Nvidia’s GPU mining limiter has been fully unlocked for the RTX 3080 Ti
After a year of teetering, NiceHash has finally made life easier for cryptocurrency miners… at least, some of them.
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It’s taken a full year, but Nvidia’s Lite Hash Rate (LHR) GPU tech has finally been fully bypassed. Much like the restraining bolt of a Star Wars droid, LHR was Nvidia’s hardware-based attempt to thwartcryptocurrencyminers, and get “more GeForce cards at better prices into the hands of gamers.” Now, after a tonne of back and forth with hackers, and even Nvidia itself, a full bypass has been confirmed.
That’s great news for anyone with a mind to use theirGeForce RTX 3080to mine cryptocurrency, but perhaps not so great for those of us still waiting for the GPU market to balance out so we can finally play Elden Ring on ultra graphics settings.
A while back, we sawNvidia trip up with their mining limiter, when they accidentally published the wrong driver and gave everyone full hash rates. That was quickly backtracked, but later NBMiner managed to hack Nvidia’s mining limiter to increase it to 70% efficiency.
Still, no one had managed to push that up to 100%without mining two cryptocurrencies at once, until now.
According toVideocardzthe new bypass comes from NiceHash, for it’s QuickMiner (Excavator), with support for NiceHash Miner coming soon. It’s been confirmed by the team over atBenchmark.plto give miners 100% efficiency on an RTX 3080 Ti card, at least. That’s 117 MH/s over the 85-88 MH/s logged previously.
Some commenters note having tried it on different 30-series cards, and the results are mixed. A couple claim their RTX 3060 LHR Zotac isn’t getting improved hash rates, with one even having attempted the suggested “reinstall with the RC version,” to no avail.
The other big catch? It only supports only the DaggerHashimoto (Etash) algorithm.
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Still, that’s nowhere near as limiting as having to hash two cryptocurrencies simultaneously, or as devastating as accidentally downloading a crypto-hungry virus onto your PC—some supposed full LHR unlocks were disguised todistribute malware to unsuspecting cryptocurrency miners.
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Earlier this year,Lapsus$ hackers even threatened to publish an LHR bypassif Nvidia didn’t comply with its terms, but since the apparent bunch ofteens behind the hacking group appear to have been arrested, it looks like they didn’t get the chance.
Either way, the rearing of such a hack could mean unhealthy things for gamers still waiting for their chance to grab a current-gen GPU. Even in the face ofincreased GPU stock levels and the potential for pricing to balance out, this limiter is likely to reforge cryptocurrency miner’s interest in Nvidia’s 30-series cards. Though profitability of cryptocurrency mining has fallen as of late, so perhaps we won’t feel the worst of it again.
Screw sports, Katie would rather watch Intel, AMD and Nvidia go at it. Having been obsessed with computers and graphics for three long decades, she took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni, and has been rambling about games, tech and science—rather sarcastically—for four years since. She can be found admiring technological advancements, scrambling for scintillating Raspberry Pi projects, preaching cybersecurity awareness, sighing over semiconductors, and gawping at the latest GPU upgrades. Right now she’s waiting patiently for her chance to upload her consciousness into the cloud.
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