News Nvidia: RTX 3060 vBIOS Prevents Removal of Hash Rate Limiter

[Admin]

Nvidia's PR spokesperson, Brian Del Rizzo, clarified that the Hash Rate Limiter on the RTX 3060 is implemented at a vBIOS level

Nvidia: RTX 3060 vBIOS Prevents Removal of Hash Rate Limiter : Read more

 

[logainofhades]

Good move, but I am sure someone will come out with a bios that removes said limiter. Though that may take some time, and will allow gamers to get ahold of these cards, at release.

 

[munkee_zero]

I hope AMD follow suit with the release of their 6700XT and 6600XT cards. By Nvidia introducing this, I hope it makes getting hold of new GPUs a little easier (scalpers aside).

 

[blacknemesist]

They went with the Bios option because it allows them to quickly repurpose cards when the cryptocrap fever is gone and miners want to sell their cards which will be low value, 1 bios flash later and the 3060 gain instant value. The used market just became more dangerous. Besides aren't the hardcore overclockers running custom bios to bypass the power limits? What is going to stop a miner from doing the same thing but for the limiter?

 

[blacknemesist]

I hope AMD follow suit with the release of their 6700XT and 6600XT cards. By Nvidia introducing this, I hope it makes getting hold of new GPUs a little easier (scalpers aside).

Same. Nvidia is running wild because there are no AMD card on the market but now TSMC will be producing AMD exclusively(probably for console AMD market aswell) so this was Nvidia way to secure their place. If an AMD card comes at close to MRSP value Nvidia won't sell anymore so AMD needs to have a better way to ensure gaming cards end up in the hands of gamers thus making the price of GPU not go out of control. Only reason cards are selling at absurd prices is because scalpers can make up the price difference over time, a gamer does not make money playing on his rig.

 

[spongiemaster]

They went with the Bios option because it allows them to quickly repurpose cards when the cryptocrap fever is gone and miners want to sell their cards which will be low value, 1 bios flash later and the 3060 gain instant value. The used market just became more dangerous. Besides aren't the hardcore overclockers running custom bios to bypass the power limits? What is going to stop a miner from doing the same thing but for the limiter?

The mining specific cards don't have display outputs. You wouldn't be able to just re-flash the card and have a gaming card. There are no custom NVidia BIOS's as they are encrypted. That's why they went with the BIOS method. It's possible to flash the BIOS of a card with the BIOS from another model.

 

[LolaGT]

My gut tells me it is going to be next to impossible to buy a 3060 card on release and for months, still.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Right, this limit will do nothing. Nvidia still wants to sell the GPUs to miners, so they will just use more dies for mining specific cards and leave less for the regular 3060.

 

[LolaGT]

I think it was a political move on nvidia's part. They don't really care as long as the checks are good. They have a whole office building floor full of bean counters running the numbers over and over, and they will do whatever is good for the bottom line and the shareholders.

 

[logainofhades]

I think it was a political move on nvidia's part. They don't really care as long as the checks are good. They have a whole office building floor full of bean counters running the numbers over and over, and they will do whatever is good for the bottom line and the shareholders.

I cannot really disagree. It has seemed Nvidia hasn't overly cared much about us gamers, for quite some time.

 

[LolaGT]

I don't, or can not blame them. If I they were a significant part of someone's portfolio they would drop them like a rock if they did anything counterproductive to the bottom line.
I don't really know what their percentages are as far as how much of their business is workstation, gaming or mining.
I always assumed their big revenue was in the workstation sector.

 

[tazius]

I'm still waiting to buy the EVGA 3090 Hybrid so I am no fan of scalpers or miners. That said I think its terrible for Nvidia to be baking in limits to their silicon. I've hated this tactic since Pascal. When I buy a graphics card I want to have a product that isn't held back. It's one thing to bin lower yield products into lower tier products, it's conservative to do so, but these restrictions we're cheering on against miners get used against gamers too!

 

[cryoburner]

Though that may take some time, and will allow gamers to get ahold of these cards, at release.

Not likely. With practically all other cards out of stock at major retailers, third-party resellers know they will be able to mark up these cards significantly to turn a profit, even if they don't mine as well. Considering the pricing and availability situation for graphics cards is much worse now than it was when even the 3060 Ti launched in December, I would expect the availability near launch to be even worse. Expect third-party resellers to slurp up all available inventory within minutes of them going live, and then put them back up for sale at double the price. And with the manufacturers and retailers knowing this, even if one manages to snag a card from a major retailer at release, expect to pay more for it than a 3060 Ti is supposed to cost, or maybe even more than a 3070. As far as I know, there is no Founder's Edition for this card either, so you can't count on Nvidia having any available at MSRP.

As a result of this security measure, there should only be two ways of getting a vBIOS onto the RTX 3060 that allows Ethereum hashing: either by rewriting a vBIOS from entirely scratch, or a third-party GPU maker or other entity in the supply chain leaks a vBIOS that does allow hashing.

You mean, the same GPU manufacturers who are selling cards directly to mining operations and at prices well above MSRP as a result of the shortage? <_<

 

[lazyabum]

There are other ways to make a GPU. Have engineers tried Tensors, FPGAs or ASICs?

 

[spongiemaster]

You mean, the same GPU manufacturers who are selling cards directly to mining operations and at prices well above MSRP as a result of the shortage? <_<

Nvidia doesn't care about AIB's selling directly to miners, but I would fully expect Nvidia to go after an AIB that writes and leaks a custom BIOS that allowed mining on cards that shouldn't support it. It shouldn't be difficult for Nvidia to track down who ever does that, and I doubt an AIB would want to risk getting pushed way down in the queue for future cards and being given minimal stock.

 

[cryoburner]

Maybe, though I could see someone leaking it to a large mining operation who is buying lots of cards at a higher price on the basis that they don't tell anyone. And it could always be something done by an employee who's not making decisions at the top, but is just trying to increase their sales numbers. Or some lower-level employee who thinks they can make some good money selling it.

 

[anemusek]

Oh Cool!
Nvidia will limit performance in Cuda and OpenCL...
What are you so happy about ?

 

[carocuore]

I don't get why miners are still hoarding graphics cards when ASIC machines are cheaper (compared to buying several cards) and offer similar or better performance
Saw a guy earlier asking for help to configure a rig with FIVE 3070 cards to mine ETH, and I couldn't get that card because there's no stock in my country and even old gen cards prices have skyrocketed, costing up to 5 times more only because of miners, if prices are high in developed countries imagine how it is for the rest of the world, a single 3070 right now costs the same as a compact car, if you can somehow get it before the miners.
I still have some cards new and used for sale and the profits are huge considering I bought them before this craze started, but those profits are also useless now because I can't get a 3070.

 

[anemusek]

I don't get why miners are still hoarding graphics cards when ASIC machines are cheaper (compared to buying several cards) and offer similar or better performance
Saw a guy earlier asking for help to configure a rig with FIVE 3070 cards to mine ETH, and I couldn't get that card because there's no stock in my country and even old gen cards prices have skyrocketed, costing up to 5 times more only because of miners, if prices are high in developed countries imagine how it is for the rest of the world, a single 3070 right now costs the same as a compact car, if you can somehow get it before the miners.
I still have some cards new and used for sale and the profits are huge considering I bought them before this craze started, but those profits are also useless now because I can't get a 3070.

it's easy. Eth is asic resistant - it was designed on purpose and the developers are to blame.
That's why nvidia probably couldn't just block mining, and that's why they limited Cuda i OpenCL performance (the miners seyd so, i don't know that is true)

 

[luissantos]

If you do a little bit of research - or better yet, be lazy and just check either Linus' or Moore Law's videos on YT - you'll understand why this is actually a terrible idea, particularly for gamers.

 

[blacknemesist]

The mining specific cards don't have display outputs. You wouldn't be able to just re-flash the card and have a gaming card. There are no custom NVidia BIOS's as they are encrypted. That's why they went with the BIOS method. It's possible to flash the BIOS of a card with the BIOS from another model.

You missed the point. Nvidia can still make a gaming GPU out of a mining GPU, hence they double dip and can repurpose cards as they need.