Between 2020 and 2022, the mining of cryptocurrencies, especially Ethereum, caused a sharp increase in the demand for GPUs. Customers had to pay outrageous prices, and there was a shortage of graphics cards as a result. Even if things calmed down by September 2022, a new trend has surfaced in 2024: a rise in demand for CPUs, particularly those made by AMD, which is being driven by the resurrection of cryptocurrency mining.

CPU Mining’s Ascent

According to a study by Wccftech, mining proof-of-work (PoW) coins—especially those that are CPU-minable—becomes more and more profitable. The profitability of alt-coins has increased as a result of Bitcoin hitting new all-time highs, which has increased demand for PC hardware, especially CPUs.

The flagship AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPU is currently noticeably out of stock at big-box stores like Newegg. The fact that its list price has increased above its debut price suggests that demand has surged well above normal market dynamics. Mining activity appears to be the main factor driving this exceptional demand.

AMD Processor Domination in Mining

Benchmarks clearly show AMD CPUs’ dominance in mining operations. The RandomX algorithm, which powers Monero and other proof-of-work coins, favors AMD CPUs with numerous cores. With a benchmark score that is far higher than that of its Intel competitors, miners are quite interested in the AMD Ryzen 7950X.

Gamers should be concerned about this spike in demand, but there is still hope because less expensive Zen 4 chips are now available. But the future is still unclear, particularly in light of AMD’s Zen 5 CPUs’ upcoming release. AMD’s Zen 5 CPUs may outperform Intel CPUs in mining if they are unable to support AVX-512 instructions, which would worsen the shortage of CPUs for end users.

Rumor has it that AMD may release low hash rate versions of their CPUs to discourage miners, following Nvidia’s lead. The possibility of such a relocation, nevertheless, is still unknown.

It is anticipated that mining operations will become more profitable as the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rises. Customers are faced with difficulties because of this, especially those who require high-performance CPUs for things like gaming. The way AMD and other hardware makers react to the increasing demand from miners will determine the market’s dynamics in significant part.