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Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 goes out today, new Linux driver released

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NVIDIA will today release the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card as their entry-level next generation Ampere, plus they have a new Linux driver release to go with it.

On the driver side the 460.56 release is already live with support added in for the GeForce RTX 3060. Not only that though this release also has the following fixes:

  • Fixed a bug with indexed ray payloads in Vulkan.
  • Fixed a bug where calls to vkCreateDevice could fail on Ampere GPUs when ray tracing extensions were enabled and the application was running within the Steam Linux Runtime.
  • Fixed a regression that could cause display corruption when using a scaled resolution after resuming from power management suspend.

For the release of the hardware, it's probably going to be another "paper launch" as we fully expect stock of the GeForce RTX 3060 from NVIDIA to sell out pretty darn quickly just like all the other releases have done so. Thanks in part to high demand and scalpers continuing to buy up as much as they can to sell on for a profit - amongst other things. However, NVIDIA are trying to cut down on crypto miners using standard GPUs by limiting the hash rate of the cards through a mix of a "secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter" (source) plus dedicated cards for miners. So hopefully in future we will see more cards available for standard consumers and gamers.

Here's a reminder of the specifications stacked up against the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti:

    GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060
GPU Engine Specs: NVIDIA CUDA® Cores 4864 3584
  Boost Clock (GHz) 1.67 1.78
  Base Clock (GHz) 1.41 1.32
Memory Specs: Standard Memory Config 8 GB GDDR6 12 GB GDDR6
  Memory Interface Width 256-bit 192-bit
Technology Support: Ray Tracing Cores 2nd Generation 2nd Generation
  Tensor Cores 3rd Generation 3rd Generation
  NVIDIA Architecture Ampere Ampere
  Vulkan RT API, OpenGL 4.6 Yes Yes
  HDMI 2.1 Yes Yes
  DisplayPort 1.4a Yes Yes
  NVIDIA Encoder 7th Generation 7th Generation
  NVIDIA Decoder 5th Generation 5th Generation
Thermal and Power Specs: Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) 93 93
  Graphics Card Power (W) 200 170
  Required System Power (W) (2) 600 550

Yes that's correct, the standard model of the 3060 has more VRAM.

The GeForce RTX 3060 goes live for sale at around 5PM UTC / 9AM PST. Exact pricing is yet to be confirmed with NVIDIA previously stating they should start around $329

Will you be looking to get one? Let us know in the comments what you think to this latest card from NVIDIA.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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18 comments
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Bumadar Feb 25, 2021
Yup, they should stop releasing cards till they can deliver cards, but hey its news and people see the name nvidia so I guess marketing is happy
3zekiel Feb 25, 2021
Quoting: BumadarYup, they should stop releasing cards till they can deliver cards, but hey its news and people see the name nvidia so I guess marketing is happy

Well, at least according to themselves, they still delivered a fair number of card. But miners and scalpers got the lot of them ...
Also, since these cards are shaved off version of the other cards (defectuous cores basically) then it does not remove any stocks, quite the contrary. So might as well release what they have. Hopefully the situation will sort itself out in the coming months. For what it's worth, Jim Ryan from Playstation expects stuff to get better for the second half of the year. Which seem reasonable as vaccines should help subdue the crisis. And by that time, more and more people who want to have new console/gpus should have them, thus hopefully reducing demand a bit. Also the mining bubble might have crashed again by then.


Last edited by 3zekiel on 27 February 2021 at 11:08 am UTC
Pikolo Feb 25, 2021
QuoteHowever, NVIDIA are trying to cut down on crypto miners using standard GPUs by limiting the hash rate of the cards through a mix of a "secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter" (source) plus dedicated cards for miners. So hopefully in future we will see more cards available for standard consumers and gamers.
Wrong. Nvidia are highlighting why closed source software cannot be trusted, by releasing a driver that will purposefully kneecap performance to promote market segmentation. The fact they're making a line of GPUs specifically for mining is proof enough it has nothing to do with consumer GPU availability. This will have a deliberate, unspoken side effect of making it even harder for the open source nouveau drivers to support the card in any capacity. Even if you don't care about the increased corporate control angle, there is another one:

We don't know how often the mining detector will have false positive detections, massively decreasing the performance of a game because its shaders look similar to mining. You might be able to get through to Nvidia if you're a massive studio, but indie games will fall victim to this, with no recourse except screaming on Twitter. It's basically a matter of time.


TLDR: Don't give Nvidia positive PR for showing off how anticonsumer they are.


Last edited by Pikolo on 25 February 2021 at 4:33 pm UTC
Mohandevir Feb 25, 2021
Newegg Canada... When the RTX 3060 posts appeared, after a 5 mins 404 error... Sold Out. Yeah right!
on_en_a_gros Feb 25, 2021
Out of curiosity,I just looked the price, it goes from 459€ to 649€. It would be interesting to see some benchmark, but I don't think that the investment is worth the performance.
gabber Feb 26, 2021
I don't get why people are happy about this castration for mining. As others mentioned before: NVidia is at the same time releasing dedicated mining cards!

- Availability will not improve
- Mining will not stop

All that's happening is: You cannot use your expensive Gaming GPU for mining if you want to.

But loosing liberties seems to be the rage these days ..
furaxhornyx Feb 26, 2021
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Out of curiosity, I clicked on the link about dedicated cards for mining.

Big title on the page:
QuoteNVIDIA CMP HX
Dedicated GPU for Professional Mining

Is "professional mining" a real thing ?
gabber Feb 26, 2021
Quoting: furaxhornyxOut of curiosity, I clicked on the link about dedicated cards for mining.

Big title on the page:
QuoteNVIDIA CMP HX
Dedicated GPU for Professional Mining

Is "professional mining" a real thing ?

Current Ethereum Hashrate: 435 TH/s
Income from that Hashrate: 566M$/month

That's without energy cost, which eats around 25% if you are paying "normal" prices. And much (~5%) less if you have an industry contract.

So not only is professional mining a thing, you can do it too if you have a GPU with more then 4GB of VRAM. I bought some used 5700 XT back in December for ~ 500$, they are payed off now.


Last edited by gabber on 26 February 2021 at 8:52 am UTC
furaxhornyx Feb 26, 2021
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: gabber
Quoting: furaxhornyxOut of curiosity, I clicked on the link about dedicated cards for mining.

Big title on the page:
QuoteNVIDIA CMP HX
Dedicated GPU for Professional Mining

Is "professional mining" a real thing ?

Current Ethereum Hashrate: 435 TH/s
Income from that Hashrate: 566M$/month

That's without energy cost, which eats around 25% if you are paying "normal" prices. And much (~5%) less if you have an industry contract.

So not only is professional mining a thing, you can do it too if you have a GPU with more then 4GB of VRAM. I bought some used 5700 XT back in December for ~ 500$, they are payed off now.

Thanks for your explanation, yet, one more question:
Quoting: gabberSo not only is professional mining a thing, you can do it too if you have a GPU with more then 4GB of VRAM. I bought some used 5700 XT back in December for ~ 500$, they are payed off now.

The money spent on your GPU is paid off in Ethereum, right ? But this is "virtual value", are there any store or things you can actually buy with this ?
gabber Feb 26, 2021
Quoting: furaxhornyxThe money spent on your GPU is paid off in Ethereum, right ? But this is "virtual value", are there any store or things you can actually buy with this ?

Whether crypto is more or less real then fiat ($ etc.) is another debate. True, there is no government "backing" crypto. But there is also no government printing crypto and thus devaluing the currency.

Fact is: you can easily trade between cryptos, trading them against fiat requires some verficiation. Even paypal gets into the action, AFAIK you can trade BTC already in the US with paypal. And just some weeks ago Tesla announced their plans, this pushed the price of BTC > 50k$ for the first time.

If you want to give it a shot I would recommend to
- open an account on a trading site (i.e. Coinbase )
- get the address of your ETH-Wallet (receive, eth)
- start the miner with this address as the target
- check on https://ethermine.org/ if it works (may take 30 mins to show up)
- adjust payout threshold to 0.05 (-> it may take some days before you reach this level)

I'm sure you'll find some stores online in your country which accept crypto. Here in Switzerland one of the biggest retailers (digitec/galaxus) accepts Crypto. So I could theoretical buy GPUs with crypto for mining crypto xD
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