In an unusual move, Nvidia has released drivers that reduce the performance of its flagship graphics card, the RTX 3060, when used for cryptocurrency mining.
For the past few years, the graphics card market has been affected by the prevalence of cryptocurrency mining. Gamers have had to compete with miners for the latest and greatest gaming performance. Nvidia appears to have takne a stand against cryptocurrency miners using its GeForce brand of cards, and have announced that “GeForce is made for gaming” in an official blog post.
The price of high end graphics cards can be attributed in part to the demand generated by cryptocurrency mining, and it has left a shortage of consumer level graphics cards for gamers.
In the post, Nvidia also announced their intention to release a new lineup of mining cards, the Nvidia Cryptocurrency Mining Processor range, which will not be capable of outputting any display image.