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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

#71

Post by livre »

smiley1437 wrote: post #69
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.

GP's question was about _how_ it detects it has been mining. Does it have a list of processes or executable names of popular mining software? Does it perform some kind of heuristic and detect if the code it is about to execute corresponds to a hashing algorithm? I don't know the answer, I hope someone can explain it to me and GP.

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

#72

Post by optymizer »

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…

I woke up early back on launch day in October 2020 to buy a 3080 when they said it would be available. Couldn't get one. Periodically I'd check newegg and other sites to see if the shortage is gone. Nope, on 05/18 it's still out of stock everywhere. Throwing $750 on a piece of hardware to play games shouldn't be this horrendous of an experience. I for one am glad nVidia is doing something about it.

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

#73

Post by varispeed »

emsy wrote: post #11
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…

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…

What is the business case for prioritising casual non-tech customer over bulk order specialist customer?

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

#75

Post by gotbeans »

dheera wrote: post #37
Scoundreller wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Couldn't one just not upgrade their drivers? NVIDIA has no way of crippling an offline system.

I understand this might come at hw level. Driver could have little or nothing to do with it.

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

#76

Post by emsy »

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…

I think your criticism is valid, but I don’t think it’s sensible to adhere to principles in a black and white way. For me, the minor restriction put in place by Nvidia is the lesser evil when you consider that they could just as well sell out to the miners and drastically increase their margins. In fact, I think it’s a very sympathetic move. I don’t think “it will be broken” is a good argument, because the intent displayed by Nvidia does matter.

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

#77

Post by neither_color »

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…

While I wholeheartedly agree that nvidia should do this, what bothers me is that they take functionality away without adding anything in or lowering the price. They are selling a "technically" inferior SKU for the same price.

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

#78

Post by PragmaticPulp »

varispeed wrote: post #73
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…

What is the business case for prioritising casual non-tech customer over bulk order specialist customer?

The casual customer will still be buying GPUs 10 years from now.

The bulk order GPU miners will stop ordering GPUs the minute mining becomes unprofitable. With proof-of-stake and ASICs on the horizon, this could happen rather abruptly.

When miners are done with GPUs, they're going to unload them on the secondary market. The used GPU market is going to be flooded with GPUs that have been overclocked and run with the demanding synthetic workloads 24/7, which is going to create a high failure rate. This is going to sour a lot of people who buy those used mining cards and experience failures later.

In short: They're gaining goodwill with the long term customers at the expense of the short-term customers. This is fine, because the short-term customers will disappear soon and the long-term customers can consume all of their production anyway.

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

#80

Post by PragmaticPulp »

neither_color wrote: post #77
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…

While I wholeheartedly agree that nvidia should do this, what bothers me is that they take functionality away without adding anything in or lowering the price. They are selling a "technically" inferior SKU for the same price.

> While I wholeheartedly agree that nvidia should do this, but bothers me is that they take functionality away without adding anything in or lowering the price.

Vendors are selling cards at 10-50% above MSRP and scalpers are selling them at 200-300% of MSRP precisely because they're usable for mining.

By breaking the mining incentive, they are dropping prices for consumers. Considerably.

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