Ethereum GPU mining?

[Madpacket]

So, core of this thing is an undervolted champ, running just peachy at 1000 MHz @ 0.8 V. ram, not so much. Hard crashed at 2180 MHz@ 1 V, artifacting at 2150 MHz @ 0.965 V.

Per GPU-Z this chip is garbage, bring better than only 7% of samples. Maybe that translates to terrible overclocking but the opposite when you underclock.

I'll double check tonight but from my testing the VDDC GPU and memory settings are separate as long as the values are manually set in Wattman.

GPU-Z appears to report GPU core VDDC incorrectly (reports memory VDDC instead of GPU).

I'll check with my killawatt to ensure this is true though and let you know.

Also don't let the ASIC quality concern you. My lower ASIC quality cards use the least amount of energy. My worst card is the highest one at 90%.

Make sure you reboot after Wattman changes. Wattman is buggy. I haven't seen a reference 480 not hit at least 2180 on memory. You could have a dud or more likely Wattman is being stupid.

Also try Claymore miner in addition to Genoil.

 

[Madpacket]

Did some reading on PoS and decided I'm going to just run my card till mining's done and cash out. My 280xs (I'm buying another one) will go back to being used for gaming. I might CF them, never done that before.

Depending on how the PoS implementation is done you may want to consider staking your coins rather than selling them. Getting paid dividends as part of a stake pool could end being more lucrative long term.

However if you're just in it to pay off a few cards then cashing out is not a bad move.

 

[ElFenix]

I'll double check tonight but from my testing the VDDC GPU and memory settings are separate as long as the values are manually set in Wattman.

GPU-Z appears to report GPU core VDDC incorrectly (reports memory VDDC instead of GPU).

I'll check with my killawatt to ensure this is true though and let you know.

Also don't let the ASIC quality concern you. My lower ASIC quality cards use the least amount of energy. My worst card is the highest one at 90%.

Make sure you reboot after Wattman changes. Wattman is buggy. I haven't seen a reference 480 not hit at least 2180 on memory. You could have a dud or more likely Wattman is being stupid.

Also try Claymore miner in addition to Genoil.

i'd figured GPU-Z wasn't reporting accurately from the get-go. i was watching the wattage drop on my UPS running unigine as i was making adjustments in wattman, but there was a point where further adjustments really didn't seem to drop much. i haven't tried rebooting after making changes yet, so i'll give that a try.

moving to the latest official claymore bumped me up into the 24 Mh/s range.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Depending on how the PoS implementation is done you may want to consider staking your coins rather than selling them. Getting paid dividends as part of a stake pool could end being more lucrative long term.

However if you're just in it to pay off a few cards then cashing out is not a bad move.

My plan all along was to hit a certain goal and stake that number of ETH in PoS. Any ETH past that goal I plan to sell when the price (hopefully rises) around the PoS implementation to ensure I get some sort of return on what I have invested in GPUs and electricity just incase PoS has a rocky start and the price is a roller coaster for a while (or just to avoid the chance Ethereum pulls a Litecoin and loses a huge chunk of its value when the next big thing comes along).

 

[thilanliyan]

You want to create a new account but a hardware wallet is probably what you should be aiming for. I picked up a Ledger Nano S and it's pretty darn good. Allows you to generate keys to store BTC, ETH, and even ETC.

Much safter then storing your private keys on a internet connected PC.

https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/12-ledger-nano-s

I'm assuming this is something like a flash drive? What happens if the flash memory gets corrupted or dies? Do you lose your BTC/ETH?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Although I generally give the same advice today the price of ether is in line for a new ATH. If or when the price doubles all of a sudden that hardware investment doesn't look so bad.

Etherum development is continuing to gain momentum and I really don't see it slowing down anytime soon. The price should be interesting to watch over the next two weeks with the Shanghai / Toronto conferences.

It will indeed be interesting. The resolution of the DAO hack (and the distribution of a lot of ETC) plus the upcoming PoS announcements may shake things up a bit. I'm not sure if we're going to see price double, but it certainly looks like a lot of miners are anticipating a massive price shift sooner or later. The difficulty sure is going to hell.

Tried Windows 7 (UEFI) as well as two different versions of Windows 10, and several different Crimson driver versions. I'm going to try some more in-depth isolation testing this evening, and depending on how that turns out maybe give a Linux distribution a go.

If you do try a Linux distro, pick one based on the card you want to use. For the 290, be sure it's a distro that will support 15.12 to get proper OpenCL support. If it's the 480 then AMDGPU should be fine.

Disable UEFI and try again. Stick with Windows 10 if you want proper voltage control's (unless this has been fixed in Linux?)

Voltage control for a 290 just isn't happening under Linux that I know of. Gotta flash that puppy. Unless I'm missing something. I'm not really sure about the 480.

moving to the latest official claymore bumped me up into the 24 Mh/s range.

Interesting. Is that what the miner is reporting, or is that what you're seeing from your pool of choice?

 

[Raduque]

My miner was offline for the past four days. Now I've got to wait a few days before my stats are accurate again. :/

Depending on how the PoS implementation is done you may want to consider staking your coins rather than selling them. Getting paid dividends as part of a stake pool could end being more lucrative long term.

However if you're just in it to pay off a few cards then cashing out is not a bad move.

Yeah, I think I am just going to try and cash out to pay off the cards. If I even get enough.

Wow, took the panel off and my temp dropped by over 10c.

 

[Elfear]

Anyway to stay on topic, 1070 can do 33Mhs if it has a samsung memory at clock of 2350mhz, GPU ~1400Mhz, power usage ~90W

Which miner and OS are you using for those results?

 

[Yakk]

Wow, alt coin markets have been crazy these last couple days, and BTC broke $600 again.

Weirdest times for value explosions! So busy trying to keep up I haven't even researched why this is happening right now. Anybody read anything?

 

[IEC]

Think I figured out my issue with the latest build. It was the friggin PCI-e slot. Combination of PCI-e slot and bad riser.

I am happy to report that my 8GB XFX custom cards are able to hit 27MH/s at the same or slightly better power consumption and noise levels as the reference cards.

They're chilling at 58C full mining load versus the mid-60s of the reference cards.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Wow, alt coin markets have been crazy these last couple days, and BTC broke $600 again.

Weirdest times for value explosions! So busy trying to keep up I haven't even researched why this is happening right now. Anybody read anything?

Only thing I know is that a bunch of ETC was released into the wild thanks to the DAO hack being resolved. I haven't been checking the crypto markets so I don't know what that did to the value of ETC, but it gave ETH a small temporary bump that has sort-of settled out.

 

[suklee]

Think I figured out my issue with the latest build. It was the friggin PCI-e slot. Combination of PCI-e slot and bad riser.

I am happy to report that my 8GB XFX custom cards are able to hit 27MH/s at the same or slightly better power consumption and noise levels as the reference cards.

They're chilling at 58C full mining load versus the mid-60s of the reference cards.

How did you determine pci e slot to be one of the problems? Two of my rigs decided to go on strike into unstable mode this weekend and I have no idea why. And which custom rom are you using for your xfx?

PS. came across this wtfman replacement, WattTool, recently. development is going at a good pace it seems:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1609782/watttool-a-simple-tool-that-combines-wattman-with-vrm-monitoring-tweaking-for-rx-400-series

 

[IEC]

How did you determine pci e slot to be one of the problems? Two of my rigs decided to go on strike into unstable mode this weekend and I have no idea why. And which custom rom are you using for your xfx?

I plugged a known-good RX 480 directly into the PCI-e slot. It black screened on driver detection. I plugged it into a different slot via riser, no issues. No clue why.

I'm running the XFX cards tweaked via Wattman to run at 1060/2180 at 910mV for now. I will likely optimize later.

 

[DownTheSky]

I've bought a MSI GTX 1060 Armor to game and mine with. It's uncanny how much cooler and how much less noise than my RX 480s is. I'm running -200GPU clock and +600 memory for 22MH/s average. The card is cool and quiet and pulling 70% TDP from the wall. Can't say I;ve ever been more impressed by a graphic card.

 

[suklee]

I plugged a known-good RX 480 directly into the PCI-e slot. It black screened on driver detection. I plugged it into a different slot via riser, no issues. No clue why.

I'm running the XFX cards tweaked via Wattman to run at 1060/2180 at 910mV for now. I will likely optimize later.

Thanks for the tips with Wattman, I need to do some tuning soon to get more hashing power. Might look into some of the custom BIOS's posted on the Eth forum.

A couple of my (Sapphire) cards would freeze during driver install & detection, one of them would even display vertical lines of garbage on the screen. I took them back to the distributor and need to wait 3 weeks for replacements.

PSA. I FINALLY managed to solve the "stuck at 300MHz / 4MHs" problem. Solution: make sure a monitor is plugged into the card that is in the primary PCIe 16x slot.

 

[MadOver]

I've bought a MSI GTX 1060 Armor to game and mine with. It's uncanny how much cooler and how much less noise than my RX 480s is. I'm running -200GPU clock and +600 memory for 22MH/s average. The card is cool and quiet and pulling 70% TDP from the wall. Can't say I;ve ever been more impressed by a graphic card.

Depends on which 480 u got, I got a Red Devil 480 and I simply cannot hear the damn thing! Even on the OC mode...

 

[Madpacket]

FYI all,

Ethermine.org is having issues.

Reported hashrates aren't registering properly. May want to switch pools until fixed (what a pain!)

More info here:

https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/5532/ethermine-org-the-fastest-way-to-mine-ether/p23

 

[Madpacket]

22Mh isn't bad, about 5Mh less than an optimised Rx480. A good 480 will only draw about 100 - 105W optimized.

Do you have actual power measurements so we can compare performance per watt?

Now that Windows 10 works with Geforce 10x0 cards I finally ordered a 1070 (Gigabyte ITX) for my HTPC. Was pretty cheap for CAD at only $519.99. Hopefully comes with Samsung memory as I hear they hit around 30Mh. I'm replacing an Asus ITX 970 with it (which paid for itself mining). Overkill for 1080P but should last a few years and hopefully pay for some of itself mining.

Fun times!

 

[Madpacket]

I love the PowerColor cards. A lot people skipped the Powercolor 390's but they were the best IMHO.

That being said I just bought the MSI Gaming X OC 480 8GB as my primary gaming card. It was overpriced at $399 CAD but it was at a local computer store and impulse buy. So far so good. Very quiet and zero throttling playing Doom 1440P on Nightmare settings. A little power hungry compared to the reference cards but I haven't played too much in Wattman yet.

Tweaked for mining you can't even hear the card unless you put your ear within a foot or so. Uses 10-15 more watts unfortunately over a standard reference card. Might be able to lower it a tad more. Oh well it should pay for at least half of itself in time.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I have a Powercolor 390. My XFX 390s are better, at least for what I want them to do.

 

[Madpacket]

I have a Powercolor 390. My XFX 390s are better, at least for what I want them to do.

I never owned any XFX 390's. Just MSI, Asus and PowerColor. What's better about the XFX cards over the PowerColor?

 

[DrMrLordX]

For my purposes, I do not want any of my Hawaii cards pulling more than 200W per unless there's a damn good reason. So I try to tweak and tune them to get as much raw oomph as I can within that power envelope. Lots of voltage tweaking, and in a few cases I've even messed with TDC settings (though that's mostly for cards that show degeneracy via massive current leakage). Both of my XFX cards can manage 1090 MHz within that envelope, while the Powercolor is lucky to do maybe 1020 MHz. I just could not get it to behave properly. Right now I have it at 950 MHz I think.

 

[Madpacket]

For my purposes, I do not want any of my Hawaii cards pulling more than 200W per unless there's a damn good reason. So I try to tweak and tune them to get as much raw oomph as I can within that power envelope. Lots of voltage tweaking, and in a few cases I've even messed with TDC settings (though that's mostly for cards that show degeneracy via massive current leakage). Both of my XFX cards can manage 1090 MHz within that envelope, while the Powercolor is lucky to do maybe 1020 MHz. I just could not get it to behave properly. Right now I have it at 950 MHz I think.

Interesting.

I haven't experienced that with my six PowerColor 390's. They optimally hit around 1060Mhz which yes is less than MSI or Asus 390's (1111 - 1125Mhz) but when set at identical speeds and voltages the Foxconn made PowerColor cards use less energy than the MSI or Asus 390's and run quieter and cooler as a result. I believe this is a result of the VRM design.

The PowerColor cards also use full metal shrouds which help reduce frame warping (happens with Asus 390's).

I don't run any of my 390's past 130 - 140W any more. Performance per watt is hit optimally at lower MHz speeds. 975 - 1000Mhz with a -150mv VDDC on the GPU core using Trixx helps a lot. You can still generate 26/27Mh per card and depending on the ASIC quality (lower the better) get pretty close to an aftermarket 480 (within 25W with a few of my 390's).

 

[IntelUser2000]

If you GPU is running very hot, you can reduce power usage by simply cooling it better. Motivated by that plus wanting the chip to last longer, I modded Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro v2 CPU cooler on the RX 480 GPU.

With some undervolting and 1.1GHz, the GPU core is at only 44C mining Ethereum.

 

[xLegenday]

For my purposes, I do not want any of my Hawaii cards pulling more than 200W per unless there's a damn good reason. So I try to tweak and tune them to get as much raw oomph as I can within that power envelope. Lots of voltage tweaking, and in a few cases I've even messed with TDC settings (though that's mostly for cards that show degeneracy via massive current leakage). Both of my XFX cards can manage 1090 MHz within that envelope, while the Powercolor is lucky to do maybe 1020 MHz. I just could not get it to behave properly. Right now I have it at 950 MHz I think.

You might had bad luck with the GPU. Most cards are equal designed in terms of oc capabilities (pcb power circuits, power phases etc) but what would influence the most I would say it's the quality of the ASIC and then the operating temperatures. Later on the card design.

Believe me , Ived worked very closely with some of the brands that manufacture cards. Most extra power phases are marketing BS. (unless ur into extreme overclock)

Just to give you a example, just basic reference AMD 480 card could hit around 1350 / 1370 mhz mark depending on the quality of the asic, very basic cooling, when they change it it they could pull it to a bit over 1400Mhz mark. Which is pretty much around where ALL brands are hitting the oc limit, even with "special" pcb, power components etc..