Nvidia is reportedly releasing a new RTX 3060 with improved anti-mining abilities

[midian182]

Rumor mill: If at first you don’t succeed, try again. It looks as if Nvidia is taking that proverb’s advice by launching an updated version of the RTX 3060 12GB, this one with a new GPU that restricts its Ethereum mining performance.

With cryptocurrency prices continuing to rise, demand from miners is one of the reasons graphics cards are so expensive and difficult to find right now. By implementing an “unhackable” Ethereum mining limiter, Nvidia hoped that the availability of the RTX 3060, launched on February 25, 2021, would be better than other cards.

Team green’s plan worked to an extent, right up until the company released a beta developer driver that unintentionally removed the hash rate limiter from most RTX 3060 cards. The driver was quickly removed, but with copies already in the wild, it was a case of too little too late. This is despite Nvidia previously saying the limiter wasn't "just a driver thing."

Hi Ryan. It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter.

— Bryan Del Rizzo (@bdelrizzo) February 19, 2021

It was suspected that Nvidia would come up with a way of blocking this driver. According to a report by HKEPC Hardware, it has: use a new GPU. The report claims that the GA106-300 in the RTX 3060 is being replaced by the newer GA106-302. This will make the previous drivers, including the problem 470.05 developer driver, useless. It’s also said to include more mechanisms to restrict Ethereum mining.

The new GPU is virtually identical to the current one, so there should be no changes to the RTX 3060’s gaming performance. An unnamed Taiwanese manufacturer said the switch has already taken place and that the newer variants of the card will arrive around May.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/89321-nvidia-reportedly-releasing-new-rtx-3060-better-anti.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

SCALPING isn't limited to miners tho.

The coin miners aren't the problem. If someone wants to drop tons of money on GPU to mine, that's no different than buying them for gaming or any other purpose.

The problem is SCALPERS.

Scalpers buy them up to resell them at markup.

Scalpers are a common problem for both gamers and miners...

The cards don't need anti-mining locks.

Nvidia needs to sell and ship directly to individual gamers until the demand is met.

Limit one per household.

 

[Dimitriid]

SCALPING isn't limited to miners tho.

the coin miners aren't the problem. If someone wants to drop tons of money on GPU to mine, that's no different than buying them for gaming.

The problem is SCALPERS.

Scalpers buy them up to resell them at markup.

They don't need anti-mining locks.

They need to sell and ship directly to gamers.

Limit one per household.

Couple of things.

Yes I agree that scalping isn't limited to just coin miners, but a large portion of the scalping responds to that demand anyway. Let's say that Nvidia is able to produce 100 units of 3060 chips. With all of the current measures in place, they guarantee that at least 30 of those make it to retail stores and 70 are picked up by miners before they even make it to any retail store. Fair so far?

What happens is that out of those 30 remaining retail cards, something like 28 of them will be immediately bought by scalpers because most stores just have no protection. And why do stores get no protection? Well because if they see 30 cards fly off their shelves in 3 seconds, as a store owner your solution is not to just get more cards, which you can't anyway. Your solution from a business sense is to just charge 800 USD instead of 400 USD next time because that's what you do when you try to make those 30 GPUs last more than 3 seconds.

My main point is that even though 30 cards at the time is not enough, 100 cards at the time probably still wouldn't be enough: more people are building and more people have been waiting for months. But if we could get 100 cards in retail, even with scalpers, they wouldn't be able to get away with 1200 because stores would give customers a bigger chance and since they have more inventory their mark up would be maybe up to just 500 usd instead of 800 usd.

So we can't really blame it all on miners but you shouldn't underestimate how much the scale of miners can impact retail: being prepared to drop a million dollars to gobble up an inventory of cards meant for retail means that retail consumers stand no chance and as long as Ethereum stays up, prices won't go down no matter what you try to combat scalping.

 

[neeyik]

Let's say that Nvidia is able to produce 100 units of 3060 chips. With all of the current measures in place, they guarantee that at least 30 of those make it to retail stores and 70 are picked up by miners before they even make it to any retail store. Fair so far?

Change Nvidia to any AIB vendor and it would be more fair. Nvidia just sells the chips - it's down to the board manufacturers to control to whom their products are distributed.

 

[kimo1]

I presume Youtube will be flooded by videos "how to remove anti-mining". I also expect the videos to be no longer than 10 minutes.

 

[Achaios]

Publicity stunt for the naive.

NVIDIA don't want gamers to buy their GPUs.

P.S.: Rly funny how everyone and their lil'sister are trying to convince us miners are not to blame for the current shortage but it's "console gamers who went PC for their first time" and other fairy tales.

 

[Dimitriid]

Change Nvidia to any AIB vendor and it would be more fair. Nvidia just sells the chips - it's down to the board manufacturers to control to whom their products are distributed.

Well at launch they did sell direct but that seems just long gone so point taken. And interestingly enough I wonder if Nvidia is considering expanding that area to start producing more themselves. Sure AIB partners would dislike that but they probably should expect Nvidia to react instead of making AIB partners rich when they could be walking away with a lot more of those mining cards profits if they produced more cards in-house.

 

[terzaerian]

SCALPING isn't limited to miners tho.

the coin miners aren't the problem. If someone wants to drop tons of money on GPU to mine, that's no different than buying them for gaming.

The problem is SCALPERS.

Scalpers buy them up to resell them at markup.

They don't need anti-mining locks.

They need to sell and ship directly to gamers.

Limit one per household.

I was actually thinking about this this morning.

Crypto mining may certainly be exacerbating the GPU shortage by creating additional demand in a market already short on product, this is true. In turn, this drives up the prices, encouraging scalping.

However, miner pressure may also be capping the ceiling at which scalpers are able to effectively scalp. In essence, miners are "flattening the curve" on card price inflation in the grey market, and here is how.

Someone mining crypto has two options: one, they can buy graphics cards and chain them together to form a miner, or two, they can buy a dedicated ASIC rig:

Top 5 Bitcoin Mining Machines 2021: ASICs' Profitability Compared

Are you aspiring to become a Bitcoin miner? Though it's not an easy business for anyone, still, it can be a very lucrative venture — and

www.hongkiat.com

There are even some entire mining rigs mentioned in the above article that cost less than the going rate for a 6800 on Ebay right now.

The advantage to the card approach is that cards generally cost less per unit than an ASIC, and they can also be re-sold once they're obsolete more easily than one could resell an old ASIC, as they have secondary uses beyond mining.

However, as the cost gap between a graphics card and an ASIC narrows, the economic sense of going that route vs. buying an ASIC also diminishes. After a certain point, it just makes more sense to get an ASIC rather than a card.

Accordingly, there is likewise probably a price point in scalped cards beyond which miners are unwilling to cross as the ROI makes no sense vs. an ASIC.

Compare that to the Christmas season scalping of PS5s, where the prices just kept increasing out of control, even into the five figures:

https://www.unilad.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PS5-eBay-Scalpers.jpg

So while miners may be exacerbating the shortage of GPU supply, they also may indirectly helping hold down the secondary market prices as well. Food for thought.

 

[neeyik]

Well at launch they did sell direct but that seems just long gone so point taken. And interestingly enough I wonder if Nvidia is considering expanding that area to start producing more themselves. Sure AIB partners would dislike that but they probably should expect Nvidia to react instead of making AIB partners rich when they could be walking away with a lot more of those mining cards profits if they produced more cards in-house.

At least one of the AIB partners isn't going to mind, because Nvidia pays them to manufacture their Founders Edition models (as well as the Quadros and Teslas). Nvidia doesn't manufacture anything in-house, not even engineering test boards, and given how profitable they are in this manner, they're unlikely to ever change. But does preclude them from expanding their FE range? Possibly not, but Nvidia prefers to offer rather distinctive SKUs, instead of minor variants of the same one - e.g. Asus makes 5 versions each of the 3080 and 3090, whereas Nvidia just has one of each.

 

[Jon Tseng]

Great. So NVDA basically drove up the price of current inventory by another 20%... Unintended consequences anyone??

 

[brucek]

NVIDIA don't want gamers to buy their GPUs.

Really? Given these two choices, which do you think Nvidia prefers?

1. Sell one GPU to a miner, and a second GPU to a gamer.

2. Sell one GPU to a miner, who later dumps it on the secondary market where it is bought by a gamer at deep discount; and then get hammered by analysts and class action lawyers when new full price GPU sales plummet due to that secondary market.

#2 is what happened last time around. I believe Nvidia is sincere in preferring #1. As to whether they can really win that cat and mouse game as to restrictions, we'll see. Also as to whether miners will go for cards knowing they won't be re-sellable later.

 

[Gixser]

NVIDIA don't want gamers to buy their GPUs.

Really? NVIDIA wants to turn its back on a $7.76 billion revenue stream?

FY2020 Results.

Fourth-quarter revenue was a record $2.50 billion, up 10 percent from the previous quarter and up 67 percent from a year earlier. Full-year revenue was a record $7.76 billion, up 41 percent.

 

[Dimitriid]

Really? Given these two choices, which do you think Nvidia prefers?

1. Sell one GPU to a miner, and a second GPU to a gamer.

2. Sell one GPU to a miner, who later dumps it on the secondary market where it is bought by a gamer at deep discount; and then get hammered by analysts and class action lawyers when new full price GPU sales plummet due to that secondary market.

#2 is what happened last time around. I believe Nvidia is sincere in preferring #1. As to whether they can really win that cat and mouse game as to restrictions, we'll see. Also as to whether miners will go for cards knowing they won't be re-sellable later.

Well if the mining craze lasts longer this time around, the way to get around #2 its to just release the 4000 series prematurely, which is something that made the news already: miners won't care about the feature set but gamers will and betting heavily on something like a potential DLSS 3.0 or RayTracing 2.0 or something that's "Hey here's that thing you like, but even better on series 4000!" would probably push a lot of gamers to avoid the secondary market of cards they know can raster up to the same speeds but are a crapshoot when it comes to warranty and mid term reliability.

Not saying you're wrong by the way, just saying there's more ways to get around the limitations you list on your second point.

 

[John J Miller]

Change Nvidia to any AIB vendor and it would be more fair. Nvidia just sells the chips - it's down to the board manufacturers to control to whom their products are distributed.

You need to do a little more research. first off board manufacturers don’t get to control where their products are distributed. Nvidia Buys the boards to create the actual card. They do far more than just sell chips they also build the video cards.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Publicity stunt for the naive.

NVIDIA don't want gamers to buy their GPUs.

P.S.: Rly funny how everyone and their lil'sister are trying to convince us miners are not to blame for the current shortage but it's "console gamers who went PC for their first time" and other fairy tales.

What on earth have you been huffing? The main argument for "its not miners" is a combination of "shipping is FUBARed right now due to coronavirus" and "there is a worldwide substrate shortage that is affecting every sector of chip production, not just GPU production, again due to coronavirus", both of which are sound arguments.

You cant just shut down the world's sole source of manufacturing for months and not see major implications down the line. We're stills eeing places shut down or restrict production, and guess what? That makes shortages worse, and the longer this goes on, the greater the pressure for new hardware becomes.

 

[terzaerian]

What on earth have you been huffing? The main argument for "its not miners" is a combination of "shipping is FUBARed right now due to coronavirus" and "there is a worldwide substrate shortage that is affecting every sector of chip production, not just GPU production, again due to coronavirus", both of which are sound arguments.

You cant just shut down the world's sole source of manufacturing for months and not see major implications down the line. We're stills eeing places shut down or restrict production, and guess what? That makes shortages worse, and the longer this goes on, the greater the pressure for new hardware becomes.

There is no use trying to explain these things to people so far behind the power curve, they may as well be just learning the secret of fire, to say nothing of electronics.

 

[neeyik]

You need to do a little more research. first off board manufacturers don’t get to control where their products are distributed. Nvidia Buys the boards to create the actual card. They do far more than just sell chips they also build the video cards.

From Nvidia themselves:

https://s22.q4cdn.com/364334381/fil...ualreport-content-r25-web-144dpi-combined.pdf (Page 119)

We do not directly manufacture semiconductors used for our products. Instead, we utilize a fabless manufacturing strategy, whereby we employ world-class suppliers for all phases of the manufacturing process, including wafer fabrication, assembly, testing, and packaging. This strategy uses the expertise of industry-leading suppliers that are certified by the International Organization for Standardization in such areas as fabrication, assembly, quality control and assurance, reliability, and testing. Additionally, we can avoid many of the significant costs and risks associated with owning and operating manufacturing operations. While we may directly procure certain raw materials used in the production of our products, such as substrates and a variety of components, our suppliers are responsible for procurement of the majority of the raw materials used in the production of our products. As a result, we can focus our resources on product design, additional quality assurance, marketing, and customer support.

We utilize industry-leading suppliers, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, to produce our semiconductor wafers. We then utilize independent subcontractors, such as Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc., Amkor Technology, BYD Auto Co. Ltd., Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., JSI Logistics Ltd., King Yuan Electronics Co., Ltd., and Siliconware Precision Industries Company Ltd. to perform assembly, testing, and packaging of most of our products and platforms. We purchase substrates from IbidenCo. Ltd., Kinsus Interconnect Technology Corporation, and Unimicron Technology Corporation, and memory from Micron Technology, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc., and SK Hynix.

We typically receive semiconductor products from our subcontractors, perform incoming quality assurance and configuration, and then ship the semiconductors to contract equipment manufacturers, or CEMs, distributors, motherboard and AIB customers from our third-party warehouse in Hong Kong. Generally, these manufacturers assemble and test the boards based on our design kit and test specifications, and then ship our products to retailers, system builders, or OEMs as motherboard and AIB solutions.

We also utilize industry-leading contract manufacturers, or CMs, such as BYD and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., and ODMs such as Quanta Computer and Wistron Corporation, to manufacture some of our products for sale directly to end customers. In those cases, key elements such as the GPU, SoC and memory are often consigned by us to the CMs, who are responsible for the procurement of other components used in the production process.

This is Gigabyte's manufacturing for graphics cards and motherboards:

Here is MSI's GPU testing facility:

Nvidia may well send out boards and primary components for their own FE models, but 3rd party vendors such as Gigabyte and MSI design and make their own PCBs.

Edit: Asus provides this clarification for their manufacturing:

https://www.asus.com/EVENT/Investor/Content/attachment_en/2019_ir_report_en.pdf (page 110)

In terms of the correlation of upper-stream, mid-stream, and down-stream of the industry, the upper-stream industry includes semiconductor (IC design, wafer foundry, and testing and packaging), electronic parts (passive components, rectifier diode, etc) and others (LED, printed circuit board, connector, etc). Mid-stream industry includes optoelectronic (monitor, LCD, etc), electronic parts (motherboard, VGA, etc), and computer peripherals (computer case, mouse, keyboard, etc.). Down-stream industry includes table-top computers and notebook computers.

Asus themselves are the mid-stream industry.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

We still blaming miners for the shortage of GPU? I guess it's miners fault there is a worldwide shortage on chips and ps5 and AMD gpu too... which suck for mining. But why not blame them too.

I'll continue to mine way while everyone still pointing fingers . If this shortage does last till 2023 like nvidia is now saying. Get back to me in a year or two. I'll have 4x RTX 3070's to sell.

PS... They are only adding to control the mining on Ethereum. There are many more coins you can mine and get a profit from. Ethereum is just the highest profit atm... So don't get fooled if you think these 3060 cards "Can't mine"

 

[terzaerian]

We still blaming miners for the shortage of GPU? I guess it's miners fault there is a worldwide shortage on chips and ps5 and AMD gpu too... which suck for mining. But why not blame them too.

I'll continue to mine way while everyone still pointing fingers . If this shortage does last till 2023 like nvidia is now saying. Get back to me in a year or two. I'll have 4x RTX 3070's to sell.

PS... They are only adding to control the mining on Ethereum. There are many more coins you can mine and get a profit from. Ethereum is just the highest profit atm... So don't get fooled if you think these 3060 cards "Can't mine"

As soon as I am able I'm switching out to AMD, regardless of gaming or mining performance. Nvidia trying to control end use of their product is beyond the pale to me. I got *close* today because there was a 6900 in stock on Newegg... but for like $2500. I'm not quite ready to burn up that much Eth for a card that won't recoup the cost in time for Beacon to go live.

 

[Crinkles]

Apple once had a secure OS locked away in Iphones, until a kid popped it free. Pardon my skepticism about Nvidia's anti-mine protection.

 

[Crinkles]

There is no use trying to explain these things to people so far behind the power curve, they may as well be just learning the secret of fire, to say nothing of electronics.

Googling AFB substrates gives up "ABF substrates is expected to become one of the major factors behind CPU and GPU shortages in 2021. NVIDIA is expected to be one of the main companies affected by this issue".

I don't understand how "worldwide shortage" means different things to so many people. Youtubers are not going to solve a "worldwide shortage" of chips and technologies.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

Googling AFB substrates gives up "ABF substrates is expected to become one of the major factors behind CPU and GPU shortages in 2021. NVIDIA is expected to be one of the main companies affected by this issue".

I don't understand how "worldwide shortage" means different things to so many people. Youtubers are not going to solve a "worldwide shortage" of chips and technologies.

People don't even know how to google bro... They are just misinformed by what other people say. Welcome to 2021 "The Future"

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

As soon as I am able I'm switching out to AMD, regardless of gaming or mining performance. Nvidia trying to control end use of their product is beyond the pale to me. I got *close* today because there was a 6900 in stock on Newegg... but for like $2500. I'm not quite ready to burn up that much Eth for a card that won't recoup the cost in time for Beacon to go live.

You can find them on the bay for about $1800. Still a bit high to your point with cost. But if you want it now.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Why only this card, if I buy a 3000 series it will be 3080 Ti.

 

[terzaerian]

You can find them on the bay for about $1800. Still a bit high to your point with cost. But if you want it now.

Well it's less want than need. I don't have Cyberpunk yet and until then my 1070 covers my gaming and isn't a slouch for mining either. But ideally I want to get a new card, from NewEgg, paid for with crypto, just to really burn the skeptics, but I don't want to wipe out my Eth savings either... I'd like to have *something* left to stake for Beacon.