GeForce RTX 3000: with the latest drivers the LHR limiter disappears. Mistake or conscious choice?

It is well known that the last generation video cards remained unsold following the mining collapse, with NVIDIA and AMD committed to bringing inventory back to sustainable levels for the market, taking on some losses. It is therefore curious to learn about the apparent deactivation from NVIDIA from LHR, the limiter against some mining algorithms implemented on the solutions GeForce RTX 3000.

LHR (Lite Hash Rate) was born to target algorithms particularly in vogue among miners in the past years, for example those on which the mining of Ethereum was based when the cryptocurrency still relied on the Proof of Work. The goal was make GPUs less appealing to miners e limit resale operations at higher prices, in a period in which the crisis of availability of video cards had reached its peak, leaving gamers with a dry mouth.

However, especially since cryptocurrency Ethereum è passata al Proof of Stakethe trend has reversed e the demand for GPUs dropped significantly causing NVIDIA a diametrically opposite problem.

According to what is reported on Reddit by the user Timbers007it seems that the latest release of driver GeForce 522.25 per Windows o 520.56.06 per Linux some LHR limiter is missing. The user, owner of a GeForce RTX 3080 Tithat is, of a card that came on the market only with an enabled limiter, has recorded a hash rate of 112 MH/s su Windows con Ethminer.

Up to now, this is a performance that can only be found with software such as NiceHash o NBMiner which allowed to bypass LHR. Further confirmation came from the youtuber Rapid Mining which showed how his GeForce RTX 3060 V2 reach a hash rate of 47 MH/s with new drivers.

There are currently no confirmations from NVIDIA and disabling the limiter is not mentioned in the driver release notes either. Could this be a mistake? We don’t know, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

At the same time it could be one conscious decision, given the recent transition of Ethereum to PoS and a mining market that, at the moment, does not seem to raise concerns about the availability of gaming cards. Indeed, the farewell to the limiter could prove to be an additional incentive to facilitate the emptying of warehouses from the overproduction of RTX 3000.