Nvidia released its GeForce 466.24 driver today, wherein the chipmaker also confirmed the exact arrival date of its improved anti-mining limiter. Listed as one of the driver's new features, the bullet point reads: "This driver updates the hash limiter for the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB and is required for product shipped starting mid-May."
The information from the GeForce driver lends credence to the previous rumor that Nvidia would deploy its revamped Ampere graphics cards in mid-May. Barring any complications, the new graphics card should be available in June the latest. The objective behind the revised Ampere silicon and the anti-mining limiter is to discourage cryptocurrency miners from ransacking the hardware shelves for Ampere graphics cards. Hence, more of them should get into gamers' hands instead.
The previous anti-mining limiter didn't hold up too well. Ironically, it wasn't hacked at all — Nvidia inadvertently released a Beta GeForce driver that rendered it useless. It'll be interesting to see how long this new anti-mining algorithm will last, assuming Nvidia doesn't give away the keys to the house again.
Enhancing the software is just the tip of the iceberg, though. Nvidia previously explained that its hash rate limiter involves a handshake between the driver, silicon and firmware. As an added measure, Nvidia allegedly switched the Ampere dies inside its current GeForce RTX 30-series products for new silicon with different PCI Device IDs.
Nvidia specifically references the GeForce RTX 3060 in its driver, so it's uncertain if the other Ampere SKUs will arrive at the same time frame. Word around town is that the chipmaker will give the treatment to its entire Ampere product stack, except for the GeForce RTX 3090. The flagship Ampere graphics card is reportedly being ignored due to its low return on investment. It stands to reason that the approaching GeForce RTX 3080 Ti will also arrive with Ethereum anti-mining measures in place.
