Skip to content

Main Navigation

Puget Systems Logo
  • Solutions
    • Recommended Systems For:
    • Content Creation
      • Photo Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe Lightroom Classic
        • Adobe Photoshop
      • Video Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe After Effects
        • Adobe Premiere Pro
        • DaVinci Resolve
        • Foundry Nuke
      • 3D Design and Animation
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk 3ds Max
        • Autodesk Maya
        • Blender
        • Cinema 4D
        • Houdini
        • ZBrush
      • Real-Time Engines
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Game Development
        • Unity
        • Unreal Engine
        • Virtual Production
      • Rendering
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • OctaneRender
        • Redshift
        • V-Ray
      • Digital Audio
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Ableton Live
        • FL Studio
        • Pro Tools
    • Engineering
      • CAD
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk AutoCAD
        • Autodesk Inventor
        • Autodesk Revit
        • SOLIDWORKS
      • Photogrammetry
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • ArcGIS Pro
        • Agisoft Metashape
        • Pix4D
        • RealityCapture
    • Scientific Computing
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Data Science
      • Machine Learning / AI
      • Scientific Computing
    • More
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Compact Size
      • Live Streaming
      • NVIDIA RTX Studio
      • Quiet Operation
      • Virtual Reality
  • Products
    • Intel Core i7 & i9
      Workstations with 13th Gen Intel Core i7 & i9 processors on Z690 and Z790 chipsets
    • AMD Ryzen 7 & 9
      Workstations with AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors on B650 and X670 chipsets
    • AMD Threadripper PRO
      Workstations with AMD Threadripper PRO 5000 WX processors on the WRX80 chipset
    • Intel Xeon W
      Workstations with Intel Xeon W 3300 processors on the C621E chipset
    • Rackmount & Server
      Servers and workstations in rackmount chassis
    • Custom Computers
      Customize a desktop workstation from scratch
    • Custom Servers
      Customize a rackmount server from scratch
    • QNAP Network Attached Storage
      Check out our external storage options as an authorized reseller for QNAP
    • Recommended Third Party Peripherals
      View our list of recommended peripherals to use with your new PC
  • Publications
    • Articles
    • HPC Blog
    • Blog Posts
    • Case Studies
    • Podcasts
    • Press
  • Support
    • Contact Support
    • Support Articles
    • Warranty Details
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Press Kit
    • Testimonials
    • Careers
  • Talk to an Expert
  • My Account
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Hardware Articles
  4. /
  5. NVIDIA Lite Hash Rate GPU Performance

NVIDIA Lite Hash Rate GPU Performance

Posted on October 26, 2021 by William George
Always look at the date when you read an article. Some of the content in this article is most likely out of date, as it was written on October 26, 2021. For newer information, see our more recent articles.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Test Setup
  • Methodology
  • Results
  • Conclusion

Introduction

In an attempt to make their GeForce line of consumer video cards less appealing to cryptocurrency miners, NVIDIA has updated many of their GPUs with "lite hash rate" (LHR) versions. Graphics cards with LHR are supposedly able to detect when they are being used for crypto mining usage and then reduce their hash performance – in particular, the Dagger Hashimoto algorithm. NVIDIA claims that should reduce the effectiveness of these cards for mining Etherium by about 50%, without impacting game performance or other applications. The reduction to mining speed is of little concern to us here at Puget Systems, but to be sure this change won't impact our workstation users we put a pair of GeForce RTX 3070 cards – one with LHR and one without – to the test in several professional benchmarks.

Test Setup

We used the following platform and software to test the relative performance of GeForce RTX 3070 cards with and without LHR:

Test Platform
CPU Intel Core i9 11900K
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-U12S
Motherboard Gigabyte Z490 Vision D
RAM 4x DDR4-3200 16GB (64GB total)
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8GB LHR
Hard Drive Samsung 980 Pro 2TB
Software Windows 11 Pro 64-bit
GeForce Studio Driver 472.12
Premiere Pro 15.1.0
V-Ray 5 Benchmark 5.01.00
OctaneBench 2020.1.5
Redshift 3.0.57
Metashape Professional 1.7.2
Pix4Dmapper 4.6.4

While we normally use NVIDIA Founders Edition video cards when possible, for this article we instead used EVGA's GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING models. That is because, so far as I am aware, NVIDIA has not made a lite hash rate version of the RTX 3070 Founders Edition – and I wanted to keep everything else about the cards as similar as possible, to avoid something like boost clocks or cooler effectiveness from skewing the results. Here are EVGA's own specs pages showing that these cards should be identical in all respects other than LHR:

  • EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING, 08G-P5-3755-KR
  • EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 ULTRA GAMING, 08G-P5-3755-KL

Methodology

To capture GPU performance across multiple workflows, we ran tests on three primary types of applications: video editing, rendering, and photogrammetry. This isn't a complete picture, of course, since there are thousands of different software titles which make use of the video card in some form or fashion – but these examples cover a wide range of usage, especially with regards to the work that many of our customers are doing in the field. Each test was run twice, and the better of the two results is included in our charts below.

It should be noted that gaming performance is not being included here, since that is not something we focus on and plenty of other review websites cover that in greater depth than we ever could.

Results

Here are charts showing the performance of the new lite hash rate RTX 3070, in green, versus the older non-LHR card in blue:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Normal vs LHR Performance in Premiere Pro

GeForce LHR Performance in Video Editing

Image
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Normal vs LHR Performance in Premiere Pro
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Previous Next

GeForce LHR Performance in Rendering

System Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Previous Next
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Previous Next

GeForce LHR Performance in Photogrammetry

System Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Previous Next

Conclusion

It is pretty clear from the results above that the GeForce RTX 3070 "lite hash rate" video card did not suffer performance loss in any of the applications we tested. In fact, if anything the LHR variant we tested appears to be slightly faster than the original version – despite being from the same board manufacturer, running on the same driver, using the same cooling system, and having the same base and boost clock speeds. There is variance in GPUs from one individual sample to another, which may be all that we are seeing here – or it could be that the addition of LHR or some other small tweak made in the process actually boosted performance just a tiny bit. To really answer that we'd have to get in additional samples of both LHR and non-LHR cards, ideally from other manufacturers and other parts of the RTX 30 Series… but given how small the difference here is, and that it appears to benefit the newer model, that would likely be overkill. Instead, I am happy to call LHR cards a success in terms of workstation performance!

CTA Image
Purchase a Workstation

Puget Systems offers a range of powerful and reliable systems that are tailor-made for your unique workflow.

Configure a System!
CTA Image
Labs Consultation Service

Our Labs team is available to provide in-depth hardware recommendations based on your workflow.

Find Out More!

Related Content

  • Puget Systems Hardware Trends of 2022
  • Intel Xeon W-3400 Content Creation Preview
  • NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada vs RTX A6000 for Content Creation
  • GPU Rendering: NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Performance
View All Related Content

Latest Content

  • Puget Systems Hardware Trends of 2022
  • Guide To Removing Instapak Foam
  • Basic Guide to Identify and Remove Malware
  • Should I Upgrade My Gpu
View All
Tags: GeForce, GPU, LHR, Lite Hash Rate, NVIDIA, photogrammetry, Rendering, RTX, RTX 3070, Video Card, Video Editing

Who is Puget Systems?

Puget Systems builds custom PCs tailored for your workflow

Extensive in-house testing
making you more productive and giving you more performance for your dollar

Reliable workstations
with fewer crashes and blue screens means more time working, less time waiting on your computer

Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up and running ASAP

Proven track record
check out our customer testimonials and Reseller Ratings

Get Started

Browse Our Workstations

Fractal Design Define 7 Chassis with Puget Systems Logo

Select your workflow:

Content Creation
Engineering
Scientific Computing
More

Latest Articles

  • Puget Systems Hardware Trends of 2022
  • Guide To Removing Instapak Foam
  • Basic Guide to Identify and Remove Malware
  • Should I Upgrade My Gpu
  • Case Study with Lost Boys Interactive
View All

Post navigation

 Should you upgrade to Windows 11 for Photography?Intel Z690 vs Z590 vs Z490 Chipset Comparison 
Puget Systems Logo
Build Your Own PC Site Map FAQ
facebook instagram linkedin rss twitter youtube

Optimized Solutions

  • Adobe Premiere
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Solidworks
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Machine Learning

Workstations

  • Content Creation
  • Engineering
  • Scientific PCs
  • More

Support

  • Online Guides
  • Request Support
  • Remote Help

Publications

  • All News
  • Puget Blog
  • HPC Blog
  • Hardware Articles
  • Case Studies

Policies

  • Warranty & Return
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Delivery Times
  • Accessibility

About Us

  • Testimonials
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

© Copyright 2023 - Puget Systems, All Rights Reserved.