Asus: The appeal of graphics cards for “mining” is disappearing, but gamers are still enthusiastic – yqqlm

IT House reported on May 14 that ASUS has released the latest financial report. They believe that global PC shipments will decline by 10% in the second quarter of this year, and components will also decline by 10%-15% quarterly. Mainly because of the collapse of the cryptocurrency, the Russian-Ukrainian war, the supply chain disruption and inflation caused by the new crown epidemic.

ASUS’ first-quarter revenue reached NT$127.962 billion, a quarterly increase of 18% and an annual decrease of 10%, with a gross profit margin of 18.7%. Operating profit was NT$10.072 billion, a quarterly decrease of 18% and an annual decrease of 13%.

When asked about graphics cards, Asus co-CEO Xu Xianyue (SY Hsu) told investors as well as analysts that cryptocurrency demand for PC graphics card mining is declining.

On Wednesday’s earnings call, Xu Xianyue noted, “As GPU shipments have been slowly declining demand for cryptocurrency mining, the demand for graphics cards across the market is normalizing.”

Cryptocurrency miners are gradually losing interest in buying graphics cards as Ethereum plans to phase out GPU-based mining later this year, Hsu said. He expects other cryptocurrency projects to follow this trend, citing the need to reduce energy emissions.

Ethereum has fallen from $4,600 in November to $1,770, he said. This prompted some ethereum miners to gradually withdraw from the market.

Hsu believes that even if miners are reluctant to buy graphics cards, many products may still be priced higher than normal. “Because the demand for cryptocurrencies is disappearing, it makes us wonder if GPU pricing will normalize as well. In fact, the demand for graphics cards in games is still strong, so we can’t say we can meet all the demand.”

IT House understands that Ethereum will move from the current Proof of Work model to a Proof of Stake/Proof of Stake model, which will theoretically end the requirement for high-end GPUs to mine tokens.

Ethereum developer Tim Beiko also recently confirmed that the previously-scheduled June switchover date will be delayed, although he thinks it is “likely” to happen in the next few months.

In addition, PC accessory maker Corsair last week predicted that the cost of desktop graphics cards will normalize in the coming weeks, even approaching and below the MSRP. Of course, a new generation of RTX 40 series and RX 7000 series graphics cards will be launched in the second half of this year. Although only a few high-end models are available at the beginning, I am afraid that the attractiveness of the RTX 30 series has gradually decreased.