Nvidia Has Removed the LHR Lock in the Latest Driver 522.25

It seems that the latest video driver from Nvidia version 522.25 just released with support for the new Nvidia RTX 4090 GPUs does also come with a removed LHR, so no more the need to use a miner that unlocks the GPU’s full performance for mining (if you have a LHR video card that is). One would argue that after Ethereum switching to PoS and not being minable anymore is a reason enough for this move from Nvidia to remove the hashrate limiter on their RTX 30xx series of GPUs. We have tested the latest video drivers on LHR locked RTX 3070 Ti GPUs with PhoenixMiner 5.9 that does not yet support any kind of LHR unlock and they are doing 80 MH/s mining. Other LHR locked GPUs should also be capable of their full hahsrate without the need of special unlocking miner, though we have not been able to test and confirm other GPUs for the moment.

It is not the mining part; it is the sales part that is the reason for the LHR removal. The current situation with no profit for most miners means that there is no need to have software that implies further hashrate limiter like the LHR mode in place as it will further decrease the interest from miners for Nvidia GPUs with the current market situation. And while Nvidia was really enjoying the last bull run with huge demand for their video cards, the situation at the moment is not very favourable for the company even with the launch of their new RTX 4090 GPUs. Miners are not buying new GPUs, in fact many are not only not buying, but are actually starting to sell their RTX 30 series video cards on the second-hand market at lower and lower prices as they don’t see a point using the for mining at the moment…

So, is Nvidia trying to “make things right” with the crypto miners one more now that they need to be brought back buying GPUs in time for the next crypto bull run? It probably is, and if not, they can always say the lack of LHR lock in the 522.25 drivers was a developer mistake that will be fixed in a future driver update!