NVIDIA's mining limitations on the RTX 3060 have suffered another fatal blow, as cryptocurrency miners have now succeeded in setting up mining farms using the graphics card.
First posted on Quasar Zone (via Tom's Hardware), one user created a 7-piece RTX 3060 setup with a hash rate of 337 MH/s. NVIDIA's hash rate restrictions are meant to limit the RTX 3060 to around 25 MH/s. In this setup, this hash rate for each GPU is roughly double that.
This comes after NVIDIA previously said the RTX 3060's limits "cannot be hacked," due to "a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS."
Here's how the miner did it.
RTX 3060 mining limits bypassed
There are two core components to this setup: a dummy HDMI and a PCIe riser.
The dummy HDMI sends a fake display signal from the driver into the monitor, so that it believes the GPU is being used normally for gaming, rather than mining Ethereum. As the driver also checks if the RTX 3060 is running on a PCIe 30 x8 slot, a PCIE 3.0 x16 riser cable is used to connect the GPUs to the motherboard, allowing the farm to function.
According to the user, this farm uses 1020W of power. At this rate, the farm should rake in $32.85 in profit each day based on calculations from CryptoCompare. With a price point of $479.99, the miner could make back the $3359 in just over 100 days. Given the current GPU shortage, however, it's likely the miner paid more for each GPU, meaning it will take significantly longer to recuperate the costs.
Why has NVIDIA added hash rate restrictions?
Shortly after announcing the RTX 3060, NVIDIA confirmed it would be restricting the GPUs mining capacity.
This decision was intended to deter miners from buying up NVIDIA's RTX 30 Series GPUs and put more of its products in the hands of gamers. Alongside this, NVIDIA revealed the NVIDIA CMP, a processor designed specifically for mining that is slated for release this year.
However, it seems that such restrictions were relatively futile. Crypto miners have now managed to bypass the limits and turn the RTX 3060 into a fully functioning mining GPU. We'll have to wait for NVIDIA's next move.
READ MORE: NVIDIA CMP 220HX could change crypto mining forever with 210MH/s
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