NVIDIA is poised to relaunch its entire lineup of GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards with the same cryptocurrency mining limiter that was implemented into the GeForce RTX 3060 to reduce its hash rates by around 50 percent. The speculation stems from an article published at 3DCenter.org, which questioned whether green team might be contemplating a full Ampere refresh with anti-mining features after kopite7kimi published a tweet claiming that the specifications and/or device IDs of current models would be EOLed. kopite7kimi later clarified that while it’d be unlikely for NVIDIA to change the specifications of the current GeForce RTX 30 Series, there is a possibility that the graphics cards could be rebranded with new SKUs.
“Speculatively, there could be a ‘5’ series – GeForce RTX 3065 Ti, GeForce RTX 3075, GeForce RTX 3085 and GeForce RTX 3095 – or a ‘SUPER’ series with an identical purpose,” 3DCenter.org theorized. “nVidia could also decide on completely different names or even different technical data. The latter would give more opportunities in a duel with AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 series [but] place greater demands on the graphics card manufacturers.”
“It would certainly be easier for the graphics card manufacturer if nVidia simply relabeled the GeForce RTX 3080 as ‘GeForce RTX 3085’ or ‘GeForce RTX 3080 Super’ – all that is needed is graphics chips with new firmware including a mining brake, but not the graphics board be affected and can be used (saving time and money).”
A revised Ampere portfolio comprising GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards with neutered cryptomining capabilities would presumably make it easier for gamers and other traditional enthusiasts to get their hands on one. NVIDIA has also announced a new GPU lineup dedicated to cryptomining (CMP, or Cryptocurrency Mining Processor), which should tempt miners away from GeForce models to some degree. There’s still scalping to worry about, however.
Jensen will start a battle against mining.
— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) January 28, 2021
Thanks, I should explain that. 🤔
— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) February 19, 2021
Maybe we won't see new specs, but every old spec will have a new sku. That is possible.