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Nvidia to limit hash rate of RTX3060 GPU's

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Halving that Hash Rate, with the pending launch of GeForce RTX 3060, NVIDIA will be taking an important step to help ensure GeForce GPUs end up in the hands of gamers. They'll be limiting hash rates and release a dedicated GPU series for cryptocurrency mining.

The new cards, if you can call them that will fall under the CMP HX line of products and just constant the GPU and 10GB VRAM; there are no display connectors. NVIDIA initially announces four CMP HX cards pretty much intended for Ethereum mining at hash rates from 25 MH/s at 125W to 86 MH/s at 320W. CMP HX mining cards will become available in Q1, while the 10GB models will sell in the second quarter. If you look at power consumption, GeForce Ampere GA102 is likely used for the 50HX and 90HX, GA104 and GA106 likely end up on the slower models.

The bad news, Ampere GPUs still end up in mining products, the good news, starting with the 3060 release, hash rates is halved, making miners less prone to purchase them. What then remains is GPU allocation by NVIDIA.

IMHO it's a good first step, but as long as other products will not be limited, cards like 3070, 3080 will still end up being bought an masse by miners.

-- NVIDIA -- RTX 3060 software drivers are designed to detect specific attributes of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm and limit the hash rate, or cryptocurrency mining efficiency, by around 50 percent. Our GeForce RTX GPUs introduce cutting-edge technologies — such as RTX real-time ray-tracing, DLSS AI-accelerated image upscaling technology, Reflex super-fast response rendering for the best system latency, and many more — tailored to meet the needs of gamers and those who create digital experiences. To address the specific needs of Ethereum mining, we’re announcing the NVIDIA CMP, or, Cryptocurrency Mining Processor, product line for professional mining.

CMP products — which don’t do graphics — are sold through authorized partners and optimized for the best mining performance and efficiency. They don’t meet the specifications required of a GeForce GPU and, thus, don’t impact the availability of GeForce GPUs to gamers.

For instance, CMP lacks display outputs, enabling improved airflow while mining so they can be more densely packed. CMPs also have a lower peak core voltage and frequency, which improves mining power efficiency. Creating tailored products for customers with specific needs delivers the best value for customers. With CMP, we can help miners build the most efficient data centers while preserving GeForce RTX GPUs for gamers. NVIDIA CMP allows a fully open, airflow-optimized bracket and is configured to allow a greater number of GPUs to be controlled by one CPU.
:D

 
Soldato
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can think of a couple of issues, surely miners just download older drivers, unless nvidia gimp them all, or im sure miners will get round it by writing their own drivers some how, but kudos to nvidia for trying, more than AMD is doing
 
Soldato
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Why would miners even run on windows with the latest hobbled driver? I think you will find most who do it on a dedicated basis run linux based OS's so not sure how this is going to work. Windows is an utter pain when it comes to running a rack of cards in my experience.
 
Caporegime
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One of the benefits of buying GPUs is the resale value, these dedicated mining cards will be worth nothing 6 months after release.
Last time they made mining only cards they sat on shelved iirc. Miners didn't want them.

And software locks will be beaten in minutes. It's a token gesture.
 
Soldato
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The more I think about it, the more it seems like a PR stunt
basically saying, not our fault we gimped the 3060" to which my reply would be wtf about the rest of the cards, so you maybe right, they hoping they seen as angelic by the gaming community by taking on miners, wonderif its possible to gimp all the cards if they wanted too
 
Soldato
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Sounds more like a PR stunt by nvidia and will probably effect gamers who mine on the side more than actual full time miners especially if going forward from here nvidias drivers slash hash rates on other nvidia cards so if you want to game as well as mine one or the other will be gimped.

If nvidia was serious about hampering mining then come the 4000 series nvidia should implement a hardware nerf but it's probably to late in the day to do that with ampere.
 
Soldato
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Why would miners even run on windows with the latest hobbled driver? I think you will find most who do it on a dedicated basis run linux based OS's so not sure how this is going to work. Windows is an utter pain when it comes to running a rack of cards in my experience.

Guessing the older drivers just won't be able to support this card at all. But even in the new proprietary drivers this limit is going down in no time, there's too much money in it for it to go any other way. Maybe Nvidia could put out a bunch of fake 'hacked' versions of their drivers that are actually nerfed even worse and just turn the whole thing into a massive timesink for miners wanting to use those cards.
 
Soldato
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If you ignore the software side of it (and we all know it won't take long to hack), the only issues I see are there may be the odd gamer that wants to do a little bit of crypto on the side and not actually 'farming' and there are other things that might 'look' like crypto that aren't actually cryptomining so they might get caught too.... there's also more than etherium (yes I know it's the new 'in' crypto) out there so unless this works on all of them....

The real issue issue isn't the card being used for cryptomining, it's the miners/scalpers getting all the cards so the gamers can't get any (or with great difficulty), and instead of fixing the issue in supply/purchase by stopping bots and/or having more cards etc Nvidia are doing the PR thing of gimping the 3060 which will likely not make much difference.
 
Soldato
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This won't work, full time miners will just install an older driver.

It's only going to make it more of a pain for the gamer who mines when not gaming. So they're not gonna be making as much money on the side, or they give up entirely which means that those who are still mining (the full timers) will get paid more.

Those dedicated cards are only gonna make sense if they are really cheap.
 
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Going forward I'd love to see newer hardware be severely crippled by design in hardware for any type of crypto so that gaming GPUs are only built for that. No big loss for Nvidia/AMD if they did it as gamers will still by them quickly.

I'll be glad when crypto crashes heavily again.
 
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