Friday, February 19th 2021
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Feature Goes Beyond Driver Version, Could Expand to More SKUs
Yesterday NVIDIA announced the company's first Crypto Mining Processor (CPM) that serves the purpose of having a dedicated processor only for mining with no video outputs. Alongside the new processors, the company has also announced that in the next driver update the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU will get Etherium mining performance halved, limiting the use of this GPU SKU by miners. However, up until now, we have thought that NVIDIA is limiting the mining performance of this card by simply having a driver detect if crypto mining algorithms are in place and limit the performance. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. 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.
Sources:
Bryan Del Rizzo (Twitter), @kopite7kimi (Twitter) #1, @kopite7kimi (Twitter) #2, via VideoCardz
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.
104 Comments on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Feature Goes Beyond Driver Version, Could Expand to More SKUs
AMD and NVIDIA both could also push miners towards their enterprise or prosumer products while leaving the gaming products alone, having mining capability (with decent hash rates) as an option on the much more expensive models.
I don't know who is to blame for this situation but it hurt the evolution of PC gaming a lot, another year of games that need to stay relevant for gtx 1060/rx580.
Imagine "GPU's as a service", where you buy a GPU, but it's artificially locked down and you have to pay to unlock "features" like what games the hardware will run well.
I probably sound insane right now, but I'm always wary when it comes to DRM and artificial restrictions.
"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."
There is no way to algorithmically detect the intention of code. And even if they tailor something to detect a specific order of operations associated with one algorithm, then the makers of the mining application will just adjust it and bypass it.
But more importantly, if this description is accurate, then there is a far more serious implication; false positives. If some games or applications are affected by this, and cut some people's performance in half, then Nvidia has done a move that goes far beyond stupidity.
I sure hope this is PR BS, because otherwise Nvidia will be facing lawsuits.
At the same time. Do folks remember the Resize BAR VBIOS update for existing RTX3000 cards? There is a good chance Nvidia will add something like to the Resizable BAR VBIOS. I mean whoever wanna flash it is entirely voluntary and only gamers who want best performance will flash their cards.
pcisig.com/specifications?speclib=resizable+bar
Wouldn't that mean that all GPUs that use PCIe 2.0 or better should support it? And if any cards from that time period don't support it, would that mean they aren't fully PCIe 2.0+ compliant?
But I digress, I'm not concerned as much about limiting mining capabilities on consumer hardware since that doesn't affect me. I'm more concerned about unintended consequences and this potentially being the start of something worse.
No cheap GPU when they become mining obsolete just the bin.
And less in the bins for gamer's.
If there's a win here I'm struggling to see it and I don't mine though have.
Not one of the 36 cards I resold back then ever had issues either.
So long as they just cut Eth mining performance it's a non starter, there's. Other coins and new one's every year, plus the algos change, wouldn't be long before they're files are called farcry game if it worked too.
If there's cash to be earned those keys aren't That safe.
I don't care too much though, I am already done with Nvidia for a bit after bait and switch MSRP game's, bull galore.
I fold now, they mess that up n see what's said about the place.
And what's your point, who gives a shit what your tired of, start a, I'm tired of thread see how many bites you get.
I couldn't care less in a way but again artificial restrictions, nooo.