Ethereum miner runs RTX 3060 rig with no hash-rate restrictions

An enthusiast in South Korea has assembled a seven-GPU rig using Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060s, bypassing the hash-rate restrictions on Ethereum mining.

He used PCIe 3.0 x16 riser (x7) and all with dummy display output

src (KR) : https://t.co/DNwInBZf3h

— 포시포시 (@harukaze5719) March 31, 2021

In the published photos, seven RTX 3060 GPUs are wired via PCIe 3.0 x16 cables. Each card yields a hash rate of about 48 MH/s. The farm’s total hash rate is 337 MH/s.

The miner says the GPUs together consume about 1,020 W. After electricity costs, the farm yields around $32 per day.

The enthusiast did not say how he circumvented the GPU protections.

In the post’s comments, users suggested the rig could operate thanks to a PLX switch. However such a setup consumes a lot of energy and, with prolonged operation, heavily heats the GPUs and strains the motherboard, they added.

In February, Nvidia announced halving the hash rate of the GeForce RTX 3060 desktop GPU. It explained this as aiming to cater to gamers’ needs and said that bypassing the protection was impossible.

Later, Chinese miners claimed that with an unnamed algorithm they hacked the GPU’s protection and overclocked the device to 50 MH/s. However the information did not receive official confirmation.

Subsequently, the RTX 3060 performance limits were bypassed using an experimental Nvidia driver. At that time, only a single card of this model could be hacked. Nvidia confirmed the bug and removed the software from its site.

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