NiceHash, one of the largest mining software providers in the world, has today announced that the company had updated its QuickHash miner with the capability to unlock 90% of the performance for NVIDIA's Lite Hash Rate (LHR) version 3. Currently, there are only two cards available with LHRv3 on the market, and those are NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB version and RTX 3050, which are limited in the software to have poor hash rate when mining. This is done to get these cards away from the hands of miners and into the hands of consumers. However, engineers working at NiceHash have presented QuickMiner v0.5.4.2 Release Candidate, which unlocks 90% of that LHRv3 capability.

Previously, the company has already presented its work and enabled 100% unlock for LHRv2 cards and has now almost the entire stack covered. It is a matter of time before LHRv3 unlock goes up to 100%. NiceHash advises using NVIDIA driver version 512.15 or higher to get the latest unlock. Some stability issues have been fixed in the release, so users will experience no BSODs upon running the mining software.

NiceHash has recently announced that their latest QuickMiner (Excavator) cryptocurrency mining software is able to unlock 100% of performance for NVIDIA RTX 30-Series Lite Hash Rate (LHR) graphics cards except the RTX 3050 and RTX 3080 12 GB. The first NVIDIA LHR algorithm was inadvertently unlocked by NVIDIA themselves after non-LHR drivers were released before an updated LHR algorithm was introduced with the RTX 3060 that is now present on all RTX 30 cards except the RTX 3090. The NiceHash developers had previously announced an unlock mechanism to reach 70% mining performance in August 2021 before today announcing this complete unlock. This unlock has been independently verified by the Benchmark.pl team where they recorded hash rates with the RTX 3080 Ti of 117 MH/s up from 85 - 88 MH/s previously.

NiceHashWe are very excited to tell you that NiceHash QuickMiner (Excavator) is the first mining software to FULLY (100%) UNLOCK LHR cards!

Now you can earn more profits than any other mining software on the market if you are using LHR graphics cards with NiceHash QuickMiner. Support for NiceHash Miner is coming soon.

A few days ago, we found out that NVIDIA corporation has been hacked and that attackers managed to steal around 1 TB of sensitive data from the company. This includes various kinds of files like GPU driver and GPU firmware source codes and something a bit more interesting. The LAPSUS$ hacking group responsible for the attack is now threatening to "help mining and gaming community" by releasing a bypass solution for the Lite Hash Rate (LHR) GPU hash rate limiter. As the group notes, the full LHR V2 workaround for anything between GA102-GA104 is on sale and is ready for further spreading.

Additionally, the hacking group is making blackmailing claims that the company should remove the LHR from its software or share details of the "hw folder," presumably a hardware folder with various confidential schematics and hardware information. NVIDIA did not respond to these claims and had no official statement regarding the situation other than acknowledging that they are investigating an incident.Update 01:01 UTC: The hackers have released part of their files to the public. It's a 18.8 GB RAR file, which uncompresses to over 400,000 (!) files occupying 75 GB, it's mostly source code.

GALAX has added another graphics solution to its lineup in the form of the RTX 3060 Metaltop Mini (FG) Graphics Card. The (FG) bit stands as an interesting warning to cryptocurrency miners; besides the card being shipped with NVIDIA's Lite Hash Rate (LHR) modifications, it actually stands for "For Gamers". That's definitely one way of stopping scalpers and miners from buying up stock... Or is it, really?

The Metaltop Mini would feel right at home in HTPC settings, considering its Mini-ITX form-factor - and is the first GALAX graphics card that features a single fan on cooling duty for an Ampere chip. The Metaltop measures 16.8 cm (length), 11.5 cm (width), and 4 cm (height). Support for 0dB technology still made onto the card despite the single-fan cooling solution - the fan will automatically turn itself off when passive cooling is enough. The card features the same 12 GB GDDR6 memory over a 192-bit bus as other RTX 3060 cards, and there's no factory overclocking or an OC button on the Metaltop - it runs at the stock 1,777 MHz Boost as NVIDIA's reference. I/O is taken care of by the customary 3x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI connectors. A single 8-pin power delivery connector is present. No word on pricing, though availability is scheduled for "soon" via the manufacturer's website.

ZOTAC today added to its NVIDIA RTX 3000-series portfolio with a white version of the RTX 3060 Ti. The ZOTAC RTX 3060 Ti AMP White Edition LHR (Lite Hash Rate) essentially reuses the cooling solution found on its darker cousin, the 3060 Ti Twin Edge, which we have reviewed here. The IceStorm 2.0 cooling solution maintains the 11-blade, dual-fan, dual-slot design, but paints the shroud in white for users that want that particular color coordination for their system.

ZOTAC have decided to slightly bump operating frequencies of the GA-104 chip powering the RTX 3060 Ti AMP White (1,775 MHz compared to the Twin Edge's 1,750 MHz). The remainder of the specs are as expected: 4,840 Ampere CUDA cores, 8 GB of 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory over a 256-bit bus, and a pair of 2x 8-pin connectors to power all the electronics up. External card dimensions stand at 231.9 mm length, 141.3 mm width, and 41.5 mm thickness. I/O is assured by the usual 3x DisplayPort 1.4a and 1x HDMI 2.1 connectors. The card is now springing up in retail stores - and considering current pricing for the Twin Edge version, listed at $659, you should expect pricing to be in the same ballpark.

Expreview have tested one of the latest RTX 3060 graphics cards of the LHR (Lite Hash Rate) nature, so as to discern exactly how cryptomining limited these LHR cards are in practice - and whether or not there are performance differences for non-mining related workloads such as gaming. The results are satisfying: the new RTX 3060 Lite Hash Rate puts out around 21 MH/s at 119 W - and it does so from the beginning of the workload, which didn't happen prior, when NVIDIA's solution was a poorly implemented driver check instead of a new device ID (it started at 40 MH/s and then decreased until it hit the LHR ceiling). The RTX 3060 also didn't show any performance difference compared to previous, non-LHR cards in gaming benchmarks, which might put some prospective buyers at ease.

Also leaked was the said RTX 3080 Ti mining score. Since this card is only coming out now, a way to differentiate it from existing stock is unneeded. But even if the RTX 3080 Ti doesn't carry the LHR suffix as does the RTX 3060 and eventually the 3070 and 3080 upon their re-release to the wild, it does pack in the same mining performance limiter. And the card was tested to deliver some 58 MH/s at a 199 W board power. One should be cautious about expecting swift prices back on the market, as miners shift their focus towards the RTX cards already in the second-hand market or the new CMP cards; one can only be hopeful that the actual gaming market is already well-furnished with cards enough that scalpers aren't able to contend with the (ideal?) overflow of stock on LHR cards.

NVIDIA today has officially announced what we have gotten to know through sheer power of will, speculation, and leaks. The company took to a blog post to announce a new, revised lineup of RTX 30-series graphics cards, spanning from the RTX 3060 all the way to the premium RTX 3080 graphics card. All of these will now ship with a new silicon revision (the last 0 has been replaced with a 2, so we're now looking at GA102-202, GA04-302, etc.). LHR effectively halves each of these graphics cards' output in Ethereum mining, which is currently the greatest driver behind mining (and scalping) acquisition of graphics cards.

NVIDIA has also clarified that AIB partners will be clearly labeling their graphics cards with stickers denoting their "LHR" nature, both in the box and card itself, so that customers can know with utmost certainty what they are actually acquiring - though this only applies to newly-manufactured graphics cards, and not to the ones already in the retail channel, for obvious reasons. We are thus looking at a situation where we can find ourselves with two secondary markets for NVIDIA's RTX 30-series cards: one for miners, with non-LHR graphics cards and sold at much-inflated prices, and LHR-cards which should be in keeping with their MSRP - eventually. It remains to be seen whether or not we'll have to cope with yet another scalping arms race for the LHR cards as well, since there is surely a significant market still hungering for the 30-series performance.

Remember that story regarding NVIDIA relaunching a new RTX 3060 SKU that actually does limit the hash rate for Ethereum mining workloads? Well, not only has it been cemented, but it also has been expanded. Reports are coming in that all but confirm that NVIDIA is on its way to provide its partners with updated silicon that should put mining performance of their RTX 30-series cards into a less palatable price-performance territory for would-be miners. That, in turn, should bring them closer to NVIDIA's CMP (Crypto Mining Processor) cards instead - and as wanted by both the company and consumers.

According to the sources, the new graphics cards will be indistinguishable from those that are still in transit or in stock (all two of them worldwide, of course). NVIDIA is internally describing the revised silicon as "Lite Hash Rate", and that is the message they communicate with AIBs. Apparently, the new "Lite Hash Rate" graphics cards will range throughout the entirety of NVIDIA's already-released RTX 30-series portfolio, from the ill-fated RTX 3060 up to the RTX 3080 Ti - the only absent graphics card is the RTX 3090, apparently, which could mean that NVIDIA is confident enough on that graphics card's cost being too high to be attractive to miners - especially when you consider how much more they are going for above the MSRP that was half-heartedly slapped on it. The new chips carry an update to their SKU identification - the GA102-200 chip that powers the RTX 3080 is being revised to GA102-202, as will all other chips made "lite" in this way. Expect the new cards to start hitting retail come June.