The RX 480 is a tossup with the GTX 1070 on memory access - which is why they're comparable at best in performance on algorythms like the ones ZEC and ETH use despite the GTX 1070 cost being almost twice as much.
Nvidia gets the "scraps" on mining because most mining algorythms don't use most of the parts of a NVidia card that makes it competative with AMD cards on general or compute-bound usage at a given price point, and as a result few folks use NVidia cards to mine on which makes them a much lower priority for development.
It's not "lack of development" ALONE that keeps Nvidia uncompetative on a hash/$ basis for ETH and ZEC (and derivatives using the same algorythms).
It's the inherent design of the ALGORYTHMS that keep NVidia uncompetative on a hash/$ basis coupled with the higher PRICE of their cards that have competative memory access even when development IS mature.
It's waaaaay too early to call this based on memory bus width. There is a lot of theorycrafting and it's all based on current hashrates and extrapolating against the original CPU miner code, not GPU optimized code, and not code made specifically for Nvidia hardware.
The only algo that doesn't fully utilize a 1070 is Dagger, Ethereum, which I've mentioned before. Which has lead to a misconception of the capabilities of a 1070... see your post. There are a lot of other algos out there... NeoS, Lyra2v2, Lbry, there are more all of which the 1070 performs quite well in. However, they aren't high volume and as such it leads to statements like what you made... Assuming all of crypto land is just Dagger-Hashimoto. Dagger is the only really memory bound Algo out there, Cryptonote also is, but that's controlled by CPU botnets because of it.
It is the lack of development in Equihash, that's for certain. The only Nvidia optimized miner that has come out was from Nicehash and it was worthless a day later as it wasn't being made by the big three.
The reason there is so much AMD development, is there are a lot more miners with AMD cards. They have historically been best investment mining wise. They were better with Bitcoin and Litecoin, (which are both heavily compute limited), because they supported certain key operations in hardware. AMD tends to have better price/performance anyway, even for gaming. The newer algorithms are memory hard on purpose, to be heavily ASIC resistant, there are ASICs for most non memory hard algorithms. Sure a 1070 has more compute than a 480, but it costs 2X as much, so it is kinda silly to buy for mining, when you can get same/faster speed for half the cost. The 1060 3GB is decent choice for Ethereum, but 470 is still a lot better cost/perf.
The term you were looking for is 'scrypt' and that is where things died for AMD as well. Everything went private in 2014 and you couldn't make money at the end of it on AMD hardware. I know, I had AMD hardware back then. I reinvested multiple times in order to get around that. The original CCminer was when Nvidia 750tis started separating out, after a decent amount of work. It wasn't until Ethereum came out that AMD was profitable again at the end of 2015.
I assume many of you guys are eth-babies, you started mining this spring and everything is Dagger to you. It's not the way it works.
Price/performance for gaming has no merit what so ever in a conversation about cryptos.
The 'price/performance' based solely around Dagger is silly. Dagger isn't the only algo.
AMD is definitely not the vast majority, maybe like a 70/30 split, but it's not just AMD. Almost all of Lbry right now is on Nvidia hardware as it's much more efficient and performs much better. When was the last time you mined Lbry, NeoS, or Lyra2v2? Is it profitable for you? There is a reason it's not. There are a lot of miners on Ethereum as well, as there isn't anywhere else to go right now due to the lack of development on Equihash.
Don't personify me as 'Nvidia' because I own Nvidia hardware. I am not Nvidia.
