The news story about PowerVR's new GPU design did trigger one thought - since perf/watt is potentially the key factor if you could make a GPU that produce 1/4 of the hash rate of an RX550 but at /10th the power. No real interest to gamers, but you slap four of them and a PCIe switch on an x1 card to sell to miners.
spacein_vader
Miners won't buy mining cards. …
That's only true to the extent that the mining cards are literally just rehashed full GPU designs. If you could provide the same hashing performance at either a fraction of the price or a fraction of the power draw (and ideally, both), the resale value would become less important. For many of the popular mining cards running them 24/7 for 2 years costs as much in electricity as buying the card up front (not to mention the cost of running the underlying server). It's almost unheard of to get much more than half your initial investment back on a second hand card. If an alternative card comes along, at the same price, but costs less than half as much in electricity over its lifespan, it's going to be attractive. If a card comes along that uses the same power but costs half as much up-front, it's going to be attractive. That's why people eventually moved to ASICs for Bitcoin - they offered a better performance:cost ratio than slogging away with GPUs. All it needs is for someone to hit that market spot. Cheaper upfront, or much lower power. Either will do.