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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

#61

Post by void_mint »

wbraun wrote: 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…

At some point, someone has to take action against harmful behavior, right? In the last few years, we've seen tons extremely problematic behavior arise out of well-principled technology (all of social media, cryptocurrency, etc). Groups of people say "When will we do something?!?!?!", and then, when something is done, other people say "But the principle of ___!".

Sometime, someone has to do something about problematic behavior. The US government isn't going to do anything about it (as is evidenced by reality), but private companies are more than welcome to shape their products to match that company's intended vision for their product. Twitter didn't want fascist rants, Nvidia doesn't want all of their cards to be hoarded by crypto miners.

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

#62

Post by ssully »

Scoundreller wrote: post #19
skytreader wrote: post #18

Total hardware noob here. How do they do it? Is there a particular instruction that ETH needs to be "efficient" but games can live with throttled? Or perhaps a sequence of instructions that's signature to ETH?

Going to be a fun future game of cat-and-mouse as miners figure out how to disable/bypass nvidia’s electronic countermeasures.

They previously did this with the 3060 cards, but accidently released beta drivers that unlocked the countermeasures [1]. I am sure people just start with using those drivers on the 3070/80 cards.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/15/22331537/nvidia-rtx-3060-...

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

#63

Post by simion314 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #22
plttn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder if the « accidental » release was to avoid the motivation for a massive lawsuit. If apple can get sued for « excessive » throttling when batteries lose peak cranking amps, nvidia would fare much worse.

>If apple can get sued for « excessive » throttling when batteries lose peak cranking amps

You are missing the main part, "Apple downgraded your CPU behind your back" which is very different then "The iPhone box clearly mentions that when the battery is low the CPU will throttle and a notification is shown".

It seems the fanboys managed to trick you in believing that Apple is the victim here.

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

#64

Post by void_mint »

capableweb wrote: post #43
emsy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we didn’t have such a dire chip shortage I would be upset on principle, but I see this as a move that’s supposed to help long time customers get a hand at a Graphics card at a reasonable price. Once mining will ebb off, those customers are unlikely to keep buying Nvidia products so it’s entirely understandable why they would do this. Also, it’s not like on iOS where the company whitelists apps, this is a very spec…

"If we didn’t have such a dire X I would be upset on principle, but I see this as a move that’s supposed to help ..." What worth is a principle if you don't still have it when it get challenged? Then it's just a opinion, which is fine by itself and it's ok to change opinion, smart people do it all the time. But don't call it a principle. Unlikely that mining will disappear because NVIDIA limits a specific algoritm/cl…

> What worth is a principle if you don't still have it when it get challenged?

The realities of life make most principles less finite than one would hope. If Nvidia doesn't want to rebrand as a crypto-hardware company, they're going to take action so their products and brand match _their principles_.

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

#65

Post by capableweb »

tshaddox wrote: post #58
capableweb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If we didn’t have such a dire X I would be upset on principle, but I see this as a move that’s supposed to help ..." What worth is a principle if you don't still have it when it get challenged? Then it's just a opinion, which is fine by itself and it's ok to change opinion, smart people do it all the time. But don't call it a principle. Unlikely that mining will disappear because NVIDIA limits a specific algoritm/cl…

> What worth is a principle if you don't still have it when it get challenged? Huh? To me, refusing to even acknowledge or entertain criticism for one’s principles is one of the worst things I can imagine. Principles ought to be routinely subjected to criticism, no different than scientific theories.

> refusing to even acknowledge or entertain criticism

I'm not advocating for you not listen to criticism aimed towards your principle. But if your principle gets put to the test and you abandon it, it's no longer something you fundamentally agree on, it was some "light belief" that you had.

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

#66

Post by tshaddox »

capableweb wrote: post #65
tshaddox wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What worth is a principle if you don't still have it when it get challenged? Huh? To me, refusing to even acknowledge or entertain criticism for one’s principles is one of the worst things I can imagine. Principles ought to be routinely subjected to criticism, no different than scientific theories.

> refusing to even acknowledge or entertain criticism I'm not advocating for you not listen to criticism aimed towards your principle. But if your principle gets put to the test and you abandon it, it's no longer something you fundamentally agree on, it was some "light belief" that you had.

Replace “principle” with “scientific theory.” Why shouldn’t principles be subject to tests and criticism?

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

#69

Post by smiley1437 »

skytreader wrote: post #18

Total hardware noob here. How do they do it? Is there a particular instruction that ETH needs to be "efficient" but games can live with throttled? Or perhaps a sequence of instructions that's signature to ETH?

From what I've read, the card detects if it has been continuously mining for 30 minutes then throttles itself.

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

#70

Post by shagie »

fastball wrote: post #30
belltaco wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extra power usage is destroying our planet all for someone to try and make a quick buck, and causing shortages of GPUs during a pandemic where mental health from entertainment like gaming is valuable and stops people from going outside and getting/spreading the virus. The incentives for crypto all are f'ed up right now. The ETH PoS switch can't come soon enough.

What if you're only mining with renewables? And I'd actually like to see a study on the positive mental health benefit of gaming, because I'm skeptical. Also the idea that you need a primo GPU in order to game is a bit silly. And if you're the kind of person that absolutely needs the best graphics in order to enjoy gaming, please see my point no. 2 about mental health.

> What if you're only mining with renewables?

The issue isn't the "we're using renewable energy - see, this doesn't make things worse." It also doesn't make things better. Whats more, its increasing the consumption of energy which is at the core of the problem.

It would have been even better to push that renewable energy out onto the grid (and also not increase the consumption of power for crypto mining).

Switching all new power consumption to renewable doesn't improve things because the baseline of non-renewable is still there. We need to reduce existing and switch existing to renewable.

I suspect a bit of Parkinson's law is in place with energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law -- The key is to stop making it worse (by mining crypto and trying to justify it with "but its from renewable").

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