Ethereum GPU mining?

[IEC]

No doubt. There is a lot of potential in blockchain technologies and smart contracts. With cooler weather coming I think I'll start expansion wave #3

 

[DrMrLordX]

Ethereum Wallet .8.3 is out along with an updated version of geth. It'll fix the problems with .8.2 and get you back up and running (if you're still using that wallet).

 

[Jose Castillo]

Hi guys im making a new rig and dont want to mod any bios , just put the rig working from the start without problems (maybe underclock it), the 470/480 cards with 4 gb seems to be at the same price point, which one do you recommend?

Sapphire NITRO+ RX 470 4GB/asus 480 4b /msi 4 gb or asus/msi/gigabyte 470 4 gb

 

[codyray10]

Hi guys im making a new rig and dont want to mod any bios , just put the rig working from the start without problems (maybe underclock it), the 470/480 cards with 4 gb seems to be at the same price point, which one do you recommend?

Sapphire NITRO+ RX 470 4GB/asus 480 4b /msi 4 gb or asus/msi/gigabyte 470 4 gb

For eth mining you'd be best off with a 4gb RX 480 if you can find one for a good price. However, if you decide to go with a 470, you will want the 8gb for the faster memory.

 

[codyray10]

Was checking out my local Microcenter online, snagged a MSI Gaming RX 480 4GB on clearance for $190. I see it has 7000mhz memory, so it will be a little slower at mining than my 8gb 480s. Curious how the memory will OC though. This will put me over 100Mh/s

http://www.microcenter.com/product/468878/Radeon_RX_480_Gaming_X_Overclocked_4GB_GDDR5_Video_Card

 

[Raduque]

Son of a... my password isn't working to get into my wallet. None of the permutations I might have used is, either. I'm going to have to make a new wallet and start over. Only lost 2 Ether, thankfully.

 

[IEC]

Put four RX 480s on my testbench. Mined at stock settings @ 778W measured from the wall (testbench is overkill for mining with an i5-3570K). Did 5 minutes of Wattman tweaking for initial testing and got it down to 544W measured. Some quick math:

Stock: 24.8 MHs per card
Undervolted/RAM OC: 27 MHs per card

234W / 4 = 58.5W savings per card
27 MHs - 24.8 MHs / 24.8 MHs = 8.87% higher hash rate

So... you can cut power use by 1/3 and gain almost 10% hash rate on stock BIOS without much difficulty. I should be able to tweak another 5% or so hash per W out of it.

 

[ElFenix]

Info should all be in that image but all I did was...

Set power target to 90%
Changed base/boost to -175Mhz
Increased memory +1350Mhz (or look at the GPU-Z for real speed measurements)

There doesn't appear to be any direct voltage controls. I downloaded Gigabytes OC tool (since it's a GB card) however changing power target changes the effective clock speed and core voltages and is very sensitive. So with 90% and a large memory overclock I get approx 1560Mhz on the core. I may try pushing higher tonight but I suspect this is about as far it'll go before diminishing returns. I don't know the relationship or optimal ratio between core/mem like on Radeon 480's but this seemed like a good balance so far.

Card has Micron memory if that matters.

the card i got seems to ignore whatever changes I make in OC guru, just ramping right up to its clock/voltage limit while sitting well below the power limit. claymore 7 beta and 372.54

also, 2D performance goes to crap while its mining, which doesn't happen on the RX.

 

[codyray10]

snagged a MSI Gaming RX 480 4GB. I see it has 7000mhz memory, so it will be a little slower at mining than my 8gb 480s. Curious how the memory will OC though. This will put me over 100Mh/s

http://www.microcenter.com/product/468878/Radeon_RX_480_Gaming_X_Overclocked_4GB_GDDR5_Video_Card

Got the new 4GB MSI Gaming 480 installed last night. For anyone who is curious, at stock settings it gets 20Mh/s. I'm currently running it at 1150/1950 (+200mhz memory OC) and it's doing 21.4Mh/s. Didnt get to tweak settings too much last night, will see if it can do any better later on. I was hoping it would do 22-23Mh/s, not sure if it'll happen though.

 

[Madpacket]

Put four RX 480s on my testbench. Mined at stock settings @ 778W measured from the wall (testbench is overkill for mining with an i5-3570K). Did 5 minutes of Wattman tweaking for initial testing and got it down to 544W measured. Some quick math:

Stock: 24.8 MHs per card
Undervolted/RAM OC: 27 MHs per card

234W / 4 = 58.5W savings per card
27 MHs - 24.8 MHs / 24.8 MHs = 8.87% higher hash rate

So... you can cut power use by 1/3 and gain almost 10% hash rate on stock BIOS without much difficulty. I should be able to tweak another 5% or so hash per W out of it.

Try a low power modded BIOS, should bump you up to 29Mh+ for a tad more energy consumption. What Rx480's are you benching for reference?

 

[Madpacket]

FYI, I noticed a small anomaly with the Sapphire Nitro cards compared to the reference cards. As I've mentioned many times before, the higher quality ASIC rated reference cards use more power than the lower quality ASIC rated cards. However with my Sapphire Nitro cards I'm noticing one of my 84% ASIC rated cards uses around the same energy as my 74% rated cards. None of my reference cards behave this way. This is after flashing the BIOS's and undervolting with the Trixx etc. I also have one 89% ASIC rated Nitro but it uses the most energy of the 4 that I have, at roughly 7 - 8 more watts according to GPU-Z, so the trend still still holds true. Also the cards with higher default reported VDDC (usually lower ASIC rated cards) also tend to have more room to undervolt (makes sense as they're starting at a higher default voltage). Just some observations. I may order a few more Nitro cards but the way difficulty is climbing I'm becoming gun shy on the buys.

 

[Madpacket]

Got the new 4GB MSI Gaming 480 installed last night. For anyone who is curious, at stock settings it gets 20Mh/s. I'm currently running it at 1150/1950 (+200mhz memory OC) and it's doing 21.4Mh/s. Didnt get to tweak settings too much last night, will see if it can do any better later on. I was hoping it would do 22-23Mh/s, not sure if it'll happen though.

Those cards use lower speed Hynix memory like the 4GB 470's. I suggest flashing the BIOS (they're dual BIOS, so no risk of bricking your card) with one of the BIOS's on the ethereum forums. I saw one for your card specifically where it was hitting approx 27.5Mh.

You have plenty of room for improvement

 

[Madpacket]

the card i got seems to ignore whatever changes I make in OC guru, just ramping right up to its clock/voltage limit while sitting well below the power limit. claymore 7 beta and 372.54

also, 2D performance goes to crap while its mining, which doesn't happen on the RX.

Try 16.9.1 drivers after a clean DDU removal of your existing ones. If Wattman is acting funny set it to default and try the latest Sapphire Trixx or Afterburner releases. I suggest also flashing the BIOS to a modded mining one. Big improvements.

 

[Madpacket]

Son of a... my password isn't working to get into my wallet. None of the permutations I might have used is, either. I'm going to have to make a new wallet and start over. Only lost 2 Ether, thankfully.

Not sure how many Ether you have but I suggest you grab something like a Ledger Nano S. You just have to remember a 4 digit code to access your funds. If you ever lose the hardware wallet you can restore your private key / coins to another Ledger with the 25 word seed values. Very handy.

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

This goes for anyone who wants better protection for your coins.

 

[ElFenix]

Try 16.9.1 drivers after a clean DDU removal of your existing ones. If Wattman is acting funny set it to default and try the latest Sapphire Trixx or Afterburner releases. I suggest also flashing the BIOS to a modded mining one. Big improvements.

Pretty sure wattman isn't going to affect this 1070

 

[codyray10]

I suggest flashing the BIOS (they're dual BIOS, so no risk of bricking your card) with one of the BIOS's on the ethereum forums. I saw one for your card specifically where it was hitting approx 27.5Mh.

You have plenty of room for improvement

Well that's good news. Any chance you can find the link to that thread? I did a search over there and didnt find a topic for this specific gpu. Or maybe I didn't dig deep enough.

 

[Madpacket]

Pretty sure wattman isn't going to affect this 1070

That would be correct lol Sorry I don't know why I thought you were talking about a 480...

Ok 1070. My Gigabyte acts the same way. I had to limit the clock speeds by setting the power limit to 63 or 64% after installing the card in my tiny Osmi case. Depending on the application the clock speeds will differ. Mining seems to throttle the card harder than say the newest Tomb Raider. I have noticed any 2D performance issues while mining, I can play back HD videos, Netflix, or YouTube without any stuttering but if I try firing up a 3D game it's stutters a lot more than Radeon's do. So when gaming I simply close the mining software. Maybe newer versions of Claymore will have options to throttle the intensity of the card properly. I looked through all the documentation but couldn't find a way to play and mine at the same time which kind of sucks. My Geforce 970 with the old etherminer program could do both with the right intensity and block sizes etc.

 

[Madpacket]

Well that's good news. Any chance you can find the link to that thread? I did a search over there and didnt find a topic for this specific gpu. Or maybe I didn't dig deep enough.

No worries.

http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/9489/rx480-nitro-4gb-bios-small-boost/p1

Grab dscworld's BIOS about halfway down the first page. Or here's a direct link to the BIOS:

http://cd8ba0b44a15c10065fd-24461f391e20b7336331d5789078af53.r23.cf1.rackcdn.com/ethereum.vanillaforums.com/editor/go/es4jxi7x8ybd.zip

I take no risk if you brick your card (which would be near impossible as you have two BIOS's). Make sure you fire up Trixx after flashing and undervolt the card. Start with -75Mv and if stable keep going lower. Let us know your power results from GPU-Z as well as mining speeds. Good luck!

 

[codyray10]

http://cd8ba0b44a15c10065fd-24461f391e20b7336331d5789078af53.r23.cf1.rackcdn.com/ethereum.vanillaforums.com/editor/go/es4jxi7x8ybd.zip

I take no risk if you brick your card (which would be near impossible as you have two BIOS's). Make sure you fire up Trixx after flashing and undervolt the card. Start with -75Mv and if stable keep going lower. Let us know your power results from GPU-Z as well as mining speeds. Good luck!

Thanks alot for that. But, if things go south, you're definitely to blame!

 

[codyray10]

No worries.

http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/9489/rx480-nitro-4gb-bios-small-boost/p1

Grab dscworld's BIOS about halfway down the first page. Or here's a direct link to the BIOS:

http://cd8ba0b44a15c10065fd-24461f391e20b7336331d5789078af53.r23.cf1.rackcdn.com/ethereum.vanillaforums.com/editor/go/es4jxi7x8ybd.zip

I take no risk if you brick your card (which would be near impossible as you have two BIOS's). Make sure you fire up Trixx after flashing and undervolt the card. Start with -75Mv and if stable keep going lower. Let us know your power results from GPU-Z as well as mining speeds. Good luck!

So that bios is from a Nitro 480. I'm using the MSI Gaming. I've never flashed a bios of another vendor before. Do people do that? The winflash gui throws an error and doesnt allow that bios to be programmed. Maybe it needs the cli to force it if I wanted?

 

[ElFenix]

That would be correct lol Sorry I don't know why I thought you were talking about a 480...

Ok 1070. My Gigabyte acts the same way. I had to limit the clock speeds by setting the power limit to 63 or 64% after installing the card in my tiny Osmi case. Depending on the application the clock speeds will differ. Mining seems to throttle the card harder than say the newest Tomb Raider. I have noticed any 2D performance issues while mining, I can play back HD videos, Netflix, or YouTube without any stuttering but if I try firing up a 3D game it's stutters a lot more than Radeon's do. So when gaming I simply close the mining software. Maybe newer versions of Claymore will have options to throttle the intensity of the card properly. I looked through all the documentation but couldn't find a way to play and mine at the same time which kind of sucks. My Geforce 970 with the old etherminer program could do both with the right intensity and block sizes etc.

setting it at 50% power limit and 1200/1400 base/boost and it still clocks too high. it just absolutely ignores my manual settings in OC guru. stuck at all of 3 MH/s. and 2D performance goes to absolute crud when mining.

really nice card otherwise. happily goes up to 1900 MHz right out of the box. but dunno if I can keep it if I can't defray the cost.

 

[Madpacket]

So that bios is from a Nitro 480. I'm using the MSI Gaming. I've never flashed a bios of another vendor before. Do people do that? The winflash gui throws an error and doesnt allow that bios to be programmed. Maybe it needs the cli to force it if I wanted?

My apologies, I thought I read you had a Nitro. What I recommend doing is use ATIFLASH to export your BIOS, should be 512KB (GPU-Z only exports 256K for some reason). Upload your BIOS somewhere convenient and then ask one of the BIOS editor's really nicely to modify it. Boiyse and Heliox are pretty experienced with this stuff. If you're brave enough you can attempt to enter the memory straps yourself. I have the 8 GB MSI Gaming X and need to do something similar as I don't see any modified BIOS's yet. Just been really busy lately.

 

[Madpacket]

setting it at 50% power limit and 1200/1400 base/boost and it still clocks too high. it just absolutely ignores my manual settings in OC guru. stuck at all of 3 MH/s. and 2D performance goes to absolute crud when mining.

really nice card otherwise. happily goes up to 1900 MHz right out of the box. but dunno if I can keep it if I can't defray the cost.

That's crazy. What is your ASIC rating for the card? Have you tried any other OC tools?

 

[ElFenix]

That's crazy. What is your ASIC rating for the card? Have you tried any other OC tools?

Asic quality isn't reported on this board (gigabyte windforce oc). I've tried the other gigabyte utility and afterburner (new beta afterburner supports TDP reduction on a bigger range than the old one).

Clock control works in afterburner but -400 MHz is -400 from 1900. The card hits its voltage cap either way, leaving it using under 40% of its TDP when mining. At 3 mh/s.

Strange that two cards from the same brand seem very different in control-ability.

On top of that it was glitching playing wolfenstein last night. I suppose that may be the reason it was open box to begin with.

 

[DrMrLordX]

So has anyone else noticed signs that blockchain transactions are going really slowly right now? nanopool has reduced payments to one per day on account of Ethereum transactions being so slow.