Cryptocoin Mining?

[BallaTheFeared]

I was going to get one yesterday, it was between that or the 3L...

I ended up getting the TF3 again, lolz.

I thought maybe the reference design would make it better for stacking, but then I saw the pci extenders and figured I could get a bit more speed out of the TF3 and slightly more resale.

Nice looking card though, grats on it.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

7950 VaporX setup. I'm running 1025/900 @ 1.1v, and 45% fan speed = 73C GPU temperature. I'm getting 505-520 Mh/s.

 

[Binky]

7950 VaporX setup. I'm running 1025/900 @ 1.1v, and 45% fan speed = 73C GPU temperature. I'm getting 505-520 Mh/s.

You can probably do 1025mhz at 1v or less with about 530mhash, and lower temps. Use afterburner to set memory to 625mhz at 1.5v. Use cgminer with diablo core.

 

[Silverforce11]

I was going to get one yesterday, it was between that or the 3L...

I ended up getting the TF3 again, lolz.

I thought maybe the reference design would make it better for stacking, but then I saw the pci extenders and figured I could get a bit more speed out of the TF3 and slightly more resale.

Nice looking card though, grats on it.

I just picked up a reference 7970 for a new rig i built, and its definitely superior for rigs that mine 24/7, especially in with multi gpu in a case. All that heat => exhausted out the back, not into the case.

The default heatsink is actually really good at keeping it cool, but it gets LOUD. I took it apart and change the TIM to a good artic silver and it drop temps a lot more than i expected, with it crunching at 660Mha/s, temps hang at <78C and fan speed is 45%, which, below 50% on reference blowers, is still not too noisy.

My PCS+ 7950 with all the heat dumped into the case get really hot overnight mining, temps reached 86C and the fan was going crazy at 80%. I switched out the tiny SUGO5 for a Bitfenix Prodigy with a 230mm intake fan and 120mm 90CFM top exhaust fan, now its mining at around 78C and only 65% fan speed.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Yeah I would think reference would excel in that situation.

Mine is a bit different, here are a few pics I just started on it today while watching my son, almost died/fried my kill-a-watt and killed a surge protection with one of the plugs in the garage >.<

Temps through remote desktop...

Setup (ATM)

Kill-A-Watt

My 3 PCIe AM2+ board (555) doesn't work anymore, but I got a crummy ASUS one that came with the chip and 470 I got awhile back and it works fine expect I could only find one stick of DDR2 and it was 1GB... Not sure it even matters windows 7 is only using 500~ of it and there is no cpu overhead of course. But it's limited to 1 PCIe lane, so I might replace it with something else.

Second 7950 should be here Thursday, probably going to be another 3-4 weeks after that before I move up to three. I'm going to build some support to hold the cards up in stacks on the 1156 system to get a bit of breathing room for them, but no cases >.<

 

[wand3r3r]

I used a smaller case and threw in a DCUII, then decided to drop in a reference card. I can completely see the use of the reference model for crossfire, the DCUII (open air design) gets hot AND heats up the other cards!

First I had the DCUII above the reference with only 1 slot between them. Bad mistake, it got cooking hot.

With the DCUII under the reference card it warms up the reference card but it still manages to keep them both hot, but at least the DCUII is cooler underneath and the reference is cooler than the DCUII was above.

I despise reference cards for the noise though.

The DCUII chuffs along at 55-60% and is quieter than the reference at 40%. When the reference is at 47% my ears despise it (very annoying to me). Then again I was not impressed by the GTX 690 cooler because it was hitting 80's and annoyingly loud compared to the lightnings etc.

For your open case system open air coolers should be fine. If you go closed case I would highly recommend reference or go a few slots apart.

I have excellent hearing and have never subjected myself to the blow dryer reference designs before.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I have excellent hearing and have never subjected myself to the blow dryer reference designs before.

I feared the heat and noise that would come, hence it's in the back corner of the garage, girls didn't understand why I wanted them out of my computer room but once I get a few more units going and summer hits I'm sure they'll understand

Even just running the 7950 inside @ 1225/1725 was bad enough, I moved it outside after 24 hours Dumping 1000+ watts into the second floor of the house would have made sleeping at night uncomfortable as the thermostat is downstairs for the central air.

 

[Silverforce11]

Ref coolers need a new TIM application, the default is horrendous and often way too much is used. I have the 7970 OC to 1.2ghz mining at 45% fan speed and temps are around 72-75C. Pretty damn awesome in my book when twin-fan custom coolers ramping up with OCs to be louder and dumping all the heat in the case. Also, VRM temps for some reason are hovering at 30C, not sure if GPUz is reading that right, thats just obscenely low, even with the reference design having a giant heatsink on the vrm and vram.

I had this same experience with reference 5850s for CF, new TIM applied, runs quiet and cool with a massive OC.

 

[Zargon]

Yeah I would think reference would excel in that situation.

Mine is a bit different, here are a few pics I just started on it today while watching my son, almost died/fried my kill-a-watt and killed a surge protection with one of the plugs in the garage >.<

Temps through remote desktop...

Setup (ATM)

Kill-A-Watt

My 3 PCIe AM2+ board (555) doesn't work anymore, but I got a crummy ASUS one that came with the chip and 470 I got awhile back and it works fine expect I could only find one stick of DDR2 and it was 1GB... Not sure it even matters windows 7 is only using 500~ of it and there is no cpu overhead of course. But it's limited to 1 PCIe lane, so I might replace it with something else.

Second 7950 should be here Thursday, probably going to be another 3-4 weeks after that before I move up to three. I'm going to build some support to hold the cards up in stacks on the 1156 system to get a bit of breathing room for them, but no cases >.<

get a milk crate.

 

[KentState]

Is it possible to make money running something like a 7950 or 7970?

 

[Chiropteran]

Is it possible to make money running something like a 7950 or 7970?

For sure, 7970 is the best single GPU card there is.

It's not going to be a lot of money, but if you mine properly and pay a fairly normal price for your electricity it will be a net gain currently.

About $135/month at current difficulty and the current value of $158 per bitcoin. This value is highly volatile, and difficulty tends to go up, but that is where things are right now.

 

[jaedaliu]

Is it possible to make money running something like a 7950 or 7970?

Maybe. I've been mining bitcoins on my 7950 with stock clocks and not very agressively, and I have accumulated ~0.2 coins in the last 2.5 weeks. So at current prices, that's ~$20 - 25.

It's not a bad way to get back a few bucks on my gaming build, but will I make back the cost of the whole computer over time? I have no clue.

 

[KentState]

For sure, 7970 is the best single GPU card there is.

It's not going to be a lot of money, but if you mine properly and pay a fairly normal price for your electricity it will be a net gain currently.

About $135/month at current difficulty and the current value of $158 per bitcoin. This value is highly volatile, and difficulty tends to go up, but that is where things are right now.

Just curious. I have been running for a week at around 620 Mhash/s, but only have a fraction of a coin.

 

[Chiropteran]

Just curious. I have been running for a week at around 620 Mhash/s, but only have a fraction of a coin.

$135 per month is less than one bitcoin per month. If you measure you returns in bitcoin you will be disappointed because you won't earn them very fast, the money is in the fact that even a fraction of a bitcoin is worth multiple dollars.

I earn about .15 bitcoin per day with 5 dedicated mining machines. Mining even a single bitcoin with a 7970 is significant, if you think of it as a $150 discount for the card.

edit: WTF, bitcoin just reached $162. Big jump in value the last few minutes.

 

[Batmeat]

Not sure if anyone watched fox news this morning, but there was a quick plug for bitcoins in a positive light. I would expect the price to bump up for a bit.

 

[Mir96TA]

Does this sound right?

--target-temp 64

I will take up a notch to 75 c°

 

[chimaxi83]

So, what are you guys doing with your coins lately? I was able to pick up 12 when they were around $60 a couple weeks ago and I'm thinking of selling maybe half, but we all know price always goes up when you sell

 

[HydroSqueegee]

holy shit. something happened yesterday with the power in my house. 2 of 3 PCs have toasted power supplies (the ones with the 7950s of course). one of them also had the motherboard go out.

running at 19% till late friday when parts come in.

 

[Zargon]

yikes!!!

 

[thilanliyan]

My 3 PCIe AM2+ board (555) doesn't work anymore, but I got a crummy ASUS one that came with the chip and 470 I got awhile back and it works fine expect I could only find one stick of DDR2 and it was 1GB... Not sure it even matters windows 7 is only using 500~ of it and there is no cpu overhead of course. But it's limited to 1 PCIe lane, so I might replace it with something else.

Memory amount does have an impact when scrypt mining especially. If it works, great, but I've seen others where it does not work so well.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I'm just in the process of tweaking my GPU voltage. How does instability usually manifest while mining? Invalids? Driver crash/recover? Artifacts?

 

[Minjin]

Hm...good question...heat does rise, but heat (energy) flows from hot to cold, and if the basement is cooler than upstairs, then heat should flow into the basement, and into the ground which should be cooler than the basement. Not 100% sure about that though.

Heat does not rise. Hot air rises on Earth due to buoyancy effects.

 

[Chiropteran]

Litecoin mining is only 101% of bitcoin value right now. Are there even any good litecoin pools? The one I was using stole 25% of everyone's earnings a few weeks ago. The others seem to have very high fees or are just unreliable. BTCGUILD is like a rock, I haven't seen it go down for any appreciable length of time ever, and never had any problems with stolen funds or other shady activity by the pool operator.

 

[Qianglong]

I am using give-me-LTC for the past 3 days and it has been rock solid! Tonight I am firing up 3 more 7950s and 1X 7870 in addition my existing rigs of 3X7970 and 2X5870.

 

[Chiropteran]

I am using give-me-LTC for the past 3 days and it has been rock solid! Tonight I am firing up 3 more 7950s and 1X 7870 in addition my existing rigs of 3X7970 and 2X5870.

Cool, I'm going to keep this one in mind and try it out the next time litecoin mining makes sense for me.