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NVIDIA to Halve Hash-Rate of the GeForce RTX 3060 to Deter Miners: CMP Cards for Mining

In a blogpost, NVIDIA has announced that it will be halving the mining hash-rate of the budget Ampere GPU, the RTX 3060 to deter cryptominers from clearing out supplies meant for gamers. The RTX 3060 slated to launch on the 25th of Feb will come with drivers that severely restrict the mining performance of the card with Ether, cutting the profitability in half.

Halving Hash Rate

The RTX 3060 drivers will be able to detect specific attributes of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm, and limit the hash rate, or cryptocurrency mining efficiency, by around 50 percent. It’s unclear whether miners and mining companies will be able to find a workaround to this restriction or not. Only time will time but I have a feeling they’ll figure something out.

To address the specific needs of Ethereum mining, the company has announced the NVIDIA CMP, or, Cryptocurrency Mining Processor, product line for professional mining.

30X40X50X90X
Ethereum Hash Rate(1)26 MH/s36 MH/s45 MH/s86 MH/s
Rated Power(2)125 W185 W250 W320 W
Power Connectors(2)1x 8-pin1x 8-pin2x 8-pin2x 8-pin
Memory Size6GB8GB10GB10GB
Starting AvailabilityQ1Q1Q2Q2

CMP products — which don’t do graphics — are sold through authorized partners and optimized for the best mining performance and efficiency. They don’t meet the specifications required of a GeForce GPU and, thus, don’t impact the availability of GeForce GPUs to gamers.

For instance, CMP lacks display outputs, enabling improved airflow while mining so they can be more densely packed. CMPs also have a lower peak core voltage and frequency, which improves mining power efficiency.

However, it looks like the CMP lineup is less profitable at mining than the consumer GeForce graphics cards. For example, the 90X which is the top-end product is a fair bit slower than the RTX 3080 which manages a hash rate of over 100MH/s while the 50X is slower than the RTX 3070 which has a hash rate of 55MH/s. The 40X which is supposed to be the RTX 3060 replacement manages just 36MH/s while the 3060 is reportedly capable of close to 50MH/s. Update: It looks like the 30X, 40X, and 50X are based on Turing rather than Ampere. The 90X are likely made from discarded GA102 dies.

Source

Areej Syed

Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have been writing about computer hardware for over seven years with more than 5000 published articles. Started off during engineering college and haven't stopped since. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Divinity, Torment, Baldur's Gate and so much more... Contact: areejs12@hardwaretimes.com.
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