The graphics card market is struggling to keep up with demand at the moment, seeing reduced stock and inflated prices thanks to the global chip shortage. However, on top of that limited supply cryptocurrency miners are snatching up whole batches of these GPUs, further decreasing available stock and driving up GPU prices once again.
But Nvidia’s new RTX 30 LHR (Lite Hash Rate) series aims to once again attempt to “get more GeForce cards at better prices into the hands of gamers everywhere,” by refreshing the entire RTX 30 series lineup with cryptomining limiters if they didn’t already have one. This includes the RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti.
The RTX 3090 is absent from the refresh though, most likely due to its price which makes it a relatively unpopular card among miners, since it doesn’t actually prove to be very profitable in comparison to other GPUs in the stack.
“To help get GeForce GPUs in the hands of gamers, we announced in February that all GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards shipped with a reduced Ethereum hash rate,” Nvidia said in a recent blog post. “Today, we’re taking additional measures by applying a reduced ETH hash rate to newly manufactured GeForce RTX 3080, RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti graphics cards. These cards will start shipping in late May.”
Essentially the idea is that the “LHR” tag will deter miners from purchasing them, freeing up some of the stress on the already-limited market. The identifier will apparently be featured on all product listings as well as the actual box itself.
As mentioned above, these new RTX 30 LHR cards will start shipping by the end of May, so any new GPUs bought after that time will likely be part of the LHR series. Nvidia did also confirm however that any GPU purchased before the LHR series won’t receive a mining limiter, apart from the RTX 3060 of course, which was the first card to feature the limiter.
Hopefully we won’t see another situation where Nvidia accidentally releases a driver that bypasses the limiter entirely shortly after release.
What do you think? Will this actually help improve stock? Will it help reduce prices a little? Let us know your thoughts!
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PC Specs
"To help get GeForce GPUs in the hands of gamers™ " aka to f over the average consumer out of mitigating the insane prices with casual mining and pushing people towards our mining line (thats e-waste as soon as there isnt any money in mining). Dont be fooled dear GaMeRz™ this is a business move from nvidia.
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There shouldn't be any limitations put in place if the full fat GPU is capable of doing it at its best. An artificial limiter is ridiculous.
AMD's GPUs (RDNA 2 specifically) suck at mining because they weren't built in mind for mining. Only for gamers as they say. Maybe they already have a limiter in place but I don't think this is likely.
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I am passing on this gen anyways ...
PC Specs
I doubt this will fix much, like it may get some more cards in hands of gamers, till miners throw in a ton of money for limiter to get cracked and then cat and mouse game continues. And even if that wouldn't happen, demand is way too high, people still keep buying cards at 2-3x the prices. Plus lately I hear some stores don't even want to risk restock with so high MSRP,due to possible price drop.
PC Specs
Since if they buy at those high MSRPs and then price suddenly drops, they would end up with significant loss. Since everyone is basically scalping these days, from board partners to stores, they all add some. And I am just worried, if people mass buying Titan cards caused Turing price increase, what will this craze cause... since people have proven, they will buy it, if not given a choice.
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Really hoping this helps, been trying to get a card since they launched. I doubt it'll help a ton but at least it's a start and maybe discourage some miners. Just need one but that seems impossible lmao
PC Specs
Well, at least the 3090s are safe from this nonsense... When you buy a GPU - it should do everything you throw at it. Anything artificially-locked is anti-consumer, regardless of what the crypto haters think (people like to dig their own hole when it's convenient to them).
PC Specs
nvidia quadro's doing this for years and no one bats an eye...
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People DO bat an eye, you're just not in the circles to read about it, derp. You're on gaming websites, not 3D, AI and virtualization forums.
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So are we here in the mining forum as well? i think not... Regardless, your first comment crumbles itself with a point about quadro's anyway, besides, only titan cards are true be-all end-all cards as rtx 3090's are gaming oriented cards and HAVE artificial software limits and are NOT safe from it.
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Yes, my comment "crumbles itself" and we'll totally be seeing Titan cards in the 30 series because while we already have ECC and "Titan-level" memory amount on the 3090 - it's still garbage. </s>
Do I seriously have to explain that there are plenty of gamers that do mining? I talk to some on the GD Discord, for example. Quadro gamers - where are they? Oh wait, must be the price and the fact they're not needed for even most professional workflows (like mine)... C'mon, man!
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Not quite no. Even with the limiter, it won't work. Since the limiter is software based, all someone has to do is hack/mod the driver software itself. I also heard that using dummy connectors will do the trick too.
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Dummy connectors WILL do the trick? How do they know that? The gpus are not even released yet.
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I think that is based on the current existing limiters, which can be kinda bypassed with a dummy video connector plugged into the card when hashing crypto (normally those cards have no video out plugged in as there's no need for it).
PC Specs
^ What he said.
Some cards that do have a limiter have already been released.
That said, the limiter doesn't work for all crypto, only certain ones.
Specifically Ethereum if I remember right.
PC Specs
And when Ether goes proof-of-stake - we'll just move on to mining something else on a different algo and those "limiters" will be as good as a sticker saying "please do not mine crypto" xD