For anyone who's currently thinking about upgrading their current system with the latest Nvidia or AMD GPU, right now is a tumultuous time to be a PC gamer. With stock levels at an all-time low and shortages expected to go on until maybe 2023, people are finding it near impossible to get hold of any new hardware. Much of the blame lies with cryptominers who have been buying up stock in large quantities and leaving everyone else stranded. This likely explains why Nvidia may be introducing mining limiters to future products.
In a recent report, Nvidia could potentially add stricter limits to its up-and-coming graphics cards, restricting how much they can be used for mining online currencies such as bitcoin. More specifically, if the rumors turn out to be true, the limiters will likely be built into the RTX 3080 card.
The purpose behind these restrictions is to put miners off bulk buying graphics cards for the sole purpose of cryptomining, which means anyone who wants a new GPU for gaming is finding themselves struggling to get hold of any hardware. The situation has got to the point where speculations have been doing the rounds that Nvidia could be re-launching its GTX 1080 Ti to plug the gap in the market, a card that is now more than four-years-old at this point.
This is also not the first time Nvidia has spoken about introducing limiters to its products. At the beginning of March, the company said it may start restricting future GPUs as a standard practice to make them more difficult to use for mining Ethereum, specifically. But in the meantime, it released drivers for its current range of graphics cards with similar limiting features, all with the express purpose of stopping people from hoarding graphics cards for mining whilst gamers are left twiddling their thumbs.
While it's only rumors at this stage, it's arguably understandable why Nvidia would want to limit what its new GPUs can do in terms of mining cryptocurrency. With graphics cards being made specifically for mining, it seems as though there's no need for miners to get hold of standard gaming hardware anyway. It feels as though the company is wanting to even the playing field, particularly for gamers who have been struggling to get their hands on any new graphics cards. So far there doesn't seem to be any word about whether AMD will follow in its rival's footsteps and start limiting products from its own range.
Source: PC GamesN