NVIDIA brings back software hash rate-limiting for RTX 3060s. Before we started writing this news, we did a quick search for GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards in some of my reference online stores. No surprise: practically no stock at retailers (only some units offered by third parties with prices above $1,000), and by contrast, plenty of supply on second-hand and auction sites. And the same for its series companions, as well as for previous generations. We have seen an ad in which a pre-owned RTX 2080 was offered for just under $3,000.
A few months ago, NVIDIA took the first step to try to avoid the demand by miners for RTX 3060 graphics cards, which, according to experts in the field, offer excellent profitability for this activity. It was when, hand in hand with the announcement of the new specialized chips for this purpose, it was announced that the drivers would establish a limitation on the hash rate of the RTX 3060. It was a good move but, accidentally, shortly afterward the company itself released a version of the drivers that did not have such a limitation.
Many thought, at that time, that after what happened NVIDIA would leave behind the attempts to limit the mining capabilities of the RTX 3060 by software, and as we told you a few days ago and we could confirm with estimated dates just yesterday, everything pointed to NVIDIA betting exclusively on the hardware limitation. Until now, there had been no news to suggest that the software route was still alive.
But that was in the past, because with the arrival of version 466.27 of NVIDIA drivers, the hashrate limitation of GeForce RTX 3060 is re-activated. And according to the company, this driver version will be essential to use the cards that will reach the market at the middle of next month.
It is not clear, however, whether the limitation posed by these drivers will also affect the RTX 3060 currently in existence, but it is most likely that miners will choose not to update their drivers, to avoid the risk of rendering their graphics cards unusable for this purpose. Be that as it may, we stand by what we said yesterday, we think this is excellent news and an excellent policy on NVIDIA’s part.
