Quote:Nvidia's first attempt at dissuading miners from using its hardware was a spectacular failure. However, it seems to have learned a thing or two from the debacle. The hash rate limiter Nvidia baked into the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is working as intended. A miner seems to have put the card through the paces (via @_Leak_VN on Twitter); the results were quite refreshing.

Starting with Ethereum, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti's hash rate hovers around the 57MH/s range at stock speeds. This is nearly half of the RTX 3090's 120MH/s capacity. Even the lower-specced GeForce RTX 3080 can mine at around 85MH/s. The miner tried to use the Nvidia drivers that unlocked the hash rate limiter on the RTX 3060, but that didn't work either. It isn't surprising, given that the RTX 3080 Ti uses an entirely different GPU that didn't technically exist back then. However, Nvidia's efforts don't matter now, as Ethereum will soon move to a proof-of-stake model. At the very least, gamers will be able to find a deluge of hardware on used markets.

Interestingly enough, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti's hash rate limiter also affects some lesser-known Altcoins, such as Ethereum Classic, Ergo, and RavenCoin. The only known cryptocurrency that appears to be unaffected so far is ConFlux. Unfortunately, we don't know if the miner in question tried any known workarounds. So Prima facie, Nvidia's hash rate limiter seems to be ironclad this time around. Whether or not it helps gamers secure more graphics cards for themselves remains to be seen.