Ethereum GPU mining?

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n0x1ous

Platinum Member
Sep 9, 2010
2,572
248
106
What would be the best way to go about mining with a 290 and 480? Assuming I've got the juice, can I run them both in 1 rig at the same time? Or would I be better off with separate systems?

Hawaii and Tahiti do best with Crimson 15.12 which probably won't work with the 480 so your best bet is probably separate systems
 

codyray10

Senior member
Apr 14, 2008
854
4
81
Hawaii and Tahiti do best with Crimson 15.12 which probably won't work with the 480 so your best bet is probably separate systems

Yeah I've read that somewhere, but I've been getting 29.5 Mh/s with my 290 using 16.6.1 drivers. I didnt read the release notes for the AMD drivers that dropped yesterday. Not sure if they are for the 480 only or are good for the 290 as well.
 

n0x1ous

Platinum Member
Sep 9, 2010
2,572
248
106
the new drivers are for everything so give it go with both cards in 1 rig in that case.
 

Erenhardt

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2012
3,251
105
101
Yeah I've read that somewhere, but I've been getting 29.5 Mh/s with my 290 using 16.6.1 drivers. I didnt read the release notes for the AMD drivers that dropped yesterday. Not sure if they are for the 480 only or are good for the 290 as well.

My 290 is hashing 30.5 Mh/s on 16.6.2.

They moved my order on 480 on the Monday, so I will get it at Tuesday at earliest. Kind of bummer, but they had to lowest price. Other eshops had 20% premium on it!
 

n0x1ous

Platinum Member
Sep 9, 2010
2,572
248
106
My 290 is hashing 30.5 Mh/s on 16.6.2.

They moved my order on 480 on the Monday, so I will get it at Tuesday at earliest. Kind of bummer, but they had to lowest price. Other eshops had 20% premium on it!

claymore or ethminer?
 

codyray10

Senior member
Apr 14, 2008
854
4
81
My 290 is hashing 30.5 Mh/s on 16.6.2.

They moved my order on 480 on the Monday, so I will get it at Tuesday at earliest. Kind of bummer, but they had to lowest price. Other eshops had 20% premium on it!

Nice, thats good to know. What are your settings if you dont mind me asking? I'm running 1050/1200 -50mv core -20% power limit to get my 29.5 Mh/s. Temps stay around 77-78C. I'm also using claymore miner
 

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
14,612
318
126
If someone wants a deal on refurb reference 290 the ebay Newegg store has the same $189 card their main website does, and ebay has an active promo code to take $15 off that works for the next four hours (CRUISEN2SUMMER).

We can't link Ebay here, but it makes the card $175 dollars which is less than I bought my stupid 280x for just over a month ago.

I hope someone can take advantage because I can't today.
 

Erenhardt

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2012
3,251
105
101
Nice, thats good to know. What are your settings if you dont mind me asking? I'm running 1050/1200 -50mv core -20% power limit to get my 29.5 Mh/s. Temps stay around 77-78C. I'm also using claymore miner

1100/1250 -50mv core and +50 power limit
 

Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
Remember you can flash the reference 290's with custom BIOS's to improve performance and or lower wattage for mining. At that eBay price this is probably the best deal on a mining card at the moment unless your hydro is prohibitively expensive.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
3,785
136
I am going to wait on the RX 470 instead. With Ethereum prices so low and in a bit of a mess, it seems too much of a risk to pay that much for potentially little hash rate difference. Also add to the rumor that's brewing about PCI Express power delivery issues. RX 470 uses the same board as 480, with less CUs it'll be less PCI Express issues.

Some poster claims 21MH/s for RX 470. That's identical to the RX 480 4GB, meaning its entirely memory bound, with both having same memory.

If memory can be overclocked to 8GHz, that would make RX 470 equal to a reference RX 480 in hash rates for $149/$179 pricing. If the memory is better than we realize and we can clock it to 8.5GHz, that's 26MH/s. Replace the stock cooler with a good cheap cooler like Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Plus.
 

Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
I am going to wait on the RX 470 instead. With Ethereum prices so low and in a bit of a mess, it seems too much of a risk to pay that much for potentially little hash rate difference. Also add to the rumor that's brewing about PCI Express power delivery issues. RX 470 uses the same board as 480, with less CUs it'll be less PCI Express issues.

Some poster claims 21MH/s for RX 470. That's identical to the RX 480 4GB, meaning its entirely memory bound, with both having same memory.

If memory can be overclocked to 8GHz, that would make RX 470 equal to a reference RX 480 in hash rates for $149/$179 pricing. If the memory is better than we realize and we can clock it to 8.5GHz, that's 26MH/s. Replace the stock cooler with a good cheap cooler like Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Plus.

The 470 will be nice but I don't expect it to perform at 480 levels but maybe close enough where it'll be the preferred mining board. Although these cards are memory bandwidth starved, the number of shaders plays a role as well.

470 has 2048 shaders
480 has 2304 shaders

The 470 will have to run at a higher GPU speed to maintain an optimum ratio (Core/Mem) to reach the same 480 hashing speeds likely negating power consumption advantages in the process. The 480 allows one to under clock the GPU core speeds further due to more shaders letting it hit the optimum GPU core speed for the required voltage and let miners focus on maximizing memory overclocks.

Given the 480 is essentiality unoverclockable as stock boost speeds pushed it to its 150 TDP limit, underclocking is desired and probably necessary with the stock blower. Luckily it looks like clocking the 480 GPU down to 950-975Mhz should allow max Mh performance given the memory bandwidth limits even at 9000 speeds.

The 470 will require a higher GPU core speed and possibly higher power consumption (more voltage) to hit the sweet spot due to less shaders than the 480. Unless the memory cannot be overclocked to 480 levels but if that's the case it should perform lower than the 480 anyways. It boils down to running the core GPU speeds at their most optimum levels.

Hope this makes sense...

Also the PCIe power concerns are likely exaggerated or you would have thousands of people starting to scream about dead motherboards. Not saying it isn't a problem but unless people start complaining soon it's probably as AMD stated that only a handful of boards suffer from this issue.

It's not a bad idea to wait for the 470 at this point, and well you kind of have to as 480's look to be sold out anyways!

I hope 470's get close enough but I have my doubts.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
3,785
136
Here's my reasoning Madpacket.

1. There's only 12.5% core clock + compute unit compute performance difference between the two
2. Difference between 1266MHz core and 950MHz "optimal" core is 33%
3. Meaning if the same thing applies to the 470, 470 @ 1266MHz is essentially a 1125MHz RX 480

If 950MHz is an optimal clock for RX 480, then even RX 470 is entirely bound by memory bandwidth.

1125/950 = 18%

Potentially 18% higher hash rate than RX 480 @ stock assuming you can clock the memory 18% higher than RX 480 8GB's memory. That's 9.47GHz. Inversely, maintaining RX 480's stock performance means an RX 470 with memory @ 8GHz(up from 7GHz) can run its core at 1069MHz.

The other option is buying a RX 480 4GB. That's viable if the top OC memory clock is same as RX 480 8GB. It's very possible that its not. Perhaps 4GB version is a 7GHz binned one. In that case, save money get the RX 470 to OC memory.

Also, personally I got no choice. eBay USB PCI Express riser is still not delivered. Canada Post strike isn't helping things I bet. No RX-whatever is available to buy in Canada either. All out of stock. Minimum until Monday I can get my hands on it, if not a week from now.
 
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DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,634
10,851
136
4Gb 480 seems like a viable option. With all the debbie downers bagging on the 480 anyway, it ought to remain relatively cheap for miners. Nobody will miss it. Honest!

When's the 470 coming out anyway? And why haven't the 390 prices crashed yet, I wonder?
 

EightySix Four

Diamond Member
Jul 17, 2004
5,121
49
91
So after a few days of mining now I'm averaging 74.6 across the three of them. They're a bit more variable than my 390's were according to ethminer but that could just as well be the blocks as it is the cards.
 

philipma1957

Golden Member
Jan 8, 2012
1,714
0
76
So after a few days of mining now I'm averaging 74.6 across the three of them. They're a bit more variable than my 390's were according to ethminer but that could just as well be the blocks as it is the cards.

and how much power for the 75mh?

I am creating a chart for the rx 480's on bitcointalk

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1533523.0


If anyone wants to add to it please do.

If anyone wants to start a reference chart here please do.

So if you have an rx 480 please


A) list the system
B) list the hash rate
C) list the configuration
D) software
E) list the clocking on msi afterburner or any clocking tool
F) list the watts mining and not mining
G) ?

I will post my current 390 setup as an example

A) gpu xfx 390- intel i5 2500t - gigabyte b75m mobo- 2 sticks of 4gb ram - 160gb spinner - evga plat 650 --- no case open setup
B) 25mh on ethpool
C) bat file = qtminer exe -u us1.ethpool.org:3333 -u myethaddy.rig7 -G
D) Windows 7, qtminer, amd driver 15.12
E) -100mv gpu 990 memory 1243 fan 45% temps 60c using msi afterburner
F) mining watts 228 no mining 33 watts so mining cost is 195 watts for 1 r9 390 and 25mh

I have high summer power rate of 18 cents I should use about 30 USD in power a month and earn about 5.75 eth coins about a 32 USD profit with 18 cent summer power
 
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thilanliyan

Lifer
Jun 21, 2005
11,871
2,076
126
How are people underclocking their 290s? I can't seem to go below 947MHz on a manual underclock. I can however go above that value. Only way I can go below is to reduce the power limit, but then I don't have fine control over the clocks.
Using Afterburner.
 

codyray10

Senior member
Apr 14, 2008
854
4
81
How are people underclocking their 290s? I can't seem to go below 947MHz on a manual underclock. I can however go above that value. Only way I can go below is to reduce the power limit, but then I don't have fine control over the clocks.
Using Afterburner.

Don't use Radeon Settings. You need to use a third party overclocking tool like msi afterburner, sapphire trixx etc. It really is as simple as setting the sliders where you want and applying. You may also need to tick the checkbox for constant voltage to keep from throttling.

For example, my current settings in afterburner are
-50mv core voltage
-20 power limit
1050 core clock
1225 memory clock
 

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,330
4,918
136
I have high summer power rate of 18 cents I should use about 30 USD in power a month and earn about 5.75 eth coins about a 32 USD profit with 18 cent summer power

Yikes! :eek:

I pay just north of 0.09/kWh, all fees included.
 

EightySix Four

Diamond Member
Jul 17, 2004
5,121
49
91
and how much power for the 75mh?

I am creating a chart for the rx 480's on bitcointalk

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1533523.0


If anyone wants to add to it please do.

If anyone wants to start a reference chart here please do.

So if you have an rx 480 please


A) list the system
B) list the hash rate
C) list the configuration
D) software
E) list the clocking on msi afterburner or any clocking tool
F) list the watts mining and not mining
G) ?

I will post my current 390 setup as an example

A) gpu xfx 390- intel i5 2500t - gigabyte b75m mobo- 2 sticks of 4gb ram - 160gb spinner - evga plat 650 --- no case open setup
B) 25mh on ethpool
C) bat file = qtminer exe -u us1.ethpool.org:3333 -u myethaddy.rig7 -G
D) Windows 7, qtminer, amd driver 15.12
E) -100mv gpu 990 memory 1243 fan 45% temps 60c using msi afterburner
F) mining watts 228 no mining 33 watts so mining cost is 195 watts for 1 r9 390 and 25mh

I have high summer power rate of 18 cents I should use about 30 USD in power a month and earn about 5.75 eth coins about a 32 USD profit with 18 cent summer power

Don't have an answer, I don't monitor power since I don't pay for electricity.