Intel: our Arc graphics cards will NOT have crypto mining limitations

We have been through all of this crypto mining gimp debacle with NVIDIA, which resulted in what we have now: Lite Hash Rate (LHR) cards with crypto mining gimps built in.

Well, Intel isn't playing that game -- the company has come out and said that its first Arc series GPUs will not be gimped for crypto mining. Intel's own Roger Chandler said that the company will not be gimping their Arc GPUs out of the box for crypto mining.

Handler explained: "As far as like software lockouts and things of that nature, we're not designing this product or building any features at this point that specifically target miners. As far as actions we're taking to avoid or lock them out, it's a product that will be in the market and people will be able to buy it. It's not a priority for us".

• Read more: Intel Arc Alchemist reference card teased, Team Blue shaping up well
• Read more: Intel ARC Alchemist high-end GPU: 16GB of GDDR6, 8+6-pin PCIe power
• Read more: NVIDIA announces GeForce RTX 30 LHR series GPUs: gimped ETH mining
• Read more: NVIDIA isn't clear with AIBs on making GPUs gimped for crypto mining
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 ETH mining gimp removed with new drivers?!
• Read more: NVIDIA's refreshed RTX 3060 has new GPU, properly gimps crypto mining

It'll be interesting to see how Intel's new Arc series graphics cards perform when it comes to crypto mining, as NVIDIA and AMD have both had many series of GPUs and graphics cards over many years now... where Intel is just stepping into the GPU game. We don't have too much longer to wait now.

We should expect some decent mining performance out of Intel Arc since they'll have GDDR6 memory, but we'll have to see how good that hash rate is in the New Year.