Well, the point is that the way things are now, casual miners can still do okay with some fairly inexpensive hardware. 2Gb cards should last through December with the right environment variables and client settings. Difficulty is going to adjust along with price. As it stands, even small-timers with no more than 1-2 cards can mine out a few eth for fun and (minor) profit.
A bunch of mining hardware will come offline in December by necessity, which will force some of the small timers out mining with older hardware (Pitcairn etc).
The reference 290 is back on Newegg for those who need cheap MH and can tolerate the noise:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202218&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-202-218-_-Product
I am tempted by one but it is $10 more.
Is that 290 worth it? If you search for R9 290 there are other Sapphire made ones and it seems that people have issues with it not working after a while. Anyone have experience with it?
Well, on Friday there were 133 of those refurb R9 290's on the Newegg website, and they're all gone now. I did end up pulling the trigger on another four of the 290's on the .ca website. At CDN$229 they were an even better deal as the exchange works out to $178, I ended up paying $244 (US$190) once shipping and tax were factored in. Nice to see the Canadian site finally get a better deal than the US one. Love being able to pay with BTC on Newegg's site as well.
These honestly look brand new. The fact that they are shown as coming with a new box made specifically for them, cables, CD with drivers could suggest this is just unsold stock new that's being sold at a huge discount.
Well, on Friday there were 133 of those refurb R9 290's on the Newegg website, and they're all gone now. I did end up pulling the trigger on another four of the 290's on the .ca website. At CDN$229 they were an even better deal as the exchange works out to $178, I ended up paying $244 (US$190) once shipping and tax were factored in. Nice to see the Canadian site finally get a better deal than the US one. Love being able to pay with BTC on Newegg's site as well.
These honestly look brand new. The fact that they are shown as coming with a new box made specifically for them, cables, CD with drivers could suggest this is just unsold stock new that's being sold at a huge discount.
Man why did I come here today. I just ordered five of these lol.
I'll let you all know how well this rig works out. Five ether a day keeps my Bitcoin away
I have seasonic 750w KM3 same happened to me and 290x GPU, they shipped new cables but new only have ONE pci-e connector at the end
first i had 2x cables with 2x PCI-e, now 2x cables with one connector at the end
My unit's cables are 1x12-pin that splits into (6+2 = 8-pin) x 2. The 1000W unit came with 3 of those = the yellow ones below:
Update: Wow, SeaSonic customer service is incredible. Took 24 minutes from my e-mail to confirm that they will send me free PCIe cables. SeaSonic customer service FTW!
:thumbsup: Let us know if they look brand new.
BTW, my first mining casualty in 8 years! Just wanted to give everyone a heads up.
Rig: i7 6700K (800mhz), + R9 295X2 (GPU 1 1018mhz, GPU 2 = 1060mhz). GPU temps never exceeded 74C on either + R9 390 (1100mhz). The power usage from Kill-a-Watt stayed at around 940W from the wall, which is well below spec (940W from the wall => 88.6% efficiency = 833W at the PSU level).
Initial symptoms:
- Completely random system shut-downs when mining.
- Then blue screen of death under windows:
"BSOD: A clock interrupt was not received on a secondary processor...."
- Then over 4 more days, system started to have complete instability and then wouldn't even boot into Windows at all
The next step was taking all the parts out 1 by 1 to start diagnosing the problem.
The R9 295X2 was being connected with (2+6-pin)x2 connectors. One of them melted completely, similar to this thread. Not my picture but a very similar issue.
Then found this thread. Then this one and this one.
I bought my SeaSonic 1000W Platinum in 2012.
26-02-2014
Originally Posted by Sea Sonic Rep View Post
"Hi All, my apologies for the late update, our HQ wanted to be certain of their test results prior to any posting.
Our QA team has tested a very large sample set of the cables which were delivered to our factory and found every unit to be within specification. Through testing by our QA team, they have found that if the inner diameter of the female pin on the PCIe cable connector is slightly larger than spec, so even though the connection is properly made, the high load of the high power VGAs will cause the connector to overheat. This is why we see this issue happen with the R280/290 & 7950, 70 & 90 cards.
We are now auditing our suppliers, this will take some time as we must check their process, QC, etc. The material usage is all correct so it can be something during protection that caused the issue, this is still to be confirmed.
In the meantime, we are preparing some extra PCIe cables from our factory, with extra testing for size compliance, and should be ready in 2 weeks +/-, so if anyone would like to have replacement cables, please contact us at: support@seasoniceu.com, regardless of your geographic location.
Please provide the following:
Full model number
Serial number
A copy of the purchase invoice
The type of VGA cards used
Full name & mailing address
Thank you."
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/c...166/your-seasonic-cables-melting-4589851.html
***WARNING*** Anyone with a SeaSonic made PSU prior to 2014 could be affected.
Luckily the SeaSonic PSU and the R9 295X2 seems to be working well, but one of the PCIe cables is fried completely. Will contact SeaSonic this week and let you guys know on what they say.
To be honest the Superflower Leadex power supplies have been the most solid for my miners overall. I recommend the 1KW Platinum EVGA, 1200W Platinum EVGA or the 1350W EVGA G2.
:thumbsup: Just picked up an EVGA 1300 G2 for my 290+7970+Fury X Miner
Eeek! Thanks for sharing. Does that poewer supply have multiple +12 volt rails or just a single one?
I recommend the 1KW Platinum EVGA, 1200W Platinum EVGA or the 1350W EVGA G2.
Don't you need an overclock to get the 290's to 30MH/s? The default on the 290 seems to be 25MH/s.
Honestly, not much of an improvement considering the price difference. 30MH/s on the other hand is different. Then again, I paid $160 for the R9 280X on Craigslist. I can't say $270 after tax and shipping is that cheap.
To get 30-31MH/sec, I need to run my 390 @ 1100-1150mhz.
$270 sounds like it's in Canadian dollars after taxes and shipping.
The issue is with its 256GB/sec 256-bit bus and most likely a requirement to use new drivers, it could fail miserably against a 390.
Don't you need an overclock to get the 290's to 30MH/s? The default on the 290 seems to be 25MH/s.
Honestly, not much of an improvement considering the price difference. 30MH/s on the other hand is different. Then again, I paid $160 for the R9 280X on Craigslist. I can't say $270 after tax and shipping is that cheap.
I think the impact with bus width is not well known. Also for my 280X I went from 15.12 to 16.xx drivers because they are stable when undervolting. The hash rates are practically identical. I tried 15.7, no difference.The issue is with its 256GB/sec 256-bit bus and most likely a requirement to use new drivers, it could fail miserably against a 390.
20.3MH/s Ethereum