Ethereum GPU mining?

[n0x1ous]

Ryan at PCPer said the initial batch from AMD are all the same PCB and memory for 4gb and 8gb models! So 4gb artifically disabled on the 4gb reference card. Someone will find a way to unlock that im sure.....

Another oddity – and one that may make enthusiast a bit more cheery – is that AMD only built a single reference design card for this release to cover both the 4GB and 8GB varieties. That means that the cards that go on sale today listed at 4GB models will actually have 8GB of memory on them! With half of the DRAM partially disabled, it seems likely that someone soon will find a way to share a VBIOS to enable the additional VRAM. In fact, AMD provided me with a 4GB and an 8GB VBIOS for testing purpose. It’s a cost saving measure on AMD’s part – this way they only have to validate and build a single PCB.

I was able to grab the 4GB XFX with backplate for $199 by searching for the product code - They weren't in stock long.....

 

[Mercennarius]

I am looking at the $240-$250 480s because Newegg doesn't have 4GB models in stock. Leaning towards XFX $250 one with a backplate, but is it worth $60 more than refurb 290?

Depends on what all your using it for. If your strictly going to be mining it's a toss up IMHO from cost/performance/power consumption. But if you actually plan on gaming then I would opt for the 480 for sure.

 

[IEC]

Ryan at PCPer said the initial batch from AMD are all the same PCB and memory for 4gb and 8gb models! So 4gb artifically disabled on the 4gb reference card. Someone will find a way to unlock that im sure.....

I was able to grab the 4GB XFX with backplate for $199 by searching for the product code - They weren't in stock long.....

Those were review samples. The actual 4GB retail products should have 4GB physical. Unless a few accidentally slipped in the supply chain with 8GB.

 

[n0x1ous]

Those were review samples. The actual 4GB retail products should have 4GB physical. Unless a few accidentally slipped in the supply chain with 8GB.

not according to Ryan's quote which I have updated my previous post with

 

[IEC]

4GB back in stock... maybe good for 8-10 minutes
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202222&ignorebbr=1

Edit: Dead. Lasted all of maybe 15 minutes.

 

[Elfear]

4GB back in stock... maybe good for 8-10 minutes
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202222&ignorebbr=1

Put a pair in my cart and Newegg popped up with a message that said due to their biannual inventory inspection, they wouldn't ship products until Friday. Great timing Newegg. :thumbsdown:

 

[poofyhairguy]

4GB back in stock... maybe good for 8-10 minutes
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202222&ignorebbr=1

Thank you very much. Bought one of those instead.

 

[IEC]

NOTE Orders received from 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, 6/29/16 to midnight Thursday, 6/30/16 won’t be shipped until Friday, 7/1/2016 as we conduct our biannual inventory.

T_T

Glad mine shipped already.

Edit: Even with 3-day Premier it looks like it'd be getting to people early next week anyways at this point. So the shipping delay will delay things a day maximum with the holiday, in my estimation.

 

[SK10H]

4GB back in stock... maybe good for 8-10 minutes
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202222&ignorebbr=1

I bite and got 2 since it's at MSRP.

 

[Mercennarius]

Does anyone know when they will go on sale at Amazon?

 

[IEC]

4GB will not unlock. We have official confirmation from AMD via Reddit AMA:

4GB NOT unlockable to 8GB

I've seen the claim propagating that the 4GB cards actually have 8GB of physical memory onboard, and people are naturally thinking there might be a way to unlock it. Sadly, it seems this is a bit of miscommunication/misunderstanding, the review cards were 8GB but could be toggled to 4 for the purpose of the review, while the 4GB release cards we'll have our hands on are 4GB physical memory only.

 

[IEC]

Does anyone know when they will go on sale at Amazon?

No clue. They were orderable earlier today and are now all marked OOS no ETA.

I'd expect you'll have better luck with Newegg since they seem to be putting small batches up every couple of hours.

 

[MrTeal]

I imagine most of you are using powered risers anyway, but this is something to keep in mind.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...16-9.html?_ga=1.52435438.731851426.1459778640

In gaming loads the card will pull close to 7A through the PCIe slot, which is a lot. If you're using SATA or Molex powered risers, you'd probably want to use a single cable from the PSU to each card. If you are considering running a few of these straight off a motherboard in your gaming system and mining on the side, be very careful as most have all the board 12V power coming from the two 12V pins of the ATX 24 pin connector.

 

[EightySix Four]

Just finished with driver installs. No overclocking, latest driver revisions shows ~24.7MH/s each.

Edit 1: GPU way outpaces the memory on these things. 950mhz GPU clock did not change the performance of the hashing at all.

 

[Mercennarius]

Just finished with driver installs. No overclocking, latest driver revisions shows ~24.7MH/s each.

How is that compared to a 290/390/X?

 

[EightySix Four]

How is that compared to a 290/390/X?

390s were 29-30MH/s.

Edit: Was struggling a lot with AMD's WattMan tool until I realized it really doesn't like being messed with while you're mining. Need to pause, make changes, then start mining again. Just FYI.

 

[Madpacket]

Keep in mind the 4GB will use different, lower density GDDR5 chips. There's obviously 8Gbps chips available in that density since nVidia's used them in the past, but it very well could be that the 4GB will reach different OC limits than the 8GB chips.

Good point. From the Anandtech preliminary benchmarks we don't see a huge difference but games != DAG so it will be interested to compare the 8 vs 4GB models. Latency differences could also be another factor beside speed.

 

[EightySix Four]

OpenCL DLL's from the 15.x series stop Claymore from running.

 

[Madpacket]

NOTE Orders received from 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, 6/29/16 to midnight Thursday, 6/30/16 won’t be shipped until Friday, 7/1/2016 as we conduct our biannual inventory.

T_T

Glad mine shipped already.

Edit: Even with 3-day Premier it looks like it'd be getting to people early next week anyways at this point. So the shipping delay will delay things a day maximum with the holiday, in my estimation.

Sonafabit**

Looking like next week for me then.

 

[Erenhardt]

Just finished with driver installs. No overclocking, latest driver revisions shows ~24.7MH/s each.

Edit 1: GPU way outpaces the memory on these things. 950mhz GPU clock did not change the performance of the hashing at all.

How is your memory overclock going?

Try different OC tools. Sapphire Trixx utility often lets you go beyond the limits in other tools.

Also, How is power draw at that reduced clock (and voltage)?

 

[EightySix Four]

950mhz at 900mV seems to be where these are happiest GPU wise for me. When I drop below that they start to slow down. Just a reminder, these are super early tweaking results, no guarantee that these are actually stable when mining for days at a time. The tools can go lower, I just start to lose mining performance.

I'll start to play with memory momentarily.

Edit: upping memory speeds at 950mhz GPU increases hashing to 25MH/s but no more. Definitely the sweet spot for GPU vs stock memory speeds.


Memory Speed vs MH/s at stock memory voltage and GPU clock
2100MHz - 26.1MH/s
2150MHz - 26.7MH/s
2200MHz - 27.3Mh/s
2250MHz - crash

Reminder - these aren't gospel, my conditions are different from most, and they're getting ~5 minutes at mining at those speeds before I take an average.

Also, How is power draw at that reduced clock (and voltage)?

Can't answer that one, my power is free so I don't measure. Mostly have to be concerned about heat in a small case.

 

[codyray10]

NOTE Orders received from 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, 6/29/16 to midnight Thursday, 6/30/16 won’t be shipped until Friday, 7/1/2016 as we conduct our biannual inventory.

What a joke. And of course you cant cancel once you've been charged..What if the order was placed before 10am? Im gonna try MC after work tonight and see if i can get one. I called on my lunch break and they made it sound like they still had quite a few in stock. If I do that, I'll have to decide whether to resell the one from newegg, or sell my arctic accelero 290 and run 480s in crossfire. Decisions...

 

[EightySix Four]

If it helps anyone, at stock speeds I had throttling with three of them in a full tower case and the fans on max. At 950mhz & 900mV they run <70* C with the fans at full speed. I'm guessing AMD missed design targets on frequency and voltage a bit again and had to pump them up higher (same exact mistake as the 290x). Drop them a bit and they are happy campers.

 

[Madpacket]

950mhz at 900mV seems to be where these are happiest GPU wise for me. When I drop below that they start to slow down. Just a reminder, these are super early tweaking results, no guarantee that these are actually stable when mining for days at a time. The tools can go lower, I just start to lose mining performance.

I'll start to play with memory momentarily.

Edit: upping memory speeds at 950mhz GPU increases hashing to 25MH/s but no more. Definitely the sweet spot for GPU vs stock memory speeds.


Memory Speed vs MH/s at stock memory voltage and GPU clock
2100MHz - 26.1MH/s
2150MHz - 26.7MH/s
2200MHz - 27.3Mh/s
2250MHz - crash

Reminder - these aren't gospel, my conditions are different from most, and they're getting ~5 minutes at mining at those speeds before I take an average.



Can't answer that one, my power is free so I don't measure. Mostly have to be concerned about heat in a small case.

Thanks for the results. What is the default voltage of your card(s)?

 

[Madpacket]

If it helps anyone, at stock speeds I had throttling with three of them in a full tower case and the fans on max. At 950mhz & 900mV they run <70* C with the fans at full speed. I'm guessing AMD missed design targets on frequency and voltage a bit again and had to pump them up higher (same exact mistake as the 290x). Drop them a bit and they are happy campers.

Man, the out of spec PCI power and throttling are giving me buyers remorse and the card hasn't even shipped yet.


Edit: I'm guessing with undervolting / underclocking these cards won't be so bad for mining. Can you set the fan RPM's to a reasonable setting while running this way or do they still get hot?