If you want to buy a graphics card like the GeForce RTX 3080 or RTX 3060, you are having trouble getting one. Because the cards are either sold out or very expensive. Nvidia now wants to make mining unattractive so that gamers can also buy a graphics card.
Anyone looking to buy a graphics card must currently pay very high prices. This has various reasons:
- Many graphics cards are bought up by resellers and resold at high prices. Also, many retailers are now setting prices significantly above the recommended retail price.
- A second reason is the current attractiveness of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Nvidia had developed a mining lock for the RTX 3060, but this mining lock on the RTX 3060 was quickly hacked.
Now there are rumors and information that Nvidia is working on a new version of its mining lock. For this, Nvidia is developing a new chip that is intended to be unattractive for miners.
What is the goal? Nvidia wants to make future RTX 3000 graphics cards useless for miners. Because Nvidia wants to revise the graphics chip. Gamers looking for a graphics card should therefore have a significantly better chance in the long term of getting a new GPU for their gaming PC.
Nvidia is probably also hoping that miners will instead prefer the mining graphics cards that Nvidia currently markets under the abbreviation “CMP”. Behind the update is therefore also financial calculation.
These are digital currencies that are traded online. They are anonymous and usually decentralized. The downside is that the currency can fluctuate extremely in value and that mining requires a lot of energy.
Currently, there are more than 4,500 different currencies, but the most important ones are Bitcoin and Ether (via wikipedia.de).
Nvidia revises old mining lock for newly produced graphics cards
What kind of lock was that? Nvidia wanted it to be not worth it for miners to buy RTX 3060 graphics cards in the future. Nvidia had configured the software for the graphics cards so that it should recognize certain mining algorithms. Once the software recognized that people wanted to mine cryptocurrencies, it would halve the hashrate. Mining was hardly worth it anymore.
Simply put, the hash rate indicates how quickly the many complex calculations for unlocking a new block are performed. The higher the hash rate, the faster mining can take place.
That’s why the old lock didn’t work: The old mining lock on the RTX 3060 could be bypassed with some simple tricks that required little technical skill.
At the latest when Nvidia released a software update for the graphics cards, where the mining lock was disabled, this lock no longer mattered (via GameStar.de).
This is what Nvidia wants to do now: According to unofficial sources found by Videocardz, Nvidia is said to have informed its board partners that it wants to change its graphics chips (via Videocardz.com). The new chips are adjusted so that they only work with graphics card drivers that limit cryptocurrency mining.
This new graphics chip is to be installed in all future RTX 3000 graphics cards. However, this will not be marked as a new chip.
Are all graphics cards affected? According to Videocardz, there should at least be one exception that will not receive a mining lock. And that exception is the GeForce RTX 3090.
- The RTX 3090 offers significantly worse efficiency than other graphics cards like the RTX 3060 or the RTX 3060 Ti, even though the hash rate is better.
- Additionally, the RTX 3090 costs at least $1,499. This makes it unattractive for many miners.
Availability of graphics cards is currently quite poor
This is what it looks like currently: Graphics cards like the RTX 3080 are currently hardly available or only at very high prices. The GeForce RTX 3080 was already sold out within moments at the time of launch and ended up fetching high sums on Ebay. Other people, like a user are installing a whole half dozen RTX 3000 graphics cards in a BMW and are not necessarily making themselves popular.
Due to the poor availability, especially older GPUs are in such demand that you can even make a profit with old graphics cards. This is partly because many are turning to gaming to spend time with friends or relatives due to the strict Corona restrictions. This suddenly makes older hardware important again.
Our readers at MeinMMO have told us that they are willing to spend a lot of money on a graphics card. This is also because graphics cards are currently hardly available at normal prices.
