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Topic: 5 GPU Miner (Read 2418 times)

hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 16, 2013, 03:21:05 PM
#30
Sorry, I doubt you can do that either, or at least I doubt you can do it easily.
Due to undervolting, memory underclocking and good ventilation where rigs are located, my cards are running pretty cool (60 C) so I didn't really gave a thought about it.

It would be a nice tool to have though. There was at one point something something called radeonvolt (?) able to do that but it was abandoned (and it was also incomplete).

newbie
Activity: 41
Merit: 0
May 16, 2013, 02:54:12 PM
#29

Except the complaint above is somewhat legitimate since tuning in Linux is widely known not to be quite the same quality as windows and I don't think anyone in there right mind would argue that windows offers much better support for gaming at this time(although that's slowly changing).


Gaming... ? Huh

I was strictly speaking about mining issues. What is difficult to tune?
There are two major limitations (for 7XXX): You cannot alter the voltage or set memory clock more than 150 Mhz lower compared with the GPU clock. (both issues can be fixed with a BIOS flash, although the 7xxx bios editing is not quite straightforward)
Other than that you can tune pretty much everything else I can think of.

Back to Windows, so I read about Windows 8 being able to work with 5 7XXX cards using 13.1.
Can you try that?

How about monitoring VRM temps? I heard that cannot be done on linux either.

maybe you found a solution and can help us by sharing it? thanks!
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 15, 2013, 11:58:01 AM
#28

My Sapphire 2Ls default to 1.250V.  With that three 2Ls + mobo + PCI bus for a 4th card take 1060W at the wall, at 1.075V they take 770W.  I set powertune to +20 always just so I won't be power limited, which happens easily at 1.25V.

OK great, thanks.
full member
Activity: 122
Merit: 100
May 15, 2013, 10:45:22 AM
#27
How low would you go for a 7950? Have you found an optimal voltage?

The 1.09 voltage I use for my cards (7970) is the same voltage as used by reference 7950 cards.
I experimented with lower voltages and (while the efficiency was increased) profit was going down.
I found 1.09 V to be the perfect compromise, also memory set to 150 Mhz helped a lot regarding power usage and temperatures.

Lowering the clocks saves little power unfortunately while powertune past 5 is not bringing any significant advantages in performance anyway. (I could tinker a bit more with powertune though...)

My Sapphire 2Ls default to 1.250V.  With that three 2Ls + mobo + PCI bus for a 4th card take 1060W at the wall, at 1.075V they take 770W.  I set powertune to +20 always just so I won't be power limited, which happens easily at 1.25V.
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 14, 2013, 10:46:21 PM
#26
Gaming and mining connection?
Not really, Nvida cards are great for gaming but you can't mine shit with them  Grin

Have you tried the Win8+13.1 (possible) solution I mentioned?
member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
May 14, 2013, 10:36:55 PM
#25

Except the complaint above is somewhat legitimate since tuning in Linux is widely known not to be quite the same quality as windows and I don't think anyone in there right mind would argue that windows offers much better support for gaming at this time(although that's slowly changing).


Gaming... ? Huh

I was strictly speaking about mining issues. What is difficult to tune?
There are two major limitations (for 7XXX): You cannot alter the voltage or set memory clock more than 150 Mhz lower compared with the GPU clock. (both issues can be fixed with a BIOS flash, although the 7xxx bios editing is not quite straightforward)
Other than that you can tune pretty much everything else I can think of.

Back to Windows, so I read about Windows 8 being able to work with 5 7XXX cards using 13.1.
Can you try that?

 If you can't make the connection between gaming and mining (both graphic card related?) considering they use AMD drivers then there is no helping you and I'm a bigger fool for bothering with this post.

 And yes altering the voltage is critical for me and I'm sure 99% of everyone here since my cards would overheat in minutes without voltage control as I found out quickly when I first built the system. No clue what cards you have but my first 4 were boost models and had major problems in the slots and adding risers helped a little but there is still issues with heat unless you have blower style fans (I have one like this).
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 14, 2013, 10:29:29 PM
#24
How low would you go for a 7950? Have you found an optimal voltage?

The 1.09 voltage I use for my cards (7970) is the same voltage as used by reference 7950 cards.
I experimented with lower voltages and (while the efficiency was increased) profit was going down.
I found 1.09 V to be the perfect compromise, also memory set to 150 Mhz helped a lot regarding power usage and temperatures.

Lowering the clocks saves little power unfortunately while powertune past 5 is not bringing any significant advantages in performance anyway. (I could tinker a bit more with powertune though...)



full member
Activity: 122
Merit: 100
May 14, 2013, 10:15:26 PM
#23
Performance wasn't good for me because I couldn't set voltage, thus too much power draw and I had to run at lower clocks and powertune.  Anyway, I will try the win 8 solution.  Hope it works!  Thanks.
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 14, 2013, 10:07:35 PM
#22
Mining performance in Windows is as good as in Linux and the other way around with some pros and cons for both.
(As for me implying that you are an ignorant, you got a bit carried away.)

The voltage limitation is real (also the 150 Mhz limit as I mentioned in the previous post) and the (only) solution is to flash the BIOS.
I have mine undervolted to 1.09 V and 150 Mhz.

About Windows 8 I posted earlier a link: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2054705

Quote
It basically comes down to a limitation of Windows 7. What the specific limitation is, I don't know. But Windows 8 allows 1 more GPU to be detected and mineable. So if you install 13.1 driver on win7 and get 4 GPU working, you will get 5 GPU working on win8.

Worth trying at least.
full member
Activity: 122
Merit: 100
May 14, 2013, 09:40:34 PM
#21
Back to Windows, so I read about Windows 8 being able to work with 5 7XXX cards using 13.1.
Can you try that?

I've seen people mention that but haven't seen any source confirming the fact.  BTW I said *I* got bad performance with Linux because I couldn't undervolt my 7950s, something I can do easily with Windows.  So I see you are implying I'm an ignorant Windows user and that this is the reason for the bad performance.  Why don't you explain to this ignoramus how I undervolt my 7950s in Linux.
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 14, 2013, 07:44:54 PM
#20

Except the complaint above is somewhat legitimate since tuning in Linux is widely known not to be quite the same quality as windows and I don't think anyone in there right mind would argue that windows offers much better support for gaming at this time(although that's slowly changing).


Gaming... ? Huh

I was strictly speaking about mining issues. What is difficult to tune?
There are two major limitations (for 7XXX): You cannot alter the voltage or set memory clock more than 150 Mhz lower compared with the GPU clock. (both issues can be fixed with a BIOS flash, although the 7xxx bios editing is not quite straightforward)
Other than that you can tune pretty much everything else I can think of.

Back to Windows, so I read about Windows 8 being able to work with 5 7XXX cards using 13.1.
Can you try that?
member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
May 14, 2013, 07:29:40 PM
#19
Well then, I also apologize for whatever you or anyone else might find offensive in my previous words.

Thing is, there is this myth floating sometimes around that Linux can magically solve all the issues.
Some people go there and find this unfriendly new OS and a whole lot of new issues, when sometimes the solution was in fact in their back yard (Windows).
Eventually they go back and tell everyone (for all the wrong reasons) that Linux is crap and so on.
Which is not fair and annoying.

 Except the complaint above is somewhat legitimate since tuning in Linux is widely known not to be quite the same quality as windows and I don't think anyone in there right mind would argue that windows offers much better support for gaming at this time(although that's slowly changing). I have plenty of experience running linux and had it installed(temp install) with the drivers and cgminer running in 30 minutes but found linux amd drivers didn't even support the 7870 XT with 7950's so it only made things worse. I did have luck installing without it though.


So I checked again with all the drivers that will work with the 7870 Tahiti and no joy. It installs but there are no 13.1+ drivers that support 5 gpu's it seems and like I said above the 7870 XT (Tahiti ver) came out after 12.6 so it isn't supported either. I have searched to see if the driver could be changed or the bios to reflect a 7950 but the memory seems to be the major issue since it's 2GB vs 3GB on 7950.


hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 14, 2013, 06:55:14 PM
#18
Well then, I also apologize for whatever you or anyone else might find offensive in my previous words.

Thing is, there is this myth floating sometimes around that Linux can magically solve all the issues.
Some people go there and find this unfriendly new OS and a whole lot of new issues, when sometimes the solution was in fact in their back yard (Windows).
Eventually they go back and tell everyone (for all the wrong reasons) that Linux is crap and so on.
Which is not fair and annoying.




member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
May 14, 2013, 06:41:02 PM
#17
I fail to see why you pass such a hard judgement on me.

I felt I was responding in kind, weather it was pointed at me or not. I apologize. You seemed to be passing judgement harshly considering I'm a programmer by trade and am very familiar with windows, but knowing whats inside the dll and sys files isn't something that I can just take a peek at and see if something supports my hardware configuration. I also cannot find a damn thing about my motherboard configuration on PCIE and even posted on asrock's help forum with 50 views and no replies so it's obviously not the easiest or most common question.

member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
May 14, 2013, 06:37:04 PM
#16
I'm about ready to jump in car and go pick this up: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2713117&CatId=7246 then install ubuntu and see how that works.

 My issue is I can't go back past 13.1 since I have 4 7950s and 1 7870 Tahiti(7950 with cores cut down). The 7870 wont install on anything earlier then 13.1.

I understand that this board has enough PCIe slots, but I don't think it's a good idea to use that many 1x slots.   I don't know that much about this, but apparently you can fry the motherboard with too many cards.  16x provides more power than 1x (I assume).   You should look at this one: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-ga990fxaud5

That being said, it's your build to do with as you please. As for me, I'm looking into buying powered risers to be on the safer side.



 The x1 and x16 have the same power configuration I believe after looking at the pinouts, that said I just cut up some molex to PCIE adapters so I can modify my risers to be powered so the motherboard power wont be a factor. Appreciate ya looking out though Smiley
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 14, 2013, 06:34:53 PM
#15
I fail to see why you pass such a hard judgement on me.
member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
May 14, 2013, 06:31:51 PM
#14
Let me put it this way:
The perfect solution for a Windows user is a Windows solution.
Lots of miners are using 5 cards in Windows.

Just use the OS you are familiar with, this way is much simpler, productive and less time consuming than learning how to use an alien operating system.

 Don't be a jag off. We can obviously spend a week figuring it out systematically eliminating things one by one (which I have said I will do if needed) but a wise man knows when to ask questions. Each motherboard is different and knowing the characteristics of a few helps set parameters of understanding. I also have a slightly different configuration then most with 4 7950s and a 7870 XT which has a cut down Tahiti 7950 chip (ala cut down twice 7970). Don't act like some hard ass because you have linux and a bunch of scripts, kiddie Smiley
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 14, 2013, 04:23:05 PM
#13
Let me put it this way:
The perfect solution for a Windows user is a Windows solution.
Lots of miners are using 5 cards in Windows.

Just use the OS you are familiar with, this way is much simpler, productive and less time consuming than learning how to use an alien operating system.
member
Activity: 78
Merit: 10
May 14, 2013, 04:17:53 PM
#12
Stop screwing around with Linux if you are a Windows user. Is just another occasion to get lost in Linux and coming back crying that Linux is bad.
Bad performance in Linux my back...

Both OS will run those cards just fine.
Here is one guy running 6 cards in Windows: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/1-btc-bounty-claimed-get-6-radeon-7970-installing-and-mining-in-windows-193695

If you people cant run 5 freaking cards in Windows then I doubt Linux is for you.

Sheesh, strike a nerve? lol
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
May 14, 2013, 04:08:11 PM
#11
Stop screwing around with Linux if you are a Windows user. Is just another occasion to get lost in Linux and coming back crying that Linux is bad.
Bad performance in Linux my back...

Both OS will run those cards just fine.
Here is one guy running 6 cards in Windows: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/1-btc-bounty-claimed-get-6-radeon-7970-installing-and-mining-in-windows-193695

If you people cant run 5 freaking cards in Windows then I doubt Linux is for you.
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