Ever considered making a little money with your graphics card on the side? Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 is certainly powerful enough to do so—only Nvidia are keen that their cards are used for gaming and not mining.
This focus on gaming leads to hashrate limiting, a process whereby the card detects that it is being used to mine cryptocurrency and slows right down to make the activity pointless.
“It only makes sense,” Nvidia said, referring to hashrate limiting in their blog on Feb 21st. They are keen that graphics cards designed for gaming get in the hands of gamers. Nvidia doesn’t want all the new cards to be snapped up by the crypto mining community, leading to a shortage when it comes to their real purpose.
Only now there’s a problem. With their 470.05 drivers, Nvidia removed the hashrate limiter before accidentally making the drivers public. With the 470.05 drivers, the card is running at full power when it comes to crypto mining. The drivers have since been removed from Nvidia’s own website but not before they made it onto file-sharing sites and subsequently into the hands of miners.
What is worth noting is that future cards will be limited again and it is just the current batch of recently manufactured cards that are both limited and unlockable with driver 470.05. Future cards will have different software that driver 470.05 won’t unlock.
This is great news for those already in possession of a GeForce RTX 3060. A little research and a few downloads mean you can leave your PC running when you are not using it, earning you a few dollars every day.
It’s bad news for people who are looking to get one. No doubt, the demand for RTX 3060 cards will go up, making an already tight supply even tighter. After all, who doesn’t want a graphics card that can pay for itself in a few months and then just sit there making you money while you sleep?
