MSI has quietly added its first CMP-series board for cryptocurrency mining to its lineup. The Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP) card looks exactly like the company’s mid-range GeForce GTX 1660/1660 Super graphics boards, but lacks display outputs and cannot be used to render images or video.
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The MSI CMP 30HX Miner XS carries Nvidia’s TU116 GPU with 1408 CUDA cores that operate at 1530 MHz – 1785 MHz depending on conditions. The board is equipped with 6GB of GDDR6 memory featuring a 192-bit interface, just like Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1660-series graphics cards for gaming. The card has a cooling system comprising of a large aluminum heatsink with two heat pipes as well as two double ball bearings fans. The mining device requires one eight-pin auxiliary PCIe power connector as it is rated for a 125W power consumption.
MSI says that its CMP 30HX Miner XS card uses a custom PCB design that provides ‘greater reliability and beefed-up power circuitry for pushing the card to its limits,’ yet without elaborating. Still, a fairly simplistic cooling system coupled with a not-so-hot GPU already provide some piece of mind as far as reliability is concerned.
The CMP 30HX Miner XS card claims an Ethereum hash rate of 26 MH/s but performance will vary based on factors such as clock speed and operating temperature. Measuring just 8.1 x 5 x 1.65 inches (206 x 127 x 42mm) the board is fairly small compared to the current crop of GPUs, so it shouldn’t be too hard to use a number of such devices in a mining system.
What is not completely clear about MSI’s CMP 30HX Miner XS card are terms of warranty. Gigabyte offers a three-months warranty with its CMP-series product. Such terms of warranty do not comply with EU’s mandatory two-year warranties on electronics, so the product is probably backed with a full-blown warranty in Europe. Yet in other countries Gigabyte takes less risks.
MSI has not disclosed recommended pricing of its CMP 30HX Miner XS card.