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!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Err, okay. I don't think a single non-Ethereum CUDA developer is hurt by this.

For now... but it's a "shot heard over the bow"... over EVERY CUDA developer. If NVidia no longer "approves" of your application, it may be nerfed.

It's the SAME THING that NVidia did, when they threw their weight against HardwareUnboxed, saying that they no longer qualified for review samples. The whole idea, was to spook THE ENTIRE YOUTUBE REVIEW COMMUNITY, and get them all to "tow Nvidia's line".

Thankfully, they FOUGHT BACK.

Hopefully, the same thing happens with CUDA.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The stupid thing is this only hurts gamers that want to mine on their GPUs while not gaming. Linux based distros like HiveOS are going to have workarounds for this on day one... full on stupidity.

It's virtue signaling to gamers wile actually screwing a large portion of them, especially targeting the little guy. Pretty terrible.

Also their "mining cards" have horrible hash rates and would need to be prices at half what they are going to sell them for to be attractive.

This, entirely!

GONE now, are the days of a gamer, buying a consumer NVidia card (for scalper prices, mind you, because NVIDIA CAN'T MANAGE TO KEEP UP SUPPLY), and using mining to "pay for itself", or defer the cost somewhat.

A SMART gamer, will see this, see the screwing that Nvidia is doing TO THEIR OWN CUSTOMERS, and choose a different GPU mfg. AMD FTW! At least, you can resell their cards (due to having a display output), and mine with them to defer costs.

 

[blckgrffn]

For now... but it's a "shot heard over the bow"... over EVERY CUDA developer. If NVidia no longer "approves" of your application, it may be nerfed.

It's the SAME THING that NVidia did, when they threw their weight against HardwareUnboxed, saying that they no longer qualified for review samples. The whole idea, was to spook THE ENTIRE YOUTUBE REVIEW COMMUNITY, and get them all to "tow Nvidia's line".

Thankfully, they FOUGHT BACK.

Hopefully, the same thing happens with CUDA.

I don't think so man, that's a pretty different situation (they were only going to give reviewers who toed their line early access to hardware). They've long done this with Quadro vs GeForce lines, in days past you could mod a consumer GPU into a pro GPU and access higher FP throughput and get certain professional, Quadro only software suites to work.

If they are going to add further restrictions in their product line for certain features, I imagine the collective response will be if you want full throughput you are going to need a certain level card even in the consumer space.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If they are going to add further restrictions in their product line for certain features, I imagine the collective response will be if you want full throughput you are going to need a certain level card even in the consumer space.

Let me ask you this.

Would you be OK with Intel, no longer selling "general purpose compute devices", but instead, domain-specific compute devices?

Such as, "a word-processor / spread-sheet CPU". Detects game algorithms and blue-screens with an exception fault if a game program is run on them.

And then a "gaming CPU", which runs game algorithms, but doesn't run word processors.

Would you be OK with that? The effective death of the general-purpose micro-processor?

Edit: And what happens to categories of software, that are effectively "both" word-processing and gaming, such as "typing tutor" games, like "Typing of the Dead".

 

[Hitman928]

Let me ask you this.

Would you be OK with Intel, no longer selling "general purpose compute devices", but instead, domain-specific compute devices?

Such as, "a word-processor / spread-sheet CPU". Detects game algorithms and blue-screens with an exception fault if a game program is run on them.

And then a "gaming CPU", which runs game algorithms, but doesn't run word processors.

Would you be OK with that? The effective death of the general-purpose micro-processor?

Edit: And what happens to categories of software, that are effectively "both" word-processing and gaming, such as "typing tutor" games, like "Typing of the Dead".

Intel already does this in a general sense by limiting supported instruction sets, scope of support, and features (such as ECC) to different lines of processors. Nvidia has been doing this for years with Cuda and many different professional applications. Whether you think it's right or wrong, there is a lot of precedence from tech companies (Intel and NV aren't the only ones) for this type of thing.

 

[coercitiv]

@VirtualLarry I think you're getting a bit carried away here: what Nvidia is attempting to do right now is not morally wrong (if they're able to limit the scope), nor is it bad for the market as a whole. Problem is it won't work, the incentives to break this "blockade" are huge.

It may help a bit with immediate availability for the 3060 though.

 

[Mopetar]

It may help a bit with immediate availability for the 3060 though.

Probably not much. There's still a massive incentive to buy up as many as you can to flip them and if you only have to wait a few weeks before someone figures out how to degimpify the GPU it's not any big loss in the grand scheme of things.

 

[MrTeal]

Well, and if the cards still get 25MH/s at the same 400-450kH/J that other Ampere cards do, they're still extremely profitable at $330MSRP. Given demand, you're right that there's very little downside to miners grabbing as many as they can and seeing how the chips fall.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Here's an idea. What about buying the gaming versions of Ampere, and changing their PCI device-ids in the BIOS, to those of the mining card version. Voila, full mining-edition card speeds, for the price/availability of the gamer versions.

 

[Shivansps]

Here is another idea, just produce 4GB 3060. Problem solved.

Also, it is maybe possible to block CUDA from accessing more than 4GB of vram at firmware level. it is just a matter of not to allow that firmware to be overwritten.

 

[gdansk]

Well, it almost seems like a win-win. Should be easy to bypass for miners and Nvidia gets kudos from the rabid gamer crowd. I suppose gamers still lose but that was unavoidable.

 

[simas]

For now... but it's a "shot heard over the bow"... over EVERY CUDA developer. If NVidia no longer "approves" of your application, it may be nerfed.

It's the SAME THING that NVidia did, when they threw their weight against HardwareUnboxed, saying that they no longer qualified for review samples. The whole idea, was to spook THE ENTIRE YOUTUBE REVIEW COMMUNITY, and get them all to "tow Nvidia's line".

Thankfully, they FOUGHT BACK.

Hopefully, the same thing happens with CUDA.

Wait, I thought you said they (NVIDIA) will never do it?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Here is another idea, just produce 4GB 3060. Problem solved.

That's IMHO a better idea, than re-releasing the 2016-era GTX 1050 ti 4GB cards back onto the market.

Maybe a 4GB 3060 could even play CyberPunk with DLSS and RTX ON, at 720P/Low?

 

[Shivansps]

That's IMHO a better idea, than re-releasing the 2016-era GTX 1050 ti 4GB cards back onto the market.

Maybe a 4GB 3060 could even play CyberPunk with DLSS and RTX ON, at 720P/Low?

I played Cyberpunk at med 1080p with my RX570 4GB, the GPU was the bottleneck, not the VRAM, 4GB and pushing modern texture streaming methods is, to me, the best way to solve this issue. At least in the mainstream area.

 

[Mopetar]

Here is another idea, just produce 4GB 3060. Problem solved.

I can't see any gamers wanting to buy a 4 GB card either though. Maybe they will if they can't get anything else, but it'd leave a bitter taste in my mouth knowing I'm buying something that's basically being crippled by a lack of memory.

 

[Shivansps]

I can't see any gamers wanting to buy a 4 GB card either though. Maybe they will if they can't get anything else, but it'd leave a bitter taste in my mouth knowing I'm buying something that's basically being crippled by a lack of memory.

Thats better than nothing, and for 1080p is enoght, just enoght. Longevity is a issue, but remember we are switching to DDR5 soon and with the ability to write directly into GPU memory from ram, a new version of "Turbo Cache" may really help there.

 

[Mopetar]

Wouldn't they need to make it 6 GB anyhow? I recall that the 3060 was going to have 12 GB of VRAM which suggests that it has a 192 GB memory bus. So running 4 GB would cripple it even more than just having such a limited amount of memory.

I don't mine so I don't know if 6 GB would prevent miners from wanting it.

 

[Shivansps]

Wouldn't they need to make it 6 GB anyhow? I recall that the 3060 was going to have 12 GB of VRAM which suggests that it has a 192 GB memory bus. So running 4 GB would cripple it even more than just having such a limited amount of memory.

I don't mine so I don't know if 6 GB would prevent miners from wanting it.

There is no problems with mining with 6GB, in fact the requirement is around 4.2GB right now.

I dont know, there is no way to properly fix this in a way everyone is happy and unaffected. And there is no way to produce enoght to supply mining demand. To give you some idea of how things are, i paid $250 for a used RX5700 two months ago, ive been mining with the card while i was not gaming and at this point i already made all the money back, what is crazy. There is no stopping this "in a good way".

 

[blckgrffn]

There is no problems with mining with 6GB, in fact the requirement is around 4.2GB right now.

I dont know, there is no way to properly fix this in a way everyone is happy and unaffected. And there is no way to produce enoght to supply mining demand. To give you some idea of how things are, i paid $250 for a used RX5700 two months ago, ive been mining with the card while i was not gaming and at this point i already made all the money back, what is crazy. There is no stopping this "in a good way".

At least it's 4.2 and not 3.8. Jeeze.

 

[simas]

There is no problems with mining with 6GB, in fact the requirement is around 4.2GB right now.

I dont know, there is no way to properly fix this in a way everyone is happy and unaffected. And there is no way to produce enoght to supply mining demand. To give you some idea of how things are, i paid $250 for a used RX5700 two months ago, ive been mining with the card while i was not gaming and at this point i already made all the money back, what is crazy. There is no stopping this "in a good way".

Short term probably not. Longer term I think the state (whichever country you are living in) will catch up to this fairly quickly making 'mining' to very similar in experience to manufactured spending - earlier on there were ways to play that arbitrage and then it all stopped with significantly more scrutiny and outright removal of previously valid scenarios to purchase. If state moves to equivalent mining to be involved in money laundering , good luck doing it at home and claiming innocence.

I came from regulated industry (financial services) so I am surprised powers that be have not clumped down on this already - making owning crypto subject to the same disclosers that having foreign accounts, etc. I do think it is coming because it has to , i.e. own crypto ->no security clearance (since we can not control who is paying you for what and why). involved in mining without explicit authorization from your employer in any regulated industry -> discipline action /termination. etc.

 

[CP5670]

I agree, I could see governments around the world restricting access to cryptocurrency in some way if it becomes too widespread. It has already happened in China to some extent, where the exchanges are all controlled by the government.

 

[fleshconsumed]

I know people are jumping in excitement at mining-gimped 3060...

Got news for you, it's still going to sell out like hotcakes. I sold my RX480 8GB for $400 on ebay 2 days ago. 3060 at 25Mhs is going to be just as good as RX480 at mining, twice as fast at gaming, and cheaper than my RX480 that got sold on ebay. Yeah, you still won't be able to buy 3060.

 

[Glo.]

Well at first glance it looks like Nvidia limits the Hashrate at the Instruction levels.

Its not something easily reversable without reverse engineering the whole BIOS of those GPUs.

 

[coercitiv]

I came from regulated industry (financial services) so I am surprised powers that be have not clumped down on this already

I agree, I could see governments around the world restricting access to cryptocurrency in some way if it becomes too widespread.

Regulate away, that's all this bubble needs: states officially recognizing the value of a dog coin.

 

[Leeea]

Two thoughts:
Even at 1/2 mining speed, a 3060 is an instantly profitable card for miners

and

Well at first glance it looks like Nvidia limits the Hashrate at the Instruction levels.

Its not something easily reversable without reverse engineering the whole BIOS of those GPUs.

Most of the professional miners are already running reverse engineered custom BIOS. That will take about 30 seconds.