News Nvidia Reportedly Revamps Ampere Silicon To Stop Ethereum Mining For Good

[digitalgriffin]

I have bad feeling about this. Either it will turn out real slowpoke in reality or it will suddenly found as suitable for mining with understandable consequences. And don't expect that this GPU will be cheap (400$, really?). After flop in desktop CPU garden Intel need money too.

Intel has tremendous market cap and enormous reserves. While they are losing significant market share in all sectors, at the current rate I estimated they can float another 5 years before they had to worry seriously.

The serious money is in server and ai. And avx512 is faster than a lot of NVIDIA's offerings in SOME workloads.

That said, as far as they are behind, they better get their tail in gear.

 

[Krotow]

Still not believe that Intel will give away video cards with RTX 3070 and RX 6700 level GPU for peanuts. Even if GPUs are not their main income source.

AVX512 was made for pissing contest in benchmarks. No real use for it, at least now.

 

[InvalidError]

AVX512 was made for pissing contest in benchmarks. No real use for it, at least now.

As with anything else, programmers aren't going to code for instructions that don't exist. If you want software support for new instructions, you have to make the instructions available in hardware first. There are plenty of uses for AVX512 for things like crypto and AI in the server, datacenter and HPC space, libraries for the unwashed masses will get an AVX512 code path sooner or later where it makes sense to do so.

 

[Co BIY]

Nvidia cares ... about making money.

This is a market segmentation strategy and designed so they can get the most amount of profit out of both markets.

Miners - Price insensitive and concentrated but highly cyclical and prone to bust (one of these times possibly forever since has no fundamental value and people may figure that out). (currently more like a business market)

Gamers - Price sensitive and widely distributed not nearly as cyclical. (typical high-tech Consumer good )

Nvidia's goal may be to keep the cyclical nature of the Mining market from damaging the profitability of their steady gaming market. For this it is better to have products that serve each market but do not cross into the other and compete with each other.

Even more important is to keep Mining and Gaming from undermining the AI and HPC Datacenter business. If forced to Nvidia might choose to drop the Gaming and Mining markets all together if they cause too much damage to this much more important market.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Again, no. It is a simple driver update. The Signatures for the mining algs will exist in the driver. And as the HLSL compiler is in the drivers, all program compilation for the mining alg has to pass through there. Thus it becomes a mining alg signature match like viruses. Mess with a digitally signed driver and the whole process falls apart. I had this debate with Invalid Error and went into greater detail.

A driver update only works if the miners download the updated driver -- which they obviously wouldn't. That's the root of the problem. Once a driver -- any driver -- gets into the wild that works with full mining performance, like the 470.05 accidental 'leak,' you can't forcibly undo the damage without breaking all kinds of warranties and security permissions. If my GPU force-updated its VBIOS and failed, or even if it worked but it reduced performance, that's a class action lawsuit in a heartbeat.

So, in order of best to worst:

1. Silicon mitigations: most secure but longest to get to market
2. Firmware updates: reasonably secure but it needs to lock out any flashing of older firmware, which can be done but is weaker than silicon level updates
3. Updated drivers: doesn't do jack squat unless a miner is particularly stupid and decides to install new drivers that reduce performance

I'll go a step further, though. I don't think Nvidia really wants to lock out miners. What it probably wants more than anything is to sell CMP products direct to miners at higher prices with lower warranties. Which means it goes back to maybe some silicon stuff, mostly firmware, and hopefully the firmware / drivers that mine fast on CMP cards can't be hacked to work on GeForce cards. I still think miners were already running RTX 3060 at full performance before the 470.05 leak. All you have to do is look at launch prices of $900 to know miners were buying them, and probably had ways around the lock. The mining lock mostly goes after gamers mining in their spare cycles, not the big mining firms.

 

[digitalgriffin]

A driver update only works if the miners download the updated driver -- which they obviously wouldn't. That's the root of the problem. Once a driver -- any driver -- gets into the wild that works with full mining performance, like the 470.05 accidental 'leak,' you can't forcibly undo the damage without breaking all kinds of warranties and security permissions. If my GPU force-updated its VBIOS and failed, or even if it worked but it reduced performance, that's a class action lawsuit in a heartbeat.

So, in order of best to worst:

1. Silicon mitigations: most secure but longest to get to market
2. Firmware updates: reasonably secure but it needs to lock out any flashing of older firmware, which can be done but is weaker than silicon level updates
3. Updated drivers: doesn't do jack squat unless a miner is particularly stupid and decides to install new drivers that reduce performance

I'll go a step further, though. I don't think Nvidia really wants to lock out miners. What it probably wants more than anything is to sell CMP products direct to miners at higher prices with lower warranties. Which means it goes back to maybe some silicon stuff, mostly firmware, and hopefully the firmware / drivers that mine fast on CMP cards can't be hacked to work on GeForce cards. I still think miners were already running RTX 3060 at full performance before the 470.05 leak. All you have to do is look at launch prices of $900 to know miners were buying them, and probably had ways around the lock. The mining lock mostly goes after gamers mining in their spare cycles, not the big mining firms.

I'll agree with you that nvidia wants to maximize profits. And that path is done by forcing miners to buy old stock thus maximizing profits. I never claimed otherwise. But the side benefit is gamers get new stock at reduced demand. They are on two different nodes so they don't compete with one another.

Could nvidia be sued for gimping existing mining 3060 performance? Questionable since nvidia made it clear these cards could not be used for ethereum. That's like tesla giving you free extra battery life on their cars then rolling it back when they want. They can do that because the car was sold on the fact it can has so many Ah. Nvidia sold the 3060 on the fact it was anti ethereum.

Can they sue for nerfing current 3070 and 3080 and 3090 being gimped? Sure. Can they sue for future 3070 3080 3090 - not if nvidia labels it before sale as being throttled before purchase.

That said there are ways to fix the beta driver issue and make it perm. But I'm not saying. Why would I give miners and nvidia the upper hand. No one is paying me for my ideas. Why make enemies of miners or make nvidia fat with my free ideas?

 

[InvalidError]

I'll agree with you that nvidia wants to maximize profits. And that path is done by forcing miners to buy old stock thus maximizing profits.

Miners want to maximize profits too and that path goes with the latest GPUs on the latest fab process for power efficiency reasons. A 120W GTX1070 at 30MH/s or 140W GTX2070 at 40MH/s is a tough sell when a 3060Ti can do 60MH/s on 120W.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Miners want to maximize profits too and that path goes with the latest GPUs on the latest fab process for power efficiency reasons. A 120W GTX1070 at 30MH/s or 140W GTX2070 at 40MH/s is a tough sell when a 3060Ti can do 60MH/s on 120W.

Never claimed otherwise. They are still profitable though. Does nvidia owe them the right to get fat off their products?

Less profitable less mining.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

That said there are ways to fix the beta driver issue and make it perm. But I'm not saying. Why would I give miners and nvidia the upper hand. No one is paying me for my ideas. Why make enemies of miners or make nvidia fat with my free ideas?

Yes, take those ideas with you to the grave! Because I'm sure Nvidia's software engineers and the miners of the world can't possibly come up with anything on their own. Or better yet, sell them while you can and strike it rich (if you can find a buyer).

I got a chuckle imagining the following:

Nvidia Engineer: "Gosh, I'm stumped as to what we could do ..."
Supervisor: "Go search the Tom's Hardware forums to see if anyone there has the answer."
Nvidia Engineer: "Eureka! Thank goodness for tech forums. I just searched for 'how to permanently lock drivers' and there was the answer. I gave the user some karma for his trouble."

 

[InvalidError]

Does nvidia owe them the right to get fat off their products?

Yes, if they want the sales. Which they definitely do.

Given the choice of selling more GA-10x GPUs to AIBs at contract prices or sell directly to miners at double or triple the price, it is far more profitable for Nvidia to sell direct to large miners. It would also explain why despite months of Nvidia working with Samsung to increase output there are still no signs of supply improving with Nvidia stating that it does not expect availability to improve any time soon either. If retail supply remains as elusive as ever despite manufacturing ramping up, the increased output has to be going elsewhere.

It wouldn't be all that surprising if Nvidia had a handful of customer-specific private Ampere SKUs for its major mining clients.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Yes, take those ideas with you to the grave! Because I'm sure Nvidia's software engineers and the miners of the world can't possibly come up with anything on their own. Or better yet, sell them while you can and strike it rich (if you can find a buyer).

Possibly. But I listed every idea of how nvidia could stop mining and they implemented the exact same ideas I listed. Except I listed my ideas way way back before nvidia even made anti mining announcements. I listed them before the 30 series was released.

Like I said I've been 100% on my predictions. That is awfully uncanny. It is possible they did think of them on their own. But I'll be honest with you it wouldn't be the first time someone took my ideas and ran with them and claimed them as their own. I've had to sue people before.

Coincidence? Maybe. But if it isn't I'm not giving away ideas for free. And I'm not here to piss off miners.

 

[GenericUser]

Why would you want to know? The more details I list the greater the chance nvidia or miners will take my ideas and run with them.

Not my monkeys, not my circus.

I asked because your statement implies that Nvidia currently has some sort of way to remotely brick anyone's GPU that can/is performing mining operations, which seems dubious. Maybe you're alluding to something completely different and I'm reading in between the lines improperly. That's the only thing that jumps out at me.

Unless there is some sort of method built into those beta drivers floating around (or others) that allows forced updates without user consent, I just don't see how Nvidia has any sort of "nuclear option" available to them to stop mining on 3060's, short of going to everyone's house who's bought one and bringing a sledge hammer with them. That or somehow changing the nature of all cryptocurrencies.

 

[digitalgriffin]

I asked because your statement implies that Nvidia currently has some sort of way to remotely brick anyone's GPU that can/is performing mining operations, which seems dubious. Maybe you're alluding to something completely different and I'm reading in between the lines improperly. That's the only thing that jumps out at me.

Unless there is some sort of method built into those beta drivers floating around (or others) that allows forced updates without user consent, I just don't see how Nvidia has any sort of "nuclear option" available to them to stop mining on 3060's, short of going to everyone's house who's bought one and bringing a sledge hammer with them. That or somehow changing the nature of all cryptocurrencies.

I'm not saying. There are ways.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

I asked because your statement implies that Nvidia currently has some sort of way to remotely brick anyone's GPU that can/is performing mining operations, which seems dubious. Maybe you're alluding to something completely different and I'm reading in between the lines improperly. That's the only thing that jumps out at me.

Unless there is some sort of method built into those beta drivers floating around (or others) that allows forced updates without user consent, I just don't see how Nvidia has any sort of "nuclear option" available to them to stop mining on 3060's, short of going to everyone's house who's bought one and bringing a sledge hammer with them. That or somehow changing the nature of all cryptocurrencies.

Considering what was done with the Shield Tablet recall -- there was an OS "update" that would brick the bad ones and you could then send them back -- I really doubt there's a way for Nvidia to force it through drivers without some sort of user consent. I kept my "dodgy" Shield Tablet, and the replacement, and both still work to this day. Sadly, I cracked both displays as well a couple of years back, and there's no good way to replace those. (I installed Lineage OS on the 'bad' unit.)

 

[digitalgriffin]

I'm not saying. There are ways.

The entire mining industry is pretty much locked up by nvidia and amd. Why hasn't anyone considered they hold the keys to the kingdom on most mining coins. Why didn't anybody have foresight into that?

You think mega corps don't see that $ 50k bitcoin and want a piece of that?

 

[digitalgriffin]

Considering what was done with the Shield Tablet recall -- there was an OS "update" that would brick the bad ones and you could then send them back -- I really doubt there's a way for Nvidia to force it through drivers without some sort of user consent. I kept my "dodgy" Shield Tablet, and the replacement, and both still work to this day. Sadly, I cracked both displays as well a couple of years back, and there's no good way to replace those. (I installed Lineage OS on the 'bad' unit.)

That is true. But then your stuck with an agonizing decision. Never update your driver's or face gimped gaming in the future. In fact you could force all new games not to work with old beta drivers and then you only have a card for mining then huh?

That's just 1 of 3 ways to force people to update.

Gaming companies would benefit. More gamers more money. Cant play cyber punk 2077 on old hardware can you?

 

[InvalidError]

The entire mining industry is pretty much locked up by nvidia and amd. Why hasn't anyone considered they hold the keys to the kingdom on most mining coins. Why didn't anybody have foresight into that?

What people use their GPUs for ultimately shouldn't be any of AMD or Nvidia's business. If they start picking winners and losers in other markets by leveraging their own market position, that could become an anti-trust issue.

 

[digitalgriffin]

What people use their GPUs for ultimately shouldn't be any of AMD or Nvidia's business. If they start picking winners and losers in other markets by leveraging their own market position, that could become an anti-trust issue.

Blah ha ha ha ha ha ha

http://tf2chan.net/offtopic/src/136229297714.gif

 

[L1nk1g]

The number of BTC isn't quite finite: the network could theoretically agree to raise the cap, just like it could theoretically agree to change just about anything else.

My bet is that the next crypto crash will be from governments cracking down on on it.

Governments are already into crypto through investment fund proxies, they are actually more money driven whores than your average GPU buyer Joe(either gamer or miner) so....

 

[Jaichoppa]

When will these changes hit the market?

 

[InvalidError]

When will these changes hit the market?

Depends on how far along Nvidia was at the time of the announcement. Nvidia may have made this announcement after receiving and qualifying the first production samples, in which case the new dies may already be in circulation, or it could have made the announcement before taping anything out, in which case silicon may be 6+ months away.

 

[AlexsvonMüller]

Is this just another "NVIDIA pretends to care about gamers"?

 

[spongiemaster]

Is this just another "NVIDIA pretends to care about gamers"?

No, they don't and neither do any other companies. Why should they? Loyalty is a 2 way street and gamers certainly don't care about Nvidia or AMD. They'll buy from whichever company offers them a better product at a better price. NVidia is doing this to make money, pure and simple, and as a business, that's what they should be doing.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

That is true. But then your stuck with an agonizing decision. Never update your driver's or face gimped gaming in the future. In fact you could force all new games not to work with old beta drivers and then you only have a card for mining then huh?

That's just 1 of 3 ways to force people to update.

Gaming companies would benefit. More gamers more money. Cant play cyber punk 2077 on old hardware can you?

Large-scale mining firms don't want to update drivers, and often will run old drivers that have been found to perform better. So the gimping of old drivers would only affect people that are also playing games a lot. That's assuming it's even practical -- most games just get a few tweaks via drivers to improve performance a bit, or fix a few minor bugs, and many games don't even need driver fixes. But the big mining firms would not care one bit about future drivers being required for gaming. Drivers would only work if something changed with mining that required new drivers, and since the miners help determine what gets mined and how, they wouldn't knowingly support something that would gimp their hardware.

 

[InvalidError]

Large-scale mining firms don't want to update drivers, and often will run old drivers that have been found to perform better. So the gimping of old drivers would only affect people that are also playing games a lot.

I suspect that even among gamers, there is a bunch who aren't updating drivers more than once every 3+ months - if nothing is broken, don't fix it. Two years ago, I had to re-install Windows because of an audio crackling issue after updating Nvidia drivers and nothing I tried fixed it. Updated drivers a week or so ago and similar crackling has re-appeared.