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The Bitmain Antminer E9 is the world's most powerful Ethereum mining ASIC

Bitmain has launched a new ASIC for Ethereum
Bitmain has launched a new ASIC for Ethereum (image via Bitmain)
Bitmain has launched a new ASIC tailor-made for Ethereum. It can hit peak hash rates of 3GH/s, roughly equivalent to 32 GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards. It consumes 2,665W of power and will be available for purchase later for an unspecified price.

Ever since Ethereum gained traction earlier this year, we've seen countless gaming graphics cards repurposed for mining, often in egregious quantities. With the silicon shortage expected to persist through 2021, miners may have to look at GPU alternatives. Here's where ASICs (application-specific integrated circiut) come in. Bitmain, a company specialising in crypto-specific ASICs, has launched the new Antminer E9 (via Videocardz) tailor-made for Ethereum.

The Bitmain Antminer E9 directly succeeds the Antminer E3 from earlier. It comes with significant upgrades across the board, including a hash rate of 3GH/s, which is quite a step up from the E3's 180MH/s. That extra performance comes at an exceptionally high power draw of 2,665W. The Antminer E9 offers 32 times more processing power than the GeForce RTX 3080 (94MH/s at 320W TDP) at less than half of the power budget. Then again, graphics cards can also play games, something that ASICs cannot do.

Bitmain is yet to reveal the Antminer E9's price. Estimates put it between US$20,000 to US$30,000, given that it is the most potent Ethereum mining ASIC on the market at the moment. However, its launch comes in a bit late, as the graphics card market is beyond salvage at this point. Furthermore, the miner will be an expensive paperweight once Ethereum moves over to the proof of stake model, which designates value based on how much you own rather than a proof of work value which relies on how much processing power you have to offer.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2021 04 > The Bitmain Antminer E9 is the world's most powerful Etherium mining ASIC
Anil Ganti, 2021-04-25 (Update: 2021-05- 1)