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Why Crypto-Currency Miners Favor Nvidia Over Intel

During the California gold rush, many of the people who got rich were those who sold things the miners needed. In today's gold rush, people mining for crypto-currencies need computer processing power. The fact that Nvidia is way ahead of Intel in crypto-currency mining is one reason Nvidia's stock has gone from $30 to $240 in a little more than 2 years. Investing in Nvidia may be the smart way to benefit from the rise of crypto-currencies.

The Difference Between Intel And Nvidia
Nvidia processors are fundamentally different than Intel processors. Where an Intel processor typically has 2 or 4 cores, an Nvidia graphics processor can have thousands. An Nvidia core is much less powerful than an Intel core. But for certain kinds of tasks, it is much faster to use thousands of less powerful Nvidia cores, than a handful of Intel cores.
Nvidia's approach works for graphics processing because a display can be broken down into small pieces and the work divided among hundreds or thousands of Nvidia cores at the same time. The cores don't have to be that powerful because each one is only responsible for a small portion of the display.

In contrast, an Intel processor can only divide the task among a handful of cores. Even though an Intel core is more powerful, it is no match for hundreds or thousands of Nvidia cores in a graphics application. Here's a good video from Nvidia's website that demonstrates the difference in approaches.

It turns out the data crypto-currency miners need to process can also be broken down to small pieces so that it is much better to have thousands of Nvidia cores to work on the problem than a handful of more powerful Intel cores.

I have no doubt that Intel can produce a competitive graphic processor. However, it would be a big departure from their current strategy, and each year that goes by they fall further behind.

What If Crypto-Currencies Fizzle?

At this point, I am not sure which crypto-currencies will have value in the future. Investing in Nvidia seems a better bet than choosing any of the current crop of crypto-currencies. The volatility of the current crop makes it risky for even criminals to use them. The good thing for Nvidia is that only one crypto-currency needs to be stable enough to become mainstream. It does not matter which one.

www.forbes.com/sites/kenkam/2018/03/19/why-crypto-currency-miners-favor-nvidia-over-intel/#1379da3554ff