To help gamers get their hands on new graphics cards, NVIDIA released its “Lite Hash Rate” series of GeForce cards in May 2021. The GeForce RTX 3070 was also included in the new LHR series. On paper, the GeForce RTX 3070 LHR features the same specs as the non-LHR model. It packs 5,888 CUDA cores, 184 Tensor cores, as well as 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and can deliver great 1440p and good 4K gaming experience. Until recently the RTX 3070 LHR was considered to be a poor graphics card for mining, however, with the advent of new miners featuring 100% LHR unlocks, this card is slowly starting to gain popularity in crypto community.
Read also: Best Power Supply (PSU) for Mining Cryptocurrency in 2022
Compared to the original GeForce RTX 3070, the RTX 3070 LHR features a built-in cryptocurrency mining limiter which negatively affects the card’s Ethereum mining performance. The RTX 3070 LHR is able to deliver only half of the hashrate of the original RTX 3070, which makes it much less useful for mining. In particular, the RTX 3070 LHR is only able to deliver 28 MH/s on Ethash algorithm, while the non-LHR card could deliver 58 MH/s without any overclocks. The built-in mining limiter also affects the card’s mining performance even while mining other coins, such as RavenCoin (RVN) or ERGO (ERG).
As of May 7th 2022 all LHR cards can now be fully unlocked! If you plan to mine Ethereum with the RTX 3070 LHR we strongly recommend using the latest version of NBMiner or NiceHash QuickMiner. These miners fully bypass the card’s built-in mining limiter, thus allowing the card to achieve its maximum mining speed.
Fortunately enough, in May 2022 there has been a new boom of cryptocurrency miners that are able to fully unlock the mining potential of LHR cards and even allow them to mine multiple coins simultaneously. The list of supported GPUs also includes the GeForce RTX 3070 LHR, which is now able to deliver up to 61 MH/s on Ethash algorithm, provided that you use the right overclock settings, as well as the right miner. In this quick guide we’ll show you how to fully unlock your RTX 3070’s mining performance, and increase your income from mining cryptocurrencies.
Best Overclock Settings for Mining Ethereum with GeForce RTX 3070 LHR
Before you start mining Ethereum with the GeForce RTX 3070 LHR, we recommend overclocking the graphics card in order to improve its mining performance as much as possible. This will also improve your card’s efficiency, as well as profitability. However, it must be noted that you should use overclocking at your own risk! ViCadia.com does not take any responsibilities related to overclocking or performing any adjustments to your computer. You have been warned!
Firstly, download the latest version of the MSI Afterburner and HWiNFO64. You can use MSI Afterburner to manually set core clock, memory clock and power limit values for your graphics card. You can also create a batch file for each miner and specify your overclock settings inside it. Use HWiNFO64 tool monitor your GPU’s temperature. If you notice any unusual behavior with your graphics card, immediately revert to default settings.
For purposes of this guide we’ve used MSI GeForce RTX 3070 LHR Gaming Z TRIO 8G graphics card. Down below you can find overclock setting which worked best for us. These OC settings may not necessarily work for your card. Each AIB variant of the RTX 3070 LHR performs slightly different.
Here are the overclock settings that worked best for our card:
- Lock the GPU Core Clock to 1,125 MHz using a miner batch file, NVIDIA SMI or MSI Afterburner
- Set the Memory Clock offset to +1,200 MHz using a miner batch file, NVIDA SMI or MSI Afterburner
- Leave the Power Limit at 100%
- Set Fan Speed to Auto (you can also adjust it to your own preference)
Ethereum Mining Performance & Benchmarks
In order to examine our card’s mining performance, we’ve used five different miners: NBminer 41.0, NiceHash QuickMiner v0.5.4.0 RC, GMiner 2.91, lolMiner 1.48, and T-Rex 0.25.9 miner. We’ve tested the card’s mining performance only with applied overclocked settings. Fan speed, GPU core temperature, VRAM temperature, and total board power (TBP) draw were recorded with HWiNFO64 v7.22. All tests were performed on PC running Windows 10 and NVIDIA 512.59 display drivers. Down below you can see our benchmark results.
| RTX 3070 LHR (OC) | Hashrate | GPU Temp. | Fan Speed | Power | Eff./Watt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NBMiner 41.0 (ETH) | 61.2 MH/s | 47°C | 98% | 124 W | 493.54 kH/J |
| NiceHash QuickMiner 0.5.4.0 RC (ETH) | 59.0 MH/s | 45°C | 100% | 124 W | 475.80 kH/J |
| GMiner 2.91 (ETH+TON) | 45.0 MH/s (ETH) 1.20 GH/s (TON) | 53°C | 99% | 144 W | 312.5 kH/J (ETH) 8.3 MH/J (TON) |
| lolMiner 1.48 (ETH-ZIL) | 48.1 MH/s | 46°C | 96% | 123 W | 391.1 kH/J |
| lolMiner 1.48 (ETH-ZIL+TON) | 48.0 MH/s (ETH) 1.29 GH/s (TON) | 53°C | 96% | 146 W | 328.7 kH/J (ETH) 8.9 MH/J (TON) |
| T-Rex 0.25.9 (ETH+ALPH) | 40.4 MH/s (ETH) 303.7 MH/s (ALPH) | 53°C | 99% | 111 W | 363.9 kH/J (ETH) 2.7 MH/J (TON) |
As you can see, our main goal here was to test the performance of the new miners featuring 100% LHR unlocks, and compare these results to the card’s performance while mining in dual mining mode. The reason for that was simple. These days, mining Ethereum is very cost-inefficient, and dual mining mode is a great way to increase your overall profits. With dual mining mode, all of your GPU’s extra power is put to good use, since it allows your GPU to mine two cryptocurrencies instead of one.
If you take a look at our table above, you can clearly see that both NBMiner 41.0 and NiceHash QuickMiner are dominating other miners in terms of mining speed. This isn’t too surprising given the fact that these two miners feature 100% LHR unlocks. Nevertheless, we were still quite staggered seeing their performance boost in our tests. Compared to lolMiner, which was able to deliver around 48 MH/s in ideal conditions, the NBMiner 41.0 was able to secure a full 61.2 MH/s on average, which was simply an incredible result.
Even though GMiner and lolMiner offer dual mining modes, and can deliver additional 1.3 GH/s hashrate while mining Toncoin, there is really no point using these miners anymore when NBMiner and NiceHash QuickMiner can now offer absolutely stellar mining performance. In our tests, T-Rex miner scored lowest power consumption results, however, even with these results its power efficiency paled in comparison to what miners with 100% LHR unlocks could offer. Down below you can see a chart depicting more clearly the efficiency of tested miners when results for mining other coins are filtered out.
As you can see, NBMiner 41.0 is the most efficient miner to use with the GeForce RTX 3070 LHR. NiceHash QuickMiner doesn’t lag too much behind, however, with a power efficiency of 493.5 kH per watt, the NBMiner is really in a league of its own.
Speaking of other miners, their power efficiency is all over the place. The only true conclusion we can deduce from data presented here is that dual mining mode is not worth it, especially now when miners with 100% LHR unlocks are starting to appear. LolMiner can still be considered a decent alternative, since it can deliver very good Toncoin mining hashrate, and can boast with acceptable power efficiency. Its only major downside is its very high power consumption, but if dual mining is something that interests you the most, then lolMiner is worth a second chance.
In short, if you plan to only mine Ethereum, then we recommend using the latest version of NBMiner. Compared to the NiceHash QuickMiner, NBMiner offers much more flexibility, and is far more easier to apply custom GPU clocks while using it. In our tests, NBMiner also proved less buggy. However, if you prefer to use NiceHash’s services, and you are already mining in their pools, their QuickMiner will do just fine.
Overall, with this level of mining performance, the GeForce RTX 3070 LHR proves to be an incredible graphics card for mining. By using NBMiner, you can increase the card’s Ethereum hashrate up to 61 MH/s, which is an incredible result. With such performance, the RTX 3070 LHR is able to mine Ethereum almost as fast as the AMD Radeon RX 6800, which costs roughly $50-$100 more.
Conclusion
And there you have it! After more than a year of waiting we now finally have miners that are able to fully unlock LHR cards. To us, these are wonderful news, and we’re overjoyed seeing our GeForce RTX 3070 LHR card delivering 61 MH/s while mining Ethereum.
We hope you liked this guide and found useful information. Stay tuned for more updates, as we’ll continue updating this guide with new benchmark results and overclock settings to improve your card’s mining performance and lower its power consumption. If you have any questions or suggestion how should we improve our methodology, feel free to post a comment below. Stay safe & happy mining!
Read more
