Bitcoin mining - GPU vs ASIC - Whats the difference ?

Those who understand how mining works, might be wondering whats the difference between GPU mining and ASIC mining.

Even the gamers or computer folks will be wondering why do you need a GPU for mining a crypto currency like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Lets start with analogy of cars. All computers(processing speed MH/s to GH/s Range) must have a CPU(Intel or AMD) which is a general purpose machine comparable to a family car. With a family car, you can commute to office, go to grocery shopping, pickup kids, drive to nearby parks.

Now when the kids grow up, you need to carry some sports items like Hockey stick, over-sized bag which the family car is not suitable. Now we go for SUV which is spacious. The same way CPU is not sufficient for handling PC games need 4K display. Here comes the GPU(processing speed in 100's of GH/s). So GPU is preferable for mining.

Then the complexity of mining difficulty increases over time, even the best performing GPUs are not profitable. Like we think SUV will solve the problem of carrying bigger items, But you need Pick-up Trucks to carry some bigger appliances or furnitures from HomeDepot.

ASIC hardware or devices(Bitmain Antminer) are like pick-up trucks whose purpose is only to carry heavy oversized things. ASIC hardwares are built only for mining Bitcoin. The processing speeds of ASIC starts from Tera H/s which is 1000 times more powerful than GPUs.

The tradeoff is GPU can be used for gaming or mining