhi Phoenix miner which has a hash rate of 2.6 GH/s. The Linzhi Phoenix is also less power efficient at 3000W. This makes the Antminer E9 15.3% faster in mining performance and 14.8% more efficient. This ASIC miner certainly won't be cheap and the rumors currently floating around are that the Antminer E9 will sell for over $20,000. Some even speculate that it could go up to $30,000. For comparison, the Linzhi Phoenix falls in the price range of $11,300-$13,700.

Ethereum Value (Source: Coindesk)

If the price for the Antminer E9 falls between $20,000 to $30,000, the time to break even will fall between 85 days to 127 days. It's certainly a much better investment than 25 RTX 3090s which would cost around $75,000 on the resale market putting the time to break even at 311 days in the best-case scenario assuming that electricity is cheap and the value of Ethereum stays the same. Looking at this proposition, the Antminer E9 looks like an extremely attractive purchase for a cryptocurrency miner.

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Could this be the solution to the graphics card shortage? Well, the answer could be either yes or no. If Bitmain can manage to produce the Antminer E9 in large enough quantities, it could certainly be a large part of the solution to the graphics card shortage. Instead of graphics cards going into the hands of cryptocurrency miners, the miners will be occupied with the ASIC miner and consumers will finally be able to get their hands on the newest graphics cards. More realistically, Bitmain will most likely not be able to produce the Antminer E9 on a large enough scale due to the global semiconductor shortage.

The Bitmain Antminer E9 ASIC cryptocurrency miner will certainly compete with NVIDIA's CMP series of cryptocurrency mining cards. However, it is unlikely it will carve out a large part of the market share as it is unreasonable to assume it will be made in large quantities. Unfortunately for the consumer, the graphics card shortage will persist unless the stars align for Bitmain.

The post Bitmain Antminer E9 Is As Powerful As 25 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090s In Cryptocurrency Mining by Alex Casas appeared first on Wccftech.