Cryptominers Bypass Nvidia LHR Limiters By Mining Two Coins at Once

News
By Zhiye Liu
published

Bypassing Nvidia's mining limiters by splitting power 70/30 across two different coins.

Bitcoin
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Following in NBMiner's footsteps, T-Rex is another cryptocurrency mining software that has restored up to 70% mining performance on GeForce RTX 30-series (Ampere) LHR graphics cards. However, T-Rex also brings with it a pretty nifty feature that lets users mine up to two different cryptocurrencies simultaneously, so they can use the remaining 30% of power to mine something else.

For now, no software has been able to completely beat Nvidia's improved anti-mining algorithm. Both NBMiner and T-Rex are still a while away from letting you dedicate 100% power to one specific coin, but the latter's new function is the closest thing to exploiting complete performance on GeForce LHR graphics cards we've seen yet. When T-Rex's new dual mining option is enabled, users can devote up to 30% performance to Ethereum (ETH) and the remaining 70% to another cryptocurrency such as Ergo (ERG), Ravencoin (RVN) or Cornflux (CFX). It's weird how the solution doesn't work the other way around, with 70% going to Ethereum and the rest to another cryptocurrency, considering that Ethereum is easily the most profitable option.

Each cryptocurrency has a different VRAM requirement, so not every Ampere graphics card will be able to handle all the different combinations. For example, mining Ethereum and Ergo requires over 8GB of VRAM whereas pairing Ethereum with Ravencoin or Cornflux will take over 10GB of VRAM. Basically, this means that the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and GeForce RTX 3070 won't gel with T-Rex's dual mining feature, as they only sport 8GB of GDDR6 memory.

Nvidia's anti-mining limiter still has some defenses left to crack, although it might not matter much in the long run. Ethereum will soon be shifting from a Proof-of-Work (POW) to a Proof-of-Stake (POS) protocol to help eliminate the graphics card mining boom. Back in May, Carl Beekhuizen from the Ethereum Foundation confirmed that the transition will be completed in the "upcoming months." It seems that graphics card miners have their days numbered, at least for one of the market's most popular cryptocurrencies. Many will probably sell of their equipment, while others may just move on from Ethereum to focus on another cryptocurrency.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

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12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • lazyabum
    Don't worry about retail consumers Nvidia, just keep doing everything that overshadows production of GPUs. If by some chance any start up like Si-Five or similar shows the ambitious nature Nvidia had over 2 decades ago, I'd drop Them, Intel & AMD like a bad habit.
    Reply
  • coolitic
    You simply cannot properly remove crypto-mining capabilities from GPUs w/o removing GPGPU capabilities. Nvidia should stop trying to do so already, and just keep it to things like limiting sales per customer to 1 or 2.
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    coolitic said:
    You simply cannot properly remove crypto-mining capabilities from GPUs w/o removing GPGPU capabilities. Nvidia should stop trying to do so already, and just keep it to things like limiting sales per customer to 1 or 2.

    Other than their founder's edition cards, they have no control on sales limits. The AIB's may have some control, but ultimately, it is up to the retailer.
    Reply
  • korekan
    coolitic said:
    You simply cannot properly remove crypto-mining capabilities from GPUs w/o removing GPGPU capabilities. Nvidia should stop trying to do so already, and just keep it to things like limiting sales per customer to 1 or 2.
    business limiting sell? highly unlikely. they prefer someone can consume their stocks at once.

    if its goverment it might, but if we asked business to do this, you will get "what do you think of us? charity?"

    probably SOC is one of solutions.
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    korekan said:
    business limiting sell? highly unlikely. they prefer someone can consume their stocks at once.

    if its goverment it might, but if we asked business to do this, you will get "what do you think of us? charity?"

    probably SOC is one of solutions.

    Retailers often put limits on things. Microcenter I know does, on CPU and GPU purchases, even when stock is good. I have seen newegg do it, as well.
    Reply
  • korekan
    yes retailer might have a bit moral when selling stock. what im talking is the manufacturer or distributor it self.
    Reply
  • renz496
    coolitic said:
    You simply cannot properly remove crypto-mining capabilities from GPUs w/o removing GPGPU capabilities. Nvidia should stop trying to do so already, and just keep it to things like limiting sales per customer to 1 or 2.

    doing so will not going to stop miner either.
    Reply
  • Im__A__Blimp
    You can't just limit 1 per customer. That's won't stop miners. They will just give their friends and families the money to go get them. They will figure out a way. There's a solution, but it requires Nvidia caring about their customers at the expense of negligible profit, so forget that noise
    Reply
  • coolitic
    Im__A__Blimp said:
    You can't just limit 1 per customer. That's won't stop miners. They will just give their friends and families the money to go get them. They will figure out a way. There's a solution, but it requires Nvidia caring about their customers at the expense of negligible profit, so forget that noise
    There literally cannot be a solution w/o killing their GPUs capabilities. Crypto algorithms are made to be used on consumer hardware, there is literally nothing Nvidia can do w/o killing GPGPU capabilities which would be a ridiculous thing to do.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    Im__A__Blimp said:
    You can't just limit 1 per customer. That's won't stop miners. They will just give their friends and families the money to go get them.


    China Supreme Court Sides With Mining Operator in Battle Over 485,000 GPUs
    485 thousand GPU's at this one mining operation. You think these guys are sending their friends and family to Best Buy to wait in line for cards? The really large mining operations are buying pallets of cards directly from NVidia (Bitcoin mining company boasts $30 million spend on Nvidia CMP GPUs) and AMD or AIB's or maybe a distributor. The cards they buy never make it to a retailer. The GPU shortage is coming from mining operations buying 100's of thousands of cards, not from bots snatching up a couple dozen cards from Amazon.
    Reply