Remember that story regarding NVIDIA relaunching a new RTX 3060 SKU that actually does limit the hash rate for Ethereum mining workloads? Well, not only has it been cemented, but it also has been expanded. Reports are coming in that all but confirm that NVIDIA is on its way to provide its partners with updated silicon that should put mining performance of their RTX 30-series cards into a less palatable price-performance territory for would-be miners. That, in turn, should bring them closer to NVIDIA's CMP (Crypto Mining Processor) cards instead - and as wanted by both the company and consumers.

According to the sources, the new graphics cards will be indistinguishable from those that are still in transit or in stock (all two of them worldwide, of course). NVIDIA is internally describing the revised silicon as "Lite Hash Rate", and that is the message they communicate with AIBs. Apparently, the new "Lite Hash Rate" graphics cards will range throughout the entirety of NVIDIA's already-released RTX 30-series portfolio, from the ill-fated RTX 3060 up to the RTX 3080 Ti - the only absent graphics card is the RTX 3090, apparently, which could mean that NVIDIA is confident enough on that graphics card's cost being too high to be attractive to miners - especially when you consider how much more they are going for above the MSRP that was half-heartedly slapped on it. The new chips carry an update to their SKU identification - the GA102-200 chip that powers the RTX 3080 is being revised to GA102-202, as will all other chips made "lite" in this way. Expect the new cards to start hitting retail come June.

We saw Gigabyte release the first NVIDIA CMP (Crypto Mining Processor) 30HX card last week, ASUS has now revealed their version of the card with RGB lighting. The ASUS CMP30HX-6G features the same design as the ASUS GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER DUAL EVO minus the display connectors. The card features a 2.7 slot design with a dual-fan cooling solution which appears to be the most common design for these cards. The clock speeds and memory configuration are identical to that of Gigabyte's which are both the same as the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER on which the CMP 30HX is based on. The ASUS CMP 30HX will reportedly launch in May with a MSRP of 799 USD which is similar to other rumors.

Some time ago, NVIDIA introduced its GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card with GA106-300 Ampere GPU SKU. The GPU was the first to feature NVIDIA's latest additions like Resizable BAR and crypto mining algorithm limiter that limited the performance of the card while mining. However, despite NVIDIA's intention to keep the card out of the hands of crypto miners, there has been a lot of flaws in the plan. A lot of people discovered that the card still managed to turn in profits with the limiter enables. Later, NVIDIA accidentally released a driver that actually removes the limiter and enables the GPU to mine at full capacity, making the company's efforts useless.

Today we have new information that NVIDIA will launch an updated GeForce RTX 3060 GPU SKU that features a different ID, in the quest to limit card's mining performance. According to HKEPC, NVIDIA is producing updated GeForce RTX 3060 GKU SKUs with GA106-302 ID that should launch sometime in May, which are supposed to replace the GA106-300 SKUs now present. The software and the drivers will use the new ID to identify new SKUs and limit the performance of the card at mining tasks such as Ethereum mining. That way, it ensures that no driver version or bypass can trick the software to enable the card to use its full mining power and it shall render it unprofitable. Additionally, kopite7kimi, a known hardware leaker, claims that NVIDIA is also preparing updated GPU SKU IDs for GA104 and GA102 GPUs, with GA102-302/202 and GA104-302/202 variants supposedly coming.

Gigabyte has recently launched the first NVIDIA Crypto Mining Processor with the CMP 30HX D6 6G (GV-N30HXD6-6G). The entry-level CMP 30HX mining card features an Ethereum hash rate of 26 MH/s and a TDP of 125 W and was slated by NVIDIA for a Q1 2021 launch. Gigabyte is the first manufacturer to officially launch an NVIDIA CMP card and has revealed some interesting information including that the card is listed as having only a three month warranty period and 14 Gbps 6 GB GDDR6 on a 192-bit memory bus. The card features a WINDFORCE 2X Cooling System with alternate spinning 90 mm fans and no video outputs. NVIDIA also announced the CMP 40HX with a Q1 2021 launch date so we expect that partners will list that card shortly. These cards will be followed by the CMP 50HX, and CMP 90HX in May.

When NVIDIA introduced its GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, the company also introduced a new feature to go along with it. As the card is priced well, it is positioning itself as a very good value offer for mining. Given that NVIDIA has now separate products for mining, it naturally would like to limit the number of gaming cards sold to miners. To achieve that, the company introduced an anti-mining algorithm that is essentially a handshake between the driver, RTX 3060 silicon, and the GPU VBIOS. This handshake checks those three components to detect if mining is going on, so it can limit the performance of the card.

However, even such a thing can be bypassed. Usually, miners put their GPUs in rigs where most of the GPUs don't use their video outputs. And the GPU can detect if it is connected to the monitor or not, triggering the anti-mining algorithm. A user from Quasar Zone forums has managed to bypass the restriction by simply installing a dummy HDMI plug. By using the dummy plug, the card thinks that it is connected to a monitor and thus runs normally. Using this workaround, the user was able to set-up a four-way GeForce RTX 3060 mining rig with 48 MH/s hashing power per GPU, for the total 192 MH/s hash rate. You can buy HDMI dummy plugs for as low as $5.99 on Amazon or at any other store.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 hash-rate limiter has been defeated, by the company itself, through a driver update. The RTX 3060 was announced by NVIDIA to be meant purely for gamers as it came with measures that make them unviable for mining. The card purportedly had a hash-rate limiter that detected workloads from typical crypto-currency mining algorithms, and spooled down GPU clock speeds, halving the mining efficiency of the card. The idea was to sour the milk for miners, so there could be inventory for gamers. PC Watch reports that the latest GeForce 470.05 drivers distributed by NVIDIA to developers through the Windows Insider Program defeats the hash-rate limiter, significantly improving mining performance of the RTX 3060. With this driver out in the open, miners are sure to pick up RTX 3060 cards to go with it; and simply ignore all future driver updates through NVIDIA's official driver channel.

HardwareLuxx.de and ComputerBase have each independently verified that GeForce 470.05 drivers "restore" mining performance on RTX 3060 cards back to levels their hardware is capable of—roughly matching that of the RTX 2070 Super. This development confirms that the hash-rate limiter was purely driver based, and NVIDIA hoped to artificially throttle mining performance of RTX 3060 cards by simply adding this limiter to all compatible versions of GeForce drivers since the card's launch; but those behind the 470.05 special drivers probably forgot to implement it. Probably because it is based on a different branch of the source code, which is developed in parallel. NVIDIA earlier claimed that the hash-rate limited is a much more sophisticated mechanism involving a "secure handshake between the driver and system-firmware that prevents tampering." So much for that.

The first NVIDIA CMP (Crypto Mining Processor) 30HX card from Gigabyte has been pictured and it closely resembles that of Gigabyte's GTX 1660 SUPER OC 6G. This resemblance makes sense considering the 30HX uses the same TU116-100 GPU found in the GTX 1660 SUPER and is paired with the same 6 GB of GDDR6 memory. The NVIDIA CMP 30HX features a TDP of 125 W and achieves a hash rate of 26 MH/s in Ethereum mining similar to that of the RTX 3060 with it's anti-mining algorithm. The card features no display outputs which limits the cards capabilities once it's no longer profitable to operate. The card should run cool with the dual-fan cooling solution and improved airflow due to the lack of outputs.

MSI recently published an official blog article advertising the cryptocurrency mining potential of their GE76 raider laptop with a mobile RTX 3080 graphics card. The official post appears to have now been removed but has been archived by the Wayback Machine. MSI acknowledges the shortage of graphics cards and proposes that miners look at purchasing their new laptops. MSI shows the earnings potential of their GE76 raider laptop running NiceHash on the Intel Core i9-10980HK processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card. The mobile RTX-3080 achieved a hash rate of 52.8 MH/s running the Excavator miner with the DaggerHashimoto algorithm. This performance is slightly above the RTX 2080 Ti but falls significantly short of a desktop RTX 3080 which achieves nearly double at 95.7 MH/s. MSI also noted that they would be publishing a follow-up post with their profitability statistics however this now seems unlikely given that the original post appears to have been taken down.

NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card is likely to feature a hardware hash-rate limiter, much like the recently launched RTX 3060, according to kopite7kimi, a reliable source for NVIDIA rumors. The hash-rate limiter ensures that that crypto-currency mining performance of the card is significantly lower than what its hardware is capable of, so it doesn't remain viable for miners. The limiter works through a secure key exchange between the video BIOS, system firmware, and the driver; so driver-level modifications wouldn't affect it.

The RTX 3080 Ti is being launched to fill the large price-performance gorge between the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090. Its rumored specifications wildly swing between a 12 GB memory setup maxing out the 384-bit memory interface of the "GA102" silicon; and 20 GB of it across a narrower 320-bit wide interface. The card allegedly features 80 out of 84 streaming multiprocessors (40 out of 42 TPCs) enabled, working out to 10,240 CUDA cores, 80 RT cores, and 320 Tensor cores. Below is a picture of the RTX 3090 Founders Edition.

We recently reported that the NVIDIA 30HX and 40HX CMP cards will be based on the Turing TU116 and TU106 processors. This was good news to those hoping for improved graphics card supplies however, according to a recent report the top-end 90HX CMP card will be based on the Ampere GA102-100 GPU also found in the RTX 3080. The report also claims that the 50HX will feature the Turing TU102 GPU found in the RTX 2080 Ti making the 90HX the only card in the series to feature an Ampere design. The 50HX and 90HX cards are expected to launch later this year and will likely restrict GPU supply if the cryptocurrency boom continues.

We have recently discovered that NVIDIA's newly announced 30HX and 40HX Crypto Mining Processors are based on the last-generation Turing architecture. This news will come as a pleasant surprise to gamers as the release shouldn't affect the availability of Ampere RTX 30 Series GPUs. The decision to stick with Turing for these new devices is reportedly due to the more favorable power-management of the architecture which is vital for profitable cryptocurrency mining operations. The NVIDIA CMP 40HX will feature a custom TU106 processor while the 30HX will include a custom TU116. This information was discovered in the latest GeForce 461.72 WHQL drivers which added support for the two devices.

The NVIDIA RTX 3060 isn't even released yet, but as you might've heard, cards are already doing the rounds throughout the secondhand market at ridiculous prices. And now, to sour the pot even more, one crypto enthusiast going by the name of CryptoLeo on YouTube has shown that he already has his hands on the card - and performed a quick mining test on it. The user showcases the cards' serial number, so I hope NVIDIA is reading this post so as to know exactly which distributor this graphics card came from; breaking time-to-market likely isn't to be taken lightly by the company.

The test, done without the RTX 3060's release drivers (which are still a week away), showcases the graphics card capping its own mining performance a little after the mining algorithms begin to be processed. The card, identified in the below screenshots as tagged "1", shows a decline in performance from the initial 41.5 MH/s down to 24-24 MH/s. The card tagged as "2" is a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which doesn't show the same performance decline (naturally). That the card exhibited this behavior sans release drivers goes to show that NVIDIA's solution is, at the very, very least, BIOS-based, and isn't a shoestring-budget driver-based solution that was haphazardly thrown in for good measure. And once again, it's a ZOTAC card in the mining spotlight. Is this a pattern?

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.

ZOTAC's official Twitter channel has posted an image that promotes the usage of its graphics cards in mining environments. Under the caption "An army of #ZOTACGAMING GPU's hungry for coin!", the company posted an image of a cryptocurrency mining farm populated with its graphics cards. The usage of a gaming hashtag in the post just adds insult to injury, with the picture showcasing at least eight of its GeForce RTX 3070 Twin Edge graphics cards on mining duties.

Of course, for ZOTAC, its cards being re-purposed for mining isn't a make-it-or-break-it affair: the company makes money selling its products to gamers or miners alike. However, considering how global supply of the latest gaming-branded graphics cards has been constrained ever since the initial RTX 3000-series launch, it seems that this Tweet might have been a misstep on the company. It's bound to attract crosshairs towards a seemingly unjust distribution of graphics cards in the market, with several would-be users of their gaming-branded graphics cards being left out in the cold regarding the primary purpose these graphics cards are developed and marketed for: gaming. The company has in the meantime deleted the Tweet.

An internet cafe in Vietnam has turned to mining cryptocurrency as the pandemic has affected their business. Internet cafes have been ordered to close to limit the spread of COVID-19 forcing the owners to find an alternative use for their computer hardware. The owner of Star Computer computer cafe in Ho Chi Minh city has announced that they will be switching to cryptocurrency mining as the "profits are higher". The cafe is owned by a Vietnamese computer store and has managed to secure a significant number of RTX 3080 GPUs for the mining operations. Star Computer internet cafe has also encouraged other internet cafe owners to contact them about setting up similar operations.

Star Computers (translation)Switching business season, Profits are higher than net business, whoever wants to do, contact me for free.

EVGA has recently released the SuperNova 1300 M1 mining power supply for cryptocurrency mining rigs. The new fully modular power supply is rated at 80+ Gold efficiency and can support six GPUs. The power supply includes a single 4+4 pin CPU interface along with six VGA power cables which each include a 6+2 pin and 6 pin connector for high power graphics cards. The 1300 W power supply includes limited SATA and Molex connectors while forgoing the typical EVGA branding with a minimalistic cardboard box packaging. The EVGA SuperNova 1300 M1 is currently listed on Newegg.com for 299.99 USD, the product is not currently listed on EVGA's site.

Availability for NVIDIA and AMD's latest graphics cards is dire, to say the least; the average consumer finds their stocks to be spotty, at best, with available cards quickly dropping into oblivion. Scalpers and their associates are part of the problem, as is already well-known; however, another element to this same problem - at least, when it comes to numerous graphics cards finding their way to the same consumers, instead of being available for others - is mining. Because while we are definitely not facing the same shortages as we were back in the day where everyone and their mother wanted to get into mining using our tried and true graphics cards, mining farms are still a reality, and they are making use of NVIDIA (and AMD's) latest graphics cards as well.

Case in point, a mining farm running as many as 78 PNY RTX 3080 graphics cards has surfaced in Las Vegas. This 78-card mining farm was apparently put together with a $100,000 budget (around $1,199 per card, not considering other installation costs). For that money, the mining farm should be capable of around 6,474 MH/s (83 MH/s per RTX 3080), which amounts to a monthly Ethereum production of around 17.3 ETH per month (pricing fluctuates, so we won't give an estimation on dollar value for each ETH). Associated electricity running costs with such a system, including cooling, should pan out around 23.4 kW (with an estimated 300 W of power for each card) at $8.34 per Kw.

Alleged mining benchmarks of NVIDIA's upcoming RTX 3090 graphics card have leaked, and the scenario looks great for non-mining usages. The RTX 3090 is being quoted as achieving 120 MH/s on the ubiquitous Dagger-Hashimoto ETHash protocol. That number in itself is impressive - but not when one considers the cards' 350 W board power. granted, a 100% PL isn't the best scenario for mining - and one would expect no knowledgeable miners to use their graphics cards on the NVIDIA-shipped power-curve spot their graphics cards come in at (nor AMD cards, mind you).

The RTX 3080 may be a better example, as there have been more numerous benchmarks done on that particular GPU. It strikes the best balance in performance and power at around 65% PL (210 W), where it achieves 79.8 MH/s. However, previus-gen AMD RX 5700 XT graphics cards have been shown around 50 MH/s whilst consuming only 110 W (with underclocking and undervoltage), which, paired with that particular graphics card's pricing, makes it a much, much better bet for mining efficiency and return on investment. The point is this: reports of miners gobbling up RTX 3000 series stock are, at least for now, apparently unfounded. And this may mean us regular users of graphics cards can rest assured that we won't have to deal with miner-induced shortages. At least until AMD's Navi flounders (eh) to shore.

NVIDIA investors have recently filed a suit against the company, claiming that NVIDIA wrongfully detailed its revenue indicators between departments. The main point of contention here is that investors claim NVIDIA knowingly obfuscated the total value of the crypto market boom (and subsequent bust) from investors, thus painting a picture of the company's outlook than was different from reality (making demand for the Gaming division look higher than it was in reality) and exposing them to a different state of affairs and revenue gains than they expected. The investors say that NVIDIA knew that a not insignificant number of its graphics cards sold between 2017 and 2018 was being bought-up solely for the purpose of crypto mining, and that the company knew this (and even marketed GPUs specifically for that purpose).

The crypto mining boom had miners gobbling up all NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards that they could, with both companies seemingly increasing production to meet the crypto mining bubble demand. However, due to the economics of crypto mining, it was clear that any profits derived from this bubble would ultimately open the door to an explosive logistics problem, as miners offloaded their graphics cards to the second-hand market, which could ultimately harm NVIDIA's financial book. Of course, one can look at NVIDIA's revenue categories at the time to see that crypto would hardly fit neatly into either the Gaming, Professional Visualization, Datacenter, Auto, or OEM & IP divisions.

The Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019, on its way to the Indian Parliament for debate and possible legislation, seeks to impose a stunning 10-year imprisonment as penalty for any person or business found buying, selling, holding, or mining crypto-currency in India. It has wording to tell wilful mining apart from "crypto-jacking" (malware that mines crypto on a computer or portable computing device without its user's knowledge). Violations of this Act will also be treated as "cognizable" and "non-bailable," meaning that the accused cannot seek bail, anticipatory or in custody, while their case is being taken up by India's criminal-justice system.

A Cognizable Offense under Indian law, is comparable to a Felony under U.S. law, and some of the most heinous crimes, such as homicide and rape, are classified as these. The Indian Government has reportedly taken this step to clamp down on rampant tax-evasion, "hawala" money transfers (illegal money transfers disconnected from the banking system), and financing of terrorism, drug-trade, and social unrest by foreign NGOs and eco-terrorists. The Bill is expected to have smooth sailing through Parliament as the incumbent political administration enjoys a simple majority in the Lok Sabha (essentially House of Commons); and has a good sway over the Rajya Sabha (Council of States, but essentially House of Lords).

In a move that made us go "WTF" internally, Razer has decided to test their fanbase's loyalty more so than ever before. Today, the company introduced Razer Softminer, a mining software program that is intended to be installed on computers and run to mine cryptocurrency. But instead of the users getting whatever new cryptocurrency is in fashion, Razer instead wants to retain all mined crypto and in turn "award" users with the so-called Razer Silver- loyalty reward credits, in their own words. The miner appears to be running off a version of the Gamma desktop application, as per speculation from TweakTown.

Razer Softminer utilizes heavy GPU performance loads, and there is no mention as to what the actual mining is for. It is clear, however, that the users are not mining Razer Silver (which Razer is quick to admit is not cryptocurrency) and these loyalty credits are handed out in an equivalent manner based on the mining power of the system. In their estimate, a sytem with at least a NVIDIA GTX 1050 or AMD RX 460 running the mining program for a whole day will net ~500 Razer Silver, and these can be used to "redeem Razer peripherals, digital rewards such as games, vouchers and more" from a dedicated rewards page.

BIOSTAR, a leader in crypto mining motherboards, introduces two new BTC series professional crypto mining motherboards - TB360-BTC Expert and TB360-BTC PRO. Fully optimized for professional crypto mining, the TB360-BTC Expert and TB360-BTC PRO support 17 x PCI-E 3.0 and 12 x PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots respectively. Packed with features for scaling up professional mining operations of any size, the TB360-BTC Expert and TB360-BTC PRO ensure a rock-solid mining system with improved mining performance. The BIOSTAR TB360-BTC series is also the first crypto mining motherboards based on the B360 and H370 chipset, which can support 8th generation Intel Core processors.

Cryptocurrency prices continue their downward slide making them no longer viable to mine on GPUs. The value of Ethereum has dropped to USD 256, down from its historic high of $1,250 this January. Bitcoin fell to below $6,000 Wednesday, way down from its late-2017 high of $19,000. A 79 percent devaluation isn't the worst of Ethereum's problems. The currency is facing stiff inflation from conversions to other cryptocurrencies or the Dollar. At its peak, ETH held 32 percent of all cryptocurrency market cap, beaten only by BTC at 39 percent. Now ETH only makes 14 percent.

As the mining craze seems to have hit a steaming wall alongside the current contraction in the crypto market (which has almost all cryptocurrencies redlining), Gigabyte is revising its graphics card shipment expectations for 2Q18. This isn't a sudden move, mind you: the "cryptocurrency mining accelerator market" has been slowing its ludicrous demand for some time now. However, Gigabyte expects the slowdown to continue and maybe even become steeper: a 20% reduction in its overall shipment expectations for 2Q18, from 1.2M units down to 1M, and a 10% reduction in ASP (Average Selling Price) do speak to this decline in demand. As a result of this expected decrease, Gigabyte will once again turn its marketing efforts towards gaming products and usage scenarios for their graphics cards, diverting funds that had been allocated to mining.

Don't worry though: Gigabyte is doing great. 1Q18 saw the company post record profits higher than the first half of 2017 - 1Q18 profits rose 91% sequentially and skyrocketed five-fold YoY to NT$1.61 billion (US$52.75 million). The company's revenue for graphics cards hit an all-time high of 49% per graphics card sold (a result of increased ASP). the company's motherboard business should see the same results as the previous year - a fault of Intel's increased delays in launching a new, compelling product line-up. Who would have thunk - Intel, the company that's always launching new platforms and chipsets and ending motherboard support for new CPUs.

According to DigiTimes, the entire AIB partner and graphics card supply channel is gearing up to an expected demand decrease for graphics cards in the second half of 2018. This marks an expectation on the continuation of the downward trend since December 2017, a time where Bitcoin (and as such, alternate cryptocurrencies) were at all-time highs. As profits decrease, difficulty increases, and mining players offload their graphics cards to still-interested buyers of their hardware, the market's ability to trade existing graphics cards and absorb new inventory is dwindling. Naturally, this reduced demand means that prices for new graphics cards have also been decreasing and somewhat stabilizing towards pre-mining boom prices.

However, producers of graphics cards obviously don't want to give away their record-high profits in their entirety; and they're showing some reluctance, some "pricing memory" on their graphics cards, maintaining gross margins in the 20% area, double that of pre-mining pricing. As such, graphics card makers are again abandoning the mining boom as a source of stable revenue, looking to other solutions (such as servers, datacenter acceleration and such, DigiTimes reports in the case of TUL). Another thing that would certainly help graphics card manufacturers in keeping up high demand and profits, of course, would be the impending release of a new NVIDIA architecture... At least for those that have AIB status with the company.