Graphics cards are increasingly being bought by cryptocurrency miners as the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to grow in popularity, and we’ve heard quite a lot lately about the shortage of AMD’s GPUs as a result – but of course, Nvidia’s stock is also being bought up by these non-gamer types, as the firm warned in a recent earnings call.
Jensen Huang, chief executive at Nvidia, acknowledged the popularity of the firm’s graphics cards with miners and admitted that the supply situation wasn’t ideal for gamers looking to buy a beefy new pixel-shifter.
Huang said: “There were gamers whose needs and demands weren’t filled last quarter, and the second quarter is an important part of the year for us.”
Perhaps more worrying is the CEO’s assertion that there will likely be new currencies springing up, and more interest in cryptocurrency mining going forward, and that “this is a market that’s not likely to go away anytime soon”.
Mining mayhem
Of course, Nvidia and its partners do produce GPUs which are specifically targeted at miners – they don’t even have video ports, as there’s no need to plug a display into them – but when Huang says the “GPU is ideal for cryptography”, he’s talking about ‘normal’ graphics cards as well.
Whatever is on offer will be bought up by miners if they’re becoming an increasingly prevalent breed, and that’s potentially bad news for gamers who might then struggle to get their higher-end GPU of choice – or at least have to pay more for the card.
In short, it would have been good to hear a comment along the lines of the ‘needs and demands’ of gamers being better met as the year goes on, but evidently this isn’t something Nvidia can promise.
Via: Digital Trends