Latest GeForce Hotfix Driver Addresses Power Consumption Issues

Nvidia has released a new GeForce hotfix driver, version 526.61, to fix some very problematic issues surrounding, its previous Game Ready Driver, 526.47. 

There are a number of fixes in this release but the headline fix addresses a power consumption issue where the GPU can be stuck in its maximum performance state - P0, after exiting certain games. Other fixes are for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, where a corruption issue involving an involuntary screen flash can occur while playing the game. The final fix is for VTube Studio, to stop the app from crashing to a black screen.

If you are having these issues, installing Nvidia's hotfix is definitely worth your time. Alternatively, if this hotfix driver has stability issues in other areas, then reverting to the previous 522.25 driver can be a solution as well. Just beware that driver 526.61 and now this 526.47 hotfix driver are the only supported drivers for Nvidia's GDDR6X version of the 3060 Ti and 8GB version of the 3060 - so reverting to older drivers will not work in this case.

To quickly recap, Nvidia's 526.47 driver is a hotfix for Game Ready Driver 526.61, which brought several updates to GeForce users, including Game Ready support for two new titles Victoria 3 and WRC Generations - The FIA WRC Official Game, and again support for the new versions of Nvidia's RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3060.

The RTX 3060 Ti now has a new model with faster GDDR6X video memory, this will bring a big boost to the 3060 Ti's memory bandwidth, with a jump from GDDR6 14Gbps modules to 19Gbps GDDR6X modules. Resulting in a 35% jump in bandwidth from 448GB/s to 608GB/s. 3060 Ti GDDR6X cards are available now with AIB partners such Asus launching the cards 12 days ago.

Nvidia also released a nerfed version of the RTX 3060 with 8GB of VRAM instead of 12GB. This change also led to a memory bus width reduction to 128-bits wide, which cuts the memory bandwidth by 33% from 360GB/s to just 240GB/s. We don't know what availability or pricing looks like for this card, but it should land somewhere in-between the RTX 3050 and RTX 3060 12GB/s MSRP, to justify the nerfed memory specifications.