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GeForce Is Made for Gaming, CMP Is Made to Mine

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We’re limiting the hash rate of GeForce RTX 3060 GPUs so they’re less desirable to miners and launching NVIDIA CMP for professional mining ~NVIDIA

One thing that gamers know is that drivers are key.  When a new game is released the first thing a good gamer does is download the latest driver in hopes that it will give you the best performance.  Drivers are weird like that too.  In some cases a new driver will boost one game while making other games suffer.  The same is true when benchmarking when your driver choice can make or break your run.

Thing is, drivers can also limit a card and is what NVIDIA is doing with the new RTX 3060 that launches later this week.  Given that this is a new card NVIDIA can limit performance however they want and unless you reverse engineer the driver there isn't much you can do about it.

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.

Finally, NVIDIA is addressing the demand of GPU mining by offering a dedicated mining card that not only will address what miners are looking for but also NOT impact GPU supply to gamers.  They will be doing this by detecting algorithms used by miners and then shut down the card by 50%.

To offset this NVIDIA is also launching cards that use the same GPU but have no video output.  They will be worthless to gamers and won't be limited to miners which is what I call a Win Win.

Check out the blog post for more information.

Of course, now the question remains.  Why didn't NVIDIA do this sooner?  I mean ASUS had dedicated mining cards back when the 10 series launched and the 20 Series was released during the great cryto bubble burst so what made them think it wouldn't come back?

Related Web URL: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/02/18/geforce-c...