In June 2019, Nvidia will launch its mini computer in the image of the Raspberry Pi, but only with much higher performance. Because on board, in addition to the 4-core ARM Cortex A57 processor, there will be another GPU chip with 128 Cuda cores with an estimated performance of 472GFLOPS. The retail price of the novelty is 99 USD, which is almost twice as expensive as the Raspberry Pi, but it also opens up much more opportunities due to the use of the Nvidia GPU. Basically, this is image processing (encoding, decoding), artificial intelligence and many other things that use the work of the company Nvidia. First of all, Nvidia Jetson Nano is intended for use in robotics, video recorders, Internet of Things (IOT). For us, Jetson Nano is more interesting as a complete device for mining cryptocurrencies, for which motherboards, processors, etc. are not needed. Those. in the face of Nvidia Jetson Nano, we get a device for mining cryptocurrency using a GPU, similar to how it is implemented in Asic miners, where Raspberry Pi mini computer manages specialized Asic chips.
Technical characteristics of Nvidia Jetson Nano:
| GPU | NVIDIA Maxwell™ architecture with 128 NVIDIA CUDA® cores | |
| CPU | Quad-core ARM® Cortex®-A57 MPCore processor | |
| Memory | 4 GB 64-bit LPDDR4 | |
| Storage | 16 GB eMMC 5.1 Flash | |
| Video Encode | 4K @ 30 (H.264/H.265) | |
| Video Decode | 4K @ 60 (H.264/H.265) | |
| Camera | 12 lanes (3x4 or 4x2) MIPI CSI-2 DPHY 1.1 (1.5 Gbps) | |
| Connectivity | Gigabit Ethernet | |
| Display | HDMI 2.0 or DP1.2 | eDP 1.4 | DSI (1 x2) 2 simultaneous | |
| UPHY | 1 x1/2/4 PCIE, 1x USB 3.0, 3x USB 2.0 | |
| I/O | 1x SDIO / 2x SPI / 6x I2C / 2x I2S / GPIOs | |
| Size | 69.6 mm x 45 mm | |
| Mechanical | 260-pin edge connector | |
| Power | 5-10W | |
Nvidia Jetson Nano exceeds Raspberry Pi technically in all respects and even in overall dimensions the product from Nvidia is noticeably smaller, which is extremely important for robotics.
For mining, the performance of 472GFLOPS will certainly not be enough to talk about it seriously. For example, the GTX1060 video card has a performance of 4000GFLOPS, which is almost 10 times more. But according to the same principle, can make a minicomputer with a GPU chip, for example from RTX2060 or even a couple and pack it into one convenient case with a power supply. The result can be quite interesting for miners and it is possible that it will be so in the near future.
There is also the Nvidia Jetson Nano Developer Kit for the same price of 99USD, which can already be purchased.
More information about Nvidia Jetson Nano can be found on the Nvidia website.
