Nvidia’s efforts to limit the hash rate of gaming GPUs did not deter miners from continuing to mine cryptocurrencies on them. PCMag reports.
Since February 2021 Nvidia rolled out the updated Lite Hash Rate (LHR) line of RTX 3000 GPUs, halving the device’s Ethereum mining hash rate. The company aimed to target gamers’ needs.
However, according to representatives of the NiceHash cloud-mining platform, the restrictions did not discourage miners.
A solo miner, using a mix of standard and LHR GPUs for Ethereum mining, confirms the new software’s futility. He says that even with device-wide restrictions he earns about $4,500 per month in Ethereum.
Experts say the main reason for Nvidia’s failure is that unlocking GPUs makes them about 74% more efficient than baseline models. Miners also use GPUs to mine other cryptocurrencies.
“There is a coin even better than Ethereum if your aim is monthly liquidity rather than storage,” said one of the miners.
Experts expect enthusiasts to continue focusing on mining alternative coins in light of the planned transition of Ethereum from the Proof-of-Work algorithm to Proof-of-Stake.
Other GPU makers, including AMD and Intel, said they would not attempt to curb cryptocurrency mining in their main product lines.
Back in March, miners managed to bypass the hash-rate limits on Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 using an experimental driver. The company confirmed the bug and removed the software from its site.
According to media reports, in August miners learned to return RTX 30 series GPUs to up to 70% of their original performance up to 70% of original performance. In October, the miners’ T-Rex team bypassed the LHR lock by mining two different digital coins at once.
In December 2021 Nvidia chief financial officer Colette Kress said that their hash-rate limited GPUs best address the issue of device availability for gamers.
To meet demand, Nvidia developed the CMP (Cryptocurrency Mining Processor) line. The lower CMP 30HX introduced in March. Its hash rate is 26 MH/s.
In October, the high-end CMP 170HX GPU went on sale. The adapter provides hash rate up to 164 MH/s when mining Ethereum.
According to latest data, in July-September CMP GPU sales volumes fell by 60% relative to the previous quarter — from $266 million to $105 million.
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