Leak shows cryptocurrency mining card with surprising Nvidia chip

Recent rumors suggest Nvidia will soon release dedicated cryptocurrency cards codenamed “Turing.” The cards would presumably be based on a modified version of the Volta architecture, Nvidia’s latest graphics chip designs — but a new leak suggests that the upcoming mining cards may use a version of the older Pascal chips from the company’s GTX 1080 TI and Titan-branded cards. 

The leak stems from an upcoming Inno3D card packing the P102-100 graphics chip, but no bracket for attaching it to a mining frame, or video output. It also appears to use Inno3D’s Twin X2 cooler design sporting two fans and five heatpipes. Here are the specifications compared to the GTX 1080 Ti card: 

 As the specifications show, Inno3D’s model for miners is a cutdown version of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card for PC gamers. It has a lower core count, less on-board memory, a smaller interface width, and a smaller memory bandwidth. Additionally, the specifications show the card may simply run at 1,582MHz rather than fluctuate between two speeds as seen with the GTX 1080 Ti. 

Now here are the hash rates supposedly proposed by Inno3D: 

 Nvidia quietly introduced two graphics chips dedicated to cryptocurrency mining last summer: The P106-100 and the P104-100. Cards based on these two chips weren’t released by Nvidia, but rather third-party manufacturers including Asus, Colorful, EVGA, Galaxy, Inno3D, MSI, and Zotac. Both are based on Nvidia’s previous-generation “Pascal” design, and the new leaked Inno3D card could serve as a high-end Pascal-based product that will be cheaper than Nvidia’s rumored “Turing” cards for miners arriving this year.

As a reference, Nvidia provides the GP106 chip in its GTX 1060 graphics cards for PC gamers while the GP104 serves as the source in its GTX 1070, GTX 1070 Ti, and GTX 1080 cards. Meanwhile, the GP102 can be seen in the Titan Xp, Titan X, and GTX 1080 Ti high-end graphics cards. Previous rumors indicated that Nvidia would discontinue its Pascal-based graphics chips, but the Inno3D leak reveals Nvidia still has plans for its previous-generation GPU family. 

Exactly when Nvidia will reveal its new generation of graphics chips is still up in the air. “Volta” is its current GPU design seen in the Nvidia Titan V for desktop gamers costing $2,999 along with the Tesla V100 card for data centers. Following these cards will be the GeForce GTX 20 Series for gamers dubbed as “Ampere,” and cryptocurrency mining cards dubbed as “Turing.” But given the new Inno3D leak, whether Turing will depend on Pascal or Volta remains to be seen.