Thursday, February 18th 2021
NVIDIA Announces New CMP Series Specifically Designed for Cryptocurrency Mining; Caps Mining Performance on RTX 3060
This is a big one: NVIDIA has officially announced a new family of products specifically designed to satiate the demand coming from cryptocurrency mining workloads and farms. At the same time, the company has announced that the RTX 3060 launch driver will include software limitations for cryptocurrency mining workloads specifically correlated with Ethereum mining, essentially halving the maximum theoretical hashrate that could be achieved from a purely hardware perspective. The new family of products, termed CMP (Crypto Mining Processor) series, will see its products under the HX branding, and will be available in four different tiers: 30HX, 40HX, 50HX and 90HX. These products will not have any display outputs, and therefore are not applicable for gaming scenarios.
NVIDIA's stance here is that their new product will bring some justice in the overall distribution of its GeForce graphics cards, which are marketed and meant for gaming workloads. The new cryptocurrency-geared series will be distributed by NVIDIA authorized partners in the form of ASUS, Colorful, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, Palit, and PC Partner (more may be added down the line). There is currently no information on what silicon actually powers these graphics cards; and of course, the success of this enterprise depends on A) the driver restrictions not being limited to the RTX 3060 graphics card - it isn't clear from NVIDIA's press release if other RTX 30-series graphics cards will see the same performance cap. Even if NVIDIA did release those drivers, however, cryptocurrency miners would just opt to, well, not update them. So it is possible that NVIDIA will release a revision of the RTX 3090, RTX 3080, RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti with silicon enhancements that will only work with the latest GeForce drivers - after allowing the channels to move all of their existing, cryptocurrency-enabled stock.
The other factor is, of course, pricing: miners will always look after the best price/performance ratio, even more so than gamers; and as such, the scenario can be imagined that were NVIDIA to add a tax to these products' based on their cryptocurrency mining nature, miners would still opt for GeForce products. The 30HX and 40HX will be made available in 1Q of this year, while the more powerful 50HX and 90HX will only hit retail come 2Q. NVIDIA finally did decide to take the matter into their own hands, in a move that not only accompanies their general "we're for the gamers" stance with more than words, while simultaneously insulating themselves from lawsuits targeting any possible inclusion of mining sales under their gaming division financials. I'll allow myself some emotion now: finally!
The NVIDIA Press Release follows:
Sources:
Thanks BTA for the inputs!, NVIDIA
NVIDIA's stance here is that their new product will bring some justice in the overall distribution of its GeForce graphics cards, which are marketed and meant for gaming workloads. The new cryptocurrency-geared series will be distributed by NVIDIA authorized partners in the form of ASUS, Colorful, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, Palit, and PC Partner (more may be added down the line). There is currently no information on what silicon actually powers these graphics cards; and of course, the success of this enterprise depends on A) the driver restrictions not being limited to the RTX 3060 graphics card - it isn't clear from NVIDIA's press release if other RTX 30-series graphics cards will see the same performance cap. Even if NVIDIA did release those drivers, however, cryptocurrency miners would just opt to, well, not update them. So it is possible that NVIDIA will release a revision of the RTX 3090, RTX 3080, RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti with silicon enhancements that will only work with the latest GeForce drivers - after allowing the channels to move all of their existing, cryptocurrency-enabled stock.
The NVIDIA Press Release follows:
We are gamers, through and through. We obsess about new gaming features, new architectures, new games and tech. We designed GeForce GPUs for gamers, and gamers are clamoring for more.
Yet NVIDIA GPUs are programmable. And users are constantly discovering new applications for them, from weather simulation and gene sequencing to deep learning and robotics. Mining cryptocurrency is one of them.
With the launch of GeForce RTX 3060 on Feb. 25, we're taking an important step to help ensure GeForce GPUs end up in the hands of gamers.
Halving Hash Rate
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.
That only makes sense. Our GeForce RTX GPUs introduce cutting-edge technologies — such as RTX real-time ray-tracing, DLSS AI-accelerated image upscaling technology, Reflex super-fast response rendering for the best system latency, and many more — tailored to meet the needs of gamers and those who create digital experiences.
To address the specific needs of Ethereum mining, we're announcing the NVIDIA CMP, or, Cryptocurrency Mining Processor, product line for professional mining.
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.
Creating tailored products for customers with specific needs delivers the best value for customers. With CMP, we can help miners build the most efficient data centers while preserving GeForce RTX GPUs for gamers.
118 Comments on NVIDIA Announces New CMP Series Specifically Designed for Cryptocurrency Mining; Caps Mining Performance on RTX 3060
"AMD Radeon VII can reach 104.6 MH/s hashrate and 195 W power consumption for mining ETH (Ethash) earning around 14.87 USD per day"
Yes I know we are all locked in our housesforever, but still calm down. Crack open a good book or boardgame.
Seriously, people, it's a GPU. The world's economic supply chain is still FUBARd. Shipping things from asia right now is FUBARd. Everything is running in short supply. Hell I cant buy pepsi zero right now because they dont have enough CANS due to a shortage. Just...calm down.
Let me be clear, when mined, nothing is earned. This is a makret where stealing is considered a fair game. so the participants are betting their money and what is one's earnings is somebody else's losses. zero sum. If you like stealing if this is your thing then ok. But don't cry you can't mine on a gaming card, lol. I have "earned" 750 euro on 1060 for about a 1 month during the last bubble, so if this currency was accepted anywhere i would gladly take the 7nm shrink of 3090. free upgrade. yess
If you insist on buying new, yes you are going to have a bad time. But honestly, if you have held onto a 660ti this long, you could likely buy a used 900 series card and get a massive performance boost, and there are likely some even here on TPU who would sell you one. You clearly are not a graphcis snob who demands ultra on everything, there are still plenty of good cheapish options out there that could tide you over.
windowsreport.com/driver-signature-enforcement-windows-10/
It seems to require you to activate it at every boot, which isnt really an issue for miners since they dont reboot often and it only has to be done once to install the driver, and it can be automated for obscure drivers that cost $$$$$ to replace, and miners can take advantage of that too.
1. Cards getting bought by a hoard of scalpers
2. Drivers getting modded on day one, making the GPU perform the same as the mining version
There's no way Nvidia will have enough GPUs to feed all the miners. Also the 3060 will do less work than a 3070, 3080 or 3090.
If they really want to help gamers, they'll try to make the new lineup less effective at mining on the hardware level, and I believe this is possible, but unlikely due to bigger costs of design and production.
Ampere is screwed and nobody will like artifically neutered hardware.This