NVIDIA’s Miner vs. AMD’s Whiner

As many of you, I just got done watching AMD’s and NVIDIA’s CES 2022 reveal videos, and while there is a lot more to talk about than this, I thought this was worth its own post.

NVIDIA’s new RTX 3050 is an 8GB video card priced at an MSRP of $250.

AMD’s new Radeon 6500XT is a 4GB video card priced at an MSRP of $199.

Both cards are focused on the 1080P resolution gaming market. With the advent of VRR and 300Hz (and soon to be more) 1080P panels, this segment has truly opened up to a group of budget-minded gamers that are focused on more e-Sports and team based titles. That said, it is great to see both AMD and NVIDIA finally bring new architecture GPUs into this market space.

Here is the rub though, and what inspired this post’s title. The 3050 and its 8GB of VRAM is capable of mining Ethereum. The 6500XT and its 4GB of VRAM is not capable of mining Ethereum. It has been shown many times that 4GB is sufficient for almost every person wanting to game at 1080P. So why the 8GB on the 3050? Yes, that is right, it is still right in the Ethereum mining sweet spot and an attractive product for miners that are trying to get their grubby little mitts on every mining GPU on the planet. Assuredly, many will complain about the 4GB on the 6500XT, but for the demographic that will consider buying one, 4GB is certainly enough to get you high enough framerates at high enough image quality settings to get you gaming where you want to game.

The NVIDIA RTX 3050 is made for miners, while the AMD Radeon 6500XT will trigger the whiners.

The proof in the pudding about my theory here will be how the actual retail prices settle out. I am guessing that we will see the 6500XT stick a lot closer to its MSRP than the 3050 will.

Stay [H]ard!