Semiconductor firm Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has recently launched a beta version of its new Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition Beta for Blockchain Compute graphics card driver.
Based on the release notes from the company, the driver will boost performance for “Blockchain Compute Workloads,” thus bolstering the efficiency of digital currency mining computers that use a graphics processing unit (GPU) for mining.
Examples of such computers are those used for mining the cryptocurrency Ethereum.
AMD driver
According to AMD, its driver supports desktop GPUs from AMD Radeon HD 7700 series, and can be installed on 64-bit Windows 7 and 64-bit Windows 10 systems.
The beta software is designed to resolve an issue related to the directed acyclic graph (DAG) size and not to bolster gaming performance.
The tech giant further added that the beta driver will not be supported with additional updates, upgrades or bug fixes.
Positive reception so far
According to TechPowerUp, the driver seems to be a successful solution to the DAG issue as there is just a minimal difference between mining different DAG sizes with it.
As a comparison, there is an 81 percent increase in the hashrate when mining DAG 199 using the new software as compared to the old driver, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB (1546 MHz/945 MHz).
Several Reddit users have also attested to the effectiveness of the new driver.
The user named “Hot-Diggity-Daffodil” claimed that his/her Ethereum mining rate increased to 37M h/s from 31 when he used the beta software.
Despite the reported effectiveness of the beta driver in boosting the performance of Ethereum mining rigs, this will become a non-issue when the Ethereum platform will shift to proof of stake from the existing proof of work protocol.
If this happens, the use of GPUs in mining will be virtually eliminated.