NVIDIA releases CMP lineup and reduces hashing rates on GeForce cards

[Moonzy]

Just now, leadeater said:

You mean the old/original mining GPUs or just old mining GPUs in general which includes these CMP cards?

the P106 and such

 

I found a thread saying the P104 (GTX 1070 equivalent...?) was performing significantly different

but maybe because they're just different, idk

 

Just interested to know what could the CMP gpu be used for after mining, basically still usable in some applications

[leadeater]

23 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

I found a thread saying the P104 (GTX 1070 equivalent...?) was performing significantly different

but maybe because they're just different, idk

It should be faster, the only major difference is the P104 uses GDDR5X rather than GDDR5. My guess would have to be either driver optimizations or FAH core optimization for the GPU, more popular cards get better treatment than not so popular cards. FAH also uses a GPU whitelist so it depends what it shows up as if you can even use it and has been added to that list.

 

Quote

0x10de:0x1b80:2:8:GP104 [GeForce GTX 1080] 8873
0x10de:0x1b81:2:7:GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070] 6463
0x10de:0x1b82:2:7:GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070 Ti] 8186
0x10de:0x1b83:2:7:GP104 [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB]
0x10de:0x1b84:2:7:GP104 [GeForce GTX 1060 3GB] 3935
0x10de:0x1b87:2:7:GP104 [P104-100]
0x10de:0x1ba0:2:5:GP104M [GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1ba1:2:5:GP104M [GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1ba2:2:5:GP104M [GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1bad:2:7:GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070 Engineering Sample]
0x10de:0x1bb0:2:5:GP104GL [Quadro P5000]
0x10de:0x1bb1:2:5:GP104GL [Quadro P4000]
0x10de:0x1bb3:2:5:GP104GL [Tesla P4] 5704 
0x10de:0x1bb4:2:5:GP104GL [Tesla P6] 6169
0x10de:0x1bb5:2:5:GP104GLM [Quadro P5200 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1bb6:2:5:GP104GLM [Quadro P5000 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1bb7:2:5:GP104GLM [Quadro P4000 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1bb8:2:5:GP104GLM [Quadro P3000 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1bb9:2:5:GP104GLM [Quadro P4200 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1bbb:2:5:GP104GLM [Quadro P3200 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1bc7:2:7:GP104 [P104-101]
0x10de:0x1be0:2:5:GP104BM [GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile]
0x10de:0x1be1:2:5:GP104BM [GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile] 6463

 

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Craftyawesome said:

Does nvidia update the vBIOS with their driver installer? Considering how many partner cards there are, that sounds like a logistical nightmare.

They don't need to update the AIB's, just theirs. They're the ones making the CMP cards, therefor they're the ones that will get burned/flack for crippling the FE cards. At this point I actually expect them to do this with 3070/3080 Ti/Super cards. Card hackers have transplanted vbioses from one AIB to another, including the 20xx series. So clearly all nVidia has to do is put the "id mismatch" check into the shipping firmware so it won't accept one that is unsigned.

 

Quote

I'm not sure why incrementally updating would be an option here. My understanding is that directtv's strategy only works because the updates are mandatory to be used.

You incrementally send the updates so that you're shipping puzzle pieces rather than the entire puzzle. They could of course force the vbios to be updated one-way so it can't be downgraded and prevent the drivers from initializing any vbios lower than the version needed, but that's easier people to block and hack a bypass around.

 

Quote

They can make it a pain for any miner that gets a card with an updated vBIOS, but I don't think they can stop one with an spi programmer and downloads of an older vBIOS. Unless the card already has fuses to burn to prevent downgrades or something.

Again, the point about encryption, handshakes, and such. You can't replace the vbios on a card that doesn't have the right signature. Existing hacks to turing cards involve hacking the flash programming tool to ignore the mismatch. So you just put the key in the chip that can only be written to once by the AIB, deny any updates that don't match, and don't execute firmware that has been overwritten that mismatches.

 

Like it seems pretty straight forward if nVidia was really intending to destroy the secondary market, they would do so. However my guess is that the bean counters win out, and any efforts to make graphics cards less appealing to mining will fail unless the cards are crippled in a way that makes them useless for all non-gaming.

 

[Craftyawesome]

43 minutes ago, Kisai said:

They don't need to update the AIB's, just theirs.

I don't understand. Are you saying they should flash the updated founders edition bios to every card? Or are the changes to AIB vBIOSs always trivial?

51 minutes ago, Kisai said:

At this point I actually expect them to do this with 3070/3080 Ti/Super cards. Card hackers have transplanted vbioses from one AIB to another, including the 20xx series. So clearly all nVidia has to do is put the "id mismatch" check into the shipping firmware so it won't accept one that is unsigned.

People have done vBIOS transfers, but my understanding is that it isn't guaranteed to work, and especially not something like a 2060 vBIOS on a 2060 super. If the 3080 super would otherwise work with a 3080 vBIOS, I agree there will be a check to prevent it.

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

You incrementally send the updates so that you're shipping puzzle pieces rather than the entire puzzle.

I get that, but I don't get why that's helpful. TBH, even for DirectTV I only see minor benefits like fast updates and hackers potentially ignoring the supposed update check bytes.

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

You can't replace the vbios on a card that doesn't have the right signature. Existing hacks to turing cards involve hacking the flash programming tool to ignore the mismatch. So you just put the key in the chip that can only be written to once by the AIB, deny any updates that don't match, and don't execute firmware that has been overwritten that mismatches.

The problem is that since the key is only written at the factory, they can't revoke the currently valid vBIOS without a hw revision. And I'm not aware of any anti-downgrade checks like efuses either.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Craftyawesome said:

I don't understand. Are you saying they should flash the updated founders edition bios to every card? Or are the changes to AIB vBIOSs always trivial?

I doubt AIB's make any changes other than power and fan settings. That's all you need is a model with a factory water block firmware being flashed to a non-waterblock model and having no fan controls. Since nVidia knows what they sold, they can flash their own cards arbitrarily if they wanted to. Dell does this with laptops and desktops for multiple kinds of firmware just via Windows Update.

 

 

2 hours ago, Craftyawesome said:

People have done vBIOS transfers, but my understanding is that it isn't guaranteed to work, and especially not something like a 2060 vBIOS on a 2060 super. If the 3080 super would otherwise work with a 3080 vBIOS, I agree there will be a check to prevent it.

It's never guaranteed to work if you flash one AIB's bios to another. The encrypted bios's just make it harder to cut-and-paste the bits you want back into the original firmware.

 

2 hours ago, Craftyawesome said:

I get that, but I don't get why that's helpful. TBH, even for DirectTV I only see minor benefits like fast updates and hackers potentially ignoring the supposed update check bytes.

The point is to not show your hand. If the driver contained a way to upload firmware bits via undocumented CUDA commands, you'd never see it coming.

 

2 hours ago, Craftyawesome said:

The problem is that since the key is only written at the factory, they can't revoke the currently valid vBIOS without a hw revision. And I'm not aware of any anti-downgrade checks like efuses either.

Usually the only reason why you can't downgrade firmware in devices is because the new firmware updates a key somewhere, or the NVRAM somewhere sets a minimum version (such in the case of firmware on consoles) so downgrades only become possible if you have a model that doesn't check the version number.

 

[Craftyawesome]

23 minutes ago, Kisai said:

The point is to not show your hand. If the driver contained a way to upload firmware bits via undocumented CUDA commands, you'd never see it coming.

That's kind of what I said with hackers potentially ignoring the extra bytes seemingly only used to check that you are updated. But at some point you are going from

1. No instructions that mess with firmware
2. Some instructions that mess with firmware. Potentially identifiable, depending on how they only partially split it.
3. Full instructions to change the firmware.

and you can skip 2.

37 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Usually the only reason why you can't downgrade firmware in devices is because the new firmware updates a key somewhere, or the NVRAM somewhere sets a minimum version (such in the case of firmware on consoles) so downgrades only become possible if you have a model that doesn't check the version number.

I mentioned eFuses because that's what the switch uses, which has a tegra x1. I'm not aware of any confirmed downgrade protection on graphics cards, though.

[CTR640]

nVidia is really stupid if they think it can't be hacked:

 

https://wccftech.com/chinese-cryptocurrency-miners-allegedly-bypass-nvidias-geforce-rtx-3060-hash-rate-limiter-delivers-up-to-50-mh-s-in-ethereum/

[porina]

So right now the "evidence" presented is what looks like a crop from a badly compressed photo (not even a screenshot) and a random facebook post? If it is indeed cracked then we should see more believable confirmation quickly.

[Blademaster91]

Is there any other evidence of the crypto nerf being bypassed?

Although this doesn't really matter IMO, because going by the way over MSRP prices on the 3060 miners are still buying them.

[CTR640]

RTX3070 for €1499 and in stock lol

[Craftyawesome]

The limiter lives another day, this wasn't ethereum 

 

[mwagen]

On 2/18/2021 at 10:09 AM, Hymenopus_Coronatus said:

Exactly. If were to buy my 3060 from BestBuy, Newegg or Microcenter like anyone else, why can't I choose what I do with it?

There's no exertion to buy or use this product in a specific way.