How NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 Crypto Mining Limiter Was Bypassed With Ease

Now, there is more evidence that the inevitable has finally happened. The folks over at PC Watch claim to have cut through NVIDIA's ETH restrictions, and it is simple to achieve. According to the report [via Google Translate], "The specific method is not introduced here, but it does not require modification of the driver or BIOS, and anyone can easily do it with a little effort." 

Given that there doesn't appear to be any hardware, BIOS, or driver trickery here, this could be good news for crypto miners hopeful for an easy resolution to NVIDIA's cryptocurrency crackdown.

But that's not all; there is also confirmation from HardwareLuxx that an EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC using the stock BIOS in combination with NVIDIA's GeForce 470.05 driver also allowed ETH mining at its full hash rate. In this case, the GeForce RTX 3060 was mining at 41.213 MH/s. For reference, early testing with the NVIDIA crypto limiter on a Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 showed the card slowing to just 26 MH/s after a few minutes. The GeForce 470.05 driver has no such limitations.

This second report seems to back up that first, confirming there is no need for special modifications. All a user would seemingly need to do is install the correct drivers to unlock the limiter. The fact that a beta driver is used is probably of no consequence to miners, as they aren't performing any graphical operations and only need the card to mine.

As they say, "Where there's a will, there's a way." It was only a matter of time before tinkerers found a way around NVIDIA's ETH limiter. Fortunately for crypto miners, at least in the case of the EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC, it doesn't require much work. And if it's this easy to get around NVIDIA's limiter, things bode well for the upcoming GeForce RTX 3080 Ti which is also rumored to come with an ETH limiter.