Ethereum GPU mining?

[Madpacket]

All I will say is that the guy who was mining like mad using Vega FE apparently did his own custom XMR miner specifically for Vega. Most of the existing miners have cores written specifically for particular GPU architectures. Claymore's stuff is like that.

It's going to be awhile before we see any good mining software for Vega.

From the reddit thread about the new DAG fix drivers.

"
yuhong 1 point 2 hours ago

Worth mentioning here: "The reason performance falls off is core temp. As soon as vega gets over 60C performance falls off dramatically.

I'm currently running my Vega FE's at 1137MHz core clock and 1100MHz HBM2 clock. 55C core temp. 42.1MH/s."
"

That's a pretty nice score for a low core clock, and the power consumption shouldn't be that bad if properly undervolted. Yeah with optimized drivers and software this card may actually end up being worthwhile for mining (one the price is fixed).

https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherMining/comments/6tvp7i/amds_new_mining_block_chain_optimized_driver/

 

[Head1985]

Why miners still buying GPU for ETH mining?What i read there is difficulty bomb and you cant make any money from it in next few months.

 

[GoStumpy]

What about other cryptocoins like equihash, etc?

 

[IntelUser2000]

What about other cryptocoins like equihash, etc?

There's a chance you won't make much money after Ethereum mining is over even with other coins. Take a look at profits here: http://whattomine.com/

You'll see profits are actually clumped up together between various coins. When Ethereum mining stops(due to difficulty or even PoS) people will move the rigs to other coins. Either they will just point it to another coin or sell the cards and buy cards that do better in other algorithms like the GTX 1070 cards.

 

[Madpacket]

There's a chance you won't make much money after Ethereum mining is over even with other coins. Take a look at profits here: http://whattomine.com/

You'll see profits are actually clumped up together between various coins. When Ethereum mining stops(due to difficulty or even PoS) people will move the rigs to other coins. Either they will just point it to another coin or sell the cards and buy cards that do better in other algorithms like the GTX 1070 cards.

That's the popular theory anyway, and probably true for the most part. However, I think it's important to reflect over the past year what's happened. Many miners this year got extremely spoiled when Ether jumped up in value and FOMO'd the hardware leading to the insane difficulty we have today. Last year we were happy to be making profits over a 6 - 9 month time frame as the price of Ether was sub $20 for a very long time.

The point is, if/when Ether becomes unprofitable soon, some miners will switch to other currencies or even get out entirely selling gear at reduced rates. However, there are several coins that aren't worth much today (LBRY, MUSICOIN, UBIQ, Sia, etc.) that you can still break even or turn a small profit mining them. If these coins see any sort of traction you could see some pretty large returns after mining a good amount of them. I think the key here is not to sell them if you think they'll go up (like many of us did with Ether when it was cheap) eventually. This is mainly why I'm no rush to get rid of my mining gear.

So yeah, I think mining is far from dead even if Ether mining may be (temporarily) unprofitable until the bomb is diffused.

Sure it's a gamble and small risk (what isn't these days) to keep your mining gear for these less profitable coins, especially if you haven't hit your ROI, but no one can predict the future. My strategy during the run up to the first Ethereum hard fork/bomb diffusion is to switch to mining a few different currencies (likely not the most "profitable" ones on whattomine, of which people usually just mine to swap for BTC/Ether) but ones with the most potential, in the long run, to go up and value and just hodl them.

I would be interested in what others' are planning on doing.

 

[Charlie22911]

[snip]However, there are several coins that aren't worth much today (LBRY, MUSICOIN, UBIQ, Sia, etc.) that you can still break even or turn a small profit mining them.[/snip]

I really like LBRY, but there are a few issues to be sorted with domain ownership and removing illegal/copyrighted works; in the face of the YouTube "adpocalypse" I really think it has great potential long term. I've been using the desktop client and they already have some decent content creators on the platform. It is the only block-chain platform up to this point I'd actually use for something other than trying to make a buck and I think that means something in contrast to other block-chains.
But in the interest of transparency, they have not published a whitepaper yet (IIRC); so take that for what its worth.

 

[thilanliyan]

I really like LBRY, but there are a few issues to be sorted with domain ownership and removing illegal/copyrighted works; in the face of the YouTube "adpocalypse" I really think it has great potential long term. I've been using the desktop client and they already have some decent content creators on the platform. It is the only block-chain platform up to this point I'd actually use for something other than trying to make a buck and I think that means something in contrast to other block-chains.
But in the interest of transparency, they have not published a whitepaper yet (IIRC); so take that for what its worth.

I mined some LBRY recently actually.
What are the coins actually used for?

 

[Charlie22911]

I mined some LBRY recently actually.
What are the coins actually used for?

You can use them to purchase paid content through the client software. There are some indy movies and other projects already too.

 

[thilanliyan]

You can use them to purchase paid content through the client software. There are some indy movies and other projects already too.

Okay, cool to know.
Thanks.

 

[thilanliyan]

I ended up ordering a Vega 64 after selling a bit of BTC...I'm so ashamed, after telling myself that it isn't worth it...GEAR addiction syndrome
I might as well sell my 290s while they are fetching decent money I guess.

EDIT: What do you guys think? Vega 64 Liquid cooled or air (with custom water cooling)? I'll have to build my own mounting bracket for my universal block I think as I don't think any exist as of this moment, I've done it for a GTX460 a while back and it worked well. And then mount heatsinks on VRMs. A bit of a hassle on this card I guess.

 

[Elfear]

Anyone else having trouble getting the new AMD Blockchain driver to work? I've installed it twice now, once over the old drivers and once with a clean install. All of my 480's get the Error 43 - this device has stopped working" issue in Device Manager.

 

[PhonakV30]

Anyone else having trouble getting the new AMD Blockchain driver to work? I've installed it twice now, once over the old drivers and once with a clean install. All of my 480's get the Error 43 - this device has stopped working" issue in Device Manager.

AMD Patcher? did you use ? If you're using modded Bios.

 

[Yakk]

I ended up ordering a Vega 64 after selling a bit of BTC...I'm so ashamed, after telling myself that it isn't worth it...GEAR addiction syndrome
I might as well sell my 290s while they are fetching decent money I guess.

I was also originally thinking of selling a bit of BTC to get 1 or 2 Vegas, but as far as I can crunch numbers even if the Vegas are twice as fast, that same amount of BTC is a lot more profitable just day trading than any amount of mining they can do their lifetime at this point in time.

That being said, if I can find one I'm probably still getting 1 for myself anyways. I just had to admit to myself it was for fun, not really profit at least short term.

 

[IntelUser2000]

So yeah, I think mining is far from dead even if Ether mining may be (temporarily) unprofitable until the bomb is diffused.

Sure it's a gamble and small risk (what isn't these days) to keep your mining gear for these less profitable coins, especially if you haven't hit your ROI, but no one can predict the future. My strategy during the run up to the first Ethereum hard fork/bomb diffusion is to switch to mining a few different currencies (likely not the most "profitable" ones on whattomine, of which people usually just mine to swap for BTC/Ether) but ones with the most potential, in the long run, to go up and value and just hodl them.

I would be interested in what others' are planning on doing.

I agree with you there. Just saying it won't be significantly more profitable mining other coins.

Problem with coins that are not profitable today but betting on it is exactly that - We don't know which ones are really the promising ones. There's like a 100 or so coins out there?

 

[Elfear]

AMD Patcher? did you use ? If you're using modded Bios.

I didn't use the Patcher and I do have modded bioses. I'll give that shot when I get home. If it works, I'm taking a reminder to my monitor so I don't forget next time.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[DrMrLordX]

From the reddit thread about the new DAG fix drivers.

Interesting. Now let's see if Claymore can work some magic with new miner releases.

 

[PhonakV30]

I want to use AMD Driver blockchain. Now anyone knows how to make DDU autocomplete in safe mode? DDU doesn't have option "autocomplete".

Edit : because my rigs are not connected to Monitor so I use only Remote desktop.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

AMD's new Blockchain Driver :

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-art...eta-for-Blockchain-Compute-Release-Notes.aspx

grabbed this driver along along with afterburner beta 16. gonna give it a go later to today if i have the time.

supposedly big problems with it on win7 (see lots of reports of blank screens) plus lack of control setting undervolts, clocks settings going wild, high power draw etc. guess ill find out.

win10 seems to do better with this driver, although there are reports of thats not always going too well either. wild power draw, settings not sticking and such and such.

the rig ill try it on is a win7 eth rig (claymore 9.8) with a 390 (stock), 2x470 (strap modded), 460 (shader unlock which didnt do a thing) and a 1070. currently using 16.11.3 for the amd stuff. stable for months at a time.

i will 1st image the disc with macrium reflect free before i try this so if it face plants i can reimage and be back to where i am now in 10 minutes.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

I want to use AMD Driver blockchain. Now anyone knows how to make DDU autocomplete in safe mode? DDU doesn't have option "autocomplete".

Edit : because my rigs are not connected to Monitor so I use only Remote desktop.

as far as i know there is not an automatic reboot option. you could probably just wait for disk activity to stop for a while and hit reset/power to get the same effect.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

dp

no option to delete posts?

 

[Charlie22911]

I want to use AMD Driver blockchain. Now anyone knows how to make DDU autocomplete in safe mode? DDU doesn't have option "autocomplete".

Edit : because my rigs are not connected to Monitor so I use only Remote desktop.

Every now and again my display doesn't come back when upgrading my drivers, I just let it sit for a bit and shut it down as @VeryCharBroiled mentioned (not a hard power off).
I also wouldn't bother using DDU and the like unless you are troubleshooting an issue, drivers are much better at their job than in the past. It would save you a little bit of time at least.

Unrelated: Things are so much easier now for mining. I had to make a bunch of "dummy" plugs with DVI-VGA adapters and resistors from a physical RadioShack store to get my 5870s to mine. Good times, too bad most are gone now...

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

Unrelated: Things are so much easier now for mining. I had to make a bunch of "dummy" plugs with DVI-VGA adapters and resistors from a physical RadioShack store to get my 5870s to mine. Good times, too bad most are gone now...

yeah i remember making dummy plugs from passive dvi-vga adapters with resisters poked in the holes back in my folding@home days. fun times those.

now most cards are dvi-d and those adapters wont work anymore. gotta buy active ones.

 

[Elfear]

I want to use AMD Driver blockchain. Now anyone knows how to make DDU autocomplete in safe mode? DDU doesn't have option "autocomplete".

Edit : because my rigs are not connected to Monitor so I use only Remote desktop.

You should be able to get away with just running the driver. I didn't use DDU and my rig is now up and running again. Hash rates increased by 3Mh/s for each card.

Thanks by the way, it was the Patcher that I forgot.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

grabbed this driver along along with afterburner beta 16. gonna give it a go later to today if i have the time.

supposedly big problems with it on win7 (see lots of reports of blank screens) plus lack of control setting undervolts, clocks settings going wild, high power draw etc. guess ill find out.

win10 seems to do better with this driver, although there are reports of thats not always going too well either. wild power draw, settings not sticking and such and such.

the rig ill try it on is a win7 eth rig (claymore 9.8) with a 390 (stock), 2x470 (strap modded), 460 (shader unlock which didnt do a thing) and a 1070. currently using 16.11.3 for the amd stuff. stable for months at a time.

i will 1st image the disc with macrium reflect free before i try this so if it face plants i can reimage and be back to where i am now in 10 minutes.

well thats was a fail.

uninstall afterburner and delete settings, DDU, install drivers, patch them, got into win7 fine, all cards recognized.

claymore 9.8 exits at the pool prompt

ah well. restoring now ill be back to 16.11.3 in a few minutes.

drag.

 

[GoStumpy]

I am mining with the Nicehash Miner2 which does Equihash mostly, is that OK mostly just preference instead of mining actual Ethereum? Sorry for the n00b question!