The story repeats itself: Due to the current surge of Bitcoin and Ethereum, miners are eager to upgrade their hardware. A particular AMD processor is so popular that it is almost sold out everywhere.
What’s happening in the crypto market? Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum fought their way out of the deep valley of tears they were in during 2022 and 2023. In the last six months alone, the price of Bitcoin is said to have risen by 170 percent.
The new peaks surpass the all-time high of 2021. The same goes for other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. While investors and users are certainly pleased with this upswing, the news is likely to horrify all PC gamers who wanted to acquire specific hardware upgrades soon.
Anyone who wants to enjoy a game like GTA 6 in maximum detail on PC unfortunately needs expensive hardware:
Why does this concern us gamers? The so-called crypto miners use a lot of computing power to mine units of a cryptocurrency, which they obtain through fast graphics cards and processors. Graphics cards and processors, mind you, that would also feel at home in any gaming PC.
The miners need so many machines for their work that they buy incredibly large quantities of hardware. Hardware that is, of course, no longer available to gamers. And when the demand exceeds the supply, prices for many high-end graphics cards soar to absurd heights. You could observe this during the last crypto hype.
And that could now again await all PC gamers. According to the website Techspot, miners are specifically targeting one AMD processor this time: the Ryzen 9 7950X. This CPU supports certain instruction sets, making it the king of certain mining processes at the moment. Moreover, it is significantly cheaper than a Nvidia GeForce 4090, thus increasing the profit for the miners.
The mass purchases, of course, have an effect. Many retailers are reportedly sold out of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (as well as other processors) or only have small quantities left. Experts are already predicting a similar situation for the upcoming Zen-5 CPUs, which could enter mass production in the third quarter of 2024.
At the moment, it is hard to tell whether there will actually be a shortage and a significant price increase for processors. There are still no announcements from manufacturers.
In any case, you should keep a watchful eye on used hardware – processors and graphics cards from mining rigs are usually no longer useful for gamers. If you urgently need an upgrade, you should probably act sooner rather than later. If you’re looking for a fast GPU: Here you can find the best gaming graphics cards for every budget 2024
