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Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

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Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#2
Does this behavior anger anyone else on a deep level? I get that its hard to buy GPUs right now, but this seems like such an attack on general purpose computing.

Hardware manufactures already segment features between consumer and busness grade parts that the silicon itself is capable of, such as virtualization, but restricting what algorithms one can run is a whole new level.

I am pretty sure my next GPU is going to be AMD due to this behavior by Nvidia.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#5
Context: Back in February, Nvidia also restricted cryptocurrency mining on their RTX 3060 cards. The restrictions were bypassed a month later https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26475596

Related HN Discussions:

Nvidia announces mining GPUs, cuts the hash rate of RTX-3060 in half https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26180260 (461 points, 746 comments)

Nvidia Limits RTX 3060 Hash Rate https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26192201 (280 points, 509 comments)

AMD refuses to limit cryptocurrency mining: We will not be blocking any workload https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26524387 (68 points, 53 comments)

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#6
post #3

Didn't Nvidia try this on some different cards recently? And wasn't it only about a week before there was a patch that undid what Nvidia had done?

They only tried it on a version of the 3060, and they accidentally released a driver without LHR.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#7
post #3

Didn't Nvidia try this on some different cards recently? And wasn't it only about a week before there was a patch that undid what Nvidia had done?

My unfounded speculation is that the 3060Ti limiter (which was mostly bypassed due to an accidental leak of dev drivers) acted as a bit of a test balloon to see how it would be attacked before implementing it on the 3070/3080 silicon.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#8
post #2

Does this behavior anger anyone else on a deep level? I get that its hard to buy GPUs right now, but this seems like such an attack on general purpose computing. Hardware manufactures already segment features between consumer and busness grade parts that the silicon itself is capable of, such as virtualization, but restricting what algorithms one can run is a whole new level. I am pretty sure my next GPU is going to…

It is unfortunate, but it is less unfortunate than the behavior of crypto miners. Freedom is great when people aren't using their freedom to infringe on other people's freedom.

Re: Nvidia cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX 3080 and 3070 cards

#10
post #8
post #2

Does this behavior anger anyone else on a deep level? I get that its hard to buy GPUs right now, but this seems like such an attack on general purpose computing. Hardware manufactures already segment features between consumer and busness grade parts that the silicon itself is capable of, such as virtualization, but restricting what algorithms one can run is a whole new level. I am pretty sure my next GPU is going to…

It is unfortunate, but it is less unfortunate than the behavior of crypto miners. Freedom is great when people aren't using their freedom to infringe on other people's freedom.

How is someone mining on GPUs they bought themselves infringing on your freedom, pray tell?
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