NVIDIA will replace the RTX 3060 SKUs with a dedicated and limited mining GPU. The GPU that will be shipped to the on-board partners will be replaced is GA106-302.
Some time ago, NVIDIA began adding ETH mining restrictions to the GeForce RTX 3060. It was said to be impenetrable and unbreakable. However, no one suspected (including NVIDIA) that it had accidentally released a driver for the CUDA / SWL version, the Beta 470.05 driver, without restrictions on ETH operation. NVIDIA will relaunch with a new version of the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, once again suppressing ETH mining behavior.
According to the Taiwanese graphics card manufacturer, NVIDIA discontinued the old version of GeForce RTX 3060 with the GA106-300 GPU chip and replaced it with a new GA106-302 GPU chip. Because the NVIDIA driver for CUDA on SWL 470.05 Beta does not have GA106-302 data, the old driver will be completely invalid. At the same time, NVIDIA has added even more mechanisms to the GA106-302 GPU to ensure that the new batch of GeForce RTX 3060 can stop ETH extraction. NVIDIA pointed out that the GeForce RTX 3060 computing power limit is based on the GPU, driver and VBIOS handshake. When the user is detected to perform the Hash operation, it will force the GPU operation to slow down by 50%, absorbing the last lesson. The industry said that the current GeForce RTX 3060 on the market is still the old GA106-300 GPU chip and expects the GA106-302 GPU to be delivered in May. Once they have been mixed in the market, end users will not be able to see if the RTX 3060 purchased is a new version or an old version until they have purchased one.
We wouldn’t be surprised if NVIDIA does this with the entire RTX 3000 product line.
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