RTX3060 mining capability is limited in BIOS

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Looks like Nvidia is shipping the GPUs which BIOSes which reduce the hashrate:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/18/2...cryptocurrency
https://videocardz.com/newz/zotac-ge...rate-in-action

Edit!!

Apparently the drivers will be nerfed too:
https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-a...ng-performance

[Terbinator]

Be interested to see this gets circumvented (you'd imagine) or if it spills over in to general app usage too.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Be interested to see this gets circumvented (you'd imagine) or if it spills over in to general app usage too.

It appears even the drivers will have nerfs too.

[DanceswithUnix]

It appears even the drivers will have nerfs too.

Interesting move, but the bulk purchasers of these cards are massive mining companies with the resources to build power plants and hire a 747 for their latest card shipment, I can't imagine modifying the drivers will be that hard for them to resource.

So this hurts the home mining people, which I have no problem with per se, but I can't see how it in any way solves the problem.

Edit:

these CMP products, crucially, “don’t impact the availability of GeForce GPUs to gamers.”

If only from wafer allocation, I find that *really* hard to believe. I'm guessing Nvidia are really just re-directing some of their GPU silicon into this "new product" so they can raise the price to crypto miners to make more money out of them. Again, I have no problem with making money out of currency miners, but that silicon could have made GPUs for gamers.

[kalniel]

Same story at the beeb:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56114508

Makes sense to differentiate your products so that each addresses the market need better, but as noted in the beeb article, making any hardware mine faster/more efficiently just means everyone else mines with faster hardware too.

[kompukare]

Does sound like a PR move though.
Do we have any idea where Nvidia's shortages are coming from though?

1. Are they just selling everything in crazy numbers
2. Is saving money using Samsung's 8nm proving costly?
   [8]Is there a shortage of both GDDR6 (using in the consoles) or GDDR6X (maybe Micron cannot meet the demand, or over-promised supply like Samsung with 8nm)?

Assume it will be only for newly released cards, as taking features away from existing customers isn't likely to go down well (see Sony and the PS3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS#History).
Wonder if this affects other GpuCompute things like F@H etc., because that could lead to bad PR.
Based on spec, was the RTX3060 actually going to be any good at mining?
On the AMD side, we know that around 80% of AMD's TSMC wafers are being for consoles but Samsung 8nm doesn't have that problem.

[Terbinator]

https://twitter.com/bdelrizzo/status...423747590?s=20

NV PR suggesting it's a BIOS limitation as well. Brace yourselves for dual-bios cards having an ultra premium in the future?

[Terbinator]

Existing 3xxx Series to be EoL and relaunched with the crypto-gimped SKUs
https://twitter.com/kopite7kimi/stat...579743744?s=20

Even more resale value on 3060Ti - 3090 cards?

[kalniel]

Existing 3xxx Series to be EoL and relaunched with the crypto-gimped SKUs
https://twitter.com/kopite7kimi/stat...579743744?s=20

Even more resale value on 3060Ti - 3090 cards?

To miners yes - but only as long as there isn't something faster out there. If NVidia or AMD put out a more efficient mining chip then their resale value will plummet.

[ShakiraLaw]

To miners yes - but only as long as there isn't something faster out there. If NVidia or AMD put out a more efficient mining chip then their resale value will plummet.

Nvidia is on it, hopefully progress is accelerated on these CMP mining GPUs

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/cmp/

[kalniel]

Nvidia is on it, hopefully progress is accelerated on these CMP mining GPUs

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/cmp/

At the moment they're not faster and efficiency has yet to be determined. But when they produce faster/efficient mining chips demand for GPUs for mining will drop.

[kompukare]

At the moment they're not faster and efficiency has yet to be determined. But when they produce faster/efficient mining chips demand for GPUs for mining will drop.

AT made a table in their story and those newly announced cards had the worst values

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16493...ining-hardware

[kalniel]

Yeah they're mixing measurements the same way the Hexus article does - you can't take the NVidia Watt rating for one card and compare it to the Minerstat or whatever rating for another.

[[GSV]Trig]

I'm not being funny, but if I buy a graphics card I don't expect it to be nerfed on purpose in any way shape or form.

Imagine if you went out and bought yourself an Aston Martin and they limited it to 70mph....

[kalniel]

I'm not being funny, but if I buy a graphics card I don't expect it to be nerfed on purpose in any way shape or form.

Imagine if you went out and bought yourself an Aston Martin and they limited it to 70mph....

Many cars do come with limited top speed, and several of them you can pay extra if you want it removed by the maker. Likewise you can buy cars with the same engine whose performance is differentiated purely by software.

[badass]

many cars do come with limited top speed, and several of them you can pay extra if you want it removed by the maker. Likewise you can only buy cars with the same engine whose performance is differentiated purely by software.

ftfy