New information has come about Intel’s “Bonanza” chip, which has been specially prepared for cryptocurrency mining for a while. According to the information shared at the ISSCC 2022 semiconductor conference, Intel announced that the mold of the processor called BMZ1 measures 4.14 x 3.42 mm. Stating that the new chip contains 258 mining engines operating at an ultra-low voltage of 355mV, Intel states that each of these small chips absorbs 7.5w of power and reaches 137 GHash / s.
Intel also stated that it can handle 300 BMZ1 chips to achieve a total performance of 40Thash/s, while with this new move, Bitcoin is preparing to enter the game very soon. Intel thus reveals that cryptocurrency mining can take place on standard desktop CPUs, offering an effective and efficient way to do so. However, it is clear that for now, it lags far behind the speeds of Bitmain Antminer S19 Pro and MicroBT’s WhatsMiner M30S. Because these two have speeds up to 110 TH/s and 112 TH/s.
Although Intel seems to lag behind in terms of hash power, it is clear that BMZ1 is more efficient in terms of energy efficiency. After all, this is exactly where Intel wants to stand out.