The first NVIDIA CMP 30HX has been released, and it's expensive


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The NVIDIA CMP 30HX is currently available to buy from the Dubai retailer Microless, with a price point of $723.84.

As spotted by @monomo_us on Twitter, NVIDIA's first crypto mining processor was listed on the Microless site earlier this week. The price even appears to have gone up since then, with the Palit CMP being priced at $815.40 at the time of writing.

According to the listing, the 192-bit CMP has 6GB GDDR6 at 14GB/s, and a hash rate of 26 MH/s. It does not include a video output.

NVIDIA first announced the CMP earlier this year in a bid to shift crypto miners away from its RTX 30 Series GPUs.

Is the NVIDIA CMP 30HX too expensive?

At first glance, the CMP 30HX seems overpriced. With similar specs to NVIDIA's GTX 1660 Super and a hash rate of just 26MH/s, the price is unlikely to entice miners away from other GPUs. NVIDIA's RTX 3060, for example, has a hash rate of around 25MH/s, and that's after the hash rate restrictions have been applied.

Of course, this pricing isn't the official MSRP from NVIDIA. The company has yet to reveal the price point, but it is likely lower than Microless' price.

As a retailer outside of the US that also needs to make a profit, the 30HX's price here may be slightly inflated. We'll have to wait until NVIDIA confirms the official price and release date of the 30HX - which cannot be that far away.

The NVIDIA CMP 30HX also has the lowest specs out of the four CMP cards NVIDIA intends to release, raising questions about the pricing of the 80HX, for example.

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Why is NVIDIA releasing a crypto mining processor?

Aside from wanting to cash in on the mining trend that has grown exponentially in 2020, NVIDIA has another motive for releasing the CMP.

2020 and 2021 have been unprecedented for many reasons, one of which is the stock shortages of tech products. Semiconductor shortages caused issues for both the PS5 and Xbox Series X, exacerbated by the high demand for gaming products.

NVIDIA's GPUs have suffered from the same problem. Gamers, scalpers, and now crypto miners have all been competing for the latest GPUs. As NVIDIA created these cards for gaming, the company has become increasingly concerned about them getting into the wrong hands.

READ MORE: NVIDIA accidentally unlocks RTX 3060 crypto mining restrictions

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