#NVIDIA’s New “LHR” Label Will Help Divide Its Gaming and Cryptomining GPUs – Review Geek

Cryptomining has dramatically increased the demand for GPUs, leading to global graphics card shortages and outrageous price hikes. But NVIDIA is trying to cool the situation by selling separate GPUs for gamers and cryptominers. Now, the company says that newly released RTX GPUs will feature an LHR label, meaning that they have a “Lite Hash Rate” and aren’t useful to cryptominers.

NVIDIA began testing reduced hash rates with the RTX 3060 graphics card earlier this year. But the company accidentally removed the limit from such cards with a driver update (which was then reinstated by another driver update). The limit came as NVIDIA announced its CMP-series cards, which are optimized for cryptomining and eschew features like HDMI output.

Evidently, the company found some success limiting the mining capabilities of RTX 3060 cards, because it now plans to sell its RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti GPUs with a reduced hash rate and LHR or “Lite Hash Rate” label. These cards have been nearly impossible to find due to crypto demand, but the limited hash rate should help ward off miners—so long as they don’t find a workaround.

The LHR versions of the RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti GPUs will hit online storefronts at the end of May. Existing versions of these GPUs will continue running without the reduced hash rate. If you’re a professional cryptominer, now’s the time to start looking into NVIDIA’s CMP cards, the 30HX, 40HX, 50HX, and 90HX, which start at just $600.

Source: NVIDIA via Engadget