Question Jen Sung makes questionable decision? [RUMOR] NVidia tries to disable GPU mining?

[VirtualLarry]

So now, not only is Nvidia's chairman selling GPUs that can be used for Compute (*formerly called GPGPU - "General Purpose"), he's rum0ored to be attempting to effectively regulate WHAT PROGRAMS are ALLOWED to be run on the GPUs that they mfg?

Imaging if Intel decided to decree, that their CPUs, could no longer be used for searching for prime numbers.

This whole idea is a slippery slope that I am NOT willing to go down.

And to think, this is all just an (alleged) stupid band-aid, over their mfg and supply-chain issues.

If Nvidia could effectively supply all of their GPU markets with product, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Edit: If this rumor turns out to be true, expect class-action lawsuits against NVidia, much like what happened to Sony with the PS3 losing functionality (running Linux) after people purchased them.

Now, ALL NVIDIA RETAILERS will be forced to post a prominent disclaimer of the software that is NOT ALLOWED to be run on these GPUs, or they will get sued as well.

Update:
NVidia to phase out all existing Ampere PCI device-ids, phase in EtH mining "block" across ALL new Ampere line-up!

 

[Heartbreaker]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Feature Goes Beyond Driver Version, Could Expand to More SKUs

Yesterday NVIDIA announced the company's first Crypto Mining Processor (CPM) that serves the purpose of having a dedicated processor only for mining with no video outputs. Alongside the new processors, the company has also announced that in the next driver update the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU will...

www.techpowerup.com

Looks like it is a handshake. And it looks like its coming to future revisions of existing cards (no word on whether cards already in the wild will be affected).

Techpowerup is OK for reviews, but poor on technical details. This isn't going to arrive on driver update.

 

[simas]

If nvidia gimped functionality on the current cards that would have been false advertisement and cause for lawsuits. I'm ok with them gimping newly released cards though, their product, their decision, consumers are free to make their own choices given information presented to them.

That said, I'll have to repeat myself, RX480's go as high as $400 on ebay. I read today that 3060 will hash at 25Mh/s meaning even gimped it is still as good as RX480 at mining, twice as fast at gaming, and cheaper than the current going rate for RX480. You won't be able to find 3060 in stock.

Nah, that is not how it works - they can take any action they want even on existing products to 'protect the consumer', 'limit abuse', blah-blah-blah
of cause lawyer scum will use ANY change as justification to extract nuisance fees
however, for practical purposes, this is nil - once they disable it, it would be years before any lawsuits are resolved and even then they will not bring functionality back unless they want it (see Sony as example with PS3, it never came back once it
was removed).

by that time ,years later, good luck with mining then that cards that have been gimped. oh yah - you may get a $0.11 check in the mail some day, may be.

 

[Mopetar]

You aren't going to buy a whole bunch until after you break it. From NVidias statement this is a locked Bios. You can't just use a custom driver and bypass this.

Maybe someday someone will break it, but it doesn't make sense to mass buy the cards assuming you can break it, before it actually done.

You could probably scalp any cards you buy in bulk for a profit regardless of if you mine with them or not.

Also, the majority of cards will be sold outside of the launch window. Plenty of time to snag cards after someone develops a workaround.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Feature Goes Beyond Driver Version, Could Expand to More SKUs

Yesterday NVIDIA announced the company's first Crypto Mining Processor (CPM) that serves the purpose of having a dedicated processor only for mining with no video outputs. Alongside the new processors, the company has also announced that in the next driver update the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU will...

www.techpowerup.com

Looks like it is a handshake. And it looks like its coming to future revisions of existing cards (no word on whether cards already in the wild will be affected).

Doubt it could affect existing cards. Who would ever permit an update from Nvidia if they were primarily using the card to mine? Any regular gamer who wants to mine on the side will just sell their GeForce card to a miner and switch to AMD as soon as they can.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Doubt it could affect existing cards. Who would ever permit an update from Nvidia if they were primarily using the card to mine? Any regular gamer who wants to mine on the side will just sell their GeForce card to a miner and switch to AMD as soon as they can.

- I also doubt it will affect cards already out there "in the wild" but I can see a minor model number change on new inventory with an updated bios for all the card lines that have already been released.

Otherwise, again, what would be the point of doing this if we're going to have a gap from $329 straight through $800 dollars as even new 3060ti's and up are gobbled up by miners?

 

[aigomorla]

I really do not think this will help any.
People will just buy the regular versions unless they are absolutely desperate.
GPU's can not match or meet the performance of ASIC miners in any way, and this is an attempt at trying to get that market.

I would rather buy dedicated ASIC miners then buy 6 gimped videocards with very little to no resell value any day of the week.

 

[PingSpike]

AMD did that in 2014 and then when the crypto bubble popped they had oversaturated the market with Hawaii cards to the point that R9 290 were going for $200. Doubt Nvidia wants to be stuck with RTX 3070 they're stuck selling for $200 each and then have all their next gen cards look ridiculously overpriced in comparison.

I'm of the opinion this is the only reason mining cards even existed in the first place. People can and do buy used cards instead of new mid range parts all the time, and if the used card price is super low due to miners dumping a ton of them they're going to have a big effect on new product sales. Its not like much bill of goods cost is saved by not putting a DVI port on a card.

The problem nvidia is facing now is their steady business, PC gaming could be seriously damaged if gamers can't get any cards for a long time. Some gamers will buy from scalers, others will wait. Others will be priced out and either do something else or switch to consoles. Then maybe the market shrinks, less PC games are released because the market is smaller and so on. They want the PC game market to remain healthy so its still around when this mining thing falls apart again or if it doesn't fall apart they want more money from it and still want the PC game market to exist.

 

[simas]

I'm of the opinion this is the only reason mining cards even existed in the first place. People can and do buy used cards instead of new mid range parts all the time, and if the used card price is super low due to miners dumping a ton of them they're going to have a big effect on new product sales. Its not like much bill of goods cost is saved by not putting a DVI port on a card.

The problem nvidia is facing now is their steady business, PC gaming could be seriously damaged if gamers can't get any cards for a long time. Some gamers will buy from scalers, others will wait. Others will be priced out and either do something else or switch to consoles. Then maybe the market shrinks, less PC games are released because the market is smaller and so on. They want the PC game market to remain healthy so its still around when this mining thing falls apart again or if it doesn't fall apart they want more money from it and still want the PC game market to exist.

I agree with you . While there are still few genres that are just not currently easily enjoyable on consoles (see Total War games), beyond it gamers can easily move on. I never liked consoles (nerfed PCs with expensive games) and got two XBXs (one for kids) + gamepass subscription . Between gamepass and local library providing free disk versions of various games my incentive to pay upwards a thousand dollars is nearly gone. I will probably pick up PS5 later this year and its version of gamepass (Ps Now? Ps Plus? have to read up on this) and both consoles are cheaper together than single new GPU, and that is without counting decent CPU (500+) , MB, RAM, NVME storage.

I can build something new for 1.5-2k that should be decent but why?

 

[ultimatebob]

It looks to be a bit more complex than just a last minute driver change:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1362628358966681600

I would bet money that someone will have a hacked BIOS available that disables the mining throttle within three weeks of the GPU's public release.

Hell... they found a way to use the last generation mining only cards (that don't even have a display port on them!) as a gaming card with just some driver tweaks. Compared to that, this should be easy to circumvent.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I would bet money that someone will have a hacked BIOS available that disables the mining throttle within three weeks of the GPU's public release.

Hell... they found a way to use the last generation mining only cards (that don't even have a display port on them!) as a gaming card with just some driver tweaks. Compared to that, this should be easy to circumvent.

Not if the bios/driver combo is securely locked.

It's easy to mod when they aren't using security, but it looks like they will be using security in conjunction with the the limiter.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Others will be priced out and either do something else or switch to consoles.

That's me, got a PS5 and now don't GAF about PC gaming for the next 2-3 years.

 

[Fallen Kell]

So now, not only is Nvidia's chairman selling GPUs that can be used for Compute (*formerly called GPGPU - "General Purpose"), he's rum0ored to be attempting to effectively regulate WHAT PROGRAMS are ALLOWED to be run on the GPUs that they mfg?

Imaging if Intel decided to decree, that their CPUs, could no longer be used for searching for prime numbers.

This whole idea is a slippery slope that I am NOT willing to go down.

And to think, this is all just an (alleged) stupid band-aid, over their mfg and supply-chain issues.

If Nvidia could effectively supply all of their GPU markets with product, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Edit: If this rumor turns out to be true, expect class-action lawsuits against NVidia, much like what happened to Sony with the PS3 losing functionality (running Linux) after people purchased them.

Now, ALL NVIDIA RETAILERS will be forced to post a prominent disclaimer of the software that is NOT ALLOWED to be run on these GPUs, or they will get sued as well.

So now that there is more information out there and that we know it only currently affects the 3060, and only when using Nvidia's drivers, and doesn't affect others that have purchased products like the 3070, 3080, or 3090 and what they can do with them (i.e. no situation like with Sony selling the PS3 with linux and then taking it away afterwards, as Nvidia is only taking it away on new cards specifically advertised as not having the functionality in the first place), I think it renders most of the argument above moot.

Do I like that Nvidia is basically saying you can't do this with the hardware that you bought from us, even though the hardware could otherwise do it? Absolutely not. Do I understand where Nvidia is coming from in a market standpoint in trying to get graphics cards to people who can't get graphics cards because business ventures and small-time block-chain coin miners are buying up everything in sight, and driving up prices to unaffordable levels for people who just want to be able to play their computer games? Absolutely.

The real issue here is that there are no custom ASIC systems out there for many of these block-chain based coins, and the rise in price/demand for them over the last year. Nvidia can't base long term manufacturing plans on something so fickle as the daily coin price, as they have already been bit by it in the past (same as AMD was). The correct market assessment is to somehow segregate mining operators from people who need graphics cards, at which point you can then properly plan for and meet market demand for both segments without being left holding the bag at the end when block-chain coin prices suddenly drop because "reasons". Forcing mining operators to have their own separate devices and possibly pay for them in advance of production (so that the risk is on the miner and not on Nvidia) is the right solution.

 

[Heartbreaker]

So now that there is more information out there and that we know it only currently affects the 3060, and only when using Nvidia's drivers,

That doesn't seem to be what I am reading. Sounds more like it's in the Bios, and these cards have locked down bios.

 

[ultimatebob]

That doesn't seem to be what I am reading. Sounds more like it's in the Bios, and these cards have locked down bios.

Yeah, it will probably take a combination of BIOS modifications and driver hacks to bypass this mining slowdown feature. Rest assured, it will be defeated.... as all DRM software eventually does. In this case, they can probably "borrow" firmware and drivers from other 30x0 series cards that do not have this lockout to come up with a solution.

The real question is if the juice is worth the squeeze. The hack would probably need to be simplified to a "double-click the executable file" type Windows installer before casual miners would try using it. Otherwise, it's just easier to go after a different card.

 

[PingSpike]

So, I know that nvidia has had signed vbioses for some time now. I've heard people have only flashed vbioses from the same model of card successfully, but I've also heard quadro vbios being flashed. So, which is it? Has nvidia's vbios signing been defeated or not?

 

[Shivansps]

Never made any comments regarding absolute values, hence I never assumed the price is static. It's a simple fact: increase in hashrate leads to a proportional decrease in rewards for the same hash power, independent of other factors such as coin price, rewards, price of electricity.


There's plenty of other coins, but how many of them can take sustained selling from professional miners and not lose value over night? Keep in mind the professional miners sell a lot of coin to cover their operational costs.

As i said, Ethereum does not work in the exact same way as other crypos, because per-block rewards are FIXED and it has a bonus that increases that, is not the same as Bitcoin 2011-2013 before ASICs, where every difficulty increase had a severe impact in mining rewards because block rewards where not fixed, that does not happens here. And more people mining also means more transactions = more rewards. In the long run you are going to gain less over time, but the drop is very, very slow compared to Bitcoin for example.

 

[Mopetar]

I really do not think this will help any.
People will just buy the regular versions unless they are absolutely desperate.
GPU's can not match or meet the performance of ASIC miners in any way, and this is an attempt at trying to get that market.

I would rather buy dedicated ASIC miners then buy 6 gimped videocards with very little to no resell value any day of the week.

Some cryptocurrencies specifically designed their algorithms in a way that makes them resistant to being mined using an ASIC. For others that did no such thing, all mining has essentially transitioned to using an ASIC instead because it is far more efficient and not using one is unprofitable.

However, the cat is essentially out of the bag and the world took notice that there's millions of GPUs that offer an immense amount of computational power that are typically sitting idle for long stretches between pixel pushing sessions. Some of the people who own these cards will always want some way to derive additional value from them in that down time and will just create new digital currencies to leverage the computational power of those GPUs.

Really, they don't even need to use cryptographic algorithms. Imagine instead a currency based around a service like Stadia where you use your GPU to render gameplay for someone else subscribed to that service and can be rewarded with a digital token for doing so. The service only need to allow for people to pay their subscriptions using those same tokens and it immediately creates a market for them to be bought and sold.

 

[Shivansps]

Some cryptocurrencies specifically designed their algorithms in a way that makes them resistant to being mined using an ASIC. For others that did no such thing, all mining has essentially transitioned to using an ASIC instead because it is far more efficient and not using one is unprofitable.

However, the cat is essentially out of the bag and the world took notice that there's millions of GPUs that offer an immense amount of computational power that are typically sitting idle for long stretches between pixel pushing sessions. Some of the people who own these cards will always want some way to derive additional value from them in that down time and will just create new digital currencies to leverage the computational power of those GPUs.

Really, they don't even need to use cryptographic algorithms. Imagine instead a currency based around a service like Stadia where you use your GPU to render gameplay for someone else subscribed to that service and can be rewarded with a digital token for doing so. The service only need to allow for people to pay their subscriptions using those same tokens and it immediately creates a market for them to be bought and sold.

Yeah, no, mining hardware is attached to x1 PCI-E risers and in some cases you have entire PCI-E bridges for multiple gpus attached to a x1 PCI-E, that hardware is useless for anything that is not mining. This is very simple actually, Ethereum became the coin to mine after ASICs ended the GPU mining of Bitcoin, once Ethereum dies, they are going to move to the next big thing. This is not going to end any time soon.

ALSO, Ethereum is worthless for ASIC mining, the reason is very simple, Ethereum is designed to die, the DAG increases makes this a sure thing. You may make a ASIC miner, OK, thats fine, with how much memory? the DAG increases ensures that mining hardware will become obsolete, with the current hashing power it is calculated that 6GB VRAM will become worthless by 2024 and 8GB by 2027. https://minerstat.com/dag-size-calculator
Using ASIC miners in a massive way the only thing it archives is to destroy the ASIC miners, eventually ASIC miners will have to come with 16GB of ram, then, 32GB, then 64... etc etc etc... i really dont want to know the speed and bandwidth you would need to mine with a 16GB DAG...

 

[Shivansps]

Why should we cripple performance for gamers using gaming SKUs on account of whining miners? If miners wanna mine, they now have mining SKUs.

These mining skus are a joke. What is worse to you? a 4Gb 3060, or reviving the GTX1050TI? a 4GB 3060 will be worthless for mining while still providing excellent 1080p gaming, but to be fair, the "4GB 3060" is probably the 3050...

 

[Heartbreaker]

These mining skus are a joke. What is worse to you? a 4Gb 3060, or reviving the GTX1050TI? a 4GB 3060 will be worthless for mining while still providing excellent 1080p gaming, but to be fair, the "4GB 3060" is probably the 3050...

Just because it's better than a two generations old, entry level card, doesn't mean a 4GB 3060 makes any sense. That is just memory crippling an otherwise decent GPU chip.

 

[zir_blazer]

The real issue here is that there are no custom ASIC systems out there for many of these block-chain based coins, and the rise in price/demand for them over the last year.

Some algorithms are intended to be ASIC resistant because the idea is that you don't have a flood of ASIC systems that destroys GPU mining like it happened with Bitcoin and Litecoin. Actually, you can consider that GPU mining is rather entry level, cause anyone can potentially do it even with a single video card. If your entry level is a 20000 U$D ASIC machine whose only use is to mine, a few small players can monopolize the blockchain and there goes your decentralization.

That doesn't seem to be what I am reading. Sounds more like it's in the Bios, and these cards have locked down bios.

As far that I know, modern nVidia VBIOSes are signed and encrypted thus you currently can't replace them with a custom one at all. Yet I don't see THAT as a major showstopper for this particular event, as there will be a major economic incentive to crack them.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Some algorithms are intended to be ASIC resistant because the idea is that you don't have a flood of ASIC systems that destroys GPU mining like it happened with Bitcoin and Litecoin. Actually, you can consider that GPU mining is rather entry level, cause anyone can potentially do it even with a single video card. If your entry level is a 20000 U$D ASIC machine whose only use is to mine, a few small players can monopolize the blockchain and there goes your decentralization.



As far that I know, modern nVidia VBIOSes are signed and encrypted thus you currently can't replace them with a custom one at all. Yet I don't see THAT as a major showstopper for this particular event, as there will be a major economic incentive to crack them.

Just because there is incentive doesn't mean it will be broken soon. Well done encryption is non trivial to break.

And again. There are other video cards.

 

[BFG10K]

These mining skus are a joke.

Why should gamers care?

What is worse to you? a 4Gb 3060, or reviving the GTX1050TI? a 4GB 3060 will be worthless for mining while still providing excellent 1080p gaming, but to be fair, the "4GB 3060" is probably the 3050...

Again, why should gamers be compromising gaming SKUs when miners are the problem here?

You're asking the wrong question. It needs to be flipped back on miners, because miners are the problem, not gamers.

The question to ask is: "would you rather have nVidia's mining SKUs, or have nVidia completely block mining"? Because nVidia could well do that.

I'm actually surprised they only did 2x; they should've done 10x. Make it so gaming SKUs can technically mine for education or research purposes, but there's no hope for it to be profitable.

 

[NTMBK]

These mining skus are a joke. What is worse to you? a 4Gb 3060, or reviving the GTX1050TI? a 4GB 3060 will be worthless for mining while still providing excellent 1080p gaming, but to be fair, the "4GB 3060" is probably the 3050...

4GB was kind of borderline on the RX480. Nowadays it's just unacceptable.

 

[beginner99]

Why doesnt NV do what they normally do? Update their "policy/contracts" with OEMs. If they catch OEM selling in Bulk to miners, they get a hefty fine. If OEM doesn't want to sign contract, OEM doesn't get any chips anymore. The problem are clearly the OEMs. That pic from Zotac that was taken down?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Why doesnt NV do what they normally do? Update their "policy/contracts" with OEMs. If they catch OEM selling in Bulk to miners, they get a hefty fine. If OEM doesn't want to sign contract, OEM doesn't get any chips anymore. The problem are clearly the OEMs. That pic from Zotac that was taken down?

That's a good point, and probably the reasoning behind the Zotac now-pulled tweet pic.

The dirty little secret, is that selling to miners is profitable. MORE profitable than selling to gamers. At least, in the shorter term. And we all know that most corporations are all about the short-term profits.

THAT's why companies will drop-ship pallets of GPUs, at elevated prices, to miners, before those cards even hit retail, and therefore, gamers don't stand a chance at getting those cards.

It really wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that nearly all of the AIB's / OEMs are doing that right now.

Edit: Note that I'm not in favor of this. I think that miners and gamers should be on "equal footing", at least in terms of chances to actually obtain cards. But the reality truth is, miners have deeper pockets than most gamers, and companies are going to go "where the money is". Just a fact of life that gamers are going to have to learn to deal with, and accept, rather than be a bunch of whiny b****es.

Oh, and Nvidia's recent hobbling of mining for casual miners? Yeah, that's right, now NVidia wants to extract their "full fee" from gamers, who might otherwise be able to mine on their GPUs in the off-time from gaming, to pay them off. Congratulations, suckers, you reap what you sow.