Ethereum GPU mining?

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Hitman928

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2012
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1070 mining in win 10 seems to be working now! With 369.09 and genoil 1.1.6 I am getting up to 41MH/s. Weird thing is, it keeps alternating in the CMD window between 20 MH/s and 41 MH/s. Is this normal?

The alternating is normal. You can probably play with the command flags to get a more consistent hash rate reported, but if your pool is reporting ~33 MH/s, then don't worry about it.
 
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Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
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I think you're talking about running the card at stock settings/volts. I cant speak to Madpackets exact settings, but something like 950-985mv on the core and ~975mv on the memory will get you some decent power savings.

Right so to clarify here.

Use GPU-Z and keep your eye on the GPU core power. This will tell you how much the actual GPU core is consuming. You have to add an additional 35 - 40W (board and memory power) or so get the actual power consumption of the card. So realistically the 480's consume roughly 105-115W each while mining at 27Mh.

Power and clock settings:

2200 - 2210 memory / 900 - 910mv
1040 GPU Core @ 900mv
Temp target = 70 max - 60 min

These settings generally work well with most of my Rx480's. I'll have a much larger sample size by the end of the week though to see if this trend holds true.
 
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Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
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Before everyone goes hog wild on 1070's it's important to understand the differences between it and the 480 in order to make informed decisions before purchasing.

1070's (all 10x0 card for that matter) suffer from major DPC latency issues. This may be a hardware problem that can't be fixed via software. Nvidia is preparing an "improved" driver to fix this issue but the fact remains that the Pascal line currently has DPC latency issues where their previous generation cards don't. So if you're thinking of buying the optimal "gaming/mining card", the DPC issue is something that could negatively affect you.

51 page thread (and counting) here for more info: https://forums.geforce.com/default/...s/gtx-1080-high-dpc-latency-and-stuttering/1/

1070's cost about 50% more on average for the entry level cards, and even more for the higher end ones.
1070's power consumption at optimal mining speeds is unknown at this time. 1070 owners please provide power consumption (from the wall, idle to load delta etc). This will help us determine the performance per watt. Also a comparison of the founders vs aftermarket would be useful.
As someone already mentioned the 1070's PCB design and power delivery (at least the founders edition) is well engineered but not *over* engineered like the reference 480's. I doubt this will negatively impact the lifespan of the 1070 but it's something to be aware of.

I'm as excited as you guys are that we may finally have a better gaming / mining card but I'm tempering my excitement until we can answer some of the above questions.
 

thilanliyan

Lifer
Jun 21, 2005
11,848
2,051
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I was seriously considering a 1070, but if it's only doing about 32-33MHs, it's not worth it for me. My 290s are doing 31MHs each. Also, the switch to PoS late this year/early next year means it probably won't pay for itself unless it can mine other coins efficiently as well. The 290s are good all-round mining cards, not just for Eth so I think I will hold on to them for a while longer.
 

Yakk

Golden Member
May 28, 2016
1,574
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After doing some reading, I agree with others here the 1070 is probably still not worth it as a mining card. ROI is too far away, and if it has to go for RMA because of its more fragile power delivery gets blown, then you are probably looking at an overall loss months down the line. Might be good for someone with 1 or 2 cards, but pretty risky in volume. :/
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
After doing some reading, I agree with others here the 1070 is probably still not worth it as a mining card. ROI is too far away, and if it has to go for RMA because of its more fragile power delivery gets blown, then you are probably looking at an overall loss months down the line. Might be good for someone with 1 or 2 cards, but pretty risky in volume. :/

Ya, that's my plan. Just buy 2 for the primary rig but I will continue to mine with AMD unless 1070 can hit 40 MH or something. The issue with the 1070 is that it costs almost double what a typical $240 RX 480 costs but productivity is only about 32% higher (33MH vs. 25MH).

6x GTX1070 @ $430 = $2,580 (33 MH x 6 = 198 MH) => $13.03 per 1 MH (30% more expensive)
6x RX 480 @ $250 = $1,500 (25 MH x 6 = 150 MH) => $10 per 1 MH

GTX1060 though may be another story entirely as it uses less power than the RX 480 and could mine as good or better.
 

codyray10

Senior member
Apr 14, 2008
854
4
81
Radeon Crimson 16.8.1 beta drivers available. Supposed to fix the memory OC being limited to 2050.

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-art...are-Crimson-Edition-16-8-1-Release-Notes.aspx

Fixed Issues

  • Max memory overclock available on Radeon RX 480 being too low in Radeon WattMan has been resolved.
  • Overwatch™ may experience an application crash on some Radeon™ RX 480 configurations when using AMD Crossfire technology mode.
  • The Division poor Crossfire scaling may be experienced in some low resolution configurations when using AMD Crossfire technology mode.
  • DOTA2™ may experience lower than expected performance when in AMD Crossfire mode.
  • Radeon Settings may not report the correct Vulkan™ driver or API version information.
  • Firefox™ may experience an application crash when hardware acceleration is enabled for content playback.
  • Low frame rate or stutter may be experienced Wolfenstein®: The Old Blood™ on Radeon™ RX 480.
  • Updating drivers through Radeon Settings may sometimes fail with an error message.
 
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Yakk

Golden Member
May 28, 2016
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Ya, that's my plan. Just buy 2 for the primary rig but I will continue to mine with AMD unless 1070 can hit 40 MH or something. The issue with the 1070 is that it costs almost double what a typical $240 RX 480 costs but productivity is only about 32% higher (33MH vs. 25MH).

6x GTX1070 @ $430 = $2,580 (33 MH x 6 = 198 MH) => $13.03 per 1 MH (30% more expensive)
6x RX 480 @ $250 = $1,500 (25 MH x 6 = 150 MH) => $10 per 1 MH

GTX1060 though may be another story entirely as it uses less power than the RX 480 and could mine as good or better.

Yeah nvidia is just too expensive except for the hobbyist trying to recoup some of the costs.

Also, last time around the VRM cooling on custom evga cards (for example) was not adequate and people were blowing their cards after a few days mining. If you decide to mine with 1070s check the VRMs. Yes they are made to take some abuse, but I'd suggest you check the setup and cooling on the models you are looking at.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
^Is that US pricing RS?

Ya but our pricing is getting pretty close. Selling my Hawaii cards should pay for a single 1070 and then it's like having 2x 1070s making $ for 5 months to pay for the 2nd 1070.

G1 1070 = $560 CAD / Strix = $560 CAD / EVGA FTW DT = $560 CAD add taxes + shipping.

A single AIB 1070 is almost 50% faster than an R9 390X at 1440p and is only 11-12% slower than the $700 US 1080 FE JHH Ferrari Fund Edition. 1070 (SLI) is a pretty good value/upgrade from Hawaii with mining!

12024
 
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Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
Ya but our pricing is getting pretty close. Selling my Hawaii cards should pay for a single 1070 and then it's like having 2x 1070's making $ for 5 months to pay for the 2nd 1070.

G1 1070 = $560 CAD / Strix = $560 CAD / EVGA FTW DT = $560 CAD add taxes + shipping.

A single AIB 1070 is almost 50% faster than an R9 390X at 1440p and is only 11-12% slower than the $700 US 1080 FE Overpriced Turd Edition. Pretty good value/upgrade.

12024
Since we're both in Canada, what do you think is the best 1070 for the price at NewEgg.ca? The cards listed above look decent but it's hard to tell which has the best VRM layout / Power Consumption / Quality.

I came across this Asus card "http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...ex-_-DesktopGraphicsVideoCards-_-14126119-L0B" which has a $25.00 off coupon bringing it to $549.99 "CEMCEMEM55". I'm no longer a fan of 10"+ cards as it really limits case choices etc but would sacrifice length for better quality. However I'm waiting until the DPC issues are sorted. What does it matter if your 1070 is faster than your 290X when the games are skippy and choppy?

EDIT:

Now they have the $529 Gigabyte in stock. Tempting...

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16814125875
 
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Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
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DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
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Anyway with this card I'll be testing Linux out for sure.

Cool. I just think it'll also be interesting to see what, if anything Linux could do to fix your throttling problem. Once you have a USB stick with a working Linux install on it, it's actually trivial to boot it up, set your clockspeeds, and start mining via scripts. Even on crappy old boards with nothing but USB2 I can get a Linux box up and running in about 2 minutes or less. I'm still using the "ghetto" method of using .profile but hey whatever, it works. I'm too lazy to learn systemd startup stuff. Well for now.

I know we're not keeping score or competing here but if I temporarily hit 1GH during this transition I'll have to post a screenshot for some bragging ;D but I bet some of you guys have already hit these speeds.

I was really tempted, but the cost/benefit analysis on my end for expanding mining capacity at this point doesn't seem to work out. I almost had a good deal going with cheap power but that deal fell through so . . . yeah. Just pluggin away with what I got at home.
 

dajeepster

Golden Member
Apr 15, 2001
1,974
16
81
anyone try the 16.8.1 drivers with an x99 mb, mixture of 290x and 480 rx gpu, and pcie ssd yet?... i'm sticking to 16.7.2 for the time being.. when i tried 16.7.3, the systems were not happy.
 

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
7,382
2,419
146
The alternating is normal. You can probably play with the command flags to get a more consistent hash rate reported, but if your pool is reporting ~33 MH/s, then don't worry about it.
Thanks, I guess it may be different with Cuda miner? Using OpenCL it is more consistent.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Since we're both in Canada, what do you think is the best 1070 for the price at NewEgg.ca? The cards listed above look decent but it's hard to tell which has the best VRM layout / Power Consumption / Quality.

I came across this Asus card "http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...ex-_-DesktopGraphicsVideoCards-_-14126119-L0B" which has a $25.00 off coupon bringing it to $549.99 "CEMCEMEM55". I'm no longer a fan of 10"+ cards as it really limits case choices etc but would sacrifice length for better quality. However I'm waiting until the DPC issues are sorted. What does it matter if your 1070 is faster than your 290X when the games are skippy and choppy?

EDIT:

Now they have the $529 Gigabyte in stock. Tempting...

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16814125875

I have to get back to you on what the best GTX1070 is. The non-Xtreme versions of the Gigabyte 1070 have reference PCB, and no double ball bearing fans. The EVGA FTW DT has the same custom PCB and cooler from the Classified, double ball bearing fans, 10+2 power phase design, and if it were to fail, amazing customer service in North America.

1080-36b.jpg


1080-37b.jpg


1080-35b.jpg


The issue with the EVGA and MSI Gaming is they have 6/8 or 8/8-pin power connectors. If you plan on running 5-6 of them, your 1000-1200W PSU may not have enough (but if you just want to get 2 of those for your primary gaming rig, then it's a non-issue). The EVGA one doesn't have active VRM cooling though and it seems the MSI isn't big on it either.

front.jpg


cooler3.jpg


cooler2.jpg


I still would feel more comfortable spending $550+ CAD on a card with double ball bearing fans and more power phases. That makes EVGA a strong card and even stronger given its RMA department.

---

Side-note. I upgraded W10 with Redstone and I am having freezing problems.

http://www.winbeta.org/news/windows-10-anniversary-update-causing-freezing-issues-many-users

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/...ws_10_fully_freezes_after_anniversary_update/
 
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thilanliyan

Lifer
Jun 21, 2005
11,848
2,051
126
The Gigabyte 1070 having only one 8-pin plug is one of the reasons I wouldn't go for it, but I'm looking at it from a gaming + mining perspective, not just mining.
 

Elfear

Diamond Member
May 30, 2004
7,096
640
126
I'm having some teething problems getting my new mining rig up and going. Hoping you guys can help me out.

Motherboard: Asrock H97 Anniversary (Bios 1.60)
CPU: G3258@stock
PSU: EVGA 1300W G2
6x powered risers connected via USB.
6x RX480 (2x Gigabyte, 2x Powercolor, and 2x XFX)
8GB ram

1st problem is Window 8.1 tagging my 6th RX480 with a Code 43 in Device Manager. I can disable and reenable the GPU so it shows up properly but Claymore doesn't recognize the card. If I restart the computer, the 6th card gets a Code 43 again. After renabling the 6th card I've also reinstalled the drivers but then I get BSODs (Critical Process Died) until I remove the 6th card. I'm wondering if I've saturated the available PCI-E lanes and need to disable some onboard devices.

2nd problem is finding software to control clock speed and voltage. I can set frequency and voltage using Wattman but it doesn't work across all the cards. Only one card sticks at 1010Mhz while the others vary from 300-670Mhz even if I set each card individually. I can use Afterburner to set the memory clocks higher than Wattman will allow (2150Mhz is purring along) but I have no option to adjust clocks or voltage down.

Any ideas?
 

ozzy702

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2011
1,151
530
136
Is anyone using an MSI Gaming 5 to mine with multiple GPUs? I'm having trouble getting mine setup with windows 10. The most I've ran in the past is three cards but just off of pcie 16x slots, I'm currently trying to use risers for all six cards.
 

Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
I have to get back to you on what the best GTX1070 is. The non-Xtreme versions of the Gigabyte 1070 have reference PCB, and no double ball bearing fans. The EVGA FTW DT has the same custom PCB and cooler from the Classified, double ball bearing fans, 10+2 power phase design, and if it were to fail, amazing customer service in North America.

1080-36b.jpg


1080-37b.jpg


1080-35b.jpg


The issue with the EVGA and MSI Gaming is they have 6/8 or 8/8-pin power connectors. If you plan on running 5-6 of them, your 1000-1200W PSU may not have enough (but if you just want to get 2 of those for your primary gaming rig, then it's a non-issue). The EVGA one doesn't have active VRM cooling though and it seems the MSI isn't big on it either.

front.jpg


cooler3.jpg


cooler2.jpg


I still would feel more comfortable spending $550+ CAD on a card with double ball bearing fans and more power phases. That makes EVGA a strong card and even stronger given its RMA department.

---

Side-note. I upgraded W10 with Redstone and I am having freezing problems.

http://www.winbeta.org/news/windows-10-anniversary-update-causing-freezing-issues-many-users

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/...ws_10_fully_freezes_after_anniversary_update/

Thanks for the info. I thought the cheap Gigabyte had a 6+2 phase setup but the EVGA seems like the ideal card. Asus only dedicates one phase to the memory so probably crappy memory overclocks.

I ended up grabbing a couple more 480's while the DPC stuff is sorted.
 

Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
I'm having some teething problems getting my new mining rig up and going. Hoping you guys can help me out.

Motherboard: Asrock H97 Anniversary (Bios 1.60)
CPU: G3258@stock
PSU: EVGA 1300W G2
6x powered risers connected via USB.
6x RX480 (2x Gigabyte, 2x Powercolor, and 2x XFX)
8GB ram

1st problem is Window 8.1 tagging my 6th RX480 with a Code 43 in Device Manager. I can disable and reenable the GPU so it shows up properly but Claymore doesn't recognize the card. If I restart the computer, the 6th card gets a Code 43 again. After renabling the 6th card I've also reinstalled the drivers but then I get BSODs (Critical Process Died) until I remove the 6th card. I'm wondering if I've saturated the available PCI-E lanes and need to disable some onboard devices.

2nd problem is finding software to control clock speed and voltage. I can set frequency and voltage using Wattman but it doesn't work across all the cards. Only one card sticks at 1010Mhz while the others vary from 300-670Mhz even if I set each card individually. I can use Afterburner to set the memory clocks higher than Wattman will allow (2150Mhz is purring along) but I have no option to adjust clocks or voltage down.

Any ideas?

Hmm. I just finished a similar build tonight but have no issues like you're describing.

H97 Anniversary
6xSapphire 480's
1KW Platinum EVGA
Quality risers from local Toronto area bitcoin. seller.
Windows 10
Latest AMD drivers.
Claymore 5.3

I built this milk crate slowly. Added one card at a time. The last card wasn't recognised at first but ended up being a dead riser board. I swapped it for another and it fired right up.

I should mention this was all with a clean install on a small 120GB SSD The IGP disabled, and using the x16 slot for the main card to hook up the monitor.

That's about it.
 

Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
I should mention make sure you hook up the molex adapter on the H97 motherboard. For whatever reason even with powered risers the board will complain if that isn't being fed power.
 

Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
So good news. No throttling with this latest build!

I'm not sure why (maybe its the latest AMD driver?) But I think it may be that Wattman is actually becoming useful and keeping the settings properly.

I have one more crate to build (6xMSI) and then have 4 more 480's to start replacing my 390's. This takes up way too much time but sure is fun.

Getting close to my goal...

If my house doesn't burn down I may hit it temporarily ;)

New build. I used wider crates this time. Much better airflow and space between cards.

https://imgur.com/a/zp4aB