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Topic: Does video memory matter? (Read 2594 times)

newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
June 03, 2011, 02:58:00 PM
#11
FYI - depending on the card, some 6950 1GB can have their shaders unlocked.
hero member
Activity: 588
Merit: 500
June 03, 2011, 02:40:53 PM
#10
Just a note, 6990s have terrible MHash/$ ratio, and the more time passes the higher the difficulty gets, making time to ROI get longer and longer.

Yes, but they have a great MHash/watt ratio. Which is important if you plan to be mining long-term and you pay for your own electricity.
hero member
Activity: 602
Merit: 500
June 02, 2011, 11:10:08 PM
#9
Just a note, 6990s have terrible MHash/$ ratio, and the more time passes the higher the difficulty gets, making time to ROI get longer and longer.
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
June 02, 2011, 11:05:47 PM
#8
Excellent, Yanz!  Thanks for the info!  For the time being, I think I've decided to wait for some 6990s to come in stock.  I hope I'm not waiting too long. Undecided
full member
Activity: 133
Merit: 100
June 01, 2011, 09:45:56 PM
#7
Are you talking about the 6950? If it is, I would get the 2GB (reference) so you can unlock shaders. If not, and the card is purely for mining (e.g. no gaming) I would save the cash and get the 1GB. More details will help.

I suppose something like unlocking shaders might be worth the extra $10-15 it costs to go with a 2 GB card, if it would help resale value (in case this whole mining thing doesn't work out).  But when used purely for mining I guess the answer is that it makes no difference, eh?

I was thinking either 6990's (best performance) or 6950's (much better performance per dollar).  Thoughts on this?


Well unlocking shaders gives you more cores (1536 vs 1408) more cores = more hashes Cheesy
I have a MSI 6950 unlocked shader and overclocked to 960 and get's about 410 MH/s. Now only if I could get it to run with my 5970 instead of sitting on my desk...

Be sure to get a reference card if you want to unlock.
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
June 01, 2011, 09:39:31 PM
#6
The memory doesn't really matter; the data that Bitcoin miners work on is extremely tiny.

Thank you, error, for the concise answer. Smiley
hero member
Activity: 588
Merit: 500
June 01, 2011, 09:31:01 PM
#5
The memory doesn't really matter; the data that Bitcoin miners work on is extremely tiny.
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
June 01, 2011, 09:27:48 PM
#4
Are you talking about the 6950? If it is, I would get the 2GB (reference) so you can unlock shaders. If not, and the card is purely for mining (e.g. no gaming) I would save the cash and get the 1GB. More details will help.

I suppose something like unlocking shaders might be worth the extra $10-15 it costs to go with a 2 GB card, if it would help resale value (in case this whole mining thing doesn't work out).  But when used purely for mining I guess the answer is that it makes no difference, eh?

I was thinking either 6990's (best performance) or 6950's (much better performance per dollar).  Thoughts on this?
legendary
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1452
June 01, 2011, 09:15:20 PM
#3
no
full member
Activity: 133
Merit: 100
June 01, 2011, 09:14:37 PM
#2
Are you talking about the 6950? If it is, I would get the 2GB (reference) so you can unlock shaders. If not, and the card is purely for mining (e.g. no gaming) I would save the cash and get the 1GB. More details will help.
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
June 01, 2011, 09:03:57 PM
#1
Here's a question I have not seen addressed in the forums (though I'll admit to not having done an exhaustive search).  The video cards I want generally come in two flavors:  1 GB of video memory or 2 GB.  I have seen many posts recommending underclocking video memory to save power, so I assume memory throughput is not a consideration in mining.  But does size matter?   Undecided
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