The AMD BC-250 Mining card, a true amalgamation, incorporated a unique Sony PlayStation 5 APU. Despite being intended for an unexpected purpose—cryptomining—companies scaled up production during the crypto craze of the past two years. However, with the decline in crypto profitability, these solutions are no longer viable.
ASRock’s system, originally priced at approximately $15K, included twelve BC-250 cards within a complete mining chassis. These cards utilized Ariel/Oberon processors, a fusion of Zen2 and RDNA2 graphics, similar to those found in PlayStation 5 consoles. Interestingly, these APU/SoCs are not fully operational chips; instead, they are remnants with partially disabled graphics, akin to those employed in the AMD 4700S desktop kit.
Upon launching, the system aimed to achieve a hash rate of up to 610 MH/s in both ETHASH and ETC, owing to its specific configuration. Each card is equipped with 16GB of GDDR6 memory, a passive cooler, and unconventional interfaces for a mining card, including USB and Ethernet.
Yet, the crypto-economic terrain has undergone substantial changes since its debut last year. While initially promising a profit of approximately $2 per day per GPU, the current landscape tells a contrasting story, with profits dwindling to a mere $0.2 per day. Consequently, the system has become financially unfeasible for practical use.
The eBay listing displays a $500 price for one card, hardly justifiable when you can acquire a fully functional PlayStation 5 with an operational SoC for the same cost. However, there might be some collector’s value or potential material for an intriguing tech review in this offering.
Via eBay