Nvidia’s 30-Series graphics cards have been hugely popular for both gamers and cryptocurrency miners since launch, making it extremely difficult for Nvidia to keep up with stock.
Now Nvidia is intervening by declaring “GeForce Is Made for Gaming” and limiting the RTX 3060‘s hash rate. The graphics card’s driver software will reportedly detect “specific attributes of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm” and reduce the mining efficiency by around 50%. Nvidia hopes such a strategy should prevent miners from hoovering up all of the graphics cards, making it easier for gamers to finally get their hands on a 30-Seires GPU. However, with the PS5 and Xbox Series X seeing similar stock shortages, such a tactic will do little to stop scalpers flogging units online at inflated prices. It’s not all bad news for cryptocurrency miners, as Nvidia also announced it will be launching the Nvidia CMP HX, which is a ‘dedicated GPU for professional mining’. These new GPUs won’t be capable of playing games, or even feature a display output, but will see an optimised mining performance. Nvidia also suggests the lower peak core voltage and frequency will improve the efficiency of mining so you don’t need to worry too much about the mounting electricity costs. 
The first two Nvidia CMP HX GPUs will be available from Q1 2022, with two even more powerful variants following in Q2. There are no pricing details at the time of writing, but expect them to represent better value than the GeForce counterparts if cryptocurrency mining is your sole priority.
This is great new for both gamers and miners, as it should hopefully make the RTX 3060 graphics card more obtainable, while also providing miners with a more efficient alternative. But we can only wait and see if Nvidia’s plan is as good in practice as it looks on paper.
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