Should You Be Gaming or Crypto Mining with Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPUs

25 Feb
2021

Today, February 25th, marks the day that the newest mid-range GeForce gaming GPU from Nvidia is supposed to be released on the market and both crypto miners and gamers are eagerly anticipating this release. The release of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU with 12GB of GDDR6 video memory is definitely an interesting event, but should gamers and miners be so enthusiastic about the new model? Well, neither gamers, nor miners will most likely be so happy after what they will see today - you can expect to see high prices and limited availability and the main reason for that is Ethereum mining of course.

Up until very recently crypto miners were expecting the new GeForce RTX 3060 GPU to be the next big thing in mining and more specifically in Ethereum (ETH) mining as the latest crypto mining craze is focused there. The GeForce RTX 3060 was supposed to be delivering around 40 MH/s mining hashrate at stock settings and up to about 45 MH/s hashrate after some tweaking… and it does manage to deliver that, but there is also a catch. Nvidia has decided to enforce hashrate limitation for the RTX 3060 via their video drivers in order to drive away miners and have the GPU available to gamers. So, instead of 40–45 MH/s hashrate for Ethereum mining users will be getting just around half of that at 20–22 MH/s and that is definitely not as attractive for such a high-priced video card.

What Nvidia did wrong here is announcing this software-enforced hashrate reduction in half just a few days before they release the new GeForce RTX 3060 GPU and that did not have a positive effect for sure. Most crypto miners still may not be aware of the reduced hashrate for Ethereum and a lot of them have already ordered the new GPU for building mining rigs with it. And because of the high interest from miners the prices are high and availability still a problem, so gamers are once more not too happy that they cannot get their hands on the new video cards or if they can the price is artificially inflated because of the miners’ interest in it.

Nvidia should have announced their plans much earlier than they did, so that miners will be well aware of that by the release on the market and will not bother buying these GPUs and thus the price and availability could’ve been much better for gamers. Now, crypto miners will be buying RTX 3060 GPUs in bulk at high price just to find out that their actual performance for Ethereum mining really sucks and is only half of what they expected and they will feel cheated. As a result, these GPUs will most likely be finding their way back to distributors and retailers and these companies will have hard time selling them to gamers due to the high initial price they got their stock at expecting miners to buy it.

It is not all lost for miners that got their hands on the new GeForce RTX 3060 GPU expecting high Ethereum mining hahsrate. No, you will not be able to get 40–45 MH/s mining Ethereum with these for now, unless a workaround is quickly discovered, if possible at all. Furthermore, the limitation extends not only to the most popular for mining Ethereum, it covers the whole Ethash algorithm that ETH among other crypto coins also use. Not to mention that the artificial limitation for the half performance of the actual one is not bound to a specific coin or algorithm such as Ethereum or Ethash. In fact, may if not all memory-intensive algorithms that have a way of working similar to that of Ethash used by Ethereum could also be affected as Nvidia uses an algorithm to detect a specific behaviour for the GPU to know if it is mining or not.

It is already known that VertCoin (VTC) and its VertHash crypto algorithm is also affected and you will be getting similar drop in performance with the RTX 3060 GPU. It is not all lost however as RavenCoin (RVN) for instance does work normally for mining on the RTX 3060 and manages to deliver a good performance with over 20 MH/s hashrate with power optimized settings and with a bit of overclocking even around 22 MH/s with just 120W of power usage. Mining other crypto coins that use GPU-intensive Proof of Work mining algorithms will also most likely be problem free as far as getting the actual performance the RTX 3060 is capable of instead of the artificially reduced hashrate to half of what it is supposed to be.

There are some other currently profitable crypto coins available for mining that might be doing quite well on the new RTX 3060 GPU, besides Ravencoin and its KAWPOW algorithm of course. You should check out crypto coins that use algorithms like MTP, CuckooCycle, Cucatoo31, Cucatoo32, Cucatoo29s, Zhash, ProgPow, ZelHash, EquihashZero, ProgPowZ, BeamHashIII, X25X and others. That of course would need some testing first, but there is a good potential to still maximizing the performance that the GeForce RTX 3060 has for crypto mining even when you take out Ethereum from the picture. A lot of people however will probably not even bother trying out something different than mining Ethereum, especially people new to crypto mining that know only of Ethereum mining as a profitable thing to do.

You can never say that crypto and crypto mining is a boring thing to do, especially if you are not one of those people that just want the easiest way around in making money mining and are not really interested in cryptocurrencies… If you are reading this now, then you most likely aren’t one of these people anyway.

– More on the Limited Mining Hashrate of the GeForce RTX 3060…

Optimized Ethereum Mining Settings for Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 GPUs

24 Feb
2021

We’ve tested and played around with a couple of Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series of GPUs already, so that we can compile a list with the optimized mining settings for mining Ethereum with RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 GPUs. There could of course be some variation from card to card due to manufacturers making different versions with higher TDP levels and higher default clocks, but generally the settings below should work pretty good on any make and model from the above mentioned ones.

Some further tweaking could help in maximizing performance or optimizing power usage for a specific card, but the settings we give here should be a very good starting point for achieving optimal performance at reduced power usage when suing them for mining Ethereum (ETH). Do note that the settings below are intended for Ethereum mining and/or other memory intensive crypto algorithms such as VertHash for example, the settings are most likely not optimal for mining use where a GPU-intensive algorithm is in play!

Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti Optimized Mining Settings:
– TDP: 60% / 140W
– GPU: -500 MHz
– VRAM: +1100 MHz
– ETH Hashrate: 60 MH/s
– More on Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3060 Ti MASTER…

Nvidia RTX 3070 Optimized Mining Settings:
– TDP: 50% / 140W
– GPU: -500 MHz
– VRAM: +1100 MHz
– ETH Hashrate: 60 MH/s
– More on Palit GeForce RTX 3070 GameRock GPUs…

Nvidia RTX 3080 Optimized Mining Settings:
– TDP: 71% / 230W
– GPU: -300 MHz
– VRAM: +1000 MHz
– FANS: 100%
– ETH Hashrate: 97 MH/s
– More on ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 Video Cards…

Nvidia RTX 3090 Optimized Mining Settings:
– TDP: 73% / 300W
– GPU: -400 MHz
– VRAM: +1000 MHz
– FANS: 100%
– ETH Hashrate: 120 MH/s
– More on MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X 24G GPUs…

* The clocks cited above are for use with a tool such as MSI Afterburner, overclocking the video memory in other tools might require the use of a different number for the same amount of clock increase +2000 MHz for the memory instead of +1000! The TDP level can also be set in Watts instead of percent level from the default one, so we also cited an estimated power usage in Watts as well.

An important tip especially for Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 GPUs is to always run their cooling fans on 100% while mining Ethereum, even though the GPU temperature may be low. The reason for that is to help keep the memory chips cooler, because the GDDR6X memory these GPUs use get pretty hot while mining Ethereum specifically and you need to keep it as cool as possible. If it gets too hot you may experience drop in mining performance, resulting in lower hashrate and, so make sure you monitor the operating temperatures of GDDR6X memory you can do so with the useful free tool HWiNFO. With that software tool and more specifically the latest beta version it has you can also monitor the GPU HotSpot Temperature for Nvidia GPUs as a useful tool to diagnose possible cooling issues on GPUs that are unstable when mining.

If you manage to keep the memory temperature lower you might even push the video memory on RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 GPUs to +1100 MHs for some extra performance boost, though in our experience high operating temperatures and high memory frequency does not do well together. The GDDR6 memory used on RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070 GPUs does not get so hot and can easily handle +1100 MHz for the video memory in order to reach 60 MH/s hashrate mining Ethereum. It is best to try and see what your particular RTX GPUs can handle and not to end them running at the absolute maximum possible operating frequency as this may cause instability with a slight change in the ambient temperature.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 is Indeed Limited for Crypto Mining

22 Feb
2021

It seems that Nvidia did manage to keep their promise to make the new GeForce RTX 3060 GPU limited for crypto mining and thus widely available for gamers as with reduced performance it will not be attractive for miners. We got some sound information regarding the actual performance for mining use for the new GeForce RTX 3060 that is expected to be available starting February 25th or in just a few days. According to Nvidia the new video drivers for the RTX 3060 GPUs are designed to detect specific attributes of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm, and will limit the hashrate, or cryptocurrency mining performance to half of what they will normally do. Essentially you will be getting half the hashrate you normally would if the card is running at full performance meaning that instead of the expected hashrate for RTX 3060 in the range of 40-45 MH/s for Ethereum with stock settings and optimized, so with the drivers cutting that in half we were expecting only 20-22.5 MH/s.

It seems that the reality is not that far off from what we were expecting with an MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X video card apparently starting up with a hashrarte of about 41 MH/s for Ethereum mining with stock settings with 100% TDP. With fans running at automatic settings the MSI GPU runs at around 58% fans and 51 degrees Celsius temperature for the GPU with 117W of power usage. When the miner starts the hashrate quickly drops from 41 to about 21 MH/s, so pretty much in half and even if you close the miner and start it again it starts with the lower hashrate. You need to reboot the PC and then when you run the miner for Ethereum for the first time it will start at 41 MH/s again, but quickly drop that in half again.

With reduced TDP and GPU frequency and overclocked video memory to +1000 MHz in MSI Afterburner the hashrate starts at 45-46 MH/s, but then again very shortly it drops down to about 25 MH/s or once more it is cut in half. So, pretty much what we expected even before we got a confirmation on the actual hashrate that the RTX 3060 GPUs are capable of, though cut in half by the Nvidia driver as a means to drive away crypto miners from that particular video card and also for Nvidia to sell their new line of professional crypto mining products to miners – the Nvidia CMP HX Dedicated Crypto Mining GPUs.

The good news is that already released Nvidia RTX 30 Series GPUs are not affected by this limitation, so only the new RTX 3060 will be limited in half in terms of mining performance. Or to be more specific limited to half Ethereum mining performance by the drivers as apparently other mining algorithms are not affected like ETH is. This means that although the RTX 3060 may not be a popular option for Ethereum mining it could still be a good option for mining other crypto currencies such as Ravencоin (RVN) or VertCoin (VTC).

A quick update regarding the situation with VertCoin (VTC) mining on the new RTX 3060 GPUs… it seems that the VertHash algorithm is also affected from the half hashrate drop that Ethash is experiencing, probably other memory0intensive crypto mining algorithms will be affected as well. Ravencoin’s (RVN) use of KAWPOW and probably ProgPOW as well do not seem to be suffering from reduced hashrate like Ethash and VertHash though, you should be getting 21 MH/s or more for RVN mining. So, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 is not fully limited for mining use, but some of the most profitable mining algorithms at the moment are apparently affected from this! Although the above information was initially verified to be true for Windows mining, it seems that under Linux with an OS like SimpleMining (SMOS) the situation with the limited hashrate on the RTX 3060 is also the same and you get half the hashrate mining Ethereum.

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