AMD BC-250 appears on second-hand trading platform

Recently, a cryptocurrency-specific card named “BC-250” by AMD appeared on an online secondary market, priced at $500. This card first surfaced in early 2022 as part of a cryptocurrency mining kit offered by ASRock, priced at $14,800, which included 12 BC-250 cards operating in parallel. Given the current cryptocurrency market trends, the price for a used BC-250 still seems somewhat inflated.

The BC-250 stands out not for using a common GPU but for employing the Sony PlayStation 5’s “Oberon” SoC, presumably crafted from its substandard units. It features a passive cooling design. Distinctively, the BC-250’s CPU is based on the Zen 2 architecture, activating only 6 of the 8 cores, while its GPU, based on the RDNA 2 architecture, is equipped with 2304 or fewer stream processors. It is paired with 16GB of GDDR6 memory (although some sources claim only 8GB) and delivers a hash rate of 610 MH/s. The card includes a standard 8Pin power connector and can also utilize two custom 8Pin power connectors, with a total power consumption of 90W.

Due to its integrated CPU and GPU, the BC-250 could theoretically function as a standalone PC. The card is equipped with a DP port, multiple USB ports, and an Ethernet interface. The seller notes that it can run the Ubuntu operating system using a 32GB flash drive and can be remotely managed.