AMD's Abandoned Mining GPU Finds New Life as Surprisingly Capable Gaming Card
Modders have been experimenting with repurposing AMD's abandoned BC-250 GPU, originally designed for cryptocurrency mining. This former PlayStation 5 component has been found to be surprisingly capable of gaming tasks, particularly when using FSR 4 upscaling technology.
The BC-250 silicon is derived from a cut-down version of the GPU used by Sony for the PlayStation 5, based on the RDNA 2 microarchitecture. Modders have successfully accessed all 40 RDNA 2 compute units available on the GPU, more than the standard 24 CUs enabled by default.
Developers have created a new fork of the FSR project that turns FSR 4 into a practical Windows x64 DLL, allowing users to improve performance in games running under Linux. The new tool has shown significant improvements in image quality and reduced GPU cost at 2560×1440 resolution.