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Gamers vs miners: Nvidia announces GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards will come with gamer-friendly hash-rate limiting drivers and reveals new CMP HX processors for crypto mining

Nvidia now has GPUs to cater for both the gaming and mining communities. (Image source: Nvidia)
Nvidia now has GPUs to cater for both the gaming and mining communities. (Image source: Nvidia)
Nvidia has announced in an official blog post that the upcoming GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards will feature drivers that limit the GPU’s performance if the board is used for crypto mining. At the same time, Team Green has also revealed the CMP HX processors that are specifically designed for digging up digital coins.

Just as the gamers vs. miners clash over GPU usage was starting to reach fever pitch, with images of internet cafes utilizing dozens of Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 Series boards for crypto mining and blundering board partners tagging gamers to look at a presumed mining rig, Nvidia has seemingly come to the rescue with an attempt to appease both of the increasingly disgruntled communities. Not only has Team Green installed hash-rate limiting drivers in the soon-to-be-launched GeForce RTX 3060 GPUs to discourage crypto miners from snapping them up, but it has also produced a professional series of chips for the sole purpose of cryptocurrency mining, as they have no video-output ability.

Starting with the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, which will be launched on February 25, Nvidia has made this gamer-friendly statement: “RTX 3060 software drivers are designed to detect specific attributes of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm, and limit the hash rate, or cryptocurrency mining efficiency, by around 50 percent.” It should put a lot of crypto miners off the idea of buying the cards if it’s going to halve the efficiency of their operation before even setting up. There will likely be plenty of attempts to get round the restrictions in place, but Nvidia has attempted to please everyone (thus maximizing revenue) by announcing the CMP HX range, to help reduce the chances of RTX 3060 GPU driver tampering.

Four SKUs have been revealed in the Nvidia CMP HX processor series (see table below), with the top-end 90HX model rated for 320 W and offering an Ethereum hash rate of 86 MH/s. Availability for the entry-level CMP 30HX and CMP 40HX is expected for this first quarter while the CMP 50HX and CMP 90HX should appear in the second quarter. The crypto mining GPU series will be made available via Asus, Colorful, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, Palit, and PC Partner, and the parts have been designed in a way that enhances airflow so they can be more tightly packed together, enabling more-efficient crypto mining. It’s not a complete solution, but even if it is just a case of Nvidia trying to supply two profitable markets, at least gamers should have a better chance of getting hold of a GeForce RTX 3060 desktop graphics card in the near future.

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Nvidia CMP HX GPUs. (Image source: Nvidia)
Nvidia CMP HX GPUs. (Image source: Nvidia)

Source(s)

Nvidia (1/2) via VideoCardz

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2021 02 > Gamers vs miners: Nvidia announces GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards will come with gamer-friendly hash-rate limiting drivers and reveals new CMP HX processors for crypto mining
Daniel R Deakin, 2021-02-18 (Update: 2021-02-18)