Yesterday, Nvidia confirmed that it is releasing ‘Lite Hash Rate’ versions of the RTX 3080, RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti with anti-mining measures in place. Some more information has since come to light – LHR versions of these GPUs will be shipping to third-party board partners only, meaning we won’t be getting LHR ‘Founders Edition’ cards. 

In a statement sent over to PCGamer, Nvidia confirmed that it has no plans to make Founders Edition versions of the RTX 3080, RTX 3070 or RTX 3060 Ti using LHR chips, which are revised GPUs with additional anti-mining measures in place. All of these revised GPUs will instead go straight to board partners making their own custom-cooled RTX graphics cards.

It is speculated that this decision means that the Founders Edition RTX 30 series graphics cards are nearing or have reached end of life, at which point production would cease, making these FE cards even rarer.

Nvidia hopes that by releasing GeForce GPUs with mining performance halved, more of these cards will end up going towards the PC gaming market. To appease crypto miners, CMP series graphics cards are releasing instead.

KitGuru Says: I’ve been a big fan of the Founders Edition design, so its a shame to see there are no plans for a revival with LHR GPUs in place. Still, this will be good for board partners, who have struggled just as much to keep up with demand. 

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