Ethereum GPU mining?

[Aikouka]

Bitcoins? Don't mine those, at all. Seriously, not worth it.

Ethereum? Try scoring a used 290 from a reputable reseller on eBay. My personal recommendation is to run it at 900 MHz GPU and 1175 MHz RAM flashed to a 390 BIOS with voltage lowered as far as you can manage without instability (-100 mV is common; at that clockspeed, you might be able to do better, though you will see voltage use scale with clockspeed so be careful how you approach this matter). Use it to mine ZEC, then if you really want ETH (ZEC prices are also rising like mad), exchange your ZEC for ETH on an exchange like Poloniex. Then move the ETH off-exchange to a private wallet.

Are there specific paths that you'd suggest depending on what hardware you have available? I replaced a 1080 Ti due to disliking the lack of DVI, and my plan was to sell the card. However, due to placing the AIO water cooler on it, I'm slightly hesitant to sell it. So, if I could build a simple machine (I have a Z170 and Skylake CPU lying around) and use the card to mine some coins, which pays off the card... I'm fine with that too. I've also got a three existing machines with good dGPUs... 1080 Ti, 1080 and 1060.

 

[ElFenix]

1060 prices went up $50 in the new microcenter ad. had been able to get cards for $165 AR, now $215 AR.

 

[casiofx]

I'm at six 1080ti right now. i buy an additional one every week just about.

What hashrate did you get for on the 1080ti for ether and zec?

 

[Thunder 57]

I'm almost tempted to dump all my 480/470/570/580 and just go with 1080ti for the density. but i've never sold any of my cards since i started back in 99 with seti.

I've been watching this casually. If I could get $500 for 480, or somewhere close, I think I'd do it. Of course I had an ebay promotion where I could list an item and the most they would take was $5, rather than the usual 10%. If I read it right, anyway, I'm sure were stipulations.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Are there specific paths that you'd suggest depending on what hardware you have available? I replaced a 1080 Ti due to disliking the lack of DVI, and my plan was to sell the card. However, due to placing the AIO water cooler on it, I'm slightly hesitant to sell it. So, if I could build a simple machine (I have a Z170 and Skylake CPU lying around) and use the card to mine some coins, which pays off the card... I'm fine with that too. I've also got a three existing machines with good dGPUs... 1080 Ti, 1080 and 1060.

If you can do something with the extra heat (or don't care about it in general) they should all mine well. Not sure 100% about the 1060 but you can bench it first to see how it'll do (assuming you'd use Nicehash).

 

[Jose Castillo]

Guys is it possible to use claymore for eth with gtx 1060 and radeon 570? Wont be a problem with the custom bios and clock on the radeons and the custom clocks on the nvidia? Any suggestion?

 

[dajeepster]

Guys is it possible to use claymore for eth with gtx 1060 and radeon 570? Wont be a problem with the custom bios and clock on the radeons and the custom clocks on the nvidia? Any suggestion?

yes... claymore supports both.

What hashrate did you get for on the 1080ti for ether and zec?

for my current four 1080ti system which i have set to 75%tdp, +137 core, +350 memclock...
i'm getting 133 Mh/s eth/5.42 Gh/s Sai in dual mining, (claymore)
138 Mh/s with just eth (claymore)
and for Zec I get 2.71 KH/s (ewbf).

i've been messing with the clocks for last couple hours trying to tweek more out of skein and still be stable for multi-algorithm/most profitable mining

my clocks before i started were at +75 core, and +550 memclock
my draw at the wall is 950watts, this includes cpu mining also.

 

[Madpacket]

Well, I promised you all an update on the XFX RS 570 XXX Dual BIOS card.

I edited the memory straps and core speeds using Polaris BIOS editor (had to find a specific 1.4 version that supports Elpedia memory). Anyway, the card is hashing away using Claymore 9.5 at just over 27Mh consuming 60W GPU core power stable so far (low ASIC rating generally use fewer watts, it's rated at 58%). Total power from the GPU is likely around 110 - 120W which is right in line with my better 480's (180W from the wall for the full system on a cheap 450W Bronze) I'll let it run overnight but at 75% fan speed it's running just under 60C GPU core temp in my 34C garage (two other mining rigs running generating 1700W). So the heatsink, fans, and metal backplate appear to do a good job keeping it cool even in a poorly cooled room.

So for $258 CAD ($194 US) I think it's a pretty good score. Still faster and cheaper than the 3GB 1060's but likely uses a bit more energy. If I can find any more for this price I'll probably a few more up. I'll play a bit more tonight with it to see if I can get the energy consumption even lower using Trixx rather than Afterburner.

EDIT:

Mining overnight survived just fine. The mining pool is showing a solid 27Mh from the card so yeah decent mining card for the price! I was a little worried when I saw Elpedia (rather than Hynix) memory but so far so good.

 

[deanx0r]

yes... claymore supports both.


for my current four 1080ti system which i have set to 75%tdp, +137 core, +350 memclock...
i'm getting 133 Mh/s eth/5.42 Gh/s Sai in dual mining, (claymore)
138 Mh/s with just eth (claymore)
and for Zec I get 2.71 KH/s (ewbf).
my draw at the wall is 950watts, this includes cpu mining also.

Is dual mining worth it for you? The extra income you get from the secondary mined coin seems marginal when you account for the extra 30% power usage, heat generated and stress dual mining puts on your system. You also have to account for the dev fee which jumps from 1% to 2% when dual mining.

 

[PhonakV30]

I'm happy.I sold all ETH at price $405 then got more BTC.atm 0.067 BTC ( previous 0.058 BTC) , different Is more $20

 

[Samwell]

yes... claymore supports both.

for my current four 1080ti system which i have set to 75%tdp, +137 core, +350 memclock...
i'm getting 133 Mh/s eth/5.42 Gh/s Sai in dual mining, (claymore)
138 Mh/s with just eth (claymore)
and for Zec I get 2.71 KH/s (ewbf).

4 1080Ti and just 138Mh/s ? That's pretty bad. I've read they're no good at Eth because of G5X, but even then i expected more. I'm at 28 Mh/s with my gaming rig and a GTX1070. TDP Limit 65%, +200 Core, +700 Memory. 180W at the wall. Sometimes it's even 29Mh/s at 150W, is that a different difficulty of why are there these changes? In idle it's 70W. As i'm using the system anyway for browsing, it can run in the background even if it's not too efficient.

 

[PhonakV30]

http://1stminingrig.com/best-bios-rom-for-sapphire-pulse-rx-580-8gb-oc-hynix-memory-30-mhs/

ETH 30.5 , From wall =110w

 

[DrMrLordX]

Are there specific paths that you'd suggest depending on what hardware you have available? I replaced a 1080 Ti due to disliking the lack of DVI, and my plan was to sell the card. However, due to placing the AIO water cooler on it, I'm slightly hesitant to sell it. So, if I could build a simple machine (I have a Z170 and Skylake CPU lying around) and use the card to mine some coins, which pays off the card... I'm fine with that too. I've also got a three existing machines with good dGPUs... 1080 Ti, 1080 and 1060.

If you have a 1080Ti then you are in good shape. Mining ETH with it using Claymore's miner should be pretty easy. In fact you can mine with all of those if you like. Might want to undervolt some to keep temps under control.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

4 1080Ti and just 138Mh/s ? That's pretty bad. I've read they're no good at Eth because of G5X, but even then i expected more. I'm at 28 Mh/s with my gaming rig and a GTX1070. TDP Limit 65%, +200 Core, +700 Memory. 180W at the wall. Sometimes it's even 29Mh/s at 150W, is that a different difficulty of why are there these changes? In idle it's 70W. As i'm using the system anyway for browsing, it can run in the background even if it's not too efficient.

For what it's worth, my 1080ti's spend almost 100% of their time mining ZEC via Nicehash's equihash algorithm. Not sure if that specific algo has tweaks or whatever, but it always seems to be consistently the most profitable for Nicehash. Looks to avg around 700sol/s per card. This is at stock power, +100 GPU clock, +500 memory, 250w draw.

 

[dajeepster]

4 1080Ti and just 138Mh/s ? That's pretty bad. I've read they're no good at Eth because of G5X, but even then i expected more. I'm at 28 Mh/s with my gaming rig and a GTX1070. TDP Limit 65%, +200 Core, +700 Memory. 180W at the wall. Sometimes it's even 29Mh/s at 150W, is that a different difficulty of why are there these changes? In idle it's 70W. As i'm using the system anyway for browsing, it can run in the background even if it's not too efficient.

if i was only doing one algo, then yes it would be bad... but i'm doing most profitable. And as long as i do better than what nicehash offers, i'm good. I don't mine to invest, i mine to support my computer hobby. All hardware is paid off the moment i buy it, because all hardware is paid for by the mining. i can get 40 Mh/s with each card if i wanted to, but then i would lose out on some of the other algo because of stability issues. I try to set up my system to run 100% stable, 100% of the time for all algorithms. It doesn't matter how fast your computer can run if it gives errors and rejects. errors and rejects are wasted time. I'm always shot for maximum stable overclock, not maximum overclock. A lot of the newbies in bitcointalk don't seem to understand that. They keep running their systems based upon numbers they saw online and get upset they don't get these high numbers because systems keep crashing.

I run my system for maximum stable overclocks, and so when i make changes to clocks, i then test it with a minimum of skein, groestl, neoscrypt, eth, and equihash. And with each new miner update, i retest the algorithm.
I've brought all my experience and knowledge from doing distributed computing since 99 into doing mining. Half the stuff you see in the interwebs you need to take with a grain of salt. As i said, i run my systems for maximum stable overclock on several algorithms, not just one algorithm.

 

[dajeepster]

For what it's worth, my 1080ti's spend almost 100% of their time mining ZEC via Nicehash's equihash algorithm. Not sure if that specific algo has tweaks or whatever, but it always seems to be consistently the most profitable for Nicehash. Looks to avg around 700sol/s per card. This is at stock power, +100 GPU clock, +500 memory, 250w draw.

nicehash is great for when you are new and just getting into mining. But.. nicehash doesn't offer the best miners, nor all the algorithms. Nicehash likes to push their own software over others even though the others perform better, such as ewbf for zec. They constantly accuse ewbf of stealing their code, which makes no sense because ewbf runs faster at stock and overclocked than nicehash. You have to overclock nicehash equihash to achieve stock speeds on ewbf.

but if you are just getting into mining, Nicehash is great for getting your feet wet.
nicehash doesn't offer skein which tend to do well around 25% of the time than other algorithms for nvidia 10x0 cards.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

nicehash is great for when you are new and just getting into mining. But.. nicehash doesn't offer the best miners, nor all the algorithms. Nicehash likes to push their own software over others even though the others perform better, such as ewbf for zec. They constantly accuse ewbf of stealing their code, which makes no sense because ewbf runs faster at stock and overclocked than nicehash. You have to overclock nicehash equihash to achieve stock speeds on ewbf.

but if you are just getting into mining, Nicehash is great for getting your feet wet.
nicehash doesn't offer skein which tend to do well around 25% of the time than other algorithms for nvidia 10x0 cards.

Good info, I'm definitely in the 'getting my feet wet' category. Was just mining off my gaming rig until very recently when i went in on a bigger rig. I might look into other miners, but I appreciate the passive nature of this one, like not having to keep up on whatever is currently mining well based on algo versions, driver versions, etc.

 

[dajeepster]

Good info, I'm definitely in the 'getting my feet wet' category. Was just mining off my gaming rig until very recently when i went in on a bigger rig. I might look into other miners, but I appreciate the passive nature of this one, like not having to keep up on whatever is currently mining well based on algo versions, driver versions, etc.

yeah.. you need to find what works best for you. I tell all my friends that want to get into mining to start with nicehash, once they are comfortable, then i start telling/showing them the real world of mining.

i still get the blue/red pill mixed up though..

 

[Madpacket]

http://1stminingrig.com/best-bios-rom-for-sapphire-pulse-rx-580-8gb-oc-hynix-memory-30-mhs/

ETH 30.5 , From wall =110w

Looks like a golden sample card. Very impressive but I wouldn't expect these results as the norm.

 

[Madpacket]

I'm happy.I sold all ETH at price $405 then got more BTC.atm 0.067 BTC ( previous 0.058 BTC) , different Is more $20

Wait you sold Ether for BTC? You got balls!

 

[Aikouka]

If you can do something with the extra heat (or don't care about it in general) they should all mine well. Not sure 100% about the 1060 but you can bench it first to see how it'll do (assuming you'd use Nicehash).

You mentioned Nicehash, and I looked that up. It looks like Nicehash is a selling/buying service for mining hashing capability. Is that the new sort of thing that people are doing? I'm used to just firing up a miner, and getting whatever portion of the block that the group discovers.

I probably wouldn't use the 1060, because it's a smaller card (single-fan not dual-fan design) that's used in my living room HTPC. So, I'd probably want to avoid it getting too toasty, and consequently, too noisy.

If you have a 1080Ti then you are in good shape. Mining ETH with it using Claymore's miner should be pretty easy. In fact you can mine with all of those if you like. Might want to undervolt some to keep temps under control.

Are there specific temperatures that I would be worried about? The 1080 Ti in question has EVGA's Hybrid cooler on it, so the GPU itself stays fairly cool, but the VRM and memory are still cooled via air.

I guess the biggest thing for me is wondering how much has changed since I last dabbled with mining. The last thing I did was Bitcoin mining back when Mt. Gox was still a thing, so it has certainly been a while. It seems like people sometimes just sell their hashing capability rather than receive a portion of the discovered block. Is there a good resource that I could check up to see what's currently the most commonly used techniques, software, etc.?

 

[Elfear]

Well, I promised you all an update on the XFX RS 570 XXX Dual BIOS card.

I edited the memory straps and core speeds using Polaris BIOS editor (had to find a specific 1.4 version that supports Elpedia memory). Anyway, the card is hashing away using Claymore 9.5 at just over 27Mh consuming 60W GPU core power stable so far (low ASIC rating generally use fewer watts, it's rated at 58%). Total power from the GPU is likely around 110 - 120W which is right in line with my better 480's (180W from the wall for the full system on a cheap 450W Bronze) I'll let it run overnight but at 75% fan speed it's running just under 60C GPU core temp in my 34C garage (two other mining rigs running generating 1700W). So the heatsink, fans, and metal backplate appear to do a good job keeping it cool even in a poorly cooled room.

So for $258 CAD ($194 US) I think it's a pretty good score. Still faster and cheaper than the 3GB 1060's but likely uses a bit more energy. If I can find any more for this price I'll probably a few more up. I'll play a bit more tonight with it to see if I can get the energy consumption even lower using Trixx rather than Afterburner.

EDIT:

Mining overnight survived just fine. The mining pool is showing a solid 27Mh from the card so yeah decent mining card for the price! I was a little worried when I saw Elpedia (rather than Hynix) memory but so far so good.

Those are excellent results. I wish there were 570s/580s in stock the last couple weeks. I picked up a bunch of 1060s and 1070s last week. After some tweaking I got the 1060's to hash at ~22Mh/s at 66% TDP (.85-.91V) and +700 mem. For 5 cards on a dual core machine, they pull 635W from the wall (~115W each).

The 1070s are hitting ~29Mh/s, 66% TDP (.75-.9V depending on card), +700 mem for Samsung cards (27.5Mh/s and +500 mem for Hynix cards). Haven't measured power draw yet but I imagine they're in the 150W range.

The above is dual mining ETH and SIA which probably lowers the ETH hash rate a bit. Over all they do decent but hash rate is down compared to the AMD 500 series.

 

[DrMrLordX]

i still get the blue/red pill mixed up though..

Just take both at once. What could possibly go wrong?

Are there specific temperatures that I would be worried about? The 1080 Ti in question has EVGA's Hybrid cooler on it, so the GPU itself stays fairly cool, but the VRM and memory are still cooled via air.

VRM temps have never been an issue on my cards, but then I am not using an NV card. Hmm:

http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2841-gtx-1080-ti-hybrid-benchmarks-remove-thermal-limit/page-2

That might be a place to start your research, but it looks like the VRMs on that particular 1080Ti won't go much past 70C. What're your VRM temps?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

You mentioned Nicehash, and I looked that up. It looks like Nicehash is a selling/buying service for mining hashing capability. Is that the new sort of thing that people are doing? I'm used to just firing up a miner, and getting whatever portion of the block that the group discovers.

It's one way of doing things, and when I got started mining (a whole 6 months ago) it was kinda recommended as the 'easy mode' mining, which has proven to be true. You run it, it autocalcs what is best to mine on your rig based on card benchmarks, and what people are buying hashing power for (which currency), then runs those algos on your cards. It can run diff algos for different cards (my main rig has a 1080 and a 960, normally mining different currencies), and it can and will often switch a few times per day. They take a cut and it's probably not as efficient as raw mining, but I have to keep up with *way* less and I like the flexibility. Payouts happen based on a schedule (with minimum payouts), and payouts are done in BTC. BTC earned isn't a single bulk, but instead as you mine, so you aren't screwed if BTC takes a dive on the nanosecond the payout happens.

In addition to the miner itself, the Nicehash site lets you buy hashing power for individual coins or whatever, if you don't have the rigs yourself. I think mining is technically 'selling' since you generate the hash power and get paid in BTC for it.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If you are going to take any payout, it's best to get paid in the currency that goes up in value the most. As of the last year or so, that has been consistently ETH. So if you get paid in BTC, trade it for ETH whenever possible.