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Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

280 points by stambros 6y ago

sparkling 6y ago
This is why we need open source drivers. Now they are crippling cards for crypto mining, in the future there might be a whole list of other software features that require a paid unlock or even monthly subscription to use the full potential of your own hardware.
- rq1 6y ago
  I think it’s done through firmware.
  - qqii 6y ago
    Here's a source: > According to Bryan Del Rizzo, director of global PR for GeForce, more things are working behind the driver. > According to Mr. Del Rizzo: "It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-anti-mining-feature-goes-beyond-driver-version-could-expand-to-more-skus https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-a...
    - tibbydudeza 6y ago
      They must be using an eFUSE to differentiate between a gamer and miner GPU , would not make sense to have differing SKU's.
      - qqii 6y ago
        It's likely they have other subtle differences too. That doesn't mean they can't be worked around. Mining cards could still produce a display output with Looking Glass style software. Gaming cards could still mine using modded drivers and firmware or a change in mining algorithm.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  There are already a bunch of other cases like this. For example, the Windows GeForce drivers have been for years (if not decades) loaded with a bunch of shady OpenGL heuristics to punish you if you do stuff that looks like enterprise/industrial rendering (AutoCAD, etc). For an ordinary game developer this means cheap operations like texture readback will go from taking 1ms to 16ms (bumping your framerate down). The same stuff is consistently fast in Direct3D because enterprise/industrial workloads don't use it. NVENC for hardware video encoding is also artificially limited on consumer cards, which forces you to buy quadros for scenarios where you want to do multi streaming.
terhechte 6y ago
I'm probably going to be downvoted into oblivion but I'm genuinely curious: Does anybody else think that the "mining is bad for the environment and gamers can't buy the cards" argument is a bit weird? After all, if all these cards weren't used for mining but for gaming, wouldn't the environmental outcome be the same? I mean, is there any inherent upside to burning tons of energy for games vs burning it for a cryptocurrency? How much electricity do all the gaming PCs and gaming consoles in the world consume vs Argentina? To me, it feels a lot like Nascar or Formula one burning tons of fuel. I don't think that it is somehow bad to play games, but I wonder why the one (crypto) is always criticized into oblivion for the energy consumption, while the other isn't.
- sparkling 6y ago
  How much use does a GPU get in a gaming PC? A few hours per day? In crypto farms these things are running 24/7. Anyway, i still think its a bad move to tell people what they can and can not do with their hardware.
- rq1 6y ago
  You don’t play 24/7.
- throwaway525142 6y ago
  I would guess that computers used for gaming are turned off most of the time, whereas mining rigs are likely turned on and using much of the GPU at all times?
- almog 6y ago
  > I mean, is there any inherent upside to burning tons of energy for games vs burning it for a cryptocurrency? You presume the total energy consumption would be the same whereas it'd be more likely that GPUs that are used for mining will be used 24/7 whereas gaming is likely to be performed by a human being who cannot or would not utilize the GPU nearly as many hours of the day.
  - badlucklottery 6y ago
    > GPUs that are used for mining will be used 24/7 whereas gaming is likely to be performed by a human being who cannot or would not utilize the GPU nearly as many hours of the day. Yup. And even if they could utilize them 24/7, gamers generally* won't have 10+ cards going at once. *:I'm sure someone has some weird 360 degree flight simulator edge case.
pornel 6y ago
I have no sympathy for miners, but purely from software freedom perspective this is maximally evil: closed-source software that decides what you can use your hardware for. The CMP version is a straight-to-landfill product. As soon as it stops being profitable for mining it will have zero resale value, and become e-waste.
- martinald 6y ago
  Surely it would be worth the same as the normal RTX 3060? It will have the same use for gaming?
  - robkop 6y ago
    They are removing all the display ports from the card so I can't imagine it can be used for gaming.
    - PartiallyTyped 6y ago
      It can be. NVDA's stance is utter bull. It is entirely possible to render video games and stream them to another display [1,2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY4s35uULg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY4s35uULg4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1nok2VlF1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1nok2VlF1M [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfIibTBaoMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfIibTBaoMM
      - qqii 6y ago
        It will be possible but as your third video suggests the number of cards that'll be used this way and not end up as landfill will be peanuts.
        PartiallyTyped 6y ago
        I don't disagree, but I suppose the structure of my comment didn't convey the message correctly, that is, that NVDA is just maximizing profits while screwing over gamers because a) they can get away with it and b) they are an ever decreasing portion of their revenue.
WalterGR 6y ago
Discussed 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26180260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26180260 Nvidia announces mining GPUs, cuts the hash rate of RTX-3060 in half (nvidia.com) 454 points by bcatanzaro 2 days ago | flag | hide | past | favorite | 731 comments There are 30-ish more submissions here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=1&prefix=true&query=Nvidia&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=1&prefix=tru...
tsujamin 6y ago
Curious to see how ethereum participants react to this. Will it just become a race to defeat nvidia’s mining-detection logic in order to up the available supply of cards? (caveat: don’t know enough about contemporary ethereum to know how this works with PoS)
qqii 6y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26180260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26180260 Also on reddit: (Linus from Linus Tech Tip's Take, I'd reccomended watching this one) https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/locpyb/nvidia_pretends_to_care_about_gamers https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/locpyb/nvidia_pre... (Initial Article) https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmnpag/geforce_is_made_for_gaming_cmp_is_made_to_mine https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmnpag/geforce_is... (Clarification that the restrictions in driver+firmware) https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lnf78f/nvidia_geforce_rtx_3060_antimining_feature_goes https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lnf78f/nvidia_gef... https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lnrgdc/cryptomining_is_a_dangerous_practice_restrictions https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lnrgdc/cryptomini... https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lng4q4/nvidia_has_set_a_precedence_that_you_no_longer https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lng4q4/nvidia_has... https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmqd56/nvidia_nerfs_ethereum_hash_rate_launches_cmp https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmqd56/nvidia_ner... https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmom3w/nvidia_is_launching_a_full_line_of_cmp_gpus_all https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmom3w/nvidia_is_... (Initial Leak) https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmrsrj/zotac_geforce_rtx_3060_early_gpu_mining_test https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmrsrj/zotac_gefo...
jleahy 6y ago
I’m guessing they are going to try and raise the prices and create a new market segment. Just as they have separated datacenter GPUs, increased the price massively (coming up to a factor of 10x) and then tried to use a stick to prevent the use of desktop GPUs for datacenter work (eg. the licensing change). Unfortunately (for their bottom line) it probably won’t work, if the restriction is in the driver then someone like myself (or many other people in HN) will have it patched in a number of hours. If it’s in the firmware it’ll take longer, but it’ll be done. Unless they’ve actually fused out integer units on the consumer cards, that would be bold.
- cedricgle 6y ago
  I can imagine that nowadays you can protect your hardware with encryption chip that unlock firmware with public/private keys. To break it you will have to remove the chip.
- qqii 6y ago
  > According to Bryan Del Rizzo, director of global PR for GeForce, more things are working behind the driver. > According to Mr. Del Rizzo: "It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-anti-mining-feature-goes-beyond-driver-version-could-expand-to-more-skus https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-a... I think it's important to look at as the article does - the other way around, the CMP lineup will be excellent for their bottom line as miners, without competition from gamers and others can buy up cards that won't contribute to the seccond hand market when the mining boom dies down. As suggested in the article, silicone would have been allocated to mid and low end cards is now allocated to mining only cards that have little resale value and won't hurt their bottom line when they release the 4XXX series.
qqii 6y ago
A lot of people are claiming this as a win for the non mining consumer but as the articles puts it: > Nvidia does state that these GPUs "don't meet the specifications required of a GeForce GPU and, thus, don't impact the availability of GeForce GPUs to gamers." Frankly, that doesn't mean much. What does Nvidia do with a GPU that normally can't be sold as an RTX 3090? They bin it as a 3080, and GA102 chips that can't meet the 3080 requirements can end up in a future 3070 (or maybe a 3070 Ti). The same goes for the rest of the line. Make no mistake: These are GPUs that could have gone into a graphics card. Maybe not a reference 3060 Ti, 3070, 3080, or 3090, but we've seen TU104 chips in RTX 2060 cards, so anything is possible. There's also seemingly little value for miners: > Note that the 90HX lists an Ethereum hash rate of just 86MH/s and a 320W TGP. After a bit of tuning, an RTX 3080 can usually do 94MH/s at 250W or less, so these cards (at least out of the box) aren't any better. > It gets worse as you go down the line, though. 50HX only does 45MH/s at 250W — that basically matches the tuned performance of the RTX 2060 Super through RTX 2080 Super, with a TGP that's still twice as high as what we measured. It's also half the speed of an RTX 3080 while potentially still using the same GPU (10GB VRAM). Or maybe it's a TU102 that couldn't work with 11 memory channels, so it's been binned with 10 channels. Either way, who's going to want this? 40HX at 36MH/s and 185W and 30HX at 26MH/s and 125W are equally questionable options. Restrictions placed on the 3060 has also confirmed to be more than just the drivers: > According to Bryan Del Rizzo, director of global PR for GeForce, more things are working behind the driver. > According to Mr. Del Rizzo: "It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." This means that essentially, NVIDIA can find any way to cripple the mining hash rate even if you didn't update your driver version. At the same time, according to Kopite7Kimi, we are possibly expecting to see NVIDIA relaunch its existing SKUs under a different ID, which would feature a built-in anti-crypto mining algorithm. What the company does remains to be seen. (from https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-anti-mining-feature-goes-beyond-driver-version-could-expand-to-more-skus https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-a...) Unfortunately for those that think this would be a good move, I'd agree with this article that: > Nvidia probably can't implement the same restrictions on existing GPUs without facing a class action lawsuit... To put it best is Linus from LTT (https://youtu.be/XfIibTBaoMM https://youtu.be/XfIibTBaoMM): 1. Silicone production is finite 2. These cards have no after market value Nividia isn't doing anyone but themselves any favours by releasing this.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ArkanExplorer 6y ago
GPU mining is going to become much less attractive this year due to Ethereum moving to Proof of Stake, right? If this is the case (perhaps an expert can chime in) - it makes sense to limit the hash rate now, to prevent these cards being dumped later this year? And to redirect miners towards higher-margin products in the meantime, whilst ensuring better supply for gamers (who are the actual long-term customers).
- jkilpatr 6y ago
  The ETH2 'beacon chain' is a meta-chain that's supposed to checkpoint a bunch of 'sub chains' for scalability. But they have launched it with many big questions unanswered. What does a 'sub chain' actually look like to interact with? How do you coordinate with many of them? All these questions have answers in theory, but not answers in solid production ready interoperable code. Furthermore some of these problems like 'how do you store a bunch of sub-chains' are questions not even properly answered in ETH1 nodes for the much simpler one chain case. By launching the beacon chain early the organizations developing ETH2 can validate and make money while all these questions are figured out. This is where the money goes instead of the improvement of ETH1 since that's a tragedy of the commons as this point. ETH2 is only worth money if these questions are figured out and ETH1 is somehow brought under the beacon chain's governance. Exactly how this is to happen... well I haven't even seen anything credible on this. Greenfield addition of chains under the ETH2 beacon chain is generously described as 'incomplete' moving ETH1 under ETH2 is much more challenging and I have not seen a plan with any level of detail. Given that everyone is making bridges to ETH1 now and typical development timelines. I would give a medium to high chance that ETH2 will miss it's window by a couple of years and activity will move to other faster chains that are available now and capable of siphoning off traffic from Ethereum using bridges until they reach their own critical mass. If I had to put money on it I would place 'proof of stake Ethereum' (defined as ETH1 under the POS beacon chain) more than 2 years out. I could see the sub-chains (greenfield) working by EOY, although I wouldn't grant it a high probability. Also if I had to put money on it I will bet on a halt of the Ethereum 1 chain for a time greater than 24 hours within that period, due to lack of maintenance on ETH1 nodes and increased stress from DeFi activity. ----- ETH2 is kinda like 5G, yes there is a very real 5G network protocol, but in terms of pubic messaging, everything is 5G and communicating anything about how it works or when it will be available is filled with pitfalls and nuances that are difficult for the highly technical, much less the general public, to understand.
lwhi 6y ago
I wonder if open source drivers will eventually circumvent this limit?
- Jonnax 6y ago
  Nvidia PR [1] has stated that it's a bios level feature. And their bioses require signatures. [1] https://twitter.com/bdelrizzo/status/1362619264423747590?s=20 https://twitter.com/bdelrizzo/status/1362619264423747590?s=2...
  - lwhi 6y ago
    I remember years ago (we're talking 20 years), it was possible to circumvent chip level batching between Nvidia Geforce and Quadro. Geforce was the consumer range, and Quadro was used for workstation graphics. They both used the same chip .. but a resistor on the board gave the driver an indication of which range the card belonged to.
    - phire 6y ago
      They have gotten somewhat better at chip security since then. I remember AMDs Phenom tri-core CPUs being unlockable to quad-core 12 years ago, but nothing really since.
- lasagnaphil 6y ago
  Sadly, the last time I checked the benchmark for the nouveau project (https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-nouveau-2019&num=2 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-n...), it wasn't even close to being "usable" in terms of performance (need to expect about 10x slowups in games).
  - PurpleFoxy 6y ago
    It’s because you need to load firmware on the gpu to make it run fast and that firmware is illegal to redistribute and impossible to reimplement since it’s signed. There is nothing the nouveau project can do short of finding an exploit in the cards crypto.
almost 6y ago
Probably not the main reason and may not even be a reason. But this seems like it would work as a clever way not to have the market flooded with older (but still very capable) graphics cards once the value of them in a mining rig stops making sense.
hahahahe 6y ago
I am convinced Nvidia is deeply involved in the crypto space more so than they care to admit. I can’t wait until Apple matches or surpasses Nvidia so we don’t have to listen to Jensen’s lies quarter after quarter about how insignificant crypto mining is to their business.
- altcognito 6y ago
  Isn’t it just so mysterious how they have all these supply problems? I wonder why they can’t seem to manufacture products! In all reality, what they are doing is totally normal, I just wish they wouldn’t lie about it.
  - SXX 6y ago
    How do you think they can lie as public company? Literally everyone is bottlenecked by TSMC right now.
    - roblabla 6y ago
      Nvidia isn't using TSMC for any of their current products, they're using Samsung. They may switch to TSMC for their more high-end cards, but I don't think that is the case right now.
      - volta83 6y ago
        This isn't true. Nvidia is using TSMC right now for all of the compute products, e.g., see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampere_(microarchitecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampere_(microarchitecture) > TSMC's 7 nm FinFET process for A100 > Custom version of Samsung's 8nm process (8N) for the GeForce 30 series[8] That is, NVIDIA is using both, TSMC and Samsung. Both are probably maxed out.
        altcognito 6y ago
        Right, so what’s their volume on a100s and are they a favored mining tool? If so, I think that might be the disconnect between what people think nvidia is focused on, and what they are focused on. Plus, I’ll point out that a lot of information can be hidden by public companies. Amazon was pretty quiet about it’s growth in sales of AWS as a dominant force for a number of years.
nottorp 6y ago
Does that mean they're bringing down the xx60 card price too? Rabid gamers who MUST have that 1440Hz refresh may be willing to pay anything for their space heaters, but there are people who play games but aren't willing to spend 1K (or 3K, how far have they gone these days?) on a video card. In other words, is this done to increase sales volume or just nvidia's profit?
- gnaman 6y ago
  The article clearly states that the hash rate will be limited if Ethereum mining algorithm is detected by the driver, not otherwise. Gaming use cases will remain the same
  - nottorp 6y ago
    And will that make cards cheaper? I'm not asking about the technical details, just about what they want me to pay...
- Netcob 6y ago
  It's done so that when the crypto bubble bursts again, the market isn't flooded with used graphics cards. In 2017 everyone was buying GTX 10XX cards, on one hand because they actually represented a good improvement over the last generation for a change, but mostly due to the crypto bubble. Which then burst at the beginning of 2018. Then RTX 20XX came along, which actually represented a slight drop in price/performance if you don't count the raytracing/AI cores (which to this day hardly matter in gaming), while used GTX 10XX cards were still everywhere. So now nvidia wants to make sure cards used for crypto go straight to the landfill after the current bubble bursts.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    And at the same time, it lets them cut out the scalpers and sell straight to the miners who'll pay twice the price for a card - without the price-gouging upsetting gamers.
    - 6y ago
asxd 6y ago
Somewhat related, you can still find reasonably priced pre-built computers with latest-gen graphics cards. If you're in the market for an entirely new computer, this would be the cost-effective way to go. The HP Omen is one example (stock is still there from 3rd parties, but admittedly limited).
ianhanschen 6y ago
Not a fan of miners disturbing GPU availability and pricing but this is a bad move. It’s not an engineering move, it’s a marketing move, and I’m sure the first attempt at doing this will come down to something just as shallow like a PCI PID check or some resistor strap check. Someone will find it worth the cost to make an FPGA based PCIe bridge that responds to the right knocks in the right way.
- bserge 6y ago
  Not the first time they do this, either. They started limiting performance via firmware/software since Fermi iirc. Basically, nVidia's GTX and Quadro cards use the same exact chips but the latter have additional features and higher performance in professional applications.
  - sneak 6y ago
    I think the EULA also says that you can't use the drivers for the non-expensive cards in multitenant/datacenter setups.
- nine_k 6y ago
  I suppose they recognize a specific algorithm. They already do special-casing for a number of game titles, and have been for a long time. Not a problem to match one more pattern, I assume.
soulofmischief 6y ago
Where is the class-action lawsuit? TOS be damned, people bought a product with an advertised spec and that spec was later intentionally crippled.
- hrydgard 6y ago
  3060 is a new card, they're not "crippling" it post-release.
- kbumsik 6y ago
  Not at all. 3060 is a new card and not released yet.
  - soulofmischief 6y ago
    Oh. Ok. Ignore me. NVIDIA has me a bit sensitive because this is not the first time.
    - wccrawford 6y ago
      It's a little weird because they released the 3060 TI before the regular 3060, so when they say they're launching the 3060... It's just confusing. I feel like they should have given it its own identifier to help with that confusion, or launched them in the normal order. Base model, then the upgraded one.
anothernewdude 6y ago
I'd be too afraid it would affect performance for other tasks to seriously consider it then.
ddtaylor 6y ago
I don't think Nvidia (or most companies) should be deciding what to do with the tools they sell. I don't want someone telling me what software I can run with my CPU or GPU any more than I want someone telling me what I am allowed to build with the hammers or screwdrivers I buy.
- mseidl 6y ago
  Fuck miners. They drove the cost of the 1000 series cards up when btc peaked at 14k. Then the 2000 series was the same price as when the btc peaked. Now the 3080 is selling at 2000+ euros.
  - ddtaylor 6y ago
    The problem is really more to do with the fact that intellectual property makes the production of these highly demanded resources very constrained.
- wruza 6y ago
  High chance of changing your mind when these tools get hoarded by those who do not build anything at all and only race arms. Mining business is basically that.
  - ddtaylor 6y ago
    I think the market is working as expected here, since a higher price is placed on the ability to decentralize finance versus having a few people playing video games at higher quality. If you're interested in machine learning there are resources specifically for that, such as Google's Tensorflow Processing Units (TPUs)
    - wruza 6y ago
      “higher price is placed on the ability for few people to participate in speculation and money laundering versus having better 3d modelling in realtime for everyone” This word play can be played backwards too.
ReptileMan 6y ago
Hacked drivers coming in 3... 2... 1...
- phire 6y ago
  It's a bios/firmware level limitation, and the latest GPUs all have firmware signing. Not unbeatable, but it would require a much more involved hack than just modifying some drivers. Nvidia have painted a huge target on it, so we will see what happens.
- masuvius 6y ago
  I hope it comes out soon I gotta an 3060 on this way.
lvass 6y ago
This is just par for the course on closed down hardware. The manufacturer decides how you use it, that's how it has always been. I'm actually happy about this news, I hope it raises awareness for the need of open hardware, it's not like I'd ever buy one of these cards when competitors at least have open source drivers. Lack of hardware freedom generating electronic waste isn't unheard of either.
nikeee 6y ago
Does this limitation also affect the use with hashcat or other software that uses OpenCL, for example?
dayyan 6y ago
This is horse s h I t.
lmilcin 6y ago
I am happy with this kind of heavy handed move for once if this is intended to reduce demand for graphics products for their other uses and make them available for people who intend to use them for work and gaming. Maybe I will finally be able to afford top of the line GPU. I mean, bitcoin miners can still pay high prices if they want but finally there will be GPU that will not be encumbered by mining craze.
radium3d 6y ago
So I want a 3080... I assume this means it will be even harder to buy?
somehnrdr14726 6y ago
At some point nvidia would be better off mining with these gpus than selling them. The oddest solution I can think of is gamers lease graphics cards at a low low price and nvidia mines on them in the off-hours. With a big enough operation they could force all the other miners into becoming resellers. It's free, distributed electricity and it gets the gamers off their backs. (While I have your attention, I'm pretty sure proof of work is the paperclip maximizer sci fi warned us about.)
- sellyme 6y ago
  > The oddest solution I can think of is gamers lease graphics cards at a low low price and nvidia mines on them in the off-hours. This would be a complete non-starter in markets with high electricity costs or temperatures. Running a GTX 3090 at 100% load during the summer where I live would cost $140/month and will heat up my room to about 65°C.
  - mseidl 6y ago
    This is the other thing I don't understand. I'm from Germany and our power is around 35 cents per khw. Even using a 14th/s asic with bitcoin as high is it is now, you're losing lots of money. It uses 1,3 kilowatts. The fact that the prices of the cards are so high in Germany now too... the 3080s are at 2000€ plus.
    - sellyme 6y ago
      > I'm from Germany and our power is around 35 cents per khw. I don't know if this is a typo or just a slightly different way of writing it in German, but now I'm trying to work out exactly what a "kilohour watt" would be. I think it's just a millionth of a kilowatt hour? Definitely wouldn't want to be paying those prices! I can't find anywhere genuinely using that unit, although it is mentioned in this 1979 9th grade Electrics curriculum as part of a True-or-False quiz at page 370: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED182438.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED182438.pdf Time to file it in my list of "technically correct but extremely annoying units" along with "5Mm" (5000km) and - mainly in the context of batteries - "10Ah" (10000mAh).
einpoklum 6y ago
> The company also limited the mining performance of the soon-to-be-launched RTX 3060 cards to roughly 50% of the normal performance What does that mean? What has NVIDIA actually done on those cards? Also, if this doesn't effect 3050, 70, 80 , Ti's, Quadro's and Tesla's - does it really matter all that much?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
password321 6y ago
Well at least you could say it potentially helps the environment now that you won't have bunch of gamers crypto mining, or does that not matter the moment there is a drawback that affects us?
- logbiscuitswave 6y ago
  I’d argue it’s worse for the environment. These so-called mining cards can’t be used as regular GPUs since they don’t have any outputs - they are compute only. Once they outlive their usefulness they become e-waste since there would be no sustainable secondary market. At least a gaming GPU could be re-sold or otherwise repurposed.
  - password321 6y ago
    https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/csr/product-recycling/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/csr/product-recycling/
victor9000 6y ago
Is there any way to get these cards at MSRP? Why can't I just pre-order one from nvidia and have it shipped when it becomes available?
- dvdkon 6y ago
  I don't get this either, is's not like the manufacturers benefit from the inflated prices themselves, as far as I know.
legohead 6y ago
Been trying to build a PC for my daughter for weeks now, waiting for just a half decent GPU to become available. You can't find the 16*, 20*, or of course the 30* line of Nvidia available anywhere (except overpriced on Ebay), it's nuts. I'm not in a rush or I'd just buy a prebuilt PC which you can still find with these cards, but I wanted to show my daughter how to build a PC. Guess it will be a few more months...
ranguna 6y ago
So what ? If this doesn't effect performance, why should I care ? The only real problem is e-waste.
fortran77 6y ago
I understand their motives, and as someone who needs GPUs to do scientific GPGPU computing, I appreciate the attempt to get more availability. However, I'd always be suspicious of my "crippled" GPU
liquidify 6y ago
How exactly can they do this without screwing up a bunch of other classes of use cases?
PeterStuer 6y ago
The GPU market at this point is supply limited. There is not much else NVIDIA can do at this point besides trying to cripple their products for mining if they want gamers to have any supply. Since this all depends on their signatures not being circumvented, I suspect it wont last too long. As for the mining specific cards, all that ensures is that there will be swats of silicon that will never be accessible for gamers. That they try to spin this part as pro-gamer is very cynical.

280 points by stambros 6y ago

This is why we need open source drivers. Now they are crippling cards for crypto mining, in the future there might be a whole list of other software features that require a paid unlock or even monthly subscription to use the full potential of your own hardware.

rq1 6y ago
I think it’s done through firmware.
- qqii 6y ago
  Here's a source: > According to Bryan Del Rizzo, director of global PR for GeForce, more things are working behind the driver. > According to Mr. Del Rizzo: "It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-anti-mining-feature-goes-beyond-driver-version-could-expand-to-more-skus https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-a...
  - tibbydudeza 6y ago
    They must be using an eFUSE to differentiate between a gamer and miner GPU , would not make sense to have differing SKU's.
    - qqii 6y ago
      It's likely they have other subtle differences too. That doesn't mean they can't be worked around. Mining cards could still produce a display output with Looking Glass style software. Gaming cards could still mine using modded drivers and firmware or a change in mining algorithm.
kevingadd 6y ago
There are already a bunch of other cases like this. For example, the Windows GeForce drivers have been for years (if not decades) loaded with a bunch of shady OpenGL heuristics to punish you if you do stuff that looks like enterprise/industrial rendering (AutoCAD, etc). For an ordinary game developer this means cheap operations like texture readback will go from taking 1ms to 16ms (bumping your framerate down). The same stuff is consistently fast in Direct3D because enterprise/industrial workloads don't use it. NVENC for hardware video encoding is also artificially limited on consumer cards, which forces you to buy quadros for scenarios where you want to do multi streaming.

terhechte 6y ago

I'm probably going to be downvoted into oblivion but I'm genuinely curious: Does anybody else think that the "mining is bad for the environment and gamers can't buy the cards" argument is a bit weird? After all, if all these cards weren't used for mining but for gaming, wouldn't the environmental outcome be the same? I mean, is there any inherent upside to burning tons of energy for games vs burning it for a cryptocurrency? How much electricity do all the gaming PCs and gaming consoles in the world consume vs Argentina? To me, it feels a lot like Nascar or Formula one burning tons of fuel. I don't think that it is somehow bad to play games, but I wonder why the one (crypto) is always criticized into oblivion for the energy consumption, while the other isn't.

sparkling 6y ago
How much use does a GPU get in a gaming PC? A few hours per day? In crypto farms these things are running 24/7. Anyway, i still think its a bad move to tell people what they can and can not do with their hardware.
rq1 6y ago
You don’t play 24/7.
throwaway525142 6y ago
I would guess that computers used for gaming are turned off most of the time, whereas mining rigs are likely turned on and using much of the GPU at all times?
almog 6y ago
> I mean, is there any inherent upside to burning tons of energy for games vs burning it for a cryptocurrency? You presume the total energy consumption would be the same whereas it'd be more likely that GPUs that are used for mining will be used 24/7 whereas gaming is likely to be performed by a human being who cannot or would not utilize the GPU nearly as many hours of the day.
- badlucklottery 6y ago
  > GPUs that are used for mining will be used 24/7 whereas gaming is likely to be performed by a human being who cannot or would not utilize the GPU nearly as many hours of the day. Yup. And even if they could utilize them 24/7, gamers generally* won't have 10+ cards going at once. *:I'm sure someone has some weird 360 degree flight simulator edge case.

pornel 6y ago

I have no sympathy for miners, but purely from software freedom perspective this is maximally evil: closed-source software that decides what you can use your hardware for. The CMP version is a straight-to-landfill product. As soon as it stops being profitable for mining it will have zero resale value, and become e-waste.

martinald 6y ago
Surely it would be worth the same as the normal RTX 3060? It will have the same use for gaming?
- robkop 6y ago
  They are removing all the display ports from the card so I can't imagine it can be used for gaming.
  - PartiallyTyped 6y ago
    It can be. NVDA's stance is utter bull. It is entirely possible to render video games and stream them to another display [1,2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY4s35uULg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY4s35uULg4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1nok2VlF1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1nok2VlF1M [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfIibTBaoMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfIibTBaoMM
    - qqii 6y ago
      It will be possible but as your third video suggests the number of cards that'll be used this way and not end up as landfill will be peanuts.
      - PartiallyTyped 6y ago
        I don't disagree, but I suppose the structure of my comment didn't convey the message correctly, that is, that NVDA is just maximizing profits while screwing over gamers because a) they can get away with it and b) they are an ever decreasing portion of their revenue.

WalterGR 6y ago

Discussed 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26180260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26180260 Nvidia announces mining GPUs, cuts the hash rate of RTX-3060 in half (nvidia.com) 454 points by bcatanzaro 2 days ago | flag | hide | past | favorite | 731 comments There are 30-ish more submissions here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=1&prefix=true&query=Nvidia&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=1&prefix=tru...

tsujamin 6y ago

Curious to see how ethereum participants react to this. Will it just become a race to defeat nvidia’s mining-detection logic in order to up the available supply of cards? (caveat: don’t know enough about contemporary ethereum to know how this works with PoS)

qqii 6y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26180260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26180260 Also on reddit: (Linus from Linus Tech Tip's Take, I'd reccomended watching this one) https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/locpyb/nvidia_pretends_to_care_about_gamers https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/locpyb/nvidia_pre... (Initial Article) https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmnpag/geforce_is_made_for_gaming_cmp_is_made_to_mine https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmnpag/geforce_is... (Clarification that the restrictions in driver+firmware) https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lnf78f/nvidia_geforce_rtx_3060_antimining_feature_goes https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lnf78f/nvidia_gef... https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lnrgdc/cryptomining_is_a_dangerous_practice_restrictions https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lnrgdc/cryptomini... https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lng4q4/nvidia_has_set_a_precedence_that_you_no_longer https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lng4q4/nvidia_has... https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmqd56/nvidia_nerfs_ethereum_hash_rate_launches_cmp https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmqd56/nvidia_ner... https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmom3w/nvidia_is_launching_a_full_line_of_cmp_gpus_all https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmom3w/nvidia_is_... (Initial Leak) https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmrsrj/zotac_geforce_rtx_3060_early_gpu_mining_test https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/lmrsrj/zotac_gefo...

jleahy 6y ago

I’m guessing they are going to try and raise the prices and create a new market segment. Just as they have separated datacenter GPUs, increased the price massively (coming up to a factor of 10x) and then tried to use a stick to prevent the use of desktop GPUs for datacenter work (eg. the licensing change). Unfortunately (for their bottom line) it probably won’t work, if the restriction is in the driver then someone like myself (or many other people in HN) will have it patched in a number of hours. If it’s in the firmware it’ll take longer, but it’ll be done. Unless they’ve actually fused out integer units on the consumer cards, that would be bold.

cedricgle 6y ago
I can imagine that nowadays you can protect your hardware with encryption chip that unlock firmware with public/private keys. To break it you will have to remove the chip.
qqii 6y ago
> According to Bryan Del Rizzo, director of global PR for GeForce, more things are working behind the driver. > According to Mr. Del Rizzo: "It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-anti-mining-feature-goes-beyond-driver-version-could-expand-to-more-skus https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-a... I think it's important to look at as the article does - the other way around, the CMP lineup will be excellent for their bottom line as miners, without competition from gamers and others can buy up cards that won't contribute to the seccond hand market when the mining boom dies down. As suggested in the article, silicone would have been allocated to mid and low end cards is now allocated to mining only cards that have little resale value and won't hurt their bottom line when they release the 4XXX series.

qqii 6y ago

A lot of people are claiming this as a win for the non mining consumer but as the articles puts it: > Nvidia does state that these GPUs "don't meet the specifications required of a GeForce GPU and, thus, don't impact the availability of GeForce GPUs to gamers." Frankly, that doesn't mean much. What does Nvidia do with a GPU that normally can't be sold as an RTX 3090? They bin it as a 3080, and GA102 chips that can't meet the 3080 requirements can end up in a future 3070 (or maybe a 3070 Ti). The same goes for the rest of the line. Make no mistake: These are GPUs that could have gone into a graphics card. Maybe not a reference 3060 Ti, 3070, 3080, or 3090, but we've seen TU104 chips in RTX 2060 cards, so anything is possible. There's also seemingly little value for miners: > Note that the 90HX lists an Ethereum hash rate of just 86MH/s and a 320W TGP. After a bit of tuning, an RTX 3080 can usually do 94MH/s at 250W or less, so these cards (at least out of the box) aren't any better. > It gets worse as you go down the line, though. 50HX only does 45MH/s at 250W — that basically matches the tuned performance of the RTX 2060 Super through RTX 2080 Super, with a TGP that's still twice as high as what we measured. It's also half the speed of an RTX 3080 while potentially still using the same GPU (10GB VRAM). Or maybe it's a TU102 that couldn't work with 11 memory channels, so it's been binned with 10 channels. Either way, who's going to want this? 40HX at 36MH/s and 185W and 30HX at 26MH/s and 125W are equally questionable options. Restrictions placed on the 3060 has also confirmed to be more than just the drivers: > According to Bryan Del Rizzo, director of global PR for GeForce, more things are working behind the driver. > According to Mr. Del Rizzo: "It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." This means that essentially, NVIDIA can find any way to cripple the mining hash rate even if you didn't update your driver version. At the same time, according to Kopite7Kimi, we are possibly expecting to see NVIDIA relaunch its existing SKUs under a different ID, which would feature a built-in anti-crypto mining algorithm. What the company does remains to be seen. (from https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-anti-mining-feature-goes-beyond-driver-version-could-expand-to-more-skus https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-a...) Unfortunately for those that think this would be a good move, I'd agree with this article that: > Nvidia probably can't implement the same restrictions on existing GPUs without facing a class action lawsuit... To put it best is Linus from LTT (https://youtu.be/XfIibTBaoMM https://youtu.be/XfIibTBaoMM): 1. Silicone production is finite 2. These cards have no after market value Nividia isn't doing anyone but themselves any favours by releasing this.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ArkanExplorer 6y ago

GPU mining is going to become much less attractive this year due to Ethereum moving to Proof of Stake, right? If this is the case (perhaps an expert can chime in) - it makes sense to limit the hash rate now, to prevent these cards being dumped later this year? And to redirect miners towards higher-margin products in the meantime, whilst ensuring better supply for gamers (who are the actual long-term customers).

jkilpatr 6y ago
The ETH2 'beacon chain' is a meta-chain that's supposed to checkpoint a bunch of 'sub chains' for scalability. But they have launched it with many big questions unanswered. What does a 'sub chain' actually look like to interact with? How do you coordinate with many of them? All these questions have answers in theory, but not answers in solid production ready interoperable code. Furthermore some of these problems like 'how do you store a bunch of sub-chains' are questions not even properly answered in ETH1 nodes for the much simpler one chain case. By launching the beacon chain early the organizations developing ETH2 can validate and make money while all these questions are figured out. This is where the money goes instead of the improvement of ETH1 since that's a tragedy of the commons as this point. ETH2 is only worth money if these questions are figured out and ETH1 is somehow brought under the beacon chain's governance. Exactly how this is to happen... well I haven't even seen anything credible on this. Greenfield addition of chains under the ETH2 beacon chain is generously described as 'incomplete' moving ETH1 under ETH2 is much more challenging and I have not seen a plan with any level of detail. Given that everyone is making bridges to ETH1 now and typical development timelines. I would give a medium to high chance that ETH2 will miss it's window by a couple of years and activity will move to other faster chains that are available now and capable of siphoning off traffic from Ethereum using bridges until they reach their own critical mass. If I had to put money on it I would place 'proof of stake Ethereum' (defined as ETH1 under the POS beacon chain) more than 2 years out. I could see the sub-chains (greenfield) working by EOY, although I wouldn't grant it a high probability. Also if I had to put money on it I will bet on a halt of the Ethereum 1 chain for a time greater than 24 hours within that period, due to lack of maintenance on ETH1 nodes and increased stress from DeFi activity. ----- ETH2 is kinda like 5G, yes there is a very real 5G network protocol, but in terms of pubic messaging, everything is 5G and communicating anything about how it works or when it will be available is filled with pitfalls and nuances that are difficult for the highly technical, much less the general public, to understand.

lwhi 6y ago

I wonder if open source drivers will eventually circumvent this limit?

Jonnax 6y ago
Nvidia PR [1] has stated that it's a bios level feature. And their bioses require signatures. [1] https://twitter.com/bdelrizzo/status/1362619264423747590?s=20 https://twitter.com/bdelrizzo/status/1362619264423747590?s=2...
- lwhi 6y ago
  I remember years ago (we're talking 20 years), it was possible to circumvent chip level batching between Nvidia Geforce and Quadro. Geforce was the consumer range, and Quadro was used for workstation graphics. They both used the same chip .. but a resistor on the board gave the driver an indication of which range the card belonged to.
  - phire 6y ago
    They have gotten somewhat better at chip security since then. I remember AMDs Phenom tri-core CPUs being unlockable to quad-core 12 years ago, but nothing really since.
lasagnaphil 6y ago
Sadly, the last time I checked the benchmark for the nouveau project (https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-nouveau-2019&num=2 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-n...), it wasn't even close to being "usable" in terms of performance (need to expect about 10x slowups in games).
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  It’s because you need to load firmware on the gpu to make it run fast and that firmware is illegal to redistribute and impossible to reimplement since it’s signed. There is nothing the nouveau project can do short of finding an exploit in the cards crypto.

almost 6y ago

Probably not the main reason and may not even be a reason. But this seems like it would work as a clever way not to have the market flooded with older (but still very capable) graphics cards once the value of them in a mining rig stops making sense.

hahahahe 6y ago

I am convinced Nvidia is deeply involved in the crypto space more so than they care to admit. I can’t wait until Apple matches or surpasses Nvidia so we don’t have to listen to Jensen’s lies quarter after quarter about how insignificant crypto mining is to their business.

altcognito 6y ago
Isn’t it just so mysterious how they have all these supply problems? I wonder why they can’t seem to manufacture products! In all reality, what they are doing is totally normal, I just wish they wouldn’t lie about it.
- SXX 6y ago
  How do you think they can lie as public company? Literally everyone is bottlenecked by TSMC right now.
  - roblabla 6y ago
    Nvidia isn't using TSMC for any of their current products, they're using Samsung. They may switch to TSMC for their more high-end cards, but I don't think that is the case right now.
    - volta83 6y ago
      This isn't true. Nvidia is using TSMC right now for all of the compute products, e.g., see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampere_(microarchitecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampere_(microarchitecture) > TSMC's 7 nm FinFET process for A100 > Custom version of Samsung's 8nm process (8N) for the GeForce 30 series[8] That is, NVIDIA is using both, TSMC and Samsung. Both are probably maxed out.
      - altcognito 6y ago
        Right, so what’s their volume on a100s and are they a favored mining tool? If so, I think that might be the disconnect between what people think nvidia is focused on, and what they are focused on. Plus, I’ll point out that a lot of information can be hidden by public companies. Amazon was pretty quiet about it’s growth in sales of AWS as a dominant force for a number of years.

nottorp 6y ago

Does that mean they're bringing down the xx60 card price too? Rabid gamers who MUST have that 1440Hz refresh may be willing to pay anything for their space heaters, but there are people who play games but aren't willing to spend 1K (or 3K, how far have they gone these days?) on a video card. In other words, is this done to increase sales volume or just nvidia's profit?

gnaman 6y ago
The article clearly states that the hash rate will be limited if Ethereum mining algorithm is detected by the driver, not otherwise. Gaming use cases will remain the same
- nottorp 6y ago
  And will that make cards cheaper? I'm not asking about the technical details, just about what they want me to pay...
Netcob 6y ago
It's done so that when the crypto bubble bursts again, the market isn't flooded with used graphics cards. In 2017 everyone was buying GTX 10XX cards, on one hand because they actually represented a good improvement over the last generation for a change, but mostly due to the crypto bubble. Which then burst at the beginning of 2018. Then RTX 20XX came along, which actually represented a slight drop in price/performance if you don't count the raytracing/AI cores (which to this day hardly matter in gaming), while used GTX 10XX cards were still everywhere. So now nvidia wants to make sure cards used for crypto go straight to the landfill after the current bubble bursts.
- michaelt 6y ago
  And at the same time, it lets them cut out the scalpers and sell straight to the miners who'll pay twice the price for a card - without the price-gouging upsetting gamers.
  - 6y ago

asxd 6y ago

Somewhat related, you can still find reasonably priced pre-built computers with latest-gen graphics cards. If you're in the market for an entirely new computer, this would be the cost-effective way to go. The HP Omen is one example (stock is still there from 3rd parties, but admittedly limited).

ianhanschen 6y ago

Not a fan of miners disturbing GPU availability and pricing but this is a bad move. It’s not an engineering move, it’s a marketing move, and I’m sure the first attempt at doing this will come down to something just as shallow like a PCI PID check or some resistor strap check. Someone will find it worth the cost to make an FPGA based PCIe bridge that responds to the right knocks in the right way.

bserge 6y ago
Not the first time they do this, either. They started limiting performance via firmware/software since Fermi iirc. Basically, nVidia's GTX and Quadro cards use the same exact chips but the latter have additional features and higher performance in professional applications.
- sneak 6y ago
  I think the EULA also says that you can't use the drivers for the non-expensive cards in multitenant/datacenter setups.
nine_k 6y ago
I suppose they recognize a specific algorithm. They already do special-casing for a number of game titles, and have been for a long time. Not a problem to match one more pattern, I assume.

soulofmischief 6y ago

Where is the class-action lawsuit? TOS be damned, people bought a product with an advertised spec and that spec was later intentionally crippled.

hrydgard 6y ago
3060 is a new card, they're not "crippling" it post-release.
kbumsik 6y ago
Not at all. 3060 is a new card and not released yet.
- soulofmischief 6y ago
  Oh. Ok. Ignore me. NVIDIA has me a bit sensitive because this is not the first time.
  - wccrawford 6y ago
    It's a little weird because they released the 3060 TI before the regular 3060, so when they say they're launching the 3060... It's just confusing. I feel like they should have given it its own identifier to help with that confusion, or launched them in the normal order. Base model, then the upgraded one.

anothernewdude 6y ago

I'd be too afraid it would affect performance for other tasks to seriously consider it then.

ddtaylor 6y ago

I don't think Nvidia (or most companies) should be deciding what to do with the tools they sell. I don't want someone telling me what software I can run with my CPU or GPU any more than I want someone telling me what I am allowed to build with the hammers or screwdrivers I buy.

mseidl 6y ago
Fuck miners. They drove the cost of the 1000 series cards up when btc peaked at 14k. Then the 2000 series was the same price as when the btc peaked. Now the 3080 is selling at 2000+ euros.
- ddtaylor 6y ago
  The problem is really more to do with the fact that intellectual property makes the production of these highly demanded resources very constrained.
wruza 6y ago
High chance of changing your mind when these tools get hoarded by those who do not build anything at all and only race arms. Mining business is basically that.
- ddtaylor 6y ago
  I think the market is working as expected here, since a higher price is placed on the ability to decentralize finance versus having a few people playing video games at higher quality. If you're interested in machine learning there are resources specifically for that, such as Google's Tensorflow Processing Units (TPUs)
  - wruza 6y ago
    “higher price is placed on the ability for few people to participate in speculation and money laundering versus having better 3d modelling in realtime for everyone” This word play can be played backwards too.

ReptileMan 6y ago

Hacked drivers coming in 3... 2... 1...

phire 6y ago
It's a bios/firmware level limitation, and the latest GPUs all have firmware signing. Not unbeatable, but it would require a much more involved hack than just modifying some drivers. Nvidia have painted a huge target on it, so we will see what happens.
masuvius 6y ago
I hope it comes out soon I gotta an 3060 on this way.

lvass 6y ago

This is just par for the course on closed down hardware. The manufacturer decides how you use it, that's how it has always been. I'm actually happy about this news, I hope it raises awareness for the need of open hardware, it's not like I'd ever buy one of these cards when competitors at least have open source drivers. Lack of hardware freedom generating electronic waste isn't unheard of either.

nikeee 6y ago

Does this limitation also affect the use with hashcat or other software that uses OpenCL, for example?

dayyan 6y ago

This is horse s h I t.

lmilcin 6y ago

I am happy with this kind of heavy handed move for once if this is intended to reduce demand for graphics products for their other uses and make them available for people who intend to use them for work and gaming. Maybe I will finally be able to afford top of the line GPU. I mean, bitcoin miners can still pay high prices if they want but finally there will be GPU that will not be encumbered by mining craze.

radium3d 6y ago

So I want a 3080... I assume this means it will be even harder to buy?

somehnrdr14726 6y ago

At some point nvidia would be better off mining with these gpus than selling them. The oddest solution I can think of is gamers lease graphics cards at a low low price and nvidia mines on them in the off-hours. With a big enough operation they could force all the other miners into becoming resellers. It's free, distributed electricity and it gets the gamers off their backs. (While I have your attention, I'm pretty sure proof of work is the paperclip maximizer sci fi warned us about.)

sellyme 6y ago
> The oddest solution I can think of is gamers lease graphics cards at a low low price and nvidia mines on them in the off-hours. This would be a complete non-starter in markets with high electricity costs or temperatures. Running a GTX 3090 at 100% load during the summer where I live would cost $140/month and will heat up my room to about 65°C.
- mseidl 6y ago
  This is the other thing I don't understand. I'm from Germany and our power is around 35 cents per khw. Even using a 14th/s asic with bitcoin as high is it is now, you're losing lots of money. It uses 1,3 kilowatts. The fact that the prices of the cards are so high in Germany now too... the 3080s are at 2000€ plus.
  - sellyme 6y ago
    > I'm from Germany and our power is around 35 cents per khw. I don't know if this is a typo or just a slightly different way of writing it in German, but now I'm trying to work out exactly what a "kilohour watt" would be. I think it's just a millionth of a kilowatt hour? Definitely wouldn't want to be paying those prices! I can't find anywhere genuinely using that unit, although it is mentioned in this 1979 9th grade Electrics curriculum as part of a True-or-False quiz at page 370: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED182438.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED182438.pdf Time to file it in my list of "technically correct but extremely annoying units" along with "5Mm" (5000km) and - mainly in the context of batteries - "10Ah" (10000mAh).

einpoklum 6y ago

> The company also limited the mining performance of the soon-to-be-launched RTX 3060 cards to roughly 50% of the normal performance What does that mean? What has NVIDIA actually done on those cards? Also, if this doesn't effect 3050, 70, 80 , Ti's, Quadro's and Tesla's - does it really matter all that much?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

password321 6y ago

Well at least you could say it potentially helps the environment now that you won't have bunch of gamers crypto mining, or does that not matter the moment there is a drawback that affects us?

logbiscuitswave 6y ago
I’d argue it’s worse for the environment. These so-called mining cards can’t be used as regular GPUs since they don’t have any outputs - they are compute only. Once they outlive their usefulness they become e-waste since there would be no sustainable secondary market. At least a gaming GPU could be re-sold or otherwise repurposed.
- password321 6y ago
  https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/csr/product-recycling/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/csr/product-recycling/

victor9000 6y ago

Is there any way to get these cards at MSRP? Why can't I just pre-order one from nvidia and have it shipped when it becomes available?

dvdkon 6y ago
I don't get this either, is's not like the manufacturers benefit from the inflated prices themselves, as far as I know.

legohead 6y ago

Been trying to build a PC for my daughter for weeks now, waiting for just a half decent GPU to become available. You can't find the 16*, 20*, or of course the 30* line of Nvidia available anywhere (except overpriced on Ebay), it's nuts. I'm not in a rush or I'd just buy a prebuilt PC which you can still find with these cards, but I wanted to show my daughter how to build a PC. Guess it will be a few more months...

ranguna 6y ago

So what ? If this doesn't effect performance, why should I care ? The only real problem is e-waste.

fortran77 6y ago

I understand their motives, and as someone who needs GPUs to do scientific GPGPU computing, I appreciate the attempt to get more availability. However, I'd always be suspicious of my "crippled" GPU

liquidify 6y ago

How exactly can they do this without screwing up a bunch of other classes of use cases?

PeterStuer 6y ago

The GPU market at this point is supply limited. There is not much else NVIDIA can do at this point besides trying to cripple their products for mining if they want gamers to have any supply. Since this all depends on their signatures not being circumvented, I suspect it wont last too long. As for the mining specific cards, all that ensures is that there will be swats of silicon that will never be accessible for gamers. That they try to spin this part as pro-gamer is very cynical.