Archive for the ‘Tests and Reviews’ Category

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Comes With Reduced Mining Hashrate Too

7, Jun 2021

Just like the more recently released Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 that came with mining hashrate limiter enforced by Nvidia, the new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti also came out “with a reduced Ethereum hash rate” making them less desirable for miners. The just released Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is almost equivalent in terms of specifications to an RTX 3090 GPU, but with half the video memory, so only 12GB GDDR6X instead of the full 24GB. For the new RTX 3080 Ti in terms of CUDA cores there is a very slight reduction and memory clocks too, but the memory bus remains 384-bit, so in theory performance wise it should be very similar to an RTX 3090 and that goes not only for mining, but for gaming as well. There is the Ethereum hashrate limiter however that messes things up a bit for miners, but not for gamers and the reduced in half video memory should also be making it more affordable and more available to gamers compared to RTX 3080… in theory.

Trying to mine Ethereum (ETH) at stock settings for the RTX 3080 Ti shows a starting hashrate at about 100 MH/s that quickly drops down to around 53-55 MH/s with the default setting due to the enforced hashrate limiter for mining ETH by Nvidia. The default settings for the RTX 3080 Ti from Palit/Gainward we have tried give us 325W of power usage as reported by the miner. And although Nvidia talks about limiting Ethereum mining hahsrate other similar memory intensive mining algorithms may also be affected as well as we have seen already with the RTX 3060 GPUs that were the first to introduce the hashrate limiting solution by Nvidia.

Going for optimized settings to reduce power consumption for 265W and have higher hashrate (if there was no hashrate limiter in play) give us slightly lower starting hashrate a bit below 100 MH/s, but it drops down to around 60 MH/s and not below that like with stock settings. So, performance wise mining Ethereum (if there was no artificial hashrate limiter) the RTX 3080 Ti should’ve been normally capable of delivering the same hashrate as an RTX 3090 does currently. Something around 100 MH/s with stock settings and about 120 MH/s with clocked memory and reduced power usage could’ve been possible, but instead we are getting just around half of that in reality.

Now, Nvidia is talking about Ethereum mining hashrate limiter, though some other memory intensive crypto mining algorithms might also be affected as we already know, but there are still other algorithms that will be delivering the full hashrate without any artificial limiters in play. Here is an example with RavenCoin (RVN) mining on the RTX 3080 Ti where the hashrate is not being artificially reduced, you will be getting about 48 MH/s hashrate for KawPoW with the stock settings. And although this will make mining RVN more profitable than ETH on this particular GPU, if the artificial ETH hashrate limiter was not present mining ETH would’ve been more profitable. So, the new Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is not going to be an attractive option for Ethereum miners, though some other crypto miners not into ETH might be interested, but we are seeing starting prices for the Ti as for the non-Ti version where available. And unlike miners, gamers will not be very happy to buy at these inflated prices, do not forget however that gamers will be getting performance very close to that of the much higher priced (for the moment) RTX 3090 GPUs.

The New Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti that should also be hitting the market in a few days from now is also going to offer a nice upgrade in terms of hardware specs over the older RTX 3070 GPU, but just like the RTX 3080 Ti it will also come with artificial Ethereum hashrate limiter. The most notable upgrade for the new RTX3 070 Ti over the old non-Ti model is the new faster GDDR6X memory which should in theory increase the mining performance for memory intensive algorithm, but due to the Nvidia hashrate limiter Ethereum mining will not be benefiting much and in fact we expect to see lower hashrate than on RTX 3070 thanks to the limiter in play. Again, some other memory intensive algorithms besides Ethash might be affected as well, though not all, and GPU intensive mining will probably not suffer and the performance there should be slightly better than on RTX 3070.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 With Full Unrestricted ETH Mining Hashrate, But Only With Single GPU in a Gaming PC

15, Mar 2021

It seems that a workaround to the artificially enforced hashrate limiter for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPUs mining Ethereum has been discovered and it is pretty simple apparently. You just need to use the developer driver version 470.05 where there is apparently no hashrate limiting being applied, unlike with the regular GeForce video driver that you would normally download for these video cards. This has been reported by some users and we can confirm that it is indeed working and you can get the full mining hashrate for Ethereum with this driver, however there is still a catch… read on below with the latest updates on what and how it works.However, if you are fond of online games, check out https://sickodds.com/lol.

We are getting 47 MH/s Ethash mining hashrate using the Nvidia developer driver version 470.05 with PhoenixMiner mining Ethereum, with the following settings in MSI Afterburner: 70% TDP, -500 MHz GPU, +1000 MHz video memory. You can check what performance does a Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition manage to provide you with with the limited hashrate regular drivers, though the limit is not for all crypto algorithms, but for memory-intensive ones such as Ethash and VertHash for instance.

The drawback is that the Nvidia developer driver version 470.05 does require you to register on the Nvidia website as developer and is currently still available for Windows only, but hey, it works and you get the full mining hashrate mining Ethereum and other algorithms such as Verthash used by Vertcoin that apparently also suffered from the hashrate limitation introduced by Nvidia for the RTX 3060. For VTC mining with the above settings the hashrate we are getting is around 810 KH/s instead of the reduced in half sub-400 with the regular driver.

Update: It seems that this “workaround” is still somewhat limited to just when using a single RTX 3060 GPU connected to a monitor, with more GPUs in a mining rig it does not seem to work for full hashrate on all of the video cards… If you do not have the hardware you can look for personal loans for bad credit and use it to buy the equipment that you need. When looking for help to apply for a loan and will match you to the best deal offered based on your application, you can visit a site similar to https://sunnyloansuk.co.uk/same-day-loans-direct-lender/ for more info!

Further researching into the matter with a single RTX 3060 GPU working with unrestricted hashrate, while multiple ones not working has revealed that there seem to be some conditions met. Having a single RTX 3060 GPU connected on a ь8/x16 PCI-E slot (no extenders) and a monitor connected to it. This makes us believe that Nvidia did not in fact forget to implement the protection in the latest developer driver 370.05, but has instead further improved their protection mechanism instead. What they could’ve done is to detect that you are using a single video card in a gaming setup and then no limitations, even for mining will be enforced, while if more GPUs on a slower PCI-E interface are present then this is a mining rig and the hashrate will be reduced.

– To download the Nvidia developer driver version 470.05 (free registration required)…

Mining Performance of Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition

26, Feb 2021

The new Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 video cards are here and we managed to buy one quickly while there was some stock left to do some mining benchmarks and tests. We already know that mining performance for the RTX 3060 is limited for Ethereum, but what else can you mine with the full performance is something that we also wanted to find out for sure. As we have predicted availability and pricing of the RTX 3060 is off the charts as people expected these GPUs to be the sweet spot for mining Ethereum – high hashrate and low price. Neither of these did turn out to be true however and stock availability is low, so buying even just one of these new GPUs was pretty hard and we had to pre-order it and buy it bundled with a motherboard just to get our hands on it for testing.

Specifications wise – nothing unexpected. We already knew what to expect from the RTX 3060 GPUs in terms of hardware and GPU and VRAM specs. We also though we knew what to expect from them in terms of performance, but then Nvidia suddenly surprised us with their plans a couple of days ago. And although they are saying that they want to have the RTX 3060 available for gamers, what they are meaning is that they want to sell their new Nvidia CMP HX Dedicated Crypto Mining GPUs to miners instead of RTX 3060. In the end they will probably not succeed very well with either for a number of reasons…

When we run Phoenixminer on the ASUS RTX 3060 GPU with 70% TDP and +1000 MHz video memory in MSI Afterburner we are getting almost 46 MH/s hashrate for Ethereum, however the protective mechanism quickly kicks in and drops that to about 23-24 MH/s. Mining Ehtereum with 46 MH/s at just about 120W of power usage is probably some miner’s wet dream for a mining GPU, but unfortunately that is not going to happen at least for the moment. And it is not only affecting Ethereum mining, Ethereum Classic also gets the half hashrate reduction (it is very similar in terms of algorithm), even Vertcoin’s VertHash algorithm is affected and possibly other memory-intensive algorithms as well.

Affected Algorithms Performance:
– Ethereum – Ethash algorithm – 45 -> 23 MH/s
– VertCoin – Verthash algorithm – 850 -> 370 KH/s
– Ethereum Classic – Etchash algorithm – 47 -> 25 MH/s

All is not lost however as there are some profitable crypto algorithms that are not affected by the forced half hashrate for mining from Nvidia, so the RTX 3060 is still usable and performing quite well in some other popular algorithms…

Unaffected Algorithms Performance:
– Ravencoin – KAWPOW algorithm – 22 MH/s
– Veil – ProgPoW algorithm – 20.8 MH/s
– BitCash – X25X algorithm – 4.2 MH/s
– Conflux – Octopus algorithm – 42 MH/s
– Beam – BeamHashIII algorithm – 22.5 MH/s
– Aeternity – CuckooCycle algorithm – 6.6 G/s
– Grin – Cuckatoo32 algorithm – 0.39 G/s
– ZEL – Zelhash algorithm – 33.6 Sol/s
– Firo (XZC) – MTP algorithm – 2.4 MH/s

So, while the RTX 3060 may not be the best option for Ethereum mining, it can still perform quite well in some other mining algorithms, so not a total waste of money as far as crypto mining is concerned. If you are only focusing on Ethereum mining however, then you might want to think twice and leave the RTX 3060 to other miners or gamers instead.

– What performance other Nvidia RTX 30 Series GPU deliver for Ethereum…


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