Someone turned an Nvidia crypto mining GPU into a gaming one – and the resulting nightmare is a warning to us all
It’s possible to reuse one of Nvidia’s dedicated crypto mining GPUs in a gaming graphics card, but you really shouldn’t, as the adventures of one intrepid modder clearly illustrate.
VideoCardz reported this story of the conversion of an MSI CMP 50HX graphics card to a gaming model by the Spanish YouTuber Sfdx show (originally highlighted by Professional review).
That MSI mining graphics card is powered by a TU102 chip. This is the same engine found in the RTX 2080 Ti, so it’s a repurposed gaming chip, albeit a different variant of TU102 (with slightly fewer CUDA cores). But in theory, this CMP 50HX can be converted into a gaming GPU with some clever tricks.
The hope is that it’s not too far removed from the highly rated RTX 2080 Ti, but the reality, as we’ll see, is very different…
So let’s list the problems here. First, the crypto mining board does not have an output for a monitor (mining does not require one, and omitting one saves costs). Given that, it should be connected to a system with integrated graphics (which can be routed to a display) and used as a secondary GPU.
In addition to these hardware considerations, the CMP 50HX is equipped with a blower-style cooler (which isn’t ideal).
The other major problem lies with the graphics drivers, as the reused GPU is not recognized by Nvidia’s GeForce driver (since the product does not officially exist). The YouTuber had to tinker with custom driver binaries to get the GPU working, not something that’s easy to do (Sfdx Show notes it was a real “pain” according to Google’s translation of the Spanish clip).
Ultimately, Sfdx Show got the mining GPU working as a converted GeForce model, but the results were disappointing: it was not, as hoped, an RTX 2080 equivalent.
This was because the CMP 50HX was limited to 4 PCIe lanes, and the modder couldn’t get around this, even checking (by soldering in missing bits) that the GPU chip didn’t enable these lanes (even though they are present on the card itself).
Analysis: Very impractical, but interesting nonetheless
Ultimately, given the cost of buying a used mining GPU and the complexity of tinkering with drivers (although another third party has made the process easier, we’re told) plus the other caveats mentioned, this isn’t a wise choice . route to get a cheap graphics card.
You might as well look for a used GeForce GPU, especially considering that used mining graphics cards may be on their last legs with many, many miles on them.
The YouTuber paid around €160 to get the CMP 50HX from AliExpress, which translates to around $170 / £140 / AU$270. For that kind of money, you can buy an RTX 2070 on eBay in the US, for example (looking at the Nvidia side of the equation) for not much more than $200, without all the hassle, multiple caveats, and undoubtedly much less mileage on the counter as stated.
But even if it’s an impractical experiment in this case, repurposing a graphics card for mining is certainly interesting to see.