Cryptocoin Mining?

[Virge_]

With my 270x, I'm getting maybe 1 DRK if I mine a whole day. Which is similar to what I would get with VRT

Similar? You're not even factoring in the fact that DarkCoin (x11) uses about 60% less electricity than VertCoin (Scrypt-N). That means a whole slew of things - less electricity cost, less heat generation and thus if you're like me you can run more miners with the incoming summer heat, and obviously the best thing being the fact that the fans hover around 50-68% with temps at 75C so there is significantly less wear and tear on the cards.

Like I've been saying for weeks - X11 is the next major algo and anyone sticking with Scrypt is going to keep riding as it spirals downward like BTC did due to ASIC's.

 

[rtsurfer]

Similar? You're not even factoring in the fact that DarkCoin (x11) uses about 60% less electricity than VertCoin (Scrypt-N). That means a whole slew of things - less electricity cost, less heat generation and thus if you're like me you can run more miners with the incoming summer heat, and obviously the best thing being the fact that the fans hover around 50-68% with temps at 75C so there is significantly less wear and tear on the cards.

Like I've been saying for weeks - X11 is the next major algo and anyone sticking with Scrypt is going to keep riding as it spirals downward like BTC did due to ASIC's.

Looks like I'll move from WafflePool to DarkCoin.

What pool are you using. ?

 

[Virge_]

Looks like I'll move from WafflePool to DarkCoin.

What pool are you using. ?

P2P all the way.

 

[rtsurfer]

P2P all the way.

Argh.

I don't like P2P.
I tried setting it up with Einstienium & failed.

Also, hopefully with all he focus on DarkCoin, the Whales will leave BlackCoin alone for a while so the price can rebound.
I have my BTC stuck there because I bought in at 45K.
I hope it goes back up soon.

 

[BD2003]

I've burned out a card and it took out my motherboard with it. It happened while I was away on vacation, it was over 90C for a few days straight despite fan being set to ridiculously loud levels. Reference 7970 74% fanspeed. Even if the GPU and fan could handle it, something else gave... maybe a VRM or something else on the PCB that was well over 90C. If I were home, I would have known something was wrong and done something right away, but I wasn't. Anyway, you may be worrying too much about the GPU temps and not enough about other components. In my experience, the GPU is usually not the first thing to give way; it's more likely a fan busts or something else on the PCB other than the GPU busts. Maybe hotter temperatures accelerate lubricant evaporation on the fans, for instance. Then again, I underclock/undervolt so of course my GPUs run cooler and last longer, and someone else who overvolts/clocks may find that their GPUs are the first things to give. YMMV.

I've also found that running fans at 100% is a great way to lower their lifespan and force an RMA.

You are very optimistic to think that companies engineer their cards for mining loads for years on end. First of all mining is more stressful than any game in existence. Secondly, mining is 24/7, whereas gaming is on average less than a few hours a day. I seriously doubt video card engineers plan for 24/7/365 mining loads for years on end. Would you honestly expect SSD engineers to plan for maximum writespeed writes for 24/7/365 for years on end? Do auto engineers plan for cars to be run 24/7/365 for years on end at max speed?

Well, I'm of two minds about it. Intel engineers their CPUs to wishstand extreme temps in tiny server enclosures in data centers, and they do just fine. Hard drives can withstand 24/7 operation for years on end, and they have a ton of moving parts. So why not GPUs? NVIDIA has those rackmount GRID servers, they sell their GPUs as compute parts that absolutely are intended to run at full load for extended periods of time. I've been building PCs for 20 years now, I've seen chips burn out from temporary extreme temps, but even that was a decade ago, long before chips throttled themselves back. But I've never seen a chip die from extended use, and I've had a few CPUs that have lasted the better part of a decade running 24/7 without any special cooling.

But there's no question that the higher temps decrease lifespan/reliability...I'm not doubting that. But if 95C is so bad, then why wouldn't nvidia set stricter standards? I guess I'm wondering if there's any scientific studies anyone knows about, rather than anecdotal evidence? The anecdotes are obviously going to skew highly towards heat=failure, because there's nothing to report unless something fails.

 

[blastingcap]

Well, I'm of two minds about it. Intel engineers their CPUs to wishstand extreme temps in tiny server enclosures in data centers, and they do just fine. Hard drives can withstand 24/7 operation for years on end, and they have a ton of moving parts. So why not GPUs? NVIDIA has those rackmount GRID servers, they sell their GPUs as compute parts that absolutely are intended to run at full load for extended periods of time. I've been building PCs for 20 years now, I've seen chips burn out from temporary extreme temps, but even that was a decade ago, long before chips throttled themselves back. But I've never seen a chip die from extended use, and I've had a few CPUs that have lasted the better part of a decade running 24/7 without any special cooling.

But there's no question that the higher temps decrease lifespan/reliability...I'm not doubting that. But if 95C is so bad, then why wouldn't nvidia set stricter standards? I guess I'm wondering if there's any scientific studies anyone knows about, rather than anecdotal evidence? The anecdotes are obviously going to skew highly towards heat=failure, because there's nothing to report unless something fails.

I'm sorry but just because something is used in enterprise doesn't mean it doesn't fail. Just look at hard drives: http://research.google.com/pubs/pub32774.html Intel server chips are more robust than their consumer line and NV/AMD consumer video cards. Whatever NV is using for GRID, those are intended for relatively clean server environments, and do they use consumer video cards or what? I'm not sure. I also know server rooms themselves are usually cool and well-ventilated in the first place, sound be damned. And to reiterate: just because something is used in enterprise doesn't mean its indestructible. You can bet that GRID operations have plenty of replacement parts available for inevitable part failures.

Anyway, sorry if I wasn't clear the first time, but I am saying that it's more than GPU temps you need to consider. Fans have been the top concern of mine, followed by non-GPU component failure on the PCB such as overheated VRMs. So even if it a GPU at 95C could last 1000000 years, if the fan busts after 6 months then that's a problem. And since GPUs at 95C do NOT last 1000000 years, that's another possible point of failure, albeit one I haven't seen personally, with the caveat that I always undervolt/underclock whenever possible and keep temps no higher than 85C whenever possible.

But I would worry more about fan problems, as those are hard to deal with, as anyone who has ever had a busted fan knows... the least-bad outcome is RMA at your cost, losing card for a few weeks, and getting back a good card. You could also wind up with a string of half-broken cards RMAing over and over again like the guy in the HardOCP thread recently. If you can't wait that long, some fans cost like $50 to replace off ebay, if you can even find them. In some cases you can buy aftermarket fans or water cool, but it's not always possible (depending on card model) or economic. Good luck to those running fans at 100%, especially if they are sleeve-bearing fans and run horizontally. That's just begging for trouble.

 

[Virge_]

I personally feel that x11 will be the next Scrypt (NOT Scrypt-N or Scrypt-Jane), and as such have been banking a lot of coins - mined a ton of DarkCoin early and sold it for a VERY high profit at $2.8 (mined around 5k of 'em before it hit that high), and have been slowly accumulating HiroCoin since it's still in double-digit difficulty levels.

The mining applications for x11 are not currently as optimized as they could be, but even with that the hash rate is still more than double Scrypt instead of the half you see using Scrypt-N. It's currently only 3.5x-4x faster than a CPU, and doesn't truly push the card to it's limits - this is due to the fact that it's wrapping 11 different algorithms into the calculations as an ASIC-preventative method.. instead of SHA-256, or Scrypt, or Scrypt-N, or Scrypt-Jane, x11 uses blake, bmw, groestl, jh, keccak, skein, luffa, cubehash, shavite, simd, echo in sequence. Due to it not pushing the card to the max, it runs pretty cool temperatures (roughly 40-60% fan for me @ 72C) and uses about 60% less power than Scrypt does allowing you to build systems with one less PSU (a single 1300w PSU can run 6x R9 290x's on a x11 rig, as opposed to the bare minimum of 2000w for Scrypt).

For example, using a single R9 290X at absolute optimal settings:

Scrypt: 990khash @ 350w
Scrypt-N: 460-480khash @ 375w
x11: 2500khash @ 150w

Some speculate that there is a "private" x11 build of cgminer that unleashes it's true potential and runs around 5000mhash per R9 290X. I'd hesitate to believe this is true, personally. People complaining about it's "efficiency" vs. CPU's also miss the obvious points that it's far more than efficient enough - even with x11 only being about 3.5-4x faster than a CPU, it's still far more power efficient, if you say compare a R9 290X to a X990 Extreme using x11 you get the following:

R9 290X: 2500khash @ 150w
Intel i7 X990 @ 3.47GHz: 69khash per thread x 12 = 828mhash @ 130w

 

[Attic]

Thanks for look into x11 there. Will be moving at mininmum 1/3 of my hashing power there.

 

[IEC]

Lol. My cards went from 68-75C with scrypt to 56-63C with X11. So much cooler.

 

[rtsurfer]

Lol. My cards went from 68-75C with scrypt to 56-63C with X11. So much cooler.

Do you have a 290X.??

How many hashes are you getting..?

 

[IEC]

Regular air-cooled 290s, using SPH-sgminer, darkcoin kernel. Getting 2.4MH/s each with undervolted 940/1250, but will probably play around and tweak some to see if I can approach 3MH/s. Open air cooled using a mining rack setup similar to what Virge_ has and it's in the garage so I don't care about heat generation beyond protecting the card components from excessive heat.

So far so good since even scrypt means the cards stay under 75C with a 100F+ ambient.

 

[rtsurfer]

Regular air-cooled 290s, using SPH-sgminer, darkcoin kernel. Getting 2.4MH/s each with undervolted 940/1250, but will probably play around and tweak some to see if I can approach 3MH/s. Open air cooled using a mining rack setup similar to what Virge_ has and it's in the garage so I don't care about heat generation beyond protecting the card components from excessive heat.

So far so good since even scrypt means the cards stay under 75C with a 100F+ ambient.

I am getting 2.7Mh/s on my 290X at 1050/1500.
I tried randomly playing with the clocks a bit.Tried 1100 Mhz on core, & gained like 0.02Mh/s. Think I'll stick to my current clocks. These are the same I have been using for Scrypt.

Although my WU = 0.039/m. Isn't this too low..?
With Scrypt on CGminer I used to get around 900/m.

I am confused.

I was under the impression that your WU was supposed to be around 0.9`0.8*your Hashrate.

Maybe its different for X11.

How are other people doing.??

 

[T_Yamamoto]

This is what I see and what I use. I haven't tuned it at all, just copiedpasted my scrypt-N stuff.

I'm gonna mine Summercoin tomorrow.

 

[rtsurfer]

This is what I see and what I use. I haven't tuned it at all, just copiedpasted my scrypt-N stuff.

I'm gonna mine Summercoin tomorrow.

I hope this screenshot is just after a couple of minutes after you fired up your miner.
Because you WU = 0 m/s.
Which would mean you are submitting no work to the pool.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I hope this screenshot is just after a couple of minutes after you fired up your miner.
Because you WU = 0 m/s.
Which would mean you are submitting no work to the pool.

Nope, after a couple hours. I'm mining.

 

[rtsurfer]

Nope, after a couple hours. I'm mining.

Hmm.
I am still confused how this X11 thing works.

Well I just checked my pool which says that at my current rate I should be making some 380 Hiro/day which seems to be in line with what CoinWarz shows for my HashRate.

So, All is Well, I think.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Hmm.
I am still confused how this X11 thing works.

Well I just checked my pool which says that at my current rate I should be making some 380 Hiro/day which seems to be in line with what CoinWarz shows for my HashRate.

So, All is Well, I think.

The diff fluctuates so much. For drk, it can go as low as 500ish then pump up all the way to 1.4k

For those wondering what Summercoin is (x11/POS)

 

[IEC]

Lol @ Summercoin. Each block gives 20 coins to the dev, automagically.

20/1500 per block = 1.33%

Yeah...

 

[Virge_]

Lol @ Summercoin. Each block gives 20 coins to the dev, automagically.

20/1500 per block = 1.33%

Yeah...

Scamcoin, not worth the time.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Lol @ Summercoin. Each block gives 20 coins to the dev, automagically.

20/1500 per block = 1.33%

Yeah...

Scamcoin, not worth the time.

YAPND (Yet another pump and dump)

However, I do like the idea. The name is pretty good.

 

[Subyman]

With the coin prices dropping, have the difficulties gone down any since people are getting out of mining?

 

[IEC]

With the coin prices dropping, have the difficulties gone down any since people are getting out of mining?

Not that much. For every two people who quit it seems like those of us who can are taking advantage of bargain basement pricing on hardware and expanding.

 

[Subyman]

Not that much. For every two people who quit it seems like those of us who can are taking advantage of bargain basement pricing on hardware and expanding.

So I'm guessing you guys are running about even on electricity vs revenue hoping for future prices to rise?

 

[Virge_]

So I'm guessing you guys are running about even on electricity vs revenue hoping for future prices to rise?

Nowhere near. Even in the higher electricity cost per kwh areas, electricity is running anywhere from 33%-50% of your profits. You're still making money for nothing, and until electricity cost gets to over 66% of your profits, that's when diminishing returns kind of kicks in and makes the entire thing no longer worthwhile.. this has never happened to date, so we see ups and we see downs but we're always making a profit and taking some of that profit to invest in newer less expensive hardware on the secondhand market every time around upgrading us promptly to the newest greatest at half the cost.

Rambling run-on-sentence aside, for the average person mining may never simply no longer be profitable - it's all relative to what you personally consider profitable to be worth dealing with from a maintenance/upkeep perspective.

 

[IEC]

So I'm guessing you guys are running about even on electricity vs revenue hoping for future prices to rise?

Power eats 25-30% of my gross profit at present values. But I'm not selling at current prices (not much anyways).