Contents
How LHR Graphics Cards Appeared
NVIDIA started lowering the mining hash rate on their graphics cards in February 2021. That was when they published an article in their blog titled “GeForce Is Made for Gaming, CMP Is Made to Mine.”
In this article, NVIDIA announced Halving Hash Rate for the GeForce RTX 3060. You can read the full article on the NVIDIA website by following this link.
In May 2021, NVIDIA published another article titled “A Further Step to Getting GeForce Cards into the Hands of Gamers.” You can read the full article by following this link.
This article talks about lowering the hash rate on the Ethash algorithm for the newly released GeForce RTX 3080, 3070, and 3060 Ti. These models became available at the end of May 2021 and were marked with a “Lite Hash Rate” or “LHR” identifier.
At the end of May 2021, NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. You can read the full announcement here.
Although these GPUs weren’t marked as LHR, even before the release there were rumors online about the limited hash rate on Ethash. The rumors about LHR were confirmed after the release and testing.
The active discussion of the term LHR among experts started in May 2021.
Test Rig. Estimating Potential Max Hash Rate and LHR Impact
The test rig consisted of the following parts:
- Motherboard: BIOSTAR Hi-Fi B85S2
- CPU: Intel Pentium G3220
- Memory: DDR3 SDRAM Kingston 4GB
- HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 160GB
- PSU: EVGA 1000 GQ 80+ GOLD 1000W
- GPU: EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 ULTRA GAMING (1800 MHz Boost Clock, Memory Clock 19000 MHz (effective), TPD: 350 Watts)
- Two GPUs were connected to the motherboard, each through the riser PCI-E X16-X1.
- OS: Windows 10
- NVIDIA drivers: 471.68
- Overclocking: MSI Afterburner 4.6.4 Beta 3
- Monitoring: GPU-Z
Testing was held indoors with the room temperature at +15 °C (59 °F).
We already described how we estimated the potential max hash rate for the RTX 3080 Ti on Ethash and Etchash algorithms in the article titled “How to Increase Mining Hash Rate. Unlocking LHR Graphics Cards with Gminer”.
The potential max hash rate without LHR lock on Ethash and Etchash algorithms is ~116 Mh/s, while with LHR lock it’s ~64 Mh/s, which is 45% lower.
Testing T-Rex Miner
T-Rex is a universal program for GPU cryptocurrency mining. The first T-Rex version was released in June 2018. It is in constant development and supports such popular algorithms as Ethash, Kawpow, Octopus, Autolykos2, MTP, Firopow, Progpow. T-Rex is NVIDIA-focused.
The miner developers communicate with their users on many popular platforms and social networks.
- Official website: https://trex-miner.com
- Github: https://github.com/trexminer/T-Rex/releases
- BitcoinTalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4432704.0
T-Rex 0.24.0 was announced on October 7, 2021. Click here to download the miner and read about its features.
This version is the first to unlock LHR in dual mining mode. If you comply with equipment requirements, you can mine two coins simultaneously in three combinations: ETH+ERGO, ETH+RVN, ETH+CFX.
You can find the description of options, recommended GPU settings, and equipment requirements here.
Before testing LHR unlock dual mining modes, we tested the current miner version on Ethash (with LHR unlock), Autolykos2, and Kawpow algorithms.
We launched the mining program on the rig with the following GPU settings: PL(%): 75, CC (MHz): +0, MC (MHz): +1000.
Bat file:
t-rex.exe -a ethash -o stratum+tcp://eth.2miners.com:2020 -u WALLET_ADDRESS -w RIG_3080Ti -p x --log-path log_T-rex_RIG_3080Ti_ETH_LHR.txt pause
Right after the launch, the program estimated a hash rate on Ethash at ~79 Mh/s–85 Mh/s, and after two hours it was still in that range. Memory Controller Load, GPU Load, and Board Power Draw charts (as well as other Power charts) were stable.
We estimated the hash rate after 2 hours and 6 minutes of the miner operation based on the number of shares sent to the pool. Initial data: 149 shares in 2.1 hours, share difficulty is 8726 M. We multiplied the number of shares per second by share difficulty and got 171.98 Mh/s. This is a hash rate of two GPUs, so a hash rate of one GPU is ~85.9 Mh/s.
We recommend extending the testing period to get statistically correct results: each card should send over 5000 shares to the pool.
We launched the mining program on the rig with the following GPU settings: PL(%): 75, CC (MHz): +0, MC (MHz): +1000.
Bat file:
t-rex.exe -a autolykos2 -o stratum+tcp://erg.2miners.com:8888 -u WALLET_ADDRESS -w RIG_3080Ti -p x --log-path log_T-rex_RIG_3080Ti_ERGO.txt pause
The miner showed a stable hash rate of ~259 Mh/s on Autolykos2. Memory Controller Load, GPU Load, and Board Power Draw charts (as well as other Power charts) were stable.
We launched the mining program on the rig with the following GPU settings: PL(%): 80, CC (MHz): +100, MC (MHz): +1000.
Bat file:
t-rex.exe -a kawpow -o stratum+tcp://rvn.2miners.com:6060 -u WALLET_ADDRESS -w RIG_3080Ti -p x --log-path log_T-rex_RIG_3080Ti_RVN.txt pause
The miner showed a stable hash rate of ~54–56 Mh/s on Kawpow. Memory Controller Load, GPU Load, and Board Power Draw charts (as well as other Power charts) were stable.
Testing LHR Unlock Dual Mining Mode ETH+ERGO
The guide titled “LHR” recommends the following GPU settings.
We launched the mining program on the rig with the following GPU settings: PL(%): 75, CC (MHz): +0, MC (MHz): +1000.
Bat file:
t-rex.exe -a ethash --lhr-algo autolykos2 -o stratum+tcp://eth.2miners.com:2020 -u WALLET_ADDRESS_ETH -p x -w RIG_3080Ti --url2 stratum+tcp://erg.2miners.com:8888 --user2 WALLET_ADDRESS_ERGO.RIG_3080Ti --pass2 x --log-path log_T-rex_RIG_3080Ti_dual_ETH+ERGO.txt pause
The miner started with LHR 30 parameter and showed a hash rate of ~35 Mh/s on Ethash and ~180 Mh/s on Autolykos2. In the next two hours of operation, LHR parameter adjusted and reached LHR 23 and LHR 22. Hash rate settled in the ranges of ~26 Mh/s–30 Mh/s and ~196 Mh/s–202 Mh/s. Memory Controller Load and Board Power Draw charts (as well as other Power charts) were unstable, with slight leaps.
Testing LHR Unlock Dual Mining Mode ETH+RVN
The guide titled “LHR” recommends the following GPU settings.
We launched the mining program on the rig with the following GPU settings: PL(%): 75, CC (MHz): +0, MC (MHz): +1000.
Bat file:
t-rex.exe -a ethash --lhr-algo kawpow -o stratum+tcp://eth.2miners.com:2020 -u WALLET_ADDRESS_ETH -p x -w RIG_3080Ti --url2 stratum+tcp://rvn.2miners.com:6060 --user2 WALLET_ADDRESS_RVN.RIG_3080Ti --pass2 x --log-path log_T-rex_RIG_3080Ti_dual_ETH+RVN.txt pause
The miner started with LHR 30 parameter and showed a hash rate of ~35 Mh/s on Ethash and ~37 Mh/s on RVN. In the next two hours of operation, LHR parameter adjusted and reached LHR 29. Hash rate settled in the ranges of ~34 Mh/s–35 Mh/s and ~35 Mh/s–37 Mh/s.
Memory Controller Load, GPU Load, and Board Power Draw charts (as well as other Power charts) were stable, with slight leaps.
Final Conclusions and Suggestions
As a result of our testing, we got the following hash rates (Mh/s) and estimated respective 24-hour rewards.
We used 2CryptoCalc mining profitability calculator to estimate rewards in 24 hours.
T-Rex miner offers an interesting solution to unlock LHR graphics cards.
T-Rex 0.24.0 in Standard LHR unlock mode lets you partially unlock LHR: the miner shows a hash rate of ~85 Mh/s, which is ~73% of the potential max hash rate.
We failed to achieve an acceptable level of operation stability at a higher hash rate in Dual mining LHR unlock ETH+ERGO mode. More testing is needed to find optimal GPU settings to get acceptable results. Using the watchdog might help, as it restarts the miner when the hash rate drops below a specified value.
We succeeded in reaching an acceptable level of operation stability at a higher hash rate in Dual mining LHR unlock ETH+RVN mode. The profitability that we estimated for this mode proves that under certain conditions dual mining can be more profitable than the standard mode.
We recommend an extended testing period to get statistically correct results: each card should send over 5000 shares to the pool.
Please note that we didn’t test GPUs with extreme settings. It is possible that your rigs will get stable results in all Dual mining LHR unlock modes. Try overclocking and testing each GPU individually.
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