AMD refuses to set handicap on any workload

[Moonzy]

Summary

AMD has confirmed it has zero intentions of blocking mining operations on their graphics cards. 

 

Quotes

Quote

"We will not be blocking any workload, not just mining for that matter."

"That said, there are a couple of things. First of all, RDNA was designed from the ground up for gaming and RDNA 2 doubles up on this. And what I mean by this is, Infinity Cache and a smaller bus width were carefully chosen to hit a very specific gaming hit rate. However, mining specifically enjoys, or scales with, higher bandwidth and bus width so there are going to be limitations from an architectural level for mining itself."

Nish Neelalojanan, a product manager at AMD says regarding a potential mining limiter during a Radeon RX 6700 XT pre-briefing call. 

 

My thoughts

The 6700 is equivalent to a 3060 in term of mining, at ~48MH at 110W, so if you're interested in mining to offset the cost of the GPU, 6700 seems like the way to go (or any other nvidia GPU without the limiter, really)

But Nvidia might be allowing 3060 to mine under certain circumstances in future drivers judging by the beta drivers, so we'll have to see.

 

Is this good news for large scale miners? eeeh... RDNA2's mining prowess have been disapointing, the best they could offer is the 6800 non-XT at ~63MH/s at 125W, 6800 XT and 6900XT have the same ~64MH/s but at higher wattages.

But I guess more option is always better.

 

Also, good on AMD for not discriminating against certain workloads.

 

Sources

https://www.pcgamer.com/amd-cryptocurrency-mining-limiter-ethereum/

 

PS: pls no debate on ethicality of mining, kthx

[CTR640]

AMD is atleast honest about this unlike nVidia with their "accidentally leaked driver" bullshit.

[igormp]

4 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Also, good on AMD for not discriminating against certain workloads.

This. What nvidia did made no sense whatsoever and was just a marketing gimmick anyway to make the butthurt entitled gamer crowd happy.

At least AMD doesn't impose any artificial limitation on their GPUs.

[Tristerin]

3 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Also, good on AMD for not discriminating against certain workloads.

BUT IM A GAMER.  GRAPHICS CARDS ARE FOR GAMING ONLY.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, CTR640 said:

AMD is atleast honest about this unlike nVidia with their "accidentally leaked driver" bullshit.

i suggest you truly have a read, from this post and downwards, before you make any judgements

 

[poochyena]

I think thats good. Trying to limit mining is just a waste of time and resources, imo.

[Dietrichw]

I approve of this standpoint. The problem for me wasn't miners using graphics cards to mine, it is miners having special access to the supply chain that allows them to buy a pallet of matching GPU for mining. If someone obtains a GPU through retailers as a normal customer I don't care how they use the product.

[gloop]

I wonder how people advocating for mining to be blocked would react if gaming was blocked due to science requiring extra power. 

[CTR640]

4 minutes ago, gloop said:

I wonder how people advocating for mining to be blocked would react if gaming was blocked due to science requiring extra power. 

That's already with the Quadro?

[RejZoR]

56 minutes ago, poochyena said:

I think thats good. Trying to limit mining is just a waste of time and resources, imo.

Only if you do it half assed like NVIDIA. Botched driver block and then they "mistakenly" released a dev driver without it.

 

If cards came from factory with firmware block and also driver block it would be worth anything. I mean, just look how difficult were older Radeon cards to flash with modified BIOS because it had to be signed. And you can't modify it and have it signed.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

Only if you do it half assed like NVIDIA. Botched driver block and then they "mistakenly" released a dev driver without it.

Did you read about the limitation of the "unlocked" miner on the 3060?

 

1 hour ago, Moonzy said:

i suggest you truly have a read, from this post and downwards, before you make any judgements

 

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 hour ago, Tristerin said:

BUT IM A GAMER.  GRAPHICS CARDS ARE FOR GAMING ONLY.

no, gpus are anything but gaming hardware!

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

8 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

If cards came from factory with firmware block and also driver block it would be worth anything. I mean, just look how difficult were older Radeon cards to flash with modified BIOS because it had to be signed. And you can't modify it and have it signed.

unrelated, but its still a pain to flash even newer ones. 

I wanted to oc more on my 480.

so I had to mod the driver.

so I did

flashed

no boot

it took me nearly 24h to find out the drivers had to be patched to allow a unsigned bios.

[StDragon]

2 hours ago, Tristerin said:

BUT IM A GAMER.  GRAPHICS CARDS ARE FOR GAMING ONLY.

In the case of Crypto, gambling its valuation is gaming. 

[GamerDude]

What I'd found to be hilarious is that some (in other forums I go to) have touted nVidia CMP and mining restriction on just the RTX 3060 I believe (on driver level which can be easily bypassed) as being nVidia looking out for gamers. I must hand it to the Marketing and PR arm of nVidia, they sure have mastered the art of spin doctoring.

[suicidalfranco]

Excellent

And I'm almost done regaining back the money I spent on the 5500 xD

Wanted to get a beefier GPU with it, but given current prices I may just use this oppurtunity to replace my i5-6500 with a R7-3700

[Grabhanem]

12 minutes ago, Tedny said:

people, some popular coins can't be mind with profit on AMD gpu's. There is something that AMD done how RDNA works to make it not worth it 

For me, the difference is that AMD's architecture isn't maliciously bad at anything. Take CAD for example. Geforce cards have been maliciously limited in CAD via disabled features like antialiased lines for years because Nvidia knows they can make more off people who do real work by selling them Quadros. I'm sure AMD's been doing something similar with Radeon Pro, although much less aggressively.

Interestingly, Nvidia had to "unlock" Quadro features on Titans to compete with the Vega FE's less restrictive drivers, and I suspect the reason they rebranded the Titan as the 3090 was to allow them to go back to more restrictive drivers on their "prosumer" cards without breaking that promise.

[Sauron]

Good, software limiters are dumb and don't work.

[StDragon]

9 minutes ago, Grabhanem said:

For me, the difference is that AMD's architecture isn't maliciously bad at anything. Take CAD for example. Geforce cards have been maliciously limited in CAD via disabled features like antialiased lines for years because Nvidia knows they can make more off people who do real work by selling them Quadros. I'm sure AMD's been doing something similar with Radeon Pro, although much less aggressively.

Interestingly, Nvidia had to "unlock" Quadro features on Titans to compete with the Vega FE's less restrictive drivers, and I suspect the reason they rebranded the Titan as the 3090 was to allow them to go back to more restrictive drivers on their "prosumer" cards without breaking that promise.

When it comes certified graphic hardware AMD isn't much better with their Pro and FirePro lineup.

 

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/certified-graphics-hardware

[tishous]

2 hours ago, Dietrichw said:

I approve of this standpoint. The problem for me wasn't miners using graphics cards to mine, it is miners having special access to the supply chain that allows them to buy a pallet of matching GPU for mining. If someone obtains a GPU through retailers as a normal customer I don't care how they use the product.

I agree, it's not like anyone would know what they're using it for, or be able to do anything about it if they are mining with it. Newegg isn't going to break into your house and forcibly take a graphics card back because you're not using it for gaming. There's nothing anyone can really do if they buy it from the same website gamers are trying to get theirs on.

[Blademaster91]

This is a good thing, and I think it's good that AMD is being honest.

Nvidia claimed their card was "unhackable" even though they "accidentally" released a driver that allows the card to mine, and the dumb CMP card marketing that doesn't help gamers at all because the silicon could be used for more RTX cards.

[Rym]

4 hours ago, Moonzy said:

Is this good news for large scale miners? eeeh... RDNA2's mining prowess have been disapointing

Probably because it's not designed for mining.

[Fnige]

1 hour ago, Rym said:

Probably because it's not designed for mining.

now im wondering. Is it actually possible to completely tank mining architecture wise and would they actually do it?

[Uttamattamakin]

6 hours ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

no, gpus are anything but gaming hardware!

 

You joke but the way they are priced right now.... spending 1000 - 2000 dollars to play a game a little bit better than you can right now isn't justifiable. 

 

IF someone does some productive work with that GPU as well as gaming, even if that is some mining while not gaming, or using it to GPU accelerate their productivity then it makes sense.    Just my $0.02 based on some solid facts. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

24 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

even if that is some mining while not gaming,

You be crazy to not do this, even on got got it at MSRP. At stock I think 3070 profits 6$/day (usd)