NVIDIA CMP GPUs: Not suitable for gaming – YouTube user explains why

NVIDIA’s CMP 50HX GPU, originally designed for cryptocurrency mining, has now been transformed into a gaming card. However, the performance is not particularly impressive. Due to limited PCIe lanes and lack of driver support, NVIDIA’s CMP “Crypto” GPUs are not well suited for gaming. The CMP chain was launched in 2021 when cryptocurrency mining was at its peak. NVIDIA saw an opportunity to offer a shortened version aimed at consumers who didn’t expect much from their GPU other than good mining performance. Although the series produced acceptable results for its intended purpose, the conversion proved to be completely unsuitable for gaming.

Sfdx Show, a YouTuber, recently conducted a test with the MSI NVIDIA CMP 50HX variant. This GPU features 3584 CUDA cores and 10GB GDDR6 memory, and runs at 14Gbps with a 320-bit interface. These specifications put the GPU on par with the flagship card in the Turing series at the time, NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

Gaming with the CMP 50HX may seem easy, but it’s a difficult task, especially since the GPU has a unique BIOS and no display port. However, if you can somehow get it to work, the next big hurdle is the GPU driver.

Since NVIDIA CMP GPUs were not geared toward gaming, there were no drivers to run games. The only way to get it working is to use an older version of a particular driver and use Windows which does not validate the driver. This allows the use of “unofficial” GPU drivers.
However, it is important to note that such solutions can result in significantly worse performance. For this reason, we strongly advise against choosing such methods, as this will not ultimately lead to a good result.

Sfdx Show tested a number of titles using the NVIDIA CMP 50HX GPU, such as Counter-Strike 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. But as expected, gaming performance was not at the level of the RTX 2080 Ti and did not match the performance, which is what would be expected based on the specifications Their devices.
Although the video memory is relatively good, the GPU was only able to provide an average of 25 frames per second in Cyberpunk 2077. The reason for the drop in performance is that the CMP 50HX has limited PCIe lane width, which mainly leads to Create a bottleneck and lead to numbers like these. Cryptocurrency mining workloads tax VRAM more than the GPU itself, while gaming workloads require GPU power and VRAM on the graphics card for optimal performance.

When NVIDIA introduced its CMP line, the company was so caught up in the “crypto hype” that it didn’t bother exploring other use cases for GPUs. Additionally, limitations on PCIe lanes and driver support complicate matters as the GPU cannot be optimized in any way for any application other than mining. However, since the crypto hype has died down, NVIDIA has shifted its focus to AI and is now seeing consumer-level GPUs being used in data centers and AI as well as workstations. Will we now see AI GPUs like the PCIe H100/H800 or A100/A800 in action? Only time will tell.

source: sfdx display