NVidia ‘nerfs’ RTX 30xx GPUs for Ethereum mining There are also disadvantages.

Recently, NVidia announced on its blog that it is implementing a new “feature” on the RTX 3060 and future cards. This new implementation detects mining-related tasks and limits GPU resources to reduce mining speed.

what’s the matter?

The only cryptocurrencies affected so far are: Ethereum. The hash rate decline is clear. 50%. According to NVidia, ‘Here’s why this happened:nerf’ The goal is to reduce demand for next-generation GPUs in the mining community and address the current gaming GPU shortage.

However, NVidia still wants to support the mining community. To that end, the company announced the following: NVIDIA CMP – GPU-minable cards are GPU-like cards without output ports specifically designed for mining coins.

We’ve already seen something similar with the Nvidia P102-100 GPU, but we’ve never seen NVidia force miners to publicly use their gaming GPUs.

disadvantage

As a gamer, I hope the shortage of gaming GPUs is resolved. In fact, the only reason I started mining a few years ago was so I could play games on a high-end GPU and pay for it over time.

Having a gaming rig that costs the money is every gamer’s dream. Now, will this move from NVidia get us closer to that dream?

The answer is probably no. Here’s why:

#One. Large scale mining facilities will still deplete gaming GPU stocks

Some people passionately defend NVidia’s decision. What they don’t understand Mining is GPU sink. Large mining facilities will continue to purchase GPUs in large quantities as long as mining is somewhat profitable.

And here’s the problem. NVidia is very happy to supply gaming GPUs to miners.

Some of you have already noticed that NVidia is using the term ‘.mining community‘It is so vague that some public statements are misleading. Let me explain.

We need to understand that the mining community is made up of: two groups of people. The first group is home miners, most of whom gamerNVidia estimated To defend.

The second group is large-scale mining facility. They buy most GPUs and are what’s causing the gaming GPU shortage in the first place. I’m talking about millions of companies, most of which are located in China, Iceland and other countries that provide free electricity. These companies can afford to purchase a significant portion of the GPU inventory available on the farm.

If you’re wondering how big that is, we’re talking about several companies worth billions of dollars that operate huge mining facilities. millions Includes a gaming GPU.

#2 Large scale mining facilities bypass hash rate limits

NVidia says this hashrate limit is “RTX 3060 Software Driver”. The thing is, custom drivers are important, and so is custom BIOS flash.

Large mining companies have their own teams of IT engineers who create their own drivers for optimized mining. Only amateur miners (mostly gamers) mine on Windows using the official NVidia drivers.

At this point a question arises: So who is affected by the hashrate nerf?

#3 Only gamers get ‘nerfed’ here.

Think about it. Gamers who purchase the new RTX 30xx cards will no longer be able to mine in their spare time to make extra money with their GPU. In any case, it’s not as efficient as before.

Many gamers are turning to mining to make up for the prohibitively high costs of graphics cards. This alternative will now become less viable.

Additionally, once the mining craze subsides, you may no longer have the option to go to eBay and buy used new generation GPUs for a lot less than you could in 2019. Instead, you’ll get a million suggestions. A CMP card was used that cannot be used for gaming.

#4 Is Ethereum really the problem?

Another thing to consider is that NVidia is nerfing the mining hash rate of just one algorithm, ethash. This again raises the question of who will be most affected by the nerfs. Ethereum is one of the most well-known coins and one of the easiest to mine. There are many user-friendly mining software for the coin, such as CudoMiner, which makes it easier for amateurs (e.g. gamers) to get involved in mining.

Since Ethereum mining is no longer profitable on modern GPUs, experienced users will still find ways to work around this problem. We can always switch to non-ethash altcoins, which are slightly less profitable to mine, or use custom drivers on Linux to bypass the hash rate limit.

However, the average Joe might think that GPU mining is simple.

#5. NVidia’s decision could impact Ethereum decentralization

The only idea behind GPU-minable cryptocurrencies is that anyone with a gaming GPU at home can contribute to the security of the blockchain. This is called decentralization, and it is what makes cryptocurrencies so attractive.

Surely more experienced users will find a way around this problem. However, the smaller the number of regular gamers mining the currency, the lower the level of decentralization.

On the positive side, this might open up AMD’s new possibilities and maybe even intel. Moreover, the GPUs we have today are not affected by these limitations and mining may still be profitable years from now.

Will the GPU be reduced now?

Currently, we are experiencing a global semiconductor shortage. This leads to the question: which chip will NVidia use for CMP?

First of all, developing a new chip costs hundreds of millions of dollars, so it’s highly unlikely that NVidia will actually do that for mining GPUs. Mining sites are very unpredictable, and the huge demand for mining equipment can end suddenly on any day.

According to the company, they will use dice which will not be good enough for gaming GPUs but will be fine for mining.

As The Verge points out, the official photos of the CMP chip bear no resemblance to those of the Ampere-based chip. RTX 3080/3090, or GA104 used in RTX 3060Ti/3070. Maybe NVidia is using older Pascal architecture chips.

I won’t speculate on whether underperforming dice can still be used in gaming GPUs. I know there’s been a lot of talk in the past about how NVidia and other companies were able to give bad dice a second life. What I’m trying to say is that the new CMPs don’t mine as fast as the RTX 30xx cards. However, it may be more power efficient. We’ll find out when third-party testing becomes available.

as a result

I’m not here to criticize NVidia’s marketing decisions. The only takeaway here is that I personally don’t expect NVidia’s decision to solve the problems with gaming GPU supply.

It could be interesting if the new CMP cards are sold cheaper. Keep in mind that it still may not be the best choice for home miners as it has absolutely no resale value.

Thanks for reading. As always, we welcome your comments, suggestions, and questions.

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