Bitcoin Forum

Which GPU to purchase with $200 for Ethereum GPU mining? Any ideas? That's all what I'd like to spend right now on GPU.

I would say r9 380 or 380x.

wait three weeks and buy the AMD rx 480 for $199 when it is releases.  It should be the best bang for the buck and lower power consumption than current generation cards.

Under the risk that drivers wont squeeze the max hashrate for the card for months.

R9 290(X)

Or 390(X)

Waiting three weeks sets you back about $3/day.

If I purchase R9 280 Dual x 3GB DDR5, what hash rate should I expect for mining of ethers?

Around 20.5 Mh/s decreasing a little with every epoch change.

R9 290 as waiting will make profits thinner, you can snag a 290 for about 200 bucks and the 390 will run 300.  R9 480 will be $200 when it gets released but it may be difficult to get in the beginning.

I get 25mh on my R9 290 units with proper settings.

You are doing something wrong. 290 should do 29MH easily.

All I can get is 25 mh with genoil miners, with a global work of 16384 local work 256. other miners are slower.

Hmmm... you tried that another miner?

How am I doing it wrong?  That's not how I write the option as I put it in my bat file, I put that here cause it's easier to write on the forum.

R9 290(X) or Radeon RX 480

Good luck getting a 480 for $200.

I think radeon RX 480 is best choice, waiting some one review it, the electric cost very low.

Right now, R9 290 or R9 390 - but expect high power consumption for the 30MH ballpark both can manage.

 Skip the X varients - more expensive, don't hash any faster, eat more power - unless you get one HECK of a deal on one.

 R9 280X or R9 380X are fairly good alternatives if you can't find 290/390 cards where you are at.


 End of the month, depending on availability and "early adopter premium" pricing, the RX 480 MIGHT be a good choice - but I'd not count on it 'till more likely late July or sometime in August to get down to the $199 MSRP on sites that actually have them in stock.

That is what I will do. The power consumption will be much lower than the 380x and hash faster.

i would wait for the 480 at this point, even if you find them a bit power than the target price, let's say 250 or 275, it still worth the money than any old genration card

here it seem that all you guys are stealing energy or something, but electricity cost matter more than anything else for me

i would not buy any old cards at the moment, ever

290s are hard to find and very overpriced used. Not to mention beat on. I would not want to buy a used card that has already been mined on for 3+ years.

The 300 series are power hogs.

I suggest you wait to see what the 400 series will do.

That looks quite good to me. Does the specification of computer system affects the only-GPU mining? See, I am planning to purchase a whole system, CPU along with GPU, just for mining. Otherwise I've a good laptop to spend my life on. The last time I purchased any computer system I remember was in 2002, and in those days, I remember I bought the Pentium 4 CPU for like $600 of that time, old memories. :P

So I can purchase a bad configuration computer (somewhat like core2quad) and put on a good graphics card on it for GPU mining, that'd work good, right?

Amph, how much are you actually paying for kWh?

You can try amd r9 gpu check it here.. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=r9+amd+gpu

This is i thin the cheapest or look for other amd model gpu if you choose amd its a chipest one than intel..

around 0.26, i know it's freaking high, but it's still profitable, so i keep mining

my high electricity is the only reason why i can not build a big farm and i'm here confined with 1 rig only

i need to find a way to have cheap electricity, maybe purchasing from a private via rental of a local

Ok, now I understand all those hash/ W posts. I just changed my provider and saved 0.02, still 0.1 though.

Guys, I still haven't received the answer to my last question:


Other than that, I've decided to purchase AMD RX 480 once it comes to my country, probably after a week of two. I've checked my rate of kWh and it comes out to be $0.15 per unit. How much will I be able to save out in a day while mining Ethers with a single AMD RX 480? If it provides me a good result, I'd definitely plan to purchase like at least 4 more.

All you need is pci-e slots and dualcore CPU. Quadcore CPU might help with more than 4 GPU.

That helps a lot!

But man, it's not going to be easy to find that new AMD card, it is not gonna be easily available for $200 either.

Anymore suggestions for this $200 budget? Any nVidia graphics card suggestion?

Nvidia? GTX 970.
Amd? 290/390.

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

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.

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.

0.26 cents/watt electric?

 *ICK*

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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...

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. ::)

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

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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.


 

no it's that thing i'm sure, it's the cpu limit thing, a g1840 can not be overclocked, it's locked to 2.8, you need at least 3.2 or more to not be limited

i need to buy the g3528 which is unlocked and can be overclocked to 4G easily

Used nano's start rolling to market at 300-325€ range, not $200 but still worth mentioning.

Thing have changed a lot in the last three days. There is a possibiilty that the Ethereum price will drop further and mining is not profitable.

Wait for RX 480 it is only few weeks away.. or go with 280X if you cant wait..

The problem with 280x is that the hash rate drops steadily in every DAG change. It is much lower than before.

Doesnt every GPU suffer from DAG change?

will 8G vRAM make any difference from 4G for the ethereum mining? I have planned to get 2X480 to start, noob about this.

Ethereum is unlikely to maintain PoW (mining) much IF ANY past where a 3 GB card can no longer mine it.

If the ethereum PoW finishes within a year as planned, a 4GB card will be more than enough to mine it.

I think it is better to buy the 4GB cards. It will consumes less energy as it has only 4GB memory compared to 8GB.

Exactly... that's what I've judged too. The hash rate is not much different of same model graphic card with different memories.

For the 4GB card, it should be good to mine the Ethereum for 4 more years if the Ethereum does not change to PoS.

From the information we gathered so far from the 480 RX mining ,it seems that 470 RX could be good for Eth mining.

If the 470 memory can be overclocked to 2250MHz or higher, its performance could match that of the 480.

That could be true as the memory speed is the bottle neck for the 480. But when the 470 is available, it might not be profitable to mine.

If the mining difficulty is just 40% more than now, it is still profitable to mine, but the margin is very tight.

After the price of Ethereum dopped below $10, it will be unprofit for me to me with 7970 next month.

Forget everything about the AMD cards, the 1060 will enter on July 19th in thr ring and will break everything 8) ! I say that even if I'm an hard AMD defender, but what I saw a few minutes ago made me change my mind, at least until AMD do something better ;) !

please explain what did you see,
what about hash speed / power ?
I used to be nvidia fan, till iv switched most of my cards to r9 280x ,sold many off them when gpu mining was bleeding out..but right now im looking for a fresh stuff!

not sure the 480 can do 24MH with 100w with some tweak, it's impossible for the 1060 to do better, only the 1070 is better in efficiency

but since not only etheruem count anymore, the 1060 might be better in other algo

Phillipma said:

i get 24mh for 1 card 47 mh for 2 cards

I get  275 watts for entire system  cards ram cpu ssd case fans,

my system pull 71 watts with no mining and 275 watts with 2 cards.

you need to factor 10w in those 71, for those two gpu, so they are doing 110w at full speed when mining

From the performance we see from the AMD RX 480 in the Ethereum mining, the RX470 could be a good card.

etheruem is not the top notch anymore, it does not matter how they are good on etheruem if they are shit on other algo

That is right. Maybe it is time to buy the nVidia cards. It seems the 1070 is better than 480 in most algorithms.

Or maybe we shall wait for the 490X or the 490. But by the time they appear, there will be little profit in mining.

I think the AMD RX 470 could be a good card for the Etheruem mining as long as the memory width is 256 bit.

not better than the 480 already, scaling between the two should be very akin, so i see now point in buying one unless you want a low budget build

The 470 has few cores so that it can save some power consumption as there is no need for the 2300 cores.

The 470 is good for the ethereum mining. But it is not good for other algorithms. The ETh mining will stop within a year.

That is right. It is difficult to decide if we should invest in mining now. The hashing rate is too high at present.

If you do not have existing graphics cards, it is better not to buy new ones now unless you have very cheap electricity price.

I agree, if buy, it is better to buy a new cards 480 RX, or gtx 1060-1070.

R9 380 or R9 390 , or 2X R7 370  u can get 2 of them on ebay perhaps u throw in another $30

You might use the RX 470 for the Ethereum mining. It will be on sale in the next two to three weeks.

The RX 470 is on sale now. The price is around $200. It seems the memory bandwidth is 256 bit, same as 480.

Somebody on the forum said you cannot overclock the memory speed, so it might not be the good card for mining ETH.

I heard the BIOS is locked, the memory frequency is just 1800 for the 4GB cards. So hash rate is low.

You can modify the BIOS with BIOS editing tools. For example, you can raise the memory limit to 2000MHz or higher.

That tool is the polaris_bios_editor
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4rkoly/polaris_bios_editor_permanently_flash_your_vbios/?st=ispzwu2j&sh=53493a18