Miners might target Nvidia Maxwell next

[Atreidin]

LOL. What did I just read. Really. You don't have a golden sample. AIDA. And the killawatt that doesn't exist. You do have great fictional story ability, though.

Whatever. The outrageous stories are hopeless at this level. And they'll just keep coming. Not sure why anyone bothers to even say anything with insane stuff like this every other thread. /shrug

It's rosy posts like yours that really brighten the attitude and mood of this forum.

 

[nwo]

Interesting... I could have sworn I tried Afterburner but was unsuccessful so I uninstalled it right away. I'll have to try it again next time I'm around my 7870s.

 

[el etro]

So, to clear things up I did some testing with system power consumption using Kill-A-Watt.
I disabled in BIOS everything I don't need. Turned off QnQ so it doesn't screw with my results by changing CPU speeds widely.
Here is a graph that shows system power consumption and GPU VRM current (from AIDA):

Mt bet: AIDA didn't read one of the power lines. As i know, 7870 draws power from three lines.

Well, they aren't selling out to gamers. Just miners.

True, but have many reports on the webs that GPU to make the Radeon cards is out of stock in AIBs....

I do think GM107 is very indicative of things to come because if a 60W TDP part is doing 265KH at stock, 300KH while overclocked, what happens when Maxwell is scaled upwards to 225-250W on GM200?

GM107 TDP is not 60W. 60W is the power consumption:



Nvidia site nor confirm and nor denial it. Nvidia term "Graphics Card Power" leads to misinterpretation about is power characteristics(I'm talking about Max Power or Thermal Design Power of the card). Most reviews says only that 750Ti gaming power consumption is ~60W.
This is why we don't know about the real TDP of the card.

Guru3D stressed the card with its test method and came with:



Don't know what is the method, but i know that 750Ti is Furmark-aware and activates its protection when the power virus is started. See here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7764/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-750-ti-and-gtx-750-review-maxwell/22






And PCper logic on the test is wrong, because making a card operate in higher voltages and clocks changes the power and thermal specs of this card. Making this assumption is something too simpleton for a site that do so sophisticated VGA tests.
At end, the site conclude the test with this chart:



They divided each card results obtained by respective card TDP and put the result on a graph called: "Mining performance per Watt".

TDP is not equal power consumption.

 

[Enigmoid]

So, to clear things up I did some testing with system power consumption using Kill-A-Watt.
I disabled in BIOS everything I don't need. Turned off QnQ so it doesn't screw with my results by changing CPU speeds widely.
Here is a graph that shows system power consumption and GPU VRM current (from AIDA):

First things first.

Mining is less intensive than furmark by a lot. Not only system power usage is 30-45Watts lower, but I could cut another 0,1Volts off core.

Fan speed have a big impact on power consumption! It probably have a lot to do with VRM temps which go from 60'C when mining @0,95V to 95'C during furmark @1,25V. Not sure why the difference between quiet and uber custom fan profile is much wider during furmark than mining.

Idle power consumption was 93Watts.

mining system power consumption @0,95V was 179(Uber)/ 183(Quiet) Watts
mining system power consumption @1,25V was 249(Uber)/ 258(Quiet) Watts

Furmark power consumption @1,05V was 216(Uber)/ 230(Quiet) Watts
Furmark power consumption @1,25V was 277(Uber)/ 303(Quiet) Watts

Now isolating GPU power consumption by taking out Idle power consumption:

mining GPU power consumption @0,95V was 86(Uber)/ 90(Quiet) Watts
mining GPU power consumption @1,25V was 156(Uber)/ 165(Quiet) Watts

Furmark GPU power consumption @1,05V was 123(Uber)/ 137(Quiet) Watts
Furmark GPU power consumption @1,25V was 184(Uber)/ 210(Quiet) Watts

I have 82% efficiency (or lower at that load) Chieftec CFT-750 watt power supply:

mining GPU power consumption @0,95V was 70,52(Uber)/ 73,8(Quiet) Watts
mining GPUpower consumption @1,25V was 127,9(Uber)/ 135,3(Quiet) Watts

Furmark GPU power consumption @1,05V was 100,86(Uber)/ 109,6(Quiet) Watts
Furmark GPU power consumption @1,25V was 147,2(Uber)/ 172,2(Quiet) Watts

Comparing these values to aida current readings:

mining GPU power consumption @0,95V was 70,52(Uber)/ 73,8(Quiet) Watts AIDA(Uber):55AMPS(66Watts)
mining GPUpower consumption @1,25V was 127,9(Uber)/ 135,3(Quiet) Watts AIDA(Uber):92AMPS(110Watts)

Furmark GPU power consumption @1,05V was 100,86(Uber)/ 109,6(Quiet) Watts AIDA(Uber):83AMPS(99,6 Watts)
Furmark GPU power consumption @1,25V was 147,2(Uber)/ 172,2(Quiet) Watts AIDA(Uber):118AMPS(141 Watts)


While not most accurate, these results are very close to each other (Aida vs Kill-A-Watt).
Decreasing core voltage by 24%(16% for furmark) decreased:
mining power consumption by 44,9(Uber)/45,5(Quiet)%
Furmark power consumption by 31,5(Uber)/36,3(Quiet)%

Fan speed BY A LOT!
Test sample(Golden 7870 of Golden 7870's) Club3D HD7870 Coolstream:

Shoutout to Club3D for not voltage-locking thier cards!*
*These test were not sponsored by Club3D

I think voltage tuning is very interesting aspect of tweaking hardware. With proper tools this could be looked at closer and could possibly lead to many distressing conclusions. I think this matter deserves a separate thread, not only to stop derailing, but it completely changes the nature of a card.

Also, this little card took 172 Watts?! Holy moly, that is a lot for such small heatsink, VRM, ETC.

If the card takes 70Watts, can I safely unplug 2x6pin? Can something bad happen?

TL,DR: Bunch of numbers on how golden sample of golden samples is close to becoming Perpetuum-mobile heat(and crypto-coin) generator .

What CPU do you have (and at what clocks?)? 93W idle is pretty high.

The 7870 also seems to idle at about 12W so you need to add approximately that much to all your measurements.

 

[Hitman928]

If the card takes 70Watts, can I safely unplug 2x6pin? Can something bad happen?

Hey, Erenhardt, thanks for the time and effort you put into this. As always, what you did are estimates, but they seem to be pretty accurate for estimates and follow closely with the rough calculations to find it what it should be. As far as the above goes, I wouldn't. The card power delivery system, I'm sure, expects the external power to be connected and may have load balance issues if unplugged. Some cards I have dealt with even have safe guards and won't really turn on without it.

Quick question, when you did your calculation to see how much power was reduced by, did you do an idle to load measurement with your card at stock? Did I just miss that part?

Also, do you have multiple monitors or just one?

 

[el etro]

Erenhardt system can have many HDDs and ODDs, justifying the high idle consumption.

 

[Hitman928]

Erenhardt system can have many HDDs and ODDs, justifying the high idle consumption.

He also disabled "QnQ" (I assume he means cool and quiet) which means the cpu would be running at full frequency and voltage, even at idle, correct? It's been a while since I've had an AMD cpu.

 

[parvadomus]

So, to clear things up I did some testing with system power consumption using Kill-A-Watt.
I disabled in BIOS everything I don't need. Turned off QnQ so it doesn't screw with my results by changing CPU speeds widely.
Here is a graph that shows system power consumption and GPU VRM current (from AIDA):

First things first.

Mining is less intensive than furmark by a lot. Not only system power usage is 30-45Watts lower, but I could cut another 0,1Volts off core.

Fan speed have a big impact on power consumption! It probably have a lot to do with VRM temps which go from 60'C when mining @0,95V to 95'C during furmark @1,25V. Not sure why the difference between quiet and uber custom fan profile is much wider during furmark than mining.

Idle power consumption was 93Watts.

mining system power consumption @0,95V was 179(Uber)/ 183(Quiet) Watts
mining system power consumption @1,25V was 249(Uber)/ 258(Quiet) Watts

Furmark power consumption @1,05V was 216(Uber)/ 230(Quiet) Watts
Furmark power consumption @1,25V was 277(Uber)/ 303(Quiet) Watts

Now isolating GPU power consumption by taking out Idle power consumption:

mining GPU power consumption @0,95V was 86(Uber)/ 90(Quiet) Watts
mining GPU power consumption @1,25V was 156(Uber)/ 165(Quiet) Watts

Furmark GPU power consumption @1,05V was 123(Uber)/ 137(Quiet) Watts
Furmark GPU power consumption @1,25V was 184(Uber)/ 210(Quiet) Watts

I have 82% efficiency (or lower at that load) Chieftec CFT-750 watt power supply:

mining GPU power consumption @0,95V was 70,52(Uber)/ 73,8(Quiet) Watts
mining GPUpower consumption @1,25V was 127,9(Uber)/ 135,3(Quiet) Watts

Furmark GPU power consumption @1,05V was 100,86(Uber)/ 109,6(Quiet) Watts
Furmark GPU power consumption @1,25V was 147,2(Uber)/ 172,2(Quiet) Watts

Comparing these values to aida current readings:

mining GPU power consumption @0,95V was 70,52(Uber)/ 73,8(Quiet) Watts AIDA(Uber):55AMPS(66Watts)
mining GPUpower consumption @1,25V was 127,9(Uber)/ 135,3(Quiet) Watts AIDA(Uber):92AMPS(110Watts)

Furmark GPU power consumption @1,05V was 100,86(Uber)/ 109,6(Quiet) Watts AIDA(Uber):83AMPS(99,6 Watts)
Furmark GPU power consumption @1,25V was 147,2(Uber)/ 172,2(Quiet) Watts AIDA(Uber):118AMPS(141 Watts)


While not most accurate, these results are very close to each other (Aida vs Kill-A-Watt).
Decreasing core voltage by 24%(16% for furmark) decreased:
mining power consumption by 44,9(Uber)/45,5(Quiet)%
Furmark power consumption by 31,5(Uber)/36,3(Quiet)%

Fan speed BY A LOT!
Test sample(Golden 7870 of Golden 7870's) Club3D HD7870 Coolstream:

Shoutout to Club3D for not voltage-locking thier cards!*
*These test were not sponsored by Club3D

I think voltage tuning is very interesting aspect of tweaking hardware. With proper tools this could be looked at closer and could possibly lead to many distressing conclusions. I think this matter deserves a separate thread, not only to stop derailing, but it completely changes the nature of a card.

Also, this little card took 172 Watts?! Holy moly, that is a lot for such small heatsink, VRM, ETC.

If the card takes 70Watts, can I safely unplug 2x6pin? Can something bad happen?

TL,DR: Bunch of numbers on how golden sample of golden samples is close to becoming Perpetuum-mobile heat(and crypto-coin) generator .

Very nice man

 

[el etro]

He also disabled "QnQ" (I assume he means cool and quiet) which means the cpu would be running at full frequency and voltage, even at idle, correct? It's been a while since I've had an AMD cpu.

Yes. But his readings are from the wall too, then you have to divide by 0.82 the power on the wall to know the real component consumption. But his reported 172 watts of power consumption(at 1,25v)("uber mode" that he is talking is to put fan at 100%) is closer than site results. Is so much probably that he's right.
But be sure you can do it all in a Nvidia card too(but you will not find with 750Ti awesome results like he found because you have a card with Half the TDP and much less temperature issues).

 

[Erenhardt]

What CPU do you have (and at what clocks?)? 93W idle is pretty high.

The 7870 also seems to idle at about 12W so you need to add approximately that much to all your measurements.

I have good old Phenom 2 965. Slighly overclocked (+100MHz) and downvolted to 1,25V (from 1,35?) ofc. I disabled every bios feature I don't need. Turned Qool and Quiet off, so it doesn't add a CPU variance.

Good catch, I forgot to add GPU idle power consumption. I could try to force it into "zero core" and read idle power consumption then. Not really sure how to do it.

Erenhardt system can have many HDDs and ODDs, justifying the high idle consumption.

Nope, one HDD only. I managed to drop to low 90 Watts, from 110.

Quick question, when you did your calculation to see how much power was reduced by, did you do an idle to load measurement with your card at stock? Did I just miss that part?


Also, do you have multiple monitors or just one?

Idle consumption is not affected by downvolting/overclocking etc because card switches to 2D clocks. My stock voltage is 1.25V.

Single FullHD display.

 

[Erenhardt]

Does anyone have possible explanation why my 7870 is hashing 346 kh/s with 1000MHz GPU clock and 401 kh/s with 950Mhz GPU clock? CGminer scrypt mining.

I know that increasing memory clocks can lead to auto-adjust (increase) in memory timings. The increased speed from frequency needs to compensate for loosened timings - which doesn't happen if its just a bit over timings adjustment frequency.

 

[Erenhardt]

Ohhh.. sensor says 1.219V for core and 1.15V VRM voltage. Changing voltage doesn't change grapics core voltage readings, only VRM voltage. Strange...

 

[MrK6]

So, to clear things up I did some testing with system power consumption using Kill-A-Watt...
TL,DR: Bunch of numbers on how golden sample of golden samples is close to becoming Perpetuum-mobile heat(and crypto-coin) generator .

Strong work! :thumbsup:

The thing I didn't see pointed out that should be mentioned is that gaming configurations for video cards are (or should be) very different from mining configurations. Scrypt mining is largely about optimizing bandwidth rather than running everything as fast as possible. For reference, my 7970 mines at 909/1600MHz and 1.05V, which is significantly less than stock on the core.

 

[stahlhart]

Off-topic discussion moved to Cryptocoin Mining thread.
-- stahlhart

 

[moonbogg]

After market 290's are $650 right now. That absolutely sucks for gamers. If this happens to Maxwell, i'll be hanging onto these 670's for a LONG ass time because no way am I blowing money like that on a $400 card. Won't go there.

 

[ocre]

Amd has ran into supply issues, this is why the prices went up. There are far far more gamers buying gpus than miners. Really am scratching my head reading this thread. I cant believe what i am reading.

If nvidia cards were chosen 50% of the time for mining, the prices would go way down for amd cards. If nvidia cards took some of the mining load, it could only help with amd prices. There are only so many miners. Amd has the supply issue. I just dont understand how anyone would think that nvidia cards for mining would make prices high across the board. Nvidia sells far more cards than amd, there just isnt enough miners to drive up prices like that. Its just not possible.

I have yet to see any data that shows amd is even increased their sales or marketshare at all. No data at all. It is just as likely that amds console contract caused a shortage, not mining. Perhaps amd isnt even selling more chips, just short on a component due to their console surge. We just dont know. But if this is the case, the lack of steady supply would drive up prices very quick since miners need them to make money.

No matter what, there is no doubt in my mind that nvidia cards being an option for mining could only be helpful to amd card pricing. It is far fetched to think otherwise

 

[OCGuy]

Amd has ran into supply issues, this is why the prices went up. There are far far more gamers buying gpus than miners. Really am scratching my head reading this thread. I cant believe what i am reading.

If nvidia cards were chosen 50% of the time for mining, the prices would go way down for amd cards. If nvidia cards took some of the mining load, it could only help with amd prices. There are only so many miners. Amd has the supply issue. I just dont understand how anyone would think that nvidia cards for mining would make prices high across the board. Nvidia sells far more cards than amd, there just isnt enough miners to drive up prices like that. Its just not possible.

I have yet to see any data that shows amd is even increased their sales or marketshare at all. No data at all. It is just as likely that amds console contract caused a shortage, not mining. Perhaps amd isnt even selling more chips, just short on a component due to their console surge. We just dont know. But if this is the case, the lack of steady supply would drive up prices very quick since miners need them to make money.

No matter what, there is no doubt in my mind that nvidia cards being an option for mining could only be helpful to amd card pricing. It is far fetched to think otherwise

I'm sorry but.....no.

 

[KingFatty]

There are far far more gamers buying gpus than miners.

I cannot believe this statement. I have never seen any support for such an outrageous claim, so are you just expressing a personal opinion (that seems contrary to fact/support)? Miners *make money* by purchasing AMD video cards. They have a financial incentive pushing them to buy buy buy.

 

[serpretetsky]

I cannot believe this statement. I have never seen any support for such an outrageous claim, so are you just expressing a personal opinion (that seems contrary to fact/support)? Miners *make money* by purchasing AMD video cards. They have a financial incentive pushing them to buy buy buy.

I can't say I have seen support one way or the other, but I wouldn't say it would be difficult to believe. People who buy cards for gaming get happiness. Happiness vs Money. It's a hard to say which motivates better :biggrin:.

It's obviously not that simple, but I don't think it's so clear that there are more cards bought by miners than gamers. Do we have any data to backup either claim?

I'm sorry but.....no.

Now that's the kind of response that helps facilitate meaningful discussion and not just something that you could yell into the wind and get the same effect as posting it on a forum.

 

[OCGuy]

Now that's the kind of response that helps facilitate meaningful discussion and not just something that you could yell into the wind and get the same effect as posting it on a forum.

I wouldn't give someone saying they see no evidence the earth is round any more thorough of a response.

 

[serpretetsky]

I wouldn't give someone saying they see no evidence the earth is round any more thorough of a response.

I see. Well since you disagree that more miners moving to buy nvidia cards instead of amd cards will not decrease amd pricese, would you care to explain why?


Because I think if the demand shifted from buying amd cards to buying nvidia cards, that amd prices would generally go down at least a little bit assuming the supply doesn't change. No?

 

[OCGuy]

I see. Well since you disagree that more miners moving to buy nvidia cards instead of amd cards will not decrease amd pricese, would you care to explain why?

Because I think if the demand shifted from buying amd cards to buying nvidia cards, that amd prices would generally go down at least a little bit assuming the supply doesn't change. No?

I was more referring to the statement that gaming is what is selling cards @ 2x MSRP, not crypto-currency speculation.

 

[serpretetsky]

I was more referring to the statement that gaming is what is selling cards @ 2x MSRP, not crypto-currency speculation.

Oh. Thank you for clarifying!

 

[KingFatty]

I'm thinking that the pricing trends are unprecedented, but happen to coincide with the advent of crypto mining. So yes, it may be a coincidence that suddenly, inexplicably, gamers recently changed their established behavior of the past 20 years and have caused AMD prices to go full ridiculous. But that's a bit of a stretch. The far more likely explanation is that there is something else buying up all the cards, due to mining, because the odd situation of price going bonkers coincides with miners.

I mean look at this picture album, you see a gamer ever do that? Many miners do just this, buy entire sets of video cards, as many as are available.

That never happened before mining. It's changed the entire landscape of computing as we know it.

http://imgur.com/a/F3FTf

 

[serpretetsky]

I'm thinking that the pricing trends are unprecedented, but happen to coincide with the advent of crypto mining. So yes, it may be a coincidence that suddenly, inexplicably, gamers recently changed their established behavior of the past 20 years and have caused AMD prices to go full ridiculous. But that's a bit of a stretch.

I'm not saying the crazy price hikes are not due to miners buying cards. I'm saying it's possible that the majority of cards being bought are still by gamers. I'm not much of a businessman or economist, so feel free to correct me on anything.

Here are some situations that show my example of how such a situation could occur:
=================================================
Amd produces 10 cards anticipating that about 8 cards will be bought tomorow. They want two left over just in case, and they can sell them the next day. They ship them to suppliers They were accurate, the suppliers sold 8 cards to gamers. The supplier decides that their current price strategy is maximizing profit (which happens to be close to MSRP).

Amd produces 10 cards anticipating that about 8 cards will be bought the next day (again). They ship the cards to suppliers. 8 gamers bought their cards, but unknown to AMD, mining is a big hit, and 3 miners are trying to buy cards. Two of them buy the card, and one is left out in the rain. The supplier sees they have SOLD OUT. They need to increase the prices before they can even get useful data telling them how to maximize profit.

The next 10 cards are produced by amd. They ship to suppliers. Suppliers raise the prices, and while only 7 gamers decides to buy cards this time, the miners are willing to pay BIG BUCKS. The cards sell out again

The next 10 cards are produced by amd. They ship to suppliers. Suppliers raize the prices to rediculous proportions. The 3 miners all still buy cards. But now only 5 gamers buy cards at such stupid prices. The suppliers sell 8 cards and determine that they are maximizing profits.
=================================================
In each each day of buying, gamer sold cards outnumbered mining sold cards. None the less, there were enough miners buying cards that it caused a large enough increase in demand, that coupled with AMD's poor estimate of supplies required (or perhaps their simple inability to produce enough cards even if they tried) dramatically increased prices.

This problem would be made even worse if:
1) amd is having more supply issues then normal. Like ocre pointed out, amd is currently the video chip supplier of both the PS4 and the xbox one.

2) They leave even less headroom of extra cards then i gave in my example.

3) There are , for whatever reason, more gamers buying cards this generation.