How To Tell If Your Graphics Card is Lite Hash Rate Or Not
With NVIDIA having rolled out their Lite Hash Rate (LHR) versions of Ampere GPUs, you might be wondering if your graphics card has a hashing limiter installed. We’ll tell you how to easily check if your graphics card is Lite Hash Rate or not.
What is Lite Hash Rate?
The Lite Hash Rate term stems from NVIDIA’s efforts to combat mining cryptocurrencies on their GeForce cards. As crypto farms have kept many Ampere video cards out of the hands of gamers, a LHR rerun of popular GPUs was announced. These newer models come with limitations to their hashing performance, most notably when it comes to mining Ethereum (ETH).
The GeForce RTX 3060 was the first graphics card to feature a hashing limiter, directly at launch. Many of NVIDIA’s popular GeForce GPUs that were released earlier, have since been replaced with Lite Hash Rate versions. Earlier models of RTX 3000 GPUs might still offer effective mining performance, but their newer, identical looking substitutes will effectively halve most hashing rates. This seed of doubt is meant to scare crypto farmers away from the GeForce brand.
What GPUs have a Lite Hash Rate version?
As of now, not all modern GeForce cards have seen Lite Hash Rate revisions. NVIDIA only ever announced LHR reruns of their RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080. Even though the RTX 3060 already had a limiter, this GPU will be revised under the same banner retroactively too.
Going forward, all GeForce cards will come with hashing limiters pre-installed. This is, as NVIDIA stated, because “GeForce is for gaming”, not mining per se. At least not when mining appears to destabilize the entire graphics card market.
Many notebook GPUs, as well as the RTX 3090, will not be revised with Lite Hash Rate versions. This could of course change in the near future, as GeForce’s war on crypto farms is ongoing.
In addition, older NVIDIA GPUs won’t be revised either. If your graphics card is predating the RTX 3000 generation — otherwise known as Ampere ― it can’t be a LHR version. Even if you buy a newly manufactured GeForce RTX 2080, it hashes just as well as it did two years ago.
Can you spot a Lite Hash Rate version by appearance?
No, you can’t tell whether your graphics card is Lite Hash Rate, solely on its appearance. And that’s exactly how NVIDIA intended it to be. To destabilize the GeForce platform as a mining tool, NVIDIA aims to stealthily inject the market with these weaker hashing performances. Ergo: the physical design or box won’t be altered to tell two versions apart.
Graphics card manufacturers might be upfront about it, though. On their websites, specific cards could be listed as Lite Hash Rate revisions of some kind. But even then, retailers might choose to not be so transparent about what versions they’re selling.
So, how do you tell whether a graphics card is Lite Hash Rate?
First of all, you’ll have to be able to get the physical card into your hands. To see if a graphics card is Lite Hash Rate, it either needs to be taken apart, or be plugged into a functional PCIe slot. Only by reading out the exact GPU model or PCI Device ID number, you can tell if it’s got a mining limiter or not.
This data isn’t that hard to find, thanks to some accessible tools. Many free hardware monitors can read out the information flowing through your PCIe port. We recommend TechPowerUp’s GPU-Z (completely free, no strings attached), but there are many different ways to read out the exact GPU you’re running.
Alternatively, you could find some of this data without the use of freeware. Head on over to Windows 10’s Device Manager, and right-click over to Properties on your video card, found under the Display Adapters category. Navigate to the Details tab, and click on Hardware IDs in the drop-down menu. These should list the specifications you’re looking for, albeit possibly embedded in plain-text code.
What you’re looking for in GPU model, mostly comes down to a little “2” at the end of the string. For example: an older GeForce RTX 3080 runs on the GA102-200 chip, while the one with hashing limiter will read out GA102-202.
The table below helps you easily pinpoint what exact GPU you should be looking for, when it comes to Lite Hash Rate.
| Model | “Old” GPU | Lite Hash Rate GPU |
| RTX 3090 | GA102-300 | No LHR Revision available |
| RTX 3080 | GA102-200 | GA102-202 |
| RTX 3070 | GA104-300 | GA104-302 |
| RTX 3060 Ti | GA104-200 | GA104-202 |
| RTX 3060 | GA106-300 | GA106-302 |
If you want to tell by looking at the hardware itself, these model numbers can be found etched into the physical GPU itself. It’s more of a hassle, but by taking the add-in board out of the entire graphics card, you will be able to get the same results. It’s also the only way to decipher the exact GPU versions if you don’t have a functional PC on hand. Just make sure to not damage that beauty of a GPU when yanking off the cooling solution.
If you want to tell by PCI Device ID, the numbers you would be looking for depend on your graphics card model. The table below helps you tell whether you have a LHR revision, purely on PCI product number.
| Model | “Old” PCI Device ID | Lite Hash Rate PCI Device ID |
| RTX 3090 | 2204 | No LHR Revision available |
| RTX 3080 | 2206 | 2216 |
| RTX 3070 | 2484 | 2488 |
| RTX 3060 Ti | 2486 | 2489 |
| RTX 3060 | 2503 | 2504 |
That’s all there is to it. This data should be able to tell you whether your graphics card is a Lite Hash Rate revision or not. If none of the GPU models or PCI IDs listed here show up in your case, your hardware should be able to hash at maximum efficiency. No strings — or a limiter — attached.
If you were intending to mine cryptocurrencies, but appear to have bought a LHR graphics card, please rethink your choices. These cards were specifically meant to display some great gaming experiences. Boot up some Warzone, or find a PC gamer who wants to upgrade their hardware, without all the nice cards being scalped to death.
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