Topic: Which GPU to purchase with $200 for Ethereum mining? - page 3. (Read 6513 times)

If they'll clock to even 4Gh ballpark, they shouldn't be even close to CPU limiting the GPUs.

Problem appears to be something else.


 If we were talking Foldcoin, then I could easily see the issue being CPU limiting, there's a lot more interaction between the CPU and any GPU(s) there.
 Ethereum though pretty much only uses the CPU for DAG file genration (and not always then depending on the miner software), and there is only a lot of data transfer TO the GPU when loading a DAG file.



 AMD hasn't even announced an RX 490 yet - it won't be soon, though in THEORY it could show up late this year.


 

It is better to mine now with the existing cards. When the RX 480 comes out, it will be expensive and difficulty is already high.

4.2? 50% oc? i don't think so, and you need a good cooler for that not the stock intel one, also it might not work with a h81 pro btc

Aren't the G series dual core? Dual core has been around forever... Anyway, you can clock those things to 4.2ghz+, that's what they're good for.

that's what i was talking about, now my question is if one buy a i3 core/4 thread, they will remain cpu limited or not?

better we wait the Rx 480 maybe Rx 490 will come soon

Some algo/os/cpu/ram/miner combos are cpu limited when you have multiple GPU´s.

Well today I bought the core 2 quad with good configuration for $100 and now planning to spend my bucks on R9 280X. As far as I can see, that's the best graphic card available within my budget for Ethereum mining. BTW, just saw that the power supply I got in my CPU is just 350W. Well I've got to exchange that off with a good one, I guess.

i think the problem may occur only with more than a certain number of gpu, say 5-6

i noticed this in many algo, now on neoscrypt i'm getting 20-30 kh less on each card that is running with the g1840, the single card running with the i7 beast is sitting at 670-678 EVEN when i use the pc

but perhaps it has to do because of the number of gpu itself, the more gpu you have in one rig, the more hash you lose overall on that rig? can anyone confirm?

we are however talking about minimal losses, nothing major...

My triple-GPU Nvidia Win7 rig (2x 950 1x 960) runs a 4-core APU - AND also runs the DNet client on the APU's GPU part, AND Prime95 on all 4 CPU cores
 I DO notice that one of the CPU cores seems to run Prime a LOT slower than the others - obviously the one that's actively running the system and various software.

 I don't notice ANY hashrate difference between when I'm runnnig all of it and just running the miner by itself.

 The only difference I've seen on multi-core CPU vs single-core is during DAG file creation - I sometimes get 2 DAG file "threads" running at the same time, and the system doesn't seem to bog down as much.

 The Big Rig (triple AMD R9-290) is quite happy with it's Semperon 145 - though when I shift it over to something else after ETH gets unprofitable I'll probably swap one of my X240 dual-cores in it's place - planning to build a new file server and that 145 would be overkill for it.



 Might it be the g3240 is just too slow clocked, rather than being single-core? I don't know Intel low-end CPUs well enough to rememeber even appx specs on their G-series stuff.
 Semperon 145 is the same series as the X240 (Regor) except it's got one core disabled, I forget which clocks higher but might be the same - 2,8 Ghz comes to mind.

i think you are right on this, i suspect that when you have many gpu there will be the case of cpu limited, because with my 1840 i'm getting less hash than with my i7 4790k

You can get a brand new R9 390 for $280ish or so if you live in the USA. Plenty available, will do 30 MH/s with little to no tweaking and pulls 275 Watts from the wall.

that is right. The driver might not be right for the mining and the algorithm needs optimisation as well.

Seems a bit high for those, you should be getting R9 280x at that price IMO.

 Try to talk the seller down to $275-$300 range, that's more reasonable for those cards.

 I'm not sure offhand, but I'd guess those are 15-20MH/s cards so 2 of them should mine $90 or better for the next month, probably dropping slowly as diff increases.

Guys I'm getting 2x AMD Radeon Sapphire R9 280 for $350, should I get them? I'll for sure try that R9 380 as well, but seems like it is not gonna be easily available before August.

Will I get any profit with R9 280 if I've electricity cost of $0.15/kWh? I saw that each of them cover like 180 kWh in the whole month... So $27 in total if the single graphic card works whole month 20 hours a day. I wonder how much ether I'd be able to generate in the first month, since only 2 ether would cover off my extra cost in electricity bill due to that GPU.

well it's profitable, i would lose money if i shut down the miner, especially now that bitcoin is skyrocketing

but i'm not going to build a farm or anything like that just 1 rig

in fact despite that high electricity, i'm still making a net of 250 euro a month per rig(6 gpu)

since new gpu will consume less i might try to add another rig and replace the current one, the total consumption would be the same but the overall profit 3-4x higher

0.26 cents/watt electric?

 *ICK*

 I'm amazed you try to mine at ALL at that crazy-high electric cost.

I think sometimes even dualcore (g3240) is not enough (for nvidia at least). But quadcores are much more expensive. But then again I have 6 card rigs.
I don't CPU mine but I do have several wallets running on each rig.

Dual core CPU is overkill unless perhaps cases where you have LOTS of cards.
Semperon 145 SINGLE-CORE CPU in my "big box" is handling 3x R9 290s just fine, with 8GB of DDR3 (1333 I think, might be 1066).
If I'd been building that one from scratch, it likely would have gottan at least a quad-core, but it CAME with the Semperon so I'm using it for now (I do have a X2 240 I might swap into there eventually since it'll work in that motherboard).

 I've got one older Semperon 3000 based single-GPU systems with PCI-E 1.0 slots though that seem to get a little lower hashrate out of the R9 280X in it than the same model card gets in dual-card setups on more modern MB/CPU/RAM setups. I suspect the 1 GB of main memory on that 3000-based system might also be having some impact.

 You might want to build the systems out bigger though for the long-term, figuring that eventually Ethereum will become unprofitable, there might or might not be anything else worth mining after that for years, and you can always sell them to gamers/etc if you don't skimp too hard on the CPU and RAM - they're also easier to turn to other usage if they're not handicapped with a small CPU and slow/small RAM setup. That's the logic behind my "swap the X240 into big system" - it's probably going to switch to Folding once Ethereum is no longer profitable, though I might switch it to a KILLER RC5-72 cruncher instead.


 NVidia doesn't do well on Ethereum on a hash/dollar basis - only NVidia cards that can mine it at all under $200 are the GTX 960 (11-12 MH/s), GTX950 (10-11 MH/s) and 2GB versions of the 750TI (3.5ish MH/s) - they're all efficient on a hash/WATT basis but bying them to mine Ethereum is a bad choice.

 Only reasons to go NVidia for Ethereum mining are:
 (1) you already HAVE the card (my GTX 950s fit this catagory)
 (2) you have existing plans to buy NVidia for some other usage it's GOOD at, and just plan to mne to help defray the cost of the new card (My 960s and 750TIs fit here)



 We can't tell you how much power you might or might not save on an RX 480, since the card HAS NOT BEEN RELEASED YET and I've yet to see anyone with a review model that tried it on Ethereum. Ask about that in a couple-three weeks, we MIGHT have some hard info by then rather than just speculating.

Nvidia? GTX 970.
Amd? 290/390.

I just traded one GTX 980 for two 290, really happy with that.