Getting new Nvidia graphics cards from the RTX 30xx lineup is nearly impossible right now. And although the deficit is clearly associated with the growth of cryptocurrencies and the demand for miners, the manufacturer’s employees did not recognize this.
In particular, in January 2021, the company’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress, noted that the shortage of equipment arose due to the great love for new products from gamers. However, now everything fell into place: the company declared war on the shortage of video cards and at the same time dealt a blow to the miners.
Why are RTX 3000 graphics cards not on sale? To begin with, let’s mention the essence of the problem: video cards of the new RTX 3000 line are almost impossible to find on store shelves. And if they are there, then at a significantly higher price.
The situation is simple to explain. New items bring excellent income when mining various cryptocurrencies, so miners are actively buying out video cards. And since the demand for them is huge, this also affected the price increase.
For clarity, we present graphs. According to the 2CryptoCalc profitability calculator, with the current Ethereum exchange rate and the complexity of its mining, the Nvidia RTX 3070 can bring in about $ 8 per day or $ 238 per month.
In the case of the RTX 3080, the numbers are even more surprising: we are talking about an income of $ 13.5 per day and a little more than $ 400 per month.
And although these results do not take into account the cost of electricity – yet the tariffs are different for everyone – the meaning of what is happening is clear. New video cards bring a lot of money in mining and pay off in a very short time. This explains the lack of video cards on sale. They were simply bought up and continue to do so.
Why the hashrate of the Nvidia RTX video card dropped
Apparently, representatives of Nvidia are aware of the situation – and they are not satisfied with it. Therefore, the management of the company moved to active actions, as it became known yesterday thanks to this publication in the manufacturer’s blog. Now the company will limit the performance of new video cards if the user decides to use them for mining. This means that the hash rate of the device when mining Ethereum will be reduced – by about 50 percent.
GeForce RTX
This decision was made on the eve of the release of the GeForce RTX 3060, which will take place on February 25, 2021. As employees of the company said directly, such a step should ensure the availability of new items specifically for gamers.
It sounds logical: taking into account the «trimmed» hash rate, the same RTX 3060 will no longer be so attractive for miners.
Here is a quote from the company’s statement.
RTX 3060 software drivers are designed to detect certain attributes of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm and limit the hash rate – that is, the efficiency of cryptocurrency mining – by about 50 percent.
It makes sense. Our GeForce RTX GPUs feature cutting-edge technologies such as real-time RTX ray tracing, DLSS AI scaling technology, ultra-fast Reflex response for minimal system latency, and more. These are all designed to meet the needs of gamers and those creating digital experiences.
That is, the employees made it clear that miners are not Nvidia’s target audience – at least for this model.
Nvidia CMP Specifications
However, a novelty for Ethereum miners was still found – it was named Nvidia CMP. The last abbreviation stands for Cryptocurrency Mining Processor, that is, a processor for mining cryptocurrencies, and the devices themselves are positioned as a solution for professional mining of coins.
Nvidia CMP
CMP devices will not work with graphics. They do not meet the requirements of the GeForce lineup and therefore will not affect the availability of GeForce graphics cards to gamers, Nvidia officials said.
For example, CMPs do not have a display output, which allows for improved airflow during mining, so they can be smaller. CMPs also feature lower peak voltages and core frequencies, which makes mining more energy efficient.
Nvidia CMP will be available in four specifications, which will deliver 26, 36, 45 and 86 MH / s when mining Ethereum, respectively. The most budgetary model will receive 6 GB of memory, that is, it will not have problems with mining cryptocurrency due to the growth of the DAG file.
Nvidia CMP Specifications
The first two devices will ship this quarter, and the rest next. The price tag of the devices is unknown.
Hashrate RTX 3060 on Ethereum
According to miners who have already tested the RTX 3060 in operation, the video card really demonstrated the decision of Nvidia’s management in action. At first, the device issued 41.5 MH / s, but after a minute or two, the figure dropped to 24-26 MH / s. As the experts clarified, the author of the video did not have drivers for the video card, which means that the anti-mining algorithm is most likely “wired” into the BIOS.
For clarity, we show what results should be expected with a hash rate of 25 MH / s on the Ethash algorithm.
At the current rate of Ethereum, the miner will receive a little less than $ 100 per month – and this is without taking into account electricity costs. So Nvidia’s new strategy will really hit the miners, and noticeably.
We believe that miners will definitely not appreciate the idea of Nvidia’s leadership. In this case, it was probably worth solving the problem of production volumes, and not underestimating the hash rate. Moreover, as the rate of Ethereum grows, miners will most likely use RTX 3060 for mining, and at the same time they will find non-original software to bypass the restrictions. So it’s not a fact that gamers will get a lot of video cards, but Nvidia will achieve a positive result.
