Monday, March 15th 2021
NVIDIA RTX 3060 Hashrate Limiter Defeated, GeForce 470.05 Driver Unlocks Full Mining Performance
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 hash-rate limiter has been defeated, by the company itself, through a driver update. The RTX 3060 was announced by NVIDIA to be meant purely for gamers as it came with measures that make them unviable for mining. The card purportedly had a hash-rate limiter that detected workloads from typical crypto-currency mining algorithms, and spooled down GPU clock speeds, halving the mining efficiency of the card. The idea was to sour the milk for miners, so there could be inventory for gamers. PC Watch reports that the latest GeForce 470.05 drivers distributed by NVIDIA to developers through the Windows Insider Program defeats the hash-rate limiter, significantly improving mining performance of the RTX 3060. With this driver out in the open, miners are sure to pick up RTX 3060 cards to go with it; and simply ignore all future driver updates through NVIDIA's official driver channel.
HardwareLuxx.de and ComputerBase have each independently verified that GeForce 470.05 drivers "restore" mining performance on RTX 3060 cards back to levels their hardware is capable of—roughly matching that of the RTX 2070 Super. This development confirms that the hash-rate limiter was purely driver based, and NVIDIA hoped to artificially throttle mining performance of RTX 3060 cards by simply adding this limiter to all compatible versions of GeForce drivers since the card's launch; but those behind the 470.05 special drivers probably forgot to implement it. Probably because it is based on a different branch of the source code, which is developed in parallel. NVIDIA earlier claimed that the hash-rate limited is a much more sophisticated mechanism involving a "secure handshake between the driver and system-firmware that prevents tampering." So much for that.
Sources:
PC Watch, HardwareLuxx.de, ComputerBase.de, VideoCardz
HardwareLuxx.de and ComputerBase have each independently verified that GeForce 470.05 drivers "restore" mining performance on RTX 3060 cards back to levels their hardware is capable of—roughly matching that of the RTX 2070 Super. This development confirms that the hash-rate limiter was purely driver based, and NVIDIA hoped to artificially throttle mining performance of RTX 3060 cards by simply adding this limiter to all compatible versions of GeForce drivers since the card's launch; but those behind the 470.05 special drivers probably forgot to implement it. Probably because it is based on a different branch of the source code, which is developed in parallel. NVIDIA earlier claimed that the hash-rate limited is a much more sophisticated mechanism involving a "secure handshake between the driver and system-firmware that prevents tampering." So much for that.
111 Comments on NVIDIA RTX 3060 Hashrate Limiter Defeated, GeForce 470.05 Driver Unlocks Full Mining Performance
PC=Personal Computer. C64 and Atari ST were computers, they even had mouse and Graphical OS. Dedicated gpus? They had Video chips (C64 had the VIC II) and I start to think you dont know much.
Also, WHO TOLD YOU PC's were always have had discreet GPUs? Have you ever heard of CGA? Tandy? Those in the first PC's were sometimes (*edited) integrated to the board.
If you want to argue semantics like that you can do it alone.
Or I guess it was, what a "shocker"...
Now the dedicated gpu is something that happened through the years as evolution. So stop using it as an example. You are wrong in EVERYTHING you said. At least accept it.
The point that gaming is a luxury is the most stupid thing i have heard. You confuse the words "luxury", with "expensive" and "overpriced". And to avoid this, you are accusing me of arguing about semantics. Great.
We're now talking about a market with radically different devices, 30-40 years ahead in time. If you just want to find the argument, you'll always find it.... If you want to say I'm wrong in everything, knock yourself out... But a reality check seems in order... plus... I even literally said to you: I feel much the same as you about the current situation - but its not the norm.
Pricey maybe. EXPENSIVE no. The IBM PC was expensive back then, costing about 10 times the cost of C64.
I refer to the price because i had too. Everything was expensive in 1985 if you want to take it there. Even a color CRT tv. But it was expensive for us Greeks. For the average American, it wasnt. Stop using the inflation as an excuse, it is not. Back then the economy wasn't as unified as now, and there were import taxes everywhere. If anything else, back then costs were higher. There were many reasons to bring the price of a product higher, especially back then which for example C64 was mostly made in USA. Thats why it is even worse today to pay overpriced prices.My card bought at launch at 336 euros. Two years later the cost was higher because of mining. Then it droped at 250 for 1-1 year and a half. New generation came (RTX 2xxx) and now the same thing started with them, and is happening again, and actually it is even worse.
It is impressive how sure you are that it is not the new norm with the cryptocurrencies! I wonder who really needs the reality check here.
But let's put that vision of the past next to the current state of things.
- We have a pandemic
- We have trade wars that are only just now starting to cool down - or... some people hope they do, actually. Realistically though it seems the US is going to maintain some sort of weight against China.
- We have crypto.
Is this situation that different? Or is just that we've lost touch with general disappointment in life about systems not doing what they're supposed to do.
And with that perspective I also feel this is temporary. We've either gone addicted to peace... and this will recover... or we're so fed up we start shooting and gaming truly is luxury :p
Maybe we understand the word luxury different. For me luxury is something you might need (not necessary), but it is on a overstated level you DONT really need.
I will give you a crude example: Not everyone needs a car. It is NOT necessary. But it is essential in the world we live today. But a... golden car is a luxury (i exaggerate the example, to emphasize what i mean). Something like this.
(this doesn't cover the whole subject at all)
Even if our physiological needs are fulfilled, we cannot say the same for the safety needs due to pandemic : personal security isn't guaranteed, unemployment is at our door, some resources (not taking electronics into account) are missing, health is threatened every day ...
Only the top of the pyramid is luxury, no the rest even if in our mind it's like "Isn't that so hard to live in a dictatorship ?Nahhh"
My point is : we were quite a the top of this hierarchy before 2020. You couldn't play your favorite game ? Not that bad because you could travel, be somewhere else, see your friends, family, work on yourself, whatever. We were "the most we could be". So reaching for more lower tier desire was luxury at the time.
Now you're freaking stuck on our safety needs. Videogames comes with connecting with people and a bit of freedom for others. It's a bubble of fresh air, not only a luxury.
If we're so pissed, it's not because Nvidia is screwing us (they always do) like never before, but mostly because we are in desperate need of an escape.
We aren't all a big rich and happy family, with 2 kids and a dog, with a house and a garden. We all have our shitty lives going on, and cutting this is putting everyone on edge.
This is a long term situation, which will continue until the end of the Covid pandemic so people can travel and do something else. So let's say ... 2 more years ? because people are stupid and will break any curfew.
Edit : I do not criticize your post, just complement it. I agree about the "when the pandemic will be over", even if I don't see that coming any time soon.
"hey look, we care about gamers so much, we're going to cripple the mining capabilities of our drivers!"... and then they accidentally "forget" to implement it in one of their revisions
well, they tried, and since it's the effort that counts I guess I'll buy nvidia over amd!