Live data from Hacker News

Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

tomshardware.com

101–110 of 520 posts

Re: Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

#101
post #4

I have no sympathy for miners, but purely from software freedom perspective this is maximally evil: closed-source software that decides what you can use your hardware for. The CMP version is a straight-to-landfill product. As soon as it stops being profitable for mining it will have zero resale value, and become e-waste.

Imagine the PlayStation was able to be used to mine crypto. Game developers depend on gamers to actually play their games, what would you have Sony do? Encourage it or do nothing? Pretty sure their obligations to any shareholders would be to limit it so more gamers can play and buy games for it.

Re: Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

#102
Somewhat related, you can still find reasonably priced pre-built computers with latest-gen graphics cards. If you're in the market for an entirely new computer, this would be the cost-effective way to go. The HP Omen is one example (stock is still there from 3rd parties, but admittedly limited).

Re: Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

#103
post #80

I wonder if open source drivers will eventually circumvent this limit?

Sadly, the last time I checked the benchmark for the nouveau project (https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-n...), it wasn't even close to being "usable" in terms of performance (need to expect about 10x slowups in games).

Re: Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

#104
Not a fan of miners disturbing GPU availability and pricing but this is a bad move. It’s not an engineering move, it’s a marketing move, and I’m sure the first attempt at doing this will come down to something just as shallow like a PCI PID check or some resistor strap check. Someone will find it worth the cost to make an FPGA based PCIe bridge that responds to the right knocks in the right way.

Re: Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

#105
post #95

Does that mean they're bringing down the xx60 card price too? Rabid gamers who MUST have that 1440Hz refresh may be willing to pay anything for their space heaters, but there are people who play games but aren't willing to spend 1K (or 3K, how far have they gone these days?) on a video card. In other words, is this done to increase sales volume or just nvidia's profit?

The article clearly states that the hash rate will be limited if Ethereum mining algorithm is detected by the driver, not otherwise. Gaming use cases will remain the same

Re: Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

#106
post #92
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamers will generally try to avoid buying preowned graphics cards that have been used for mining. Running them 24/7 at full pelt tends to “age” they quicker than one that’s just been used for gaming.

Can electronics actually wear out?

> Can electronics actually wear out?

It depends what you mean by "wear out". Hardware does fail with time.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermo-mechanical_fatigue

Re: Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

#107
post #92
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamers will generally try to avoid buying preowned graphics cards that have been used for mining. Running them 24/7 at full pelt tends to “age” they quicker than one that’s just been used for gaming.

Can electronics actually wear out?

There is the effect of 'electromigration' at least, which causes atoms of conducting materials to be transported over time because of the current (if I understand it correctly). That might be an issue over the long term, especially at the ridiculously small scale of chip manufacturing we've reached now.

Re: Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate

#108
post #92
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamers will generally try to avoid buying preowned graphics cards that have been used for mining. Running them 24/7 at full pelt tends to “age” they quicker than one that’s just been used for gaming.

Can electronics actually wear out?

Yes. Higher temperature leads to faster degradation of capacitors. My experience with running PC routers 24/7 in non-air-conditioned spaces (with ~40 degC in summer) is that after 5+ years systems that were rock-stable started to crash/reboot once per several days and must be replaced.
Post reply on HN