Refreshed GPUs could bring cryptocurrency mining limiter to entire Nvidia RTX 30-series

News
By published

Maybe a full house for cracking down on cryptocurrency mining.

Racks of graphics cards being used for cryptocurrency mining
(Image credit: NiseriN, Getty Images)

Following rumours of a reinvigorated attempt at limiting Ethereum mining on the RTX 3060 12GB by Nvidia, further speculation points to yet more Ampere GPU variants coming in to spoil the fun of cryptocurrency miners everywhere.

Board walk

(Image credit: MSI)

Best gaming motherboard: the best boards around
Best AMD motherboard: your new Ryzen's new home

If you've been keeping up with the whole ordeal, you'll be aware that Nvidia has been trying every way possible to lure cryptominers away from gaming GPUs. Not only has the company been readying mining-focused CMP cards to divert demand away from our precious gaming cards, mining limiters—first found in the RTX 3060—are another potential solution Nvidia has been exploring.

The first of these limiters were circumvented in a very short period of time, thanks to Nvidia's 470.05 dev drivers accidentally allowing cryptominers to bypass them. Rumours suggest that, in order to combat this, a possible resurrection of the restrictive tech through new GA106-302 GPUs could be hitting RTX 3060s. This would replace the GA106-300-A1 GPU in newer models.

Now, though, there's talk of limiters beginning to seep into the design of more powerful Ampere GPU models, as known Twitter leaker kopite7kimi hints that there may be more of these updated variants coming to the rest of the 30-series GPU lineup.

The tweet indicates a potential updates to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 3080, with its mention of GA102-302/202, as well as the RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti alike, with potential GA104-302/202 variants to boot. 

That would be a full house, and if there's any weight to the claims we could be seeing cryptocurrency miners sulking off with their tails between their legs—potentially leaving more GPUs for us gamers to play with in the process.

Katie Wickens
Katie Wickens
Hardware Writer

Having been obsessed with game mechanics, computers and graphics for three decades, Katie took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni and has been writing about digital games, tabletop games and gaming technology for over five years since. She can be found facilitating board game design workshops and optimising everything in her path.