Nvidia has always sought to innovate with every generation of its increasingly powerful graphics cards, with newer and boundary-pushing features being added to new GPUs year after year. While most of these feature upgrades such as RTX support and DLSS 2.0 are done in a spirit to give gamers a boost in performance, these GPUs have proven to be useful in a lot of other applications as well.
Cryptocurrency seems to be the talk of the hour recently, as miners can be found consistently scalping out a big chunk of available 3000 series GPUs to make more cash. This has resulted in more and more GPUs being snatched away from gamers' hands, and Nvidia has recently devised a solution to the problem with its series of dedicated CMP graphics cards.
Nvidia's CMP Graphics Card - What and Why?
Nvidia has recently introduced a CMP HX line of products, which are graphics cards aimed at professional miners. Currently, there are 4 video cards planned out to release - namely the Nvidia CMP 30HX, 40HX, 50HX, and 90HX. The 30HX and 40HX cards are targeted towards the entry-level, while the 50HX and 90HX are a little higher budget. The first 3 GPUs feature chips with Turing architectures, which were used in the RTX 2000 series cards. The highest-tier variant, the 90HX is rumored to be based on the Ampere architecture, featuring a similar chipset to the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090.
However, these CMP cards are geared towards crypto mining specifically, and thus have a few key differences. The most important one is that these are "headless" cards, which means that they don't feature output ports. Nvidia has also claimed that these cards would feature more airflow than the gaming cards, which would then allow these graphics cards to be densely packed in a mining rig without much performance loss.
In addition to this, Nvidia is also taking further steps to ensure that gaming GPUs don't get utilized by miners. RTX 3060 is said to include software driver code that halves the hash rate of the card when using it for mining. For the initiated, hashing rate plays a huge role in mining many popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, and halving the factor would drastically reduce the feasibility of utilizing those graphics cards.
Recent Community Outrage
Ever since the announcement of the CMP cards, fans and influencers alike have taken to the internet to share their concerns and disagreements towards Nvidia's decision to produce these cards. In Nvidia's defense, these cards feature defective older-generation chips, utilizing repurposed Ampere silicon that cannot be used for gaming. The company has claimed that it wouldn't impact the supply of gaming GPUs. However, the recent rumors that the 90HX would feature an Ampere chip that is currently experiencing stock shortages seem to be the root of the outrage.
Many influencers have started calling out Nvidia to just be catering to the demographic that would currently provide the most profits. Top that off with the hash rate restrictions being only on the mid-tier RTX 3060 cards tips the scales quite a bit against Nvidia. Since the CMP GPUs wouldn't have any value left after use or a potential crypto crash, these GPUs would mostly contribute to e-waste rather than ending in the hands of consumers looking to snag a cheap deal. Since there isn't any sales data for the CMP cards for now, it's very difficult to state whether Nvidia has solved its biggest problem for now or not.