Ethereum GPU mining?

[poofyhairguy]

One thing you have to keep in mind though (just had this argument with a friend) is you only have so many KW's of power and heat you can deal with in a single house. Unless you're getting subsidized power or have a real mining farm in a warehouse / data centre you have a maximum number of cards to mine with before you hit a brick wall.

Yeah, I have hit that wall myself. My AC can't take any more.

Therefore it's still imperative to sell the old gear and replace it with more power efficient mining gear for one major reason.

More Mh/W.

If I replace all of my gear with 480's I can mine at 50% faster hashing rates using the same amount of power and dealing with the same amount of heat waste. Given the difficulty this is necessary if you want to keep a decent payout.

I just don't see how pure power savings can make the difference today when that 50% energy savings is balanced against all the new card cost. I get saying "I want 50% greater hashrate at the max power I can handle," as electricity upgrades are expensive. But the difficulty is rising to a level that post-2016 it will be hard for anyone without free power to mine profitably. That means even if you could buy a pile of 480s today you would mostly likely be paying them back around month four, which means you only have a month or two when that 50% savings is a real win and those two months (so one month's savings at 50%) at the tail end aren't going to outdo the four months spent just paying back the card cost.

There are some other things to factor in of course- higher 480 resale values compared to older equivalents (maybe adds another month of value) the biggest one- but at the end of the day anyone putting together a 480 rig is basically taking a gamble that either ETH price will go up greatly by December or that some other coin will pop up early next year that is more profitable. Or they want a GPU for free/near free (a great deal for gamers but not miners).

I am not trying to talk you or anyone out of it, to be clear, just doing the math for myself I can't see the benefit of a pile of 480s that will take you until probably the end of August to acquire at current availability rates. It is tempting though, too bad we didn't have these cards way back in March.

 

[MrTeal]

Yeah, I have hit that wall myself. My AC can't take any more.



I just don't see how pure power savings can make the difference today when that 50% energy savings is balanced against all the new card cost. I get saying "I want 50% greater hashrate at the max power I can handle," as electricity upgrades are expensive. But the difficulty is rising to a level that post-2016 it will be hard for anyone without free power to mine profitably. That means even if you could buy a pile of 480s today you would mostly likely be paying them back around month four, which means you only have a month or two when that 50% savings is a real win and those two months (so one month's savings at 50%) at the tail end aren't going to outdo the four months spent just paying back the card cost.

There are some other things to factor in of course- higher 480 resale values compared to older equivalents (maybe adds another month of value) the biggest one- but at the end of the day anyone putting together a 480 rig is basically taking a gamble that either ETH price will go up greatly by December or that some other coin will pop up early next year that is more profitable. Or they want a GPU for free/near free (a great deal for gamers but not miners).

I am not trying to talk you or anyone out of it, to be clear, just doing the math for myself I can't see the benefit of a pile of 480s that will take you until probably the end of August to acquire at current availability rates. It is tempting though, too bad we didn't have these cards way back in March.

Well, Eth network hashrate hasn't been increasing exponentially like we saw with Bitcoin. It's actually been really linear at around 25GH/s added, though it's been slowing down a bit just lately.
Some quick back of the envelope calculations give me that if the network continues to grow at the same rate, the price stays at 11.5 US the whole time, power is US$0.1kWh, and the all in power draw of a RX480 is 150W (GPU, system, additional cooling), by the end of December a 480 would have pulled in a net of US$170 with 100% uptime.
Definitely not a slam dunk as it has been, but something to keep in mind as July/August roll past and we get back into the colder months.

 

[Madpacket]

"I just don't see how pure power savings can make the difference today when that 50% energy savings is balanced against all the new card cost."

The cost isn't that much of a difference at - least for me. 390's are still selling for a decent price and I only have one 290 left to get rid of. The hardest thing is getting our hands on 480's in a reasonable time frame. Most of my rigs are 6 slot boards so really just a few extra powered risers needed (cheap in bulk) and one more rig + power supply ($350 CAD, purchased today) to get me to the Mh goal I'm aiming for. Each existing 4 card 390 rig replaced with 6x480's will cost me approx $600.00. But that $600.00 buys me approx 50% more Mh (160Mh vs. 110) at 200 less watts (875 down to 675) or approx 35% as well.

I should mention I fully expect the price of Ether to go up as the difficulty rises. I think we all do or we wouldn't be spending this much time and money

However if it doesn't it'll start to slow down (the difficulty) until concentration of mining farms end up in China. Right now ether miners are everywhere so it'll be less profitable sooner for many other miners before us. This will all be a much slower process than Bitcoin as GPU's just don't have the same density as ASIC's. There's no order of magnitude to worry about. Also Proof of Stake will take longer to implement due to the DAObacle distrction but it will probably prevent the million dollar farms from being stood up. No one wants to invest that much capital in GPU's knowing PoS will eventually come.

Sure there's other (short term profit) crypto out there but nothing like Ether or Bitcoin at the moment.

Anyway happy hard fork day tomorrow (or today depending on where you're at). Ether pricing will be fun to watch! Make sure you update your wallet software.

 

[suklee]

That chip and board are rather old but should work just fine. Another alternative is to go AMD. I have a few AMD miners and they're very solid but use a tad more watts at idle (5-10).

Gigabyte has a few boards that work really well such as the GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 R5. Toss in a Sempron 140 or 145 and you have yourself a solid mining board that can take 6 cards. Note the 990FXA is a little pricey but much higher quality than the cheaper Intel AsRock boards however both work well for mining. Sempron 145's are generally cheaper than the cheapest Intel chips which can make up some of the cost difference.

A third option is to go a little newer. I built a 5 slot miner with an AsRock Z71 Pro4s + Core i3-6100. This cost more up front but I can easily repurpose that chip and board after mining.

I didn't end up going for the Celeron combo.. Picked up the h61 only from a different seller, $45 and supposedly brand new , but yeah looks like I'll have to pick up a used i3 or something in socket 1155. I found a stick of 4gb ram laying around .. If I'm lucky I might find an older 64gb ssd somewhere too. For OS I'm inclined to stick with Windows, while I have basic knowledge of Linux I don't feel comfortable with going that route.

Not sure what PSU brand choices I have yet, but I'm thinking ~1000-1200w gold/platinum rated should leave me plenty of head room?

Thanks for the tip on AMD, will keep in mind if I go for a second rig

 

[Madpacket]

I didn't end up going for the Celeron combo.. Picked up the h61 only from a different seller, $45 and supposedly brand new , but yeah looks like I'll have to pick up a used i3 or something in socket 1155. I found a stick of 4gb ram laying around .. If I'm lucky I might find an older 64gb ssd somewhere too. For OS I'm inclined to stick with Windows, while I have basic knowledge of Linux I don't feel comfortable with going that route.

Not sure what PSU brand choices I have yet, but I'm thinking ~1000-1200w gold/platinum rated should leave me plenty of head room?

Thanks for the tip on AMD, will keep in mind if I go for a second rig

No worries. For PSU's you have a couple options. You can buy two lower capacity (cheaper) units (600 - 700W) and then split up the power between cards. This is actually not a bad idea considering how much power draw via the risers the reference 480's draw.

Alternatively you can't go wrong with the higher capacity EVGA G2 or P2 power supplies. They're super efficient with amazing ripple suppression and come with rediculous 10 year warranties. They also use a high quality fans and are built like tanks. The 1300 G2 is probably overkill but they often go on sale close enough to the 1KW P2's and would put you near peak efficiency (although this metric is overrated and less important for Gold and especially Platinum units). The 1000W G2 would be enough but the 1000W P2 is worth it for only $20.00 more. It all depends on what's on sale. My absolute favourite power supply is my 1200W P2 but they're a little pricey. Corsair RMX series are also great for ripple suppression (they're actually better than the G2/P2's for this metric) but given the choice I would go with EVGA for the ball bearing fans and longer warranty.

You can save a few bucks going with other brands and there's nothing wrong with that. The EVGA 1050W for example is really good (Seasonic rebrand) and can be had for a few bucks less than a 1KW G2. Just do your research. Techpowerup and JohnnyGuru do decent power supply reviews.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Well, Eth network hashrate hasn't been increasing exponentially like we saw with Bitcoin. It's actually been really linear at around 25GH/s added, though it's been slowing down a bit just lately.
Some quick back of the envelope calculations give me that if the network continues to grow at the same rate, the price stays at 11.5 US the whole time, power is US$0.1kWh, and the all in power draw of a RX480 is 150W (GPU, system, additional cooling), by the end of December a 480 would have pulled in a net of US$170 with 100% uptime.
Definitely not a slam dunk as it has been, but something to keep in mind as July/August roll past and we get back into the colder months.

Another thing to keep in mind is that sooner or later, they will move to PoS. The hard fork keeps us on track to that target. Maybe they will wait another month or two and do it in Feb-Mar 2017? My guesstimate has been Dec 2016/Jan 2017 but the whole DAO mess (and ensuing hard fork) may make them want to wait a little longer.

 

[Erenhardt]

I recently picked up Corsair RM1000i, which is nice because it lets me monitor the power usage
At 500W power usage it runs without the fan which is nice.

http://www.corsair.com/en/rmi-series-rm1000i-1000-watt-80-plus-gold-certified-fully-modular-psu

It comes with 10yr warranty, so it is the same as EVGA.

It all comes down to the price. Here EVGA in MIA or very expensive, I payed 200USD (VAT incl.) for my RMi1000.

 

[suklee]

I just picked up 5 xfx 480s
box sticker says revision 1.1, wonder what was fixed? I could only add two to my current rig and they're hashing at 24Mh @70w, undervolted.
No evga 1000w+ available, but I think the RM1000i will be enough if I aim for max 100w per card?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Madpacket]

FYI for anyone who bought into the DAO and want to get Ether back. Follow these instructions. I just got back my ether

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4tqbi5/refund_your_dao_through_mist_broswer/

 

[suklee]

Found this old extender from a couple years ago... Reckon it's safe to use with a 480?

Edit: my RM1000 only came with 3 pcie power cables... So 3 max gpus? I'm guessing I don't want to chain 2 480s onto the same cable coming out of the psu

 

[Madpacket]

The RM1000i is an awesome power supply. Can't go wrong. Should be plenty for 6x Rx480's, just make sure you spread out the load for the powered risers.

 

[suklee]

The RM1000i is an awesome power supply. Can't go wrong. Should be plenty for 6x Rx480's, just make sure you spread out the load for the powered risers.

Would HX1000i platinum be overkill? Difference is about $30

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=394

 

[DrMrLordX]

For those prices you can get a bigger/better unit if you shop around . . .

 

[poofyhairguy]

I just picked up 5 xfx 480s

Congrats! Post pics please.

 

[Madpacket]

Okay up to three 480's!

Got super lucky over lunch - dropped by my local Canada Computers and they had 1 Sapphire 8GB left. Apparently they had 6 yesterday but they have a crappy website and inventory system so I was unaware.

NewEgg keep selling out within 20 minutes according to nowinstock. I have that 290 credit ready to spend but can't snag them in time. Go take a leak and miss the e-mail, gone!

 

[Madpacket]

For those prices you can get a bigger/better unit if you shop around . . .

Agreed. 1KW Supernova G2 Platinum is a better unit for less money.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Okay up to three 480's!

Sweet! you gonna make a crate when you get to 5? pics!

 

[Madpacket]

Found this old extender from a couple years ago... Reckon it's safe to use with a 480?

Edit: my RM1000 only came with 3 pcie power cables... So 3 max gpus? I'm guessing I don't want to chain 2 480s onto the same cable coming out of the psu

It's a powered riser, maybe worth a shot. I've never used that style though.

One of those PCIe cables can easily handle the load of two Rx480's. Don't worry about that as you won't be drawing more than 150W out of each cable.

 

[Madpacket]

Sweet! you gonna make a crate when you get to 5? pics!

For sure, I just ordered two more from NewEgg. Tried ordering more but they cancelled my orders because tried ordering more than 2. Serves me right

I should have all five by next week (hopefully more if I can get my hands on them locally). I'll be building a 6x mining rig though once I have enough cards.

 

[suklee]

Agreed. 1KW Supernova G2 Platinum is a better unit for less money.

Only see the 850w g2... That would be enough wouldn't it? I keep usage around 60w-75w per card, and can even occasionally game using a single card?

 

[suklee]

Gigabyte has a few boards that work really well such as the GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 R5. Toss in a Sempron 140 or 145 and you have yourself a solid mining board that can take 6 cards. Note the 990FXA is a little pricey but much higher quality than the cheaper Intel AsRock boards however both work well for mining. Sempron 145's are generally cheaper than the cheapest Intel chips which can make up some of the cost difference.

A third option is to go a little newer. I built a 5 slot miner with an AsRock Z71 Pro4s + Core i3-6100. This cost more up front but I can easily repurpose that chip and board after mining.

Did you mean the Z170 Pro4s? I can't find the Z71 online. Thinking about it some more, I wouldn't mind paying slightly more for a CPU that can game 'occasionally' by utilising the power of 1 RX480.

Maybe I will look into AMD CPU platform? I haven't had one since forever... trying to remember what the last AMD CPU I used was, must have been one of the K6s

 

[Madpacket]

Only see the 850w g2... That would be enough wouldn't it? I keep usage around 60w-75w per card, and can even occasionally game using a single card?

Yea it should be fine for five cards. Only potential issue is running power to the risers. Ideally you want to use separate modular plugs for each card. Like youn dont want to use one power cord with 3x sata power plugs for 3 different risers. You need to divide up the workload as much as possible. This won't be possible with most power supplies smaller than 1KW but given AMD updated the drivers to pull more wattage from the 6 pin power connector rather than the PCIe port I don't think you'll have any issues. Stick with as many Molex connectors as you can instead of Sata connectors.

Once you start adding the cards make sure you put them under load and feel the modular wires from the power supply powering the risers. If they feel hot to the touch (not warm) then you may have a problem.

Given you're undervolting to 70W or so this will take a lot of the burden off the PCIe connectors so I really doubt you'll have any issues with a quality power supply like the G2 850W.

FYI you can get your cards up to 27Mh with a little tweaking and not much more power usage.

Set GPU core clock to 1080Mhz, set memory clock to 2220Mhz, set memory voltage to 0.900mv (which controls GPU core clocks, I know just go with it for now). Set powertune to +15, and finally set GPU Max temp to 78C with a starting point at 70C.

Make sure Claymore miner is closed while making changes to Wattman. Use the latest version of Claymore (5.1).

If you experience any white screens or crashes back off a tad on the memory speeds (2200 for example). Also note if you crash you'll have to reset all Wattman settings. It only takes like 30 seconds though once you get used to it.

Good luck.

Also if you get a chance please report back your ASIC ratings for your cards and if you notice a negative correlation between high ASIC rating and GPU wattage in GPU-Z.

Good luck!

 

[Madpacket]

Just an FYI. Sapphire card #2 results:

ASIC rating of 71% (first card was 75%), this card has slightly better memory so far. Running At 2240Mhz vs 2220 and getting a tad more hashes. Energy consumption unfortunately is a tad higher (5-10W) but I'm having to run at 900mv instead of 875mv for the memory speeds.

So all on all pretty close results between both cards. Little worse power consumption but a tad faster for mining.

 

[suklee]

..snipped..

Make sure Claymore miner is closed while making changes to Wattman. Use the latest version of Claymore (5.1).

If you experience any white screens or crashes back off a tad on the memory speeds (2200 for example). Also note if you crash you'll have to reset all Wattman settings. It only takes like 30 seconds though once you get used to it.

Good luck.

Also if you get a chance please report back your ASIC ratings for your cards and if you notice a negative correlation between high ASIC rating and GPU wattage in GPU-Z.

Good luck!

^^ Thanks man, lots of awesome tips! :thumbsup:

I think the risers I ordered had SATA connectors, hope this won't cause any issues > I just assumed SATA = newer than molex = better.

I currently have 1 HIS-brand 480 and 2 XFX... two of the cards reported 80.9% ASIC, the 3rd one could not be read for some reason.

Given you're undervolting to 70W or so this will take a lot of the burden off the PCIe connectors so I really doubt you'll have any issues with a quality power supply like the G2 850W.

I figured with 70w x 5 cards, = 350W... even with a 6th card gaming (+ 150W max = 500W), that leaves 350W for the rest which should be enough?

 

[Madpacket]

Did you mean the Z170 Pro4s? I can't find the Z71 online. Thinking about it some more, I wouldn't mind paying slightly more for a CPU that can game 'occasionally' by utilising the power of 1 RX480.

Maybe I will look into AMD CPU platform? I haven't had one since forever... trying to remember what the last AMD CPU I used was, must have been one of the K6s

Sorry yes the Z170 Pro4s. It'll handle five cards and can take Skylake processors. I threw in a Core i3-6100 with the expectation of reusing as a basic gaming platform. The nice thing about this board is allows for bclock overclocking so you can take a 6100 and bump it up to 4.4 - 4.7Ghz. Pair it with DDR4 3000 though (it's only a few bucks more) as the dual cores benefit tremendously from higher speed memory.

The AMD Gigabyte boards are just solid mining boards which have six PCIe ports. They use a tad more energy at idle but are easy to work with and don't have many quirks so to speak. Also you can toss in a Sempron for mining and then down the road pickup a 8320e for cheap and overclock it to 4.3+ GHz which would make for a decent productivity and gaming PC. These boards have plenty of power phases and cooling to handle the overclock.