News
News Categories

NVIDIA nerfed GeForce RTX 3060 for cryptocurrency mining while launching dedicated Cryptocurrency Mining Processors

By Aaron Yip - on 19 Feb 2021, 9:18am

NVIDIA is nerfing the GeForce RTX 3060 for cryptocurrency mining

NVIDIA has announced in a blogpost that it will be taking steps to prevent GeForce graphics cards from being utilised for cryptocurrency mining. Anticipating that the RTX 3060 graphics cards, with its low retail cost, will be an attractive proposition for miners, NVIDIA will be using software to limit the efficiency of these cards when used for mining operations.

Digital miners, however, can look forward to a new line of products from the company, which will be designed specifically for cryptocurrency mining and nothing else (nope, you can't even game on these new cards). According to NVIDIA, the new series will be known as CMP (“cryptocurrency mining processor” in short) and are supposedly optimised for the best mining performance and efficiency. Based on the board rated power, power connectors and memory buffer size, we've also managed to roughly peg them to their respective consumer GPU classification equivalent and surprisingly most are Turing based options:-

NVIDIA CMP models compared
  30HX 40HX 50HX 90HX
Etherium Hash Rate 26MH/s 36MH/s 45MH/s 86MH/s
Rated Design Power 125W 185W 250W 320W
Power connector(s) 1 x 8-pin 1 x 8-pin 2 x 8-pin 2 x 8-pin
Memory Size 6GB 8GB 10GB 10GB
Availability Q1 2021 Q1 2021 Q2 2021 Q2 2021
Closest
equivalent
consumer GPU
TU116 GeForce
RTX 2070
(TU106)
GeForce
RTX 2080 Ti
(TU102)
GeForce
RTX 3080
(GA102)

These cards aren't video cards or even GPUs per se, as they don't even come with video outputs - enabling improved airflow while mining so they can be more densely packed. They also run at lower peak core voltage and frequency and thus improve mining power efficiency.

CMP products will only be sold through authorised partners and because they don’t meet the specifications required of a GeForce GPU, they don’t impact the availability of GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs to gamers - which are still in critical shortage.

Source:  NVIDIA (1), (2)

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.