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Nvidia announces processors specifically for cryptocurrency mining

In late 2020 Nvidia began the process of releasing its RTX 30 series GPUs following announcements earlier in the year. Since the launch PC builders have been struggling to get their hands on the GPUs.

The reasons for this are two-fold. For one, demand for the cards is high so as soon as they are available they are scooped up. The second reason you might find it hard to find a new GPU is cryptocurrency miners.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 boast a hash rate of 121MH/s and 98MH/s respectively, a substantial boost compared to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti which only hit 49MH/s.

In a sector where time is quite literally money, the latest Nvidia GPUs are king.

This trend of GPU shortages for gamers due to miners buying the cards was set to continue with the launch of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 later this month but Nvidia has drawn a line in the sand.

That line is something Nvidia calls a CMP or cryptocurrency mining processor.

“CMP products — which don’t do graphics — are sold through authorized partners and optimized for the best mining performance and efficiency. They don’t meet the specifications required of a GeForce GPU and, thus, don’t impact the availability of GeForce GPUs to gamers,” Nvidia wrote in a blog.

“For instance, CMP lacks display outputs, enabling improved airflow while mining so they can be more densely packed. CMPs also have a lower peak core voltage and frequency, which improves mining power efficiency,” the firm continued.

Those partners Nvidia mentions include ASUS, Colorful, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, Palit, and PC Partner.

In addition to the CMP, the forthcoming GeForce RTX 3060 will have its Ethereum hash rate cut in half. The drivers for this GPU will reportedly be able to detect “specific attributes of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm” and limit the hash rate as a result.

The CMP lineup

The CMP range will have four variants available namely the 30HX, 40HX, 50HX and 90HX. You can see the specs for these cards below.

30HX 40HX 50HX 90HX
Ethereum Hash Rate 26MH/s 36MH/s 45MH/s 86MH/s
Rated Power 125W 185W 250W 320W
Power connectors 1 x 8-pin 1 x 8-pin 2 x 8-pin 2 x 8-pin
Memory 6GB 8GB 10GB 10GB
Availability Q1 Q1 Q2 Q2

Now, with supply shortages on the go one might be worried that introducing a new batch of cards to the mix might hamper supply chains even more.

Nvidia told The Verge that this isn’t the case.

“The chips used for CMP could not meet the specifications of GeForce and don’t impact overall GeForce capacity or availability,” a spokesperson told the publication.

The chips used here could be older designs or they could be a new design we haven’t seen before. That having been said we don’t see Nvidia designing completely new silicon for the purpose of keeping miners away from GPUs.

We’ll just have to wait until the cards are in the wild to see what’s inside.

The other question that many are asking, ourselves included, is whether these CMPs will have the desired effect.

As mentioned, the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 have incredible hash rates compared to these CMP cards and those GPUs won’t have their hash rates nerfed by drivers.

For one, nerfing drivers now would be a fools errand as there are and have been drivers in the wild for ages now. An update would simply see cryptocurrency miners leaving their rigs as is.

Nvidia also hasn’t released pricing which is going to be the key to this product’s success or failure. Without display functionality, these CMPs can’t be sold on to gamers second hand so they are going to have to be incredibly cheap. And with the aforementioned supply chain problems, cheap might not be a possibility.

To our mind, the launch of CMPs feels like a PR move while Nvidia prepares something a bit more robust and performance focused for miners.

Whether this will see more RTX 3060s reach gamers remains to be seen but we’re cautious about getting too excited just yet.

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