NVIDIA announces Crypto Mining Processor series, GeForce RTX 3060 driver will limit mining performance

[GhostofWar]

Theres one thing I'm not getting about this. Nvidia cant get enough resources to produce their current GPU'S at a fast enough rate. How are they planning on producing these and normal GPU's at the same time.

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This to some degree, probably gpu's that can't be made into a 3060ti/3070. I couldn't find what gpu the 3060 is using so if its not the same one as higher skus this wont apply.

What Is “Binning” for Computer Components?

You might not realize it, but every time you purchase a new desktop CPU, you also get a ticket for a giveaway called the “silicon lottery.” Two CPUs of the same model can perform differently when pushed to their limits thanks to something called “CPU binning.”

www.howtogeek.com

They still come from the same foundry that has massive backorder though no?

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They are using samsung still right? the other 3000 series gpu's didn't use tsmc.

 

[plagiarize]

it doesn't matter how power efficient they are if they're still destroying the world for no good reason.

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What else can Nvidia do about it? I mean, if it isn't clear, fuck cryptocurrency miners, but this two pronged approach at the very least might let people trying to buy their GPUs to use them for their intended purpose actually find one to buy. Maybe it won't, but I'm glad they're trying something rather than looking the other way and filling their bank accounts.

 

[TSM]

There are mining farms using laptops now too. The demand for computational power is ridiculous.

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Yeah, I guess I underestimated how desperate they might be right now with the shortage going on.

 

[dgrdsv]

Why stop with 3060 though? Just do it for the entire consumer line except for 3090 or something.

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Newer drivers will have mining throttling for all gaming GPUs of course.
But with what is already launched miners can simply not update the drivers.
So only 3060 and other upcoming cards will be fully* protected this way.

* We'll see how full this protection will be, how often it will kick in outside of mining workloads and how hard it will be for miners to circumvent it on the workload level.

It's highly unlikely the existing 3060Ti drivers won't work on the 3060.

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They won't. Days when you could just edit the INI and run the older driver's code path on new GPU has long passed. There are measures in drivers preventing this from happening and the driver itself is heavily protected from any unauthorized modifications these days - due to how low level it is and how easy it would be for malware to get full system access by modifying the driver.

 

[7thFloor]

I understand people have concerns with the environmental and GPU supply consequences crypto has right now, but too many people are far invested into the market right now. We're talking retirement funds similar to Roth IRAs at this point. If crypto crashes than a lot of people will get fucked

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Fair, and it's not like anyone would learn anything anyway.

 

[jtb]

I understand people have concerns with the environmental and GPU supply consequences crypto has right now, but too many people are far invested into the market right now. We're talking retirement funds similar to Roth IRAs at this point. If crypto crashes than a lot of people will get fucked

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I have my doubts that a diversified retirement account would be impacted by a crypto bubble popping, particularly in the long run. But I guess we have seen stupider things happen before.

Sorry man, but this "think about the market!!" in contrast to the destruction of our ecological habitat is pretty skewed in its priorities.

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This too. And it's not like climate catastrophe is going to be good for the shareholders.

 

[Samiya]

What else can Nvidia do about it? I mean, if it isn't clear, fuck cryptocurrency miners, but this two pronged approach at the very least might let people trying to buy their GPUs to use them for their intended purpose actually find one to buy. Maybe it won't, but I'm glad they're trying something rather than looking the other way and filling their bank accounts.

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But isn't that exactly what Nvidia is doing here? They're just opening up product to a new market and the driver throttling isn't going to help anyone, because cryptominers will just refuse to update their drivers.

I understand people have concerns with the environmental and GPU supply consequences crypto has right now, but too many people are far invested into the market right now. We're talking retirement funds similar to Roth IRAs at this point. If crypto crashes than a lot of people will get fucked

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Sorry man, but this "think about the market!!" in contrast to the destruction of our ecological habitat is pretty skewed in its priorities.

 

[Veliladon]

Newer drivers will have mining throttling for all gaming GPUs of course.
But with what is already launched miners can simply not update the drivers.
So only 3060 and other upcoming cards will be fully* protected this way.

* We'll see how full this protection will be, how often it will kick in outside of mining workloads and how hard it will be for miners to circumvent it on the workload level.

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Insert a NOP into the instruction stream every other cycle if occupancy hits >95%?

 

[plagiarize]

But isn't that exactly what Nvidia is doing here? They're just opening up product to a new market and the driver throttling isn't going to help anyone, because cryptominers will just refuse to update their drivers.



Sorry man, but this "think about the market!!" in contrast to the destruction of our ecological habitat is pretty skewed in its priorities.

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Doing nothing to try and mitigate the problem would be looking the other way.

 

[Peaty Condor]

This to some degree, probably gpu's that can't be made into a 3060ti/3070. I couldn't find what gpu the 3060 is using so if its not the same one as higher skus this wont apply.

What Is “Binning” for Computer Components?

You might not realize it, but every time you purchase a new desktop CPU, you also get a ticket for a giveaway called the “silicon lottery.” Two CPUs of the same model can perform differently when pushed to their limits thanks to something called “CPU binning.”

www.howtogeek.com

They are using samsung still right? the other 3000 series gpu's didn't use tsmc.

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It's a different die, GA106.

 

[sangreal]

mining is just computing sha-256 hashes which have a lot of uses outside of mining so that doesn't sound like a great idea

they do something similar with video encoding to force people to buy quadros but the drivers can just be modified

 

[TSM]

mining is just computing sha-256 hashes which have a lot of uses outside of mining so that doesn't sound like a great idea

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Nvidia and AMD have historically been all about separating their consumer hardware from their commercial hardware and enforcing it at a driver level. For whatever reason they had been fine letting people use their consumer GPUs commercially to make money mining up until now. This seems like something that probably should have happened years ago during the last boom.

 

[Samiya]

Doing nothing to try and mitigate the problem would be looking the other way.

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What I meant was: By making new products designed for cryptomining, it looks like they're filling their bank accounts.

 

[Neoxon]

As long as this doesn't impede on performance regarding gaming & legit productive work, sounds like a great move to stop cryptocurrency miners from hogging all the RTX graphics cards.

 

[Sir_Bumble_Bee]

I have my doubts that a diversified retirement account would be impacted by a crypto bubble popping, particularly in the long run. But I guess we have seen stupider things happen before.

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Kinda hit the nail on the head there. We have seen economic meltdowns here in the US due to very stupid decisions

Sorry man, but this "think about the market!!" in contrast to the destruction of our ecological habitat is pretty skewed in its priorities.

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I understand but that doesn't change the fact that many everyday people will suffer from a crash. Millionaires and billionaires don't have much to worry about because they can always lobby for bailouts but everybody else will get fucked. We're in a lose-lose situation here unless major changes happen.

 

[ApeEscaper]

Wait people still mine on their own PCs? Is it even profitable enough to outdo electric bills?

 

[Alexandros]

It's a good start, hopefully the driver-level limitation will prove to be effective. At least this shows that Nvidia understands how serious the problem is.

 

[SaberVS7]

That's a smart way of trying to tackle the problem. Fingers crossed it works.

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It won't. Cryptominers will specifically seek out Gaming cards for their resell value. Mining Cards have been a failed idea time and time gain.

 

[Nerdkiller]

I understand people have concerns with the environmental and GPU supply consequences crypto has right now, but too many people are far invested into the market right now. We're talking retirement funds similar to Roth IRAs at this point. If crypto crashes than a lot of people will get fucked

Click to shrink...

 

[GhostofWar]

It's a different die, GA106.

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Thanks for clarifying that. So they must be running wafers for these then and not binning.

 

[thuway]

What's to stop someone from creating a custom driver?

 

[SaberVS7]

Y'know... Didn't China "solve" the Bitcoin problem by just adopting a policy of cutting off electricity to any buildings suspected of hosting Cryptominers?

 

[Nzyme32]

This isn't exactly a great solution if it also cripples average users who genuinely bought a GPU for gaming, suddenly not being able to utilise their hardware for alternate tasks as well, such as mining at a simple small scale as an individual

 

[Sir_Bumble_Bee]

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This would be funny if it weren't for the fact that a good chunk of people invested in crypto are people whom are achieving financial freedom for the first time (a lot of Black and historically disenfranchised people I may add) will be negatively effected by a major crypto crash.

We obviously need more regulation on mining and do our best to reduce the environmental impact, but hoping for crypto to crash and burn is pretty tone deaf imo

 

[KamenRiderEra]

How much power criptomining consumes? Like, the huge cloud infrastructure that so many services uses demands much less?

 

[Deusmico]

Good.

 

[Nerdkiller]

This would be funny if it weren't for the fact that a good chunk of people invested in crypto are people whom are achieving financial freedom for the first time (a lot of Black and historically disenfranchised people I may add) will be negatively effected by a major crypto crash.

We obviously need more regulation on mining and do our best to reduce the environmental impact, but hoping for crypto to crash and burn is pretty tone deaf imo

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Well, what's the harm in a bit of good ol' socialism? You know, something that can help lift those same people out of poverty without the burden of a burning world? It's not like those are the two biggest issues that young people are concerned about in this day and age.

 

[Deleted member 18324]

This would be funny if it weren't for the fact that a good chunk of people invested in crypto are people whom are achieving financial freedom for the first time (a lot of Black and historically disenfranchised people I may add) will be negatively effected by a major crypto crash.

We obviously need more regulation on mining and do our best to reduce the environmental impact, but hoping for crypto to crash and burn is pretty tone deaf imo

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Thought I'd heard every defense of cryptomining but "microwaving the planet is reparations" is a new one.

 

[KamenRiderEra]

This would be funny if it weren't for the fact that a good chunk of people invested in crypto are people whom are achieving financial freedom for the first time (a lot of Black and historically disenfranchised people I may add) will be negatively effected by a major crypto crash.

We obviously need more regulation on mining and do our best to reduce the environmental impact, but hoping for crypto to crash and burn is pretty tone deaf imo

Click to shrink...

Yes! Im a brazilian and poor... But cripto investment was so easy and accessible. People act like you need a fortune, but no, with a few bucks you could start and already had results. I literally helped my family with the recent gains. There is no other investment where I could enter, all riches gatekeeped. I understand the environment problem, but this is a bigger energy problem, to bring new ways and renewable sources. Do not relate at all to people on this board shaming cripto investment. Great/big fortunes should be taxed at maximum, but cripto as a investment is a god send to many with low income.

 

[dgrdsv]

NVIDIA Nerfs Ethereum Hash Rate & Launches CMP Dedicated Mining Hardware

www.anandtech.com

^^^ This implies that most of the new HX mining lineup is Turing based. Interesting move for sure.

Insert a NOP into the instruction stream every other cycle if occupancy hits >95%?

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That would affect way more than mining though and it's something which they would definitely prefer to avoid.

What's to stop someone from creating a custom driver?

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Nobody but Nv knows how to access their h/w.
Even if someone would reverse engineer it it would take many years and would end up in a legal blood bath with Nv's lawyers having a field day.

 

[yogurt]

mining is just computing sha-256 hashes which have a lot of uses outside of mining so that doesn't sound like a great idea

they do something similar with video encoding to force people to buy quadros but the drivers can just be modified

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Wait what? Source on this?

 

[mutantmagnet]

I don't understand this so called cryptominning. Anyone could explain it to me?

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You mine for coins by doing a specific task worth getting a coin.

In the case of bitcoin your job is to help verify transactions. This is why bitcoin sort of works. The price of bitcoin fluctuates too much but at least you know whatever you buy or sell is secured by hundreds of thousands of machines authenticating transactions.

 

[Veliladon]

Wait what? Source on this?

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Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix

Non-Quadro cards are limited to 3 simultaneous sessions. Quadros can have unlimited applications accessing the encoding and decoding hardware simultaneously with the processing power portioned between them.

This is so places like TV stations, editing houses, and streaming companies can't just use cheap gaming gear that might be "good enough".

For us consumers using something like Handbrake to transcode or OBS to stream three is going to be more than enough.

 

[mindatlarge]

Though I am hopefully this will free up availability of the normal cards at some point, I will remain doubtful until I see it with my own eyes.

 

[Dekim]

I wonder if this will be a thing going forward for Nvidia and AMD. Any new GPU they release going forward will have crippling mining software baked into the first drivers of these cards. This is so any flashing back to an older driver would be futile since those crippling mining features is baked into every iteration of that GPU's driver going back to its first one.

 

[Sir_Bumble_Bee]

Yes! Im a brazilian and poor... But cripto investment was so easy and accessible. People act like you need a fortune, but no, with a few bucks you could start and already had results. I literally helped my family with the recent gains. There is no other investment where I could enter, all riches gatekeeped. I understand the environment problem, but this is a bigger energy problem, to bring new ways and renewable sources. Do not relate at all to people on this board shaming cripto investment. Great/big fortunes should be taxed at maximum, but cripto as a investment is a god send to many with low income.

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yup yup yup. I've have friends who do free courses in teaching people about wise crypto investing. Most of the attendees are people from poor homes, single parents, zero funds saved for them. These people are now becoming home owners, running successful small businesses working for themselves, and all without the help (or interference) of these rich white billionaires gatekeeping them out.

Crypto is an industry worth investing and an industry worth improving 100%, it's a shame there's still a lot of people that don't see it that way :/

 

[dgrdsv]

yup yup yup. I've have friends who do free courses in teaching people about wise crypto investing. Most of the attendees are people from poor homes, single parents, zero funds saved for them. These people are now becoming home owners, running successful small businesses working for themselves, and all without the help (or interference) of these rich white billionaires gatekeeping them out.

Crypto is an industry worth investing and an industry worth improving 100%, it's a shame there's still a lot of people that don't see it that way :/

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Financial pyramids do this to some people. 99% of them gets even poorer in the end though.

 

[Timu]

I'm glad Nvidia is trying to counter this at least, but how well this is going to work is what we have to know as anything could happen really unless this is really effective somehow when it's against mining.

 

[nekkid]

How so? They are completely separate GPUs. The 3060ti is a cut down 3070, the 3060 is its own thing.

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Well regardless, my first point still stands.

 

[TSM]

Crypto is an industry worth investing and an industry worth improving 100%, it's a shame there's still a lot of people that don't see it that way :/

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This is because it uses a huge amount of electricity without producing anything useful to human beings. It's an enormous waste of resources that could be replicated by giving people coins without actually consuming all that power.

 

[dgrdsv]

There are some rumblings about Nv changing all device ids for future GeForce 30 cards, including the already launched ones.
This could theoretically allow them to lock the newer released 3060Ti-3070-3080-3090 cards to a mining throttling driver as a minimum as well.
They are seriously tightening down on the mining side on GeForces, something which should've been done back in 2018 really.

 

[Timu]

There are some rumblings about Nv changing all device ids for future GeForce 30 cards, including the already launched ones.
This could theoretically allow them to lock the newer released 3060Ti-3070-3080-3090 cards to a mining throttling driver as a minimum as well.
They are seriously tightening down on the mining side on GeForces, something which should've been done back in 2018 really.

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Yeah I'm surprised they didn't do it back then TBH. But if that's the case for the 30 series cards then that would be interesting, wondering how that would work.

 

[Alvis]

There are some rumblings about Nv changing all device ids for future GeForce 30 cards, including the already launched ones.
This could theoretically allow them to lock the newer released 3060Ti-3070-3080-3090 cards to a mining throttling driver as a minimum as well.
They are seriously tightening down on the mining side on GeForces, something which should've been done back in 2018 really.

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lmao

So my 3070 would suddenly become a Limited Mining Edition?

 

[Kindekuma]

It's at a driver level? Y'all sure that flashing a driver version that doesn't cripple the performance won't be a thing?

 

[djplaeskool]

There are some rumblings about Nv changing all device ids for future GeForce 30 cards, including the already launched ones.
This could theoretically allow them to lock the newer released 3060Ti-3070-3080-3090 cards to a mining throttling driver as a minimum as well.
They are seriously tightening down on the mining side on GeForces, something which should've been done back in 2018 really.

Click to shrink...

Cat's probably been out of the bag too long for already launched cards.
Retroactive software solutions aren't going to be effective long term.
Hell, I don't doubt a couple weeks after launch if there isn't a workaround for the 3060.
Wondering if nvidia really wants to get too deep in this arms race.

 

[dodo]

What else can Nvidia do about it? I mean, if it isn't clear, fuck cryptocurrency miners, but this two pronged approach at the very least might let people trying to buy their GPUs to use them for their intended purpose actually find one to buy. Maybe it won't, but I'm glad they're trying something rather than looking the other way and filling their bank accounts.

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instead they are looking directly at the problem and filling their bank accounts

 

[Resident Guru]

Well regardless, my first point still stands.

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No it does not. It would be a monumental task to create a 3rd party driver. Why do you think Nvidia withholds drivers for new products to prevent early leaks? It prevents them from working at all.

 

[yogurt]

Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix

Non-Quadro cards are limited to 3 simultaneous sessions. Quadros can have unlimited applications accessing the encoding and decoding hardware simultaneously with the processing power portioned between them.

This is so places like TV stations, editing houses, and streaming companies can't just use cheap gaming gear that might be "good enough".

For us consumers using something like Handbrake to transcode or OBS to stream three is going to be more than enough.

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Ah, got it. Yeah I'm not TV station, but I was worried for a second that Nvidia was kneecapping my Premiere render times. Thank you for the clarification.

 

[PJsprojects]

Good to hear they are doing this, been wanting to upgrade my 2060 for ages.

 

[Sir_Bumble_Bee]

Financial pyramids do this to some people. 99% of them gets even poorer in the end though.

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Of course, and that's when investment fundamentals come into play. I'm not defending the overarching system, I'm just saying you can't get mad when people who have historically been fucked by our system find a way to finally capitalize.

This is because it uses a huge amount of electricity without producing anything useful to human beings. It's an enormous waste of resources that could be replicated by giving people coins without actually consuming all that power.

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Hence why I said we need to be improving the system