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When the value of cryptocurrencies skyrocketed in 2017, it created a huge shortage of graphics cards, as the parallel processing capabilities of a graphics card make it ideal for mining cryptocurrencies like Ethereum (but not bitcoin). This generated an unexpected financial profit for the major video card manufacturers, but it also angered the players, the companies’ traditional customers.
In the past few months, cryptocurrencies have once again risen to record levels, which has sparked yet another rise in video card prices. So when Nvidia launched its RTX 3060 video card last month, the company deliberately limited the card’s ability to mine cryptocurrency. Our quick and dirty test suggested that Nvidia reduced the board’s mining capacity in half. The hope was that the miners would leave the card alone, ensuring that some of them remain available for the gaming market.
Unfortunately, the mining limitation appears to have been implemented in the software. And Nvidia accidentally released a new driver that unlocked the mining capability of the 3060. Nvidia acknowledged the error in a statement to The Verge.
“A developer driver inadvertently included code used for internal development that removes the hash rate limiter in the RTX 3060 in some configurations,” admitted Nvidia.
As Verge notes, Nvidia had already boasted of the robustness of the mining limitation. Last month, Nvidia spokesman Bryan Del Rizzo tweeted that there was a “secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents the hash rate limiter from being removed.”
Nvidia quickly removed the driver from its website, but that’s not the kind of thing the company can remove. Now that the driver is free, we can expect it to circulate online indefinitely. Which means that anyone who has an RTX 3060 and wants to convert it to mining will be able to do so.