Nvidia RTX GPU AI throttle hack
The gist
Modders published free Linux modules lifting Nvidia's half-speed AI math limit on RTX 20, 30 and 40 cards.
Real workloads gain far less than peak figures suggest, and gaming is unaffected.
How it unfolded
- Oct 25, 2026Modders Inc reported that a developer going by Zagitta published a free Linux kernel module called GPU Unlock on GitHub, lifting a long-standing throttle on RTX 30-series AI math, with early user reports of BF16 throughput gains up to 80% on cards like the RTX 3090 Ti, 3080 and 3060 12GB.
- Oct 26, 2026Tom's Hardware reported modders found a firmware exploit removing the half-speed AI limits on RTX 20, 30 and 40-series GPUs; without the limit the RTX 4090 can reach double its peak tensor rate.
- Oct 26, 2026The Ada fork developer's RTX 4090 moved from 165.6 to 331.6 TFLOPS on FP16 and 165.5 to 330.6 TFLOPS on BF16.