With the introduction from summer 2021 of video cards GeForce RTX 3000 “LHR”or Lite Hash RateNVIDIA has tried to curb the use of its GPUs by cryptocurrency minersespecially those looking for profits with Ethereum.
Halving the performance of GPUs in mining Ethereum (and Dagger Hashimoto algorithms or similar to Ethash) with targeted interventions on the firmware of the cards and on the drivers, the company has tried to make it less appealing its products ai minertrying to divert the demand of large companies towards CMP (Crypto Mining Processor) solutions at the same time.
It is often said “made the law, found the deception” but in this case we can say “put the limiter, found how to get around it”, in fact, since that moment the mining scene has worked to find more or less valid stratagems to circumvent that artificial limit and regain maximum performance. Well, after so many attempts, it seems the miners have managed to find the square to definitively pierce the wall erected by NVIDIA.
An unreleased software called “Nvidia RTX LHR v2 Unlocker“(he talks about it, among many others, Videocardz) would allow to unlock full mining performance of GeForce RTX 3000 cards and Ampere GPU-based workstation solutions by modifying their BIOS. The program should become available on February 26th come written on Githubwhere there is the whole procedure to follow accompanied by FAQs.
There is currently no “third” test that proves the effectiveness of this program, but according to the author it is effective and the process would be reversible, that is, after flashing the new BIOS, it would be possible to install the original BIOS of the card to give it an aura of virginity. Below is a list of supported cards and the hash rate they should reach after flashing the modified firmware:
- RTX 3060 LHR V2 – fino a 49 MH/s
- RTX 3060 Ti LHR – fino a 61 MH/s
- RTX 3070 LHR – fino a 57 MH/s
- RTX 3070 Ti – fino a 69 MH/s
- RTX 3080 LHR – fino a 100 MH/s
- RTX 3080 Ti – fino a 115 MH/s
- RTX A2000 – fino a 46 MH/s
- RTX A4000 – fino a 67 MH/s
- RTX A4500 – not measured
- RTX A5000 – fino a 110 MH/s
To work, the change would also require a special driver, downloadable from a private server. It should be noted that, like any other hardware / software modification not approved by the manufacturer, proceeding with the “conversion” of an NVIDIA video card using this solution is “at your own risk“. On the one hand there is a risk that something will go wrong and lose the card (with attached warranty), on the other hand to make it temporarily unusable for other purposes such as gaming due to reduced performance or incompatibility problems with official games and drivers.
This alleged total release comes at a time when Ethereum is getting closer to moving from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake consensus algorithm which does not require hardware mining. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that another cryptocurrency takes hold among miners, so the effect on the availability and prices of this development will have to be evaluated over time.