NVIDIA this morning has released a new driver set for their GeForce cards, version 466.27. And though it’s primarily for next week’s release of Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition and a couple of other games, this latest driver drop from NVIDIA also includes an update to their anti-Ethereum throttle, which they first implemented in their GeForce RTX 3060 cards. In short, NVIDIA has tweaked future RTX 3060 cards to require this driver (or newer), which will prevent them from using older drivers that can bypass NVIDIA’s hash limiter. As a result, RTX 3060 cards shipping starting in mid-May will once again be fully locked down against running Ethereum at full (native) speed.

As a quick refresher, back in February with the launch of the GeForce RTX 3060 family of desktop video cards, NVIDIA implemented a novel throttling mechanism to artificially limit the Ethereum mining performance of the cards. This was done in an attempt to make the cards less palatable for miners – who have infamously been buying up cards in what is already a supply-constrained market – and thereby ensure more cards made it to gamers. Unfortunately for NVIDIA, this strategy worked for less than a month before the company accidentally released a driver without the full anti-Ethereum code in place, making it possible to mine Ethereum at full speed in some cases.

Now, having learned from their previous snafu, NVIDIA is taking another shot at locking down the Ethereum mining performance in future RTX 3060 cards by updating their hash limiter and preventing those new cards from using the older, broken development driver.

It also updates the hash limiter for the GeForce RTX 3060 and is required for products shipped starting mid-May 2021.

Unpacking this short (and somewhat ambiguous) statement a bit, starting with the next batch of RTX 3060 cards, which are expected to begin shipping in mid-May, 466.27 will be the minimum driver version required for these cards. Which, despite NVIDIA’s multi-branch naming system, is a newer driver than the compromised 470.05 released back in March. This driver has the updated hash limiter code, and thus, baring future unforced errors on NVIDIA’s part, it will not be possible to mine Ethereum at full speed on future RTX 3060 cards.

NVIDIA has otherwise been fairly tight-lipped on their anti-Ethereum code, but thanks to their March flub and efforts by miners to get around the code, we can take an educated guess at what NVIDIA is doing under the hood with these future RTX 3060 cards. Most likely, NVIDIA has blown an eFuse or two in order to require that newly-minted GA106 GPUs can’t be used with older BIOSes. By changing the minimum BIOS requirement, NVIDIA can have the newer BIOS enforce the newer driver requirement, with the driver in turn enforcing (or at least helping to enforce) the Ethereum throttle. All told, this is very similar to how hardware security works on consoles, where NVIDIA has some experience thanks to the Tegra X1-powered Nintendo Switch.

As for whether this attempt will fare any better than NVIDIA’s previous one, it remains to be seen. But even as things stand with current-generation RTX 3060 cards, NVIDIA’s anti-Ethereum throttle has largely held up; the March snafu has exposed that NVIDIA is already operating a “defense in depth” strategy with multiple checks to identify mining cards, looking for things such as cards operating on a PCIe x1 bus and cards not hooked up to monitors. So if there are any weaknesses, especially on the Linux side of things, then this will be NVIDIA’s opportunity to shore things up for their anti-Ethereum throttle.

Finally, NVIDIA has also informed us that these revised RTX 3060 cards will not be labeled any differently than existing RTX 3060 cards. Since the actual product specifications and functionality haven’t changed – and presumably the GPU hasn’t either – the revised cards will be sold with the same RTX 3060 branding as they have since their launch in February. So once these cards hit the market, it will end up being a relatively silent swap.

Source: NVIDIA

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  • Oxford Guy - Thursday, April 29, 2021 - link

    And Nvidia, of course.

    The mining-induced shortages are just as intentional as the engineered boom and bust economic cycles.
  • Silver5urfer - Saturday, May 1, 2021 - link

    What can we even say about the state of market, since the GPU systems began I was only aware of ATI Radeon and Nvidia GeForce, later I knew there was this Voodoo cards which have been forgotten by many that they existed.

    Intel's bread and butter was x86 and Fabs, they squandered the lithography technology superiority, at one point Intel was far far ahead in innovative designs and Moore's Law advancement. It's all now reduced to ashes, lost in both of them and wasted tons of cash on their useless technologies branching out. So it's out of question that they would even venture into GPU, now they are doing it because they realized GPU importance.

    About Console trash market, AMD is having TSMC issues so it's natural to see this, we already know AMD has high profit margins on that crappy SoC on those stupid boxes than a DIY PC market.

    They know GPU math performance is needed for Mining, more than that Nvidia and AMD both have experience with the previous mining/crypto bubble. Why would they axe the massive profits ? They know for months that this is going to be case, but still they didn't give a shit about PC market, it's always about money always was. Even with 1/2 hashrate they will be sold out due to Farms and less supply.

    If the Crypto crashed, this would definitely not be the case for sure. So mining caused it, people are right to hate it, but they are believing this bullshit move from Nvidia that is even more stupid.
  • atirado - Monday, May 3, 2021 - link

    @SilverSurfer,

    When exactly did you get into GPUs?

    Voodoo cards essentially created the market for GPUs along games like Doom. They are forgotten now because they could not keep up with nVidia.
  • Oxford Guy - Thursday, April 29, 2021 - link

    'It's not producing money.'

    Is fiat currency producing money? Who says so — militaries armed with nukes?
  • Spunjji - Friday, April 30, 2021 - link

    Yes, and yes they do, and that counts for something whether you like it or not 🤷‍♂️
  • Oxford Guy - Friday, April 30, 2021 - link

    Missed the the point, eh?
  • Spunjji - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link

    Yes, you did.
  • dromoxen - Sunday, May 2, 2021 - link

    Games Player are giant piles of shit. Games has only negative effects. It's a monumental waste of time and electricity which produces vast amounts of pollution from the energy consumption, and makes hardware scarce and drives up the price for people who can actually make good use of it. All in the name of getting a few more points. Oh Man!
  • Spunjji - Friday, April 30, 2021 - link

    It's not /producing money/. Only governments can do that. It's not even producing anything of /monetary worth/, either. Crypto's apparent value is entirely reliant on people buying into the scheme, which they do for 2 reasons:
    1) Illicit transactions, like paying off ransomware assholes.
    2) Thinking this pyramid scheme is an "investment".
  • voicequal - Thursday, April 29, 2021 - link

    When the bubble bursts, there would have been plentiful and dirt cheap GPUs for all. But because nVidia is intent on segmenting the graphics & mining markets, the mining cards won't be able to find a 2nd life with gamers. Bad for miners and gamers.

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