Nvidia Confirms ‘LHR’ Mining Limiter for GPUs Has Been Eliminated

Nvidia’s software restriction to limit Ethereum mining over the RTX 3000 graphics cards is officially dead because it’s now irrelevant. 

On Friday, an Nvidia spokesperson confirmed that the company had removed the “Lite Hash Rate” limiter after users began reporting(Opens in a new window) the absence of the mining restriction in the latest Nvidia drivers releases for Windows and Linux.   

“We don’t believe it’s necessary in the current environment,” the Nvidia spokesperson told PCMag without elaborating. 

The company introduced the Lite Hash Rate restriction back in Feb. 2021 when the RTX 3000 series remained in short supply due to surging demand from consumers, scalpers and cryptocurrency miners. In response, Nvidia decided to halve the Ethereum mining capability over most newly-released RTX 3000 GPUs in an effort to prevent crypto-miners from buying up all the supplies.

Since then, the whole market has changed. Currently, GPU-based mining has become unprofitable ever since Ethereum phased out mining back in September. This has led many miners to sell off their graphics cards. In addition, Nvidia is facing an oversupply situation with the RTX 3000 series due to improved supplies and plummeting demand from customers. 

Hence, there’s no point in restricting Ethereum mining in today’s environment. On top of all this, the mining community came up with various ways to bypass the Lite Hash Rate limiter in the months after the restriction was launched. Back in January, one miner even told PCMag Lite Hash Rate limiter had become pointless. That’s because miners could still generate profits over an RTX 3000 GPU despite the limitation.