I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the cards will still sell out anyway and get scalped because of high demand.
Also it's only a matter of time that the hashrate limiter is bypassed if it's a driver restriction. If there's a true hardware-level restriction on Eth mining, there are still plenty of other coins to be mined. Look at early days of the 3060, still made a few dollars a day on Octopus.

henrickd
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the cards will still sell out anyway and get scalped because of high demand.
Also it's only a matter of time that the hashrate limiter is bypassed if it's a driver restriction. If there's a true hardware-level restriction on Eth mining, there are still plenty of other coins to be mined. Look at early days of the 3060, still made a few dollars a day on Octopus.

This. Given the 3060 snafu and how that was supposed to be a card only for gamers  - there's no stock unless you're paying scalping prices. Folks who want the cards for the hashrates will definitely still snap these cards up.

The hashrate limit is a gimmick. How can they target all these different alt coin algorithms without performance impact?
 
As the 3060 hash rate limit showed, where they supposedly "accidentally" released a beta driver, I am sure there will be another "accident" or something to that effect that removes the limit.
 
In any case, they should just market it as ethereum limited cards - really pointless at this juncture because eth is going from proof of work to proof of stake, and the whole concept is to take out mining.

Well played Nvidia, release CMP, release rate limited cards; CMP can't be sold to gamers, 2nd hand market won't flourish, and Nvidia can continue creating demand for new cards; all the while the avaialble silicon is segmented into different markets.

I dont really see a mining limited gonna help anything. Scalpers will still do their job because it is literally a miracle to purchase a gpu

At least the demand will be less mining based and more gamer based

This is just going to encourage more miners to become scalpers on the side (if every other card they get is nerfed without being able to know in advance)

Doesn't matter, most problem is with scalpers and miners will be annoyed at best. There are other currencies and if its just a driver it can AND WILL be hacked.

Nvidia has tried twice already to limit the hashrate and its been bypassed twice. 

People are going to be creative to find ways to bypass any limiters for mining

Is this really a large percentage of the total cards being sold though?

https://www.tomshardware..m/news/gpu-pricing-index

even if they cut ethereum's hashrate a new one will rise sadly

EtherealZoon
Do we expect an announcement for the LHR series or is it a silent update? For other companies they seem to be new SKUs but I don't know how this is going to work with EVGA and their queue system.

I think SILENT, because if they fail ... then it would not affect the stock so much maybe?

ferpixio
Would the LHR change be retroactive to previously released/sold cards?  Also, what will happen with the RTX 2000 series (would the LHR limits apply once the new driver is installed)?

There was some talk about it...
It may be limited with BIOS update, but not so clear with that topic.

ferpixio
Would the LHR change be retroactive to previously released/sold cards?  Also, what will happen with the RTX 2000 series (would the LHR limits apply once the new driver is installed)?

From a legality standpoint, I don't think they would touch existing variants.  There would be an insane number of lawsuits if they purposely gimped cards that were already on the market.  Would they win? I don't know because it's a gray area since mining isn't something it's advertised to do.  It's so well known that it can do it at this point that it likely falls into a "public knowledge" domain and might just end up landing on a judges opinion.  Way cheaper and less messy for them to create new variants that are basically the same and advertise them as mining gimped to begin with.  


Though we have to remember, the card manufacturers likely do not care.  Right now they are able to jack up prices and sell every card they can make.  There is a reason EVGA is basically the only card company that appears to be TRYING to keep costs down and get them to gamers.  The rest literally don't care at all as they are watching their bottom line grow. 

my fear is about legacy cards. If they limit mining for cards that was sold and we expect to work like that and they just go there and limit mining in a new driver/bios update.

bonzogoatslayer
I don't think it would really affect demand, as long as Ethereum is high miners are going to buy whatever they can get their hands on. I still think the biggest issue is supply, TSMC and Samsung still aren't producing chips fast enough for anyone. I'm sure if they have to cut production of graphics chips for hobbyists to make room for industrial or medical chip orders they'd do it, if they haven't already.

 
Nope. Given the fact that a small mining farm can sport 10x more gpus that are necessarily for a whole neighborhoud, wth are we talking about ? Thats what manuifacturers want you to believe, so they can get away with their shady deals ; miners are buying from them directly.