Shocking, The RTX 3060 Hash Rate Limiter Has Been Busted

Source: Slashdot Shocking, The RTX 3060 Hash Rate Limiter Has Been Busted

It Did Take Longer Than Expected Though?

Cryptominers in China and Vietnam have found a way around the secure handshake between the driver, hardware and the BIOS that NVIDIA included in the RTX 3060 to discourage miners from buying the card.  As GPU shoppers around the world are aware, the hash rate limiter had no beneficial effect on stocks, the RTX 3060 is every bit as rare as any other graphics card right now.  At least they can’t get even scarcer after this news?

The cryptocurrency mined in this case was not Etherium, which was the specific target of the hash rate limiter, instead they were mining Octopus which uses a different algorithm.  Instead of seeing hash rates limited to 20-25 MH/s they saw rates of 45-50MH/s after modifying the card, which shows the limiter was completely defeated.  This altcoin is currently nowhere near as profitable to mine as Etherium, however the proof that the hash rate on an RTX 3060 can be unlocked will spur those working on these mods to new efforts.

It is not impossible that a new driver or BIOS update could resolve this, however there is little motivation for miners to apply the updates nor does it offer reassurance that an update could not also be circumvented.

 

It appears that the cryptomining algorithm in question is for Octopus, which is different than cryptocurrency than Ethereum, which the hashrate limiter was designed to thwart. That means its possible that an updated driver could introduce a limiter for that cryptocurrency as well, but as we explored earlier this month, Nvidia's efforts to thwart cryptomining is likely fraught with legal issues that might prevent such an update.

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About The Author

Jeremy Hellstrom

Call it K7M.com, AMDMB.com, or PC Perspective, Jeremy has been hanging out and then working with the gang here for years. Apart from the front page you might find him on the BOINC Forums or possibly the Fraggin' Frogs if he has the time.

3 Comments

  1. willmore

    How did they ever think that would work? How do you propose to block one program (miner) and not others (other GPGPU programs)? It’s basically the halting problem, isn’t it?

    Reply
  2. Peter Scott

    It hasn’t been busted. It was only intended to block Ethereum mining. Which it still does. It was clear even before it shipped that it was only aimed at Ethereum.

    Reply
    • Sebastian Peak

      470.05

      Reply

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