Ethereum GPU mining?

[Madpacket]

Did yours ever ship? I got a tracking number for mine Friday around lunch time, but it's still not showing as active in Purolator's system.

I received a shipping notification from NewEgg a few hours ago. Looks like it's coming from California so probably won't arrive until next week. Also in Purolators system the tracking number is not showing any data yet.

Aftermarket cards will be coming out by the time we get our reference cards even when we ordered on day one, ridiculous.

 

[MrTeal]

I received a shipping notification from NewEgg a few hours ago. Looks like it's coming from California so probably won't arrive until next week. Also in Purolators system the tracking number is not showing any data yet.

Aftermarket cards will be coming out by the time we get our reference cards even when we ordered on day one, ridiculous.

Interesting. Let me know when you see activity on your tracking number. Mine became active today, but this is all there is on it.

LAST LOCATION: Vancouver, BC
LATEST ACTIVITY: Departed sort facility
CARRIER: PUROLATOR
WEIGHT: 5 lbs.
LOCATION DATE / TIME ACTIVITY
Vancouver, BC Monday, July 04, 2016 7:05:01 PM Departed sort facility
Vancouver, BC Monday, July 04, 2016 6:30:01 PM Arrived at sort facility
Vancouver, BC Monday, July 04, 2016 6:29:01 PM Picked up by Purolator

It makes me wonder if instead of shipping hundreds of boxes from the US, they instead just did a stock transfer from CA to Vancouver (and maybe TO) and then shipped to customers from there.

 

[Madpacket]

Interesting. Let me know when you see activity on your tracking number. Mine became active today, but this is all there is on it.

LAST LOCATION: Vancouver, BC
LATEST ACTIVITY: Departed sort facility
CARRIER: PUROLATOR
WEIGHT: 5 lbs.
LOCATION DATE / TIME ACTIVITY
Vancouver, BC Monday, July 04, 2016 7:05:01 PM Departed sort facility
Vancouver, BC Monday, July 04, 2016 6:30:01 PM Arrived at sort facility
Vancouver, BC Monday, July 04, 2016 6:29:01 PM Picked up by Purolator

It makes me wonder if instead of shipping hundreds of boxes from the US, they instead just did a stock transfer from CA to Vancouver (and maybe TO) and then shipped to customers from there.

I just refreshed the purolator tracking page. Interesting, now it's states the card is in Richmond, BC, CA. However no departed sort facility like you have but you ordered a few hours before me. Perhaps mine will be sent out out later today as well. We may get them by Friday but hard to say.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Ether currently valued at $9.93, seems to be dropping slowly the last couple of days

Cool, that'll keep down the difficulty growth.

Thanks guys, will try the above suggestions. besides memory clock, it recommended to lower the core clock speed from 1030?

That really depends on the card. If you have some reliable or even semi-reliable means to test power, try changing GPU clock and see how it alters power usage. Going with lower clockspeeds gives you more options to undervolt, too. Personally I think you should dial in whatever setting gets you to 200W power usage (from the PSU, not the wall) or lower. Ideally you should be able to run -100 mV and 1070 mhz GPU and be right around 200W usage, but some cards won't do it like that.

Is anyone still dual mining Eth/DCR with Claymore's miner?

I took one look at decred's difficulty curve and value, matched that up against the extra heat caused from mining it via Claymore, and said "blech".

 

[Madpacket]

No status update with the package being sent out. Hopefully they have another delivery go out else I'm likely waiting until next Monday.


Price of ether is dropping like a stone. I'm buying during the slide though as once this hard fork goes through I expect it to shoot back up in price.

 

[Madpacket]

I took one look at decred's difficulty curve and value, matched that up against the extra heat caused from mining it via Claymore, and said "blech".

Pretty much why I've ignored it. I would rather tweak my cards for best Ether efficiency especially during this heat.

 

[Erithan13]

Eth dipping below $10 for a while there, recovering a little now at least.

A question I'll throw out there: With the hard fork decision looming ever closer, is there any likely situation which results in Eth completely tanking and losing most or all of its value?

I'm asking because I've got 32 eth mined so far of which I've sold none. I could use to cash some out now to pay for the power costs I've accrued. I'm leaning toward cashing out half which would cover the power and give me my first hard profit from this on top. That leaves the other 16 for the future if things look up again. Obviously none of us can see the future, nevertheless would anyone have any inputs/advice on this?

 

[IEC]

Successfully flashed both my 4GB cards to 8GB (I verified they are using Samsung 8Gb 25ns GDDR5 in my teardown thread). As a bonus, I played around with undervolting some more and was able to achieve this:

Yes, you read that right. 75.8W-79.8W each at right around 24.5 Mh/s

How's that for efficiency?

 

[codyray10]

Successfully flashed both my 4GB cards to 8GB (I verified they are using Samsung 8Gb 25ns GDDR5 in my teardown thread). As a bonus, I played around with undervolting some more and was able to achieve this:

Yes, you read that right. 75.8W-79.8W each at right around 24.5 Mh/s

How's that for efficiency?

That's awesome! Im jealous. My 8gb card wont be here until tomorrow.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Successfully flashed both my 4GB cards to 8GB (I verified they are using Samsung 8Gb 25ns GDDR5 in my teardown thread).

Wow I can't wait to try that with my card.

As a bonus, I played around with undervolting some more and was able to achieve this:

Yes, you read that right. 75.8W-79.8W each at right around 24.5 Mh/s

How's that for efficiency?

Amazing

 

[suklee]

That really depends on the card. If you have some reliable or even semi-reliable means to test power, try changing GPU clock and see how it alters power usage. Going with lower clockspeeds gives you more options to undervolt, too. Personally I think you should dial in whatever setting gets you to 200W power usage (from the PSU, not the wall) or lower. Ideally you should be able to run -100 mV and 1070 mhz GPU and be right around 200W usage, but some cards won't do it like that.

Strangely I can't change core/memory reliably in Afterburner. I just installed 4.3 beta and I can overclock the memory speed but not under clock?

 

[thilanliyan]

Successfully flashed both my 4GB cards to 8GB (I verified they are using Samsung 8Gb 25ns GDDR5 in my teardown thread).

Yes, you read that right. 75.8W-79.8W each at right around 24.5 Mh/s

How's that for efficiency?

Congrats on the flash!
However, I'm pretty sure that the wattage numbers given in gpuz are usually not correct, for example on my 290s they are underestimating by by 50+ watts iirc.

 

[IEC]

Congrats on the flash!
However, I'm pretty sure that the wattage numbers given in gpuz are usually not correct, for example on my 290s they are underestimating by by 50+ watts iirc.

GPU-Z measures the draw of the RX 480 chip, it does not account for memory power or board losses.

They were 110-115W stock, ~104W with a slight underclock/undervolt, and now 74-78W with optimized underclock/undervolt. So it is still a rather substantial savings, with an additional reduction in board losses for probably close to 50W savings over stock.

 

[thilanliyan]

Cool so you're probably drawing like 100w power card which is still really good for 25Mhs.
Each of my 290s draws about 250w for 31Mhs lol.

How is the fan noise with the underclock/undervolt?

 

[IEC]

First reference card I've owned which doesn't bother me at 100% full tilt (when undervolted). I could sleep with it running in my bedroom, though I have it in one of the guest bedrooms instead purely for heat reasons

 

[IntelUser2000]

Got myself a Asus DCU II OC R9 290X for $200 cdn.

I have to wait until my risers arrive either tomorrow or the day after, but for now it replaces my 280X.

30.2MH/s Ethereum + 730MH/s Decred for 390W system power. At current prices it'll ROI under 2.5 months.

Core clock 1070, memory clock 1250, 20MHz core above clock, 100MHz underclock memory. I tried undervolting at 1050, but I can't do it below 30mV before it becomes unstable, and the power savings seemed pretty minimal to me.

Rest will likely be 480s, maybe one really cheap 280X if I get it before I can get that many 480s.

 

[suklee]

IntelUser2000,

How are you getting such amazing numbers on your 290x, do you mind sharing your batch file settings? I'm only getting ~ 28 / 280 MH for Eth/DCR at the mo... (edit: -dcri 50 is giving me much better rates)

BTW, I have an old 7970 6GB Vapor-X laying around, any sense in putting it to use or is its power draw too high to make it worthwhile? http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/toxic-hd-7970-eyefinity-6gb,3264-4.html

 

[n0x1ous]

Got my 4gb XFX 480x last night and got started but ran into a problem (not with the card). 15.12 didnt recognize the card obviously, so I did a clean DDU to 16.6.2 - card recognized, successfully underclocked/volted to 900mhz/.9mv and off to the races. Problem is I am using ethminer and it does not find any shares ever. From my quick google search this is a problem with drivers past 15.12 for a lot of people. Anyone know of a fix or do I have to move to claymore or something?

Good reference cooler though IMO. 79C @ 30% fan speed on full load (underclocked) Not much worse at stock.

Also, would love a link to a legit clean download/instructions for claymore if that is the route I have to take and to the BIOS flash to 8GB with instructions

 

[poofyhairguy]

Here is the link to Claymore's thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1433925.0

It has download links and explanations of the options. I recommend giving it a shot.

 

[Shmee]

You should be able to use the latest drivers and still use older binaries for the miner. Some miners, such as Claymore's, come bundled with 15.12 files in the folder for mining use.

 

[n0x1ous]

Here is the link to Claymore's thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1433925.0

It has download links and explanations of the options. I recommend giving it a shot.

You should be able to use the latest drivers and still use older binaries for the miner. Some miners, such as Claymore's, come bundled with 15.12 files in the folder for mining use.

Thanks guys, I am started and this took care of my issue with the rx 480 with Crimson 16.6.2. Getting 24 MH/s out of it undervolted to 1ghz/.9v. Seems pretty solid. However now that I switched my main mining rig over to claymore and I'm seeing real numbers on each card I am disappointed in the hashrate of my 7970 and 280x toxic.

Stock reference 290 getting 27 MH
stock reference 7970(non ghz) getting 17 MH
stock 280x Toxic (1150/1600) getting 18.2 MH

This system is running Crimson 15.12 and I did set the suggested parameters of
GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

Thoughts to get these cards up to what they should be at?

 

[poofyhairguy]

That looks right on the nose for my 7970 and 280x. Those cards haven't aged as well as Hawaii for mining, but they dual mine better than anything I have seen if you want to boost profits a little.

It's sad because my 370 has stayed pretty close to the same hashrate as the Tahitis drop like a rock. They are easily the worst aging mining card and I have no clue why, even overclocked my best one can't crack 19 in real averages anymore.

Overclock the Hawaii and underclock the memory. At around 1150 (1350 memory) mine does better than 30 even today, but you need to lock in the blower to around 83% to get it. The reference 290 heat soaks like crazy, it's why I can't dual mine on it like I can my 390.

 

[n0x1ous]

That looks right on the nose for my 7970 and 280x. Those cards haven't aged as well as Hawaii for mining, but they dual mine better than anything I have seen if you want to boost profits a little.

It's sad because my 370 has stayed pretty close to the same hashrate as the Tahitis drop like a rock. They are easily the worst aging mining card and I have no clue why, even overclocked my best one can't crack 19 in real averages anymore.

Overclock the Hawaii and underclock the memory. At around 1150 (1350 memory) mine does better than 30 even today, but you need to lock in the blower to around 83% to get it. The reference 290 heat soaks like crazy, it's why I can't dual mine on it like I can my 390.

Thanks, I will give that a try. Though the stock Hawaii memory is 1250 so I should up it to 1350?

Claymore is reporting gpu 0 1 2 different when it shows hashrate then when it shows temp/fan speed for some reason. Unless my 7970 is doing 27 and 290 is only doing 17 !!!haha

 

[Madpacket]

So my 480 should be arriving Friday according to Purolator. Can't wait!

As a comparison my $229 CAD Radeon 290 reference cards I purchased a month ago pull around 165W each (total including board power) and produce 25.5Mh. That's just using Sapphire Trixx and MSI afterburner. With a custom BIOS with disabled ROPS they would be closer to 150W per card.

So with the 480's pulling around 105-110W for 1Mh less at 24.5Mh you're saving approx 45W per card. For a 6 card mining rig that's 270W savings for only 6Mh less performance. Adds up pretty fast when you start scaling past 18 cards or three mining rigs. You can basically get away with 24 Rx480's for the same power cost as 18 Radeon 290's.

Or another way to look at it is 588 Mh vs. 459 Mh for the same power cost. Of course your up front costs will be much higher and ROI will be longer but if you pay reasonable hydro rates it shouldn't take too long. I'll likely start replacing my 390's with 480's as soon as 4GB availability becomes a thing.

Maybe in a month or two.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Thanks, I will give that a try. Though the stock Hawaii memory is 1250 so I should up it to 1350?



Claymore is reporting gpu 0 1 2 different when it shows hashrate then when it shows temp/fan speed for some reason. Unless my 7970 is doing 27 and 290 is only doing 17 !!!haha

You might have to up the memory a little but up the clocks first and see if that holds and then up the memory to the point of no improvement.

As far as the temp data I have learned to be skeptical about that. Be skeptical about reported hashrates too, be sure to check on your setup on your pool's website. Claymore will report "bad" shares to the pool and I have learned seeing those is a great indicator something is wrong (too hot, unstable OC, etc.). The 24 hour average matters more than everything, I use Claymore reported hashrates as a general indicator if say something is throttling (which I bet your 290 is) or if a OC actually helped or not.