Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys thought I would just throw out my settings and software to maybe help other that are in the same boat I was in a couple of weeks ago(new people).

Operating System:
Windows 7 X64
Aero Theme Disabled

Drivers:
11.6 or 11.7 preview

Software:
Phoenix 1.50(with 3% patch to phat kernal)
Aoclbf: Vectors - HD5xx - phatk - Worksize(128), Aggression(7)
or
GUIminer: Miner(Phoenix with 3% patch to phat kernal), Flags(+k phatk VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=7 WORKSIZE=128)

GPU Clocks:
Core: 910 or 880(hash rate bouces around more)
Mem: 840
Volts: Leave OC switch on cards in default position, No need to overclock

Cooling:
60% Fan speed on cards
Linda box fan @ second speed

Temps:
Hottest: 72c
Coolest: 62c

Hash Rate:
432-455 MH/s per GPU

Details:
I currently have 3 x 6990 in one box, using a 890FX-UD7 board I was able to get good spacing between the cards, I also setup a linda box fan with cardboard wind tunnel directing the air straight onto the cards(not need but reduce the temps alot) Anyway get your self a copy of aoclbf front end, I suggest this because you can overclock/underclock your cards from the gui, and MSI after burn had faults when the 3rd card was put in.. Get your self a copy of the Phoenix 1.50 and apply the 3% mod in the kernal(open in text editor) I found for the 6990 cards the best memory clock setting is 840 anything below increases heat and is unstable and anything above just increases heat. also set your core clocks 910, so you should have all GPU's set to 910/840 while keeping the OC switch on the cards in its default position. in aoclbf tick vectors, 5HDxx+ , phatk and set your worksize to 128 and aggression 7, yes 7 because higher aggression will give you less MH/s and lower will give you less MH/s. Or if you prefer to use GUIminer or straight console the use these flags "-k phatk VECTORS BFI_INT WORKSIZE=128 AGGRESSION=7" also make sure to use drivers 11.6 or preview drivers 11.7 for each GPU you should get 432 MH/s and bounces to 455 MH/s back and forth, which brings a grand total of around 2600 MH/s to 2700 MH/s if you have 3 cards like me. having these core clocks set lower than most OC'ers and keeping the OC switch in its default posistion not only reduces cost due to using the standard voltage but also keeps your cards cooler, my 3 6990's never go above 70c(card fan speed at 60%) with the linda box fan wind tunnel(set to speed 2 out of 3). Of cause this is only a base for you to work from, you can adjust to your desire but I found this to be efficient and fast.
 

3 x 6990 Settup
http://i56.tinypic.com/15nm7ab.jpg

Boxfan(HeadLess)
http://i51.tinypic.com/ehhwea.jpg


If you have any 6990 settings you would like to share, feel free to post them and im sure with every ones help we could come up with a optimal settings for these cards.

If I OC without the switch turned on, anything past 880mhz makes the hashrate slower.

Doesn't matter if I put it at 881 or 945mhz, it doesn't help. Some sort of throttling comes in play.
Not a big deal otherwise but some manufacturers may void the card warranty if the sticker shows evidence of tampering.

I don't know what brand of card you have but im running the PowerColor 6990 and they cover warranty on the OC switch(under the yellow sticker). Saying that .. with these setting you don't need to switch OC switch so the sticker can be left attached and un-tampered with. I will try the 880 core clock and see what happens as I haven't tested 880 core since I applyed the 3% phatk patch. Also the key here is setting the aggression to 7, Im not 100% sure what exactly aggression does, but anything lower or higher will reduce the hash rate.

Thanks for the info...


//Edit

Just tested with core 880 and for my cards the max hash rate was the same but bounces around alot more, bounces between 408, 432, 457 MH/s up and down all the time, If we could stop the bouncing and get it stable at 432 or 457 would be good.

Tbh 910 core clock makes device 1 run 20-30c hotter than the other core which sits nicely at 65-80.

http://i55.tinypic.com/coiyo.jpg

Might be just a faulty card though. If you can help me solve this I could pay out a bounty.

wow that is a big difference for GPU1.... I am guessing the OC switch on the card is flicked to OC instead of default? check and double check your mem clocks for that GPU as they some times default to 1250 when under clocked more than 100Mhz than core clocks. Is it only the single 6990 card you have int he box? if you more than 1 and they are stacked try placing 1 half of a plastic peg in between the cards to increase air gap. Also im not after any bounty if anything of this works for you, I just dont want people to go through the same hassle of getting information that I had to go through.

Nah, not the memory clock.

I gave up a long time ago trying to get those hashrates you mentioned, due to temp. problems.. Room is maybe 20c, other core runs typically at 70-75. Core 0 simply skyrockets in temperature even if it has a massive 500cfm/h fan pointed at it.

Tried various stress tests like Furmark, only bitcoin and phoenixminer practically kill gpu#0.

Still, nice guide.

I'd RMA it if it's still under warranty. Tell them it crashes 15-20 minutes after you start gaming. That's not normal there's clearly something wrong with that chip. Those types of issues usually get worse over time.

Great info here. I tried using your settings in the latest version of GUIMiner - but I'm only able to get ~402 MHash/s on the 1st core, and ~380-395 Mhash/s on the 2nd core. (for 1 card)

I'm running with the overclock switch enabled. It should be noted that some manufacturer's ship the card with this switch enabled. For example, my brand new *sealed* in box Sapphire 6990's shipped with the overclock mode enabled, and they even had the yellow warning sticker on them! I verified this by using GPU-Z, and was able to tell the core clock was set to ~880.

One of my rigs has (3) 6990's in it on a MSI 890FXA-GD70 motherboard. I'm also running a Corsair AX1200 PSU in that rig. Are you worried about overusing / maxing out your PSU at all? In non-overclock mode, each card uses about ~375w, and in position 2 they use ~450w. (or so I've read)

375 x 3 = 1125 W
450 x 3 = 1350 W

It should be noted that I have (5) 6990's. Three of them are in a dedicated rig all running in non-OC mode. I have another card in my main desktop rig running in OC mode (Corsair 750W PSU), and then another card is waiting to be installed. I'd like to flip the OC switch on my dedicated mining rig, but I'm worried about not having enough power for 3 cards in OC mode. Thoughts?

Well since you asked, IMO a Corsair AX1200 is not enough for 3 cards with the OC switch on.
It will work because the PSU is extremely robust (it will draw up to 1500W despite it's specs) but you are putting a large strain on it when going over 100% of it's specified limit.

I have that exact same PSU in one of my rigs and it runs two 6990's fine OC'ed about 390-400mhash per core

Then one with a Coolermaster 850W supply (screenshots above) which acts really weird on 1st core.
Highly doubt PSU has anything to do with card stability or temps but just throwing it out there. Core 0 goes batshit crazy and those rigs are identical except for the PSU.

Departure,

Thanks for the post!  I can confirm your results.  I've applied what you have posted and am seeing nearly identical results to your setup.  However, my OC switch is NOT in the default position.  I will try this with the OC switch in default in the next few days.

Can you post back with results? I'm thinking AMD powertune is crippling the card if OC switch is not on.

I get pretty much the same results as OP, very noticeable boost from the standard 330-340mhash per core to at least 400-420 (with the exception of the temperature thing)

However, even at same clock rates, OC switch in position 1 "unlocks" the speed. In position 0 (default) the hashing rate just wont go past 370mhash/s or so.
So the switch could be doing some sort of power limiting on some 6990's.

It definitely sounds like Powertune to me.  Look at these links

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/24

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/8

Perhaps you need to add some % to the default powertune.  I would try in increments of 5% or so.

Interesting!  You better have a rock-solid PSU with 6990s...

Given this formula:
Power Consumption =( (shaderUsage * shaderWeight) + (ropUsage * ropWeight) + (memoryUsage * memoryWeight) ) * clockspeed

I think it should be possible to come up with "best" parameters to set these 69xx cards to.

So, it looks like I have to have the OC switch turned on... Departure, would you be able to double check your switch positions?

I did make a small adjustment however, I set the clocks to 920 instead of 910 (everything else being the same).  BTW, except clock speed, other params must be set exactly as they have been described by Departure.  If they are not, you won't reproduce these results.

Anyway, with 920 instead of 910, I'm seeing a constant lower boundary of 428 and upper to 458 per GPU.  It's typical to observe: 428->432->458 in what seems to be some sort of a pattern, but I'm not gonna spend anymore time on this pattern observation to try to figure it out...

Hope this helps.

I've been testing these settings shown here in this thread as well as others on my 6990 for the last two days using GUIMiner and Phoenix 1.50 along with all the kernel tweaks I could find and I'm not getting anywhere near 432-455Mh/s. At 910/840 clock speeds using the flags (-k phatk VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=7 WORKSIZE=128) on Windows 7 x64 with the 11.7 CATs I'm getting about 407 Mh/s which is 25-48Mh/s less per core. So if you guys are actually getting speeds in the range of 432-455 Mh/s at 910Mhz there must be something else going on here allowing the higher hash rate other than just using the settings mentioned otherwise the results would be more replicable.

Is the OC switch on?

Yeah I have the OC switch on and the voltage set to 1.12v since 1.175v made no improvement in hash rate.

I didn't mess with voltage. Which 6990 do you have?

On the underside of the card (PCB) are several screws with springs underneath. These screws control the pressure between the cooler and the GPU. On my 6970 a couple of them got loose during shipping. Had the same problem - one card was 20-30C hotter than the other one. After tightening the screws (carefully) both cards have the same temp profiles, except for minor differences resulting from positioning inside the case.

I agree with that.
I am running two Gigabyte 6990s + ANTEC HCP-1200 + W7 64bit + Sabertooth P67 B3 + i5-2400S and I've tested the above settings with 11.6, latest phatk, 3%-patch, -k phatk VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=7 WORKSIZE=128, didn't touch the AUSUM switch at all, running @ 910/840 Mhz, ...  i couldn't reproduce the Mhashrate. GUI-Miner shows ~399.6 Mhash/s for each core.

@ 910/625 Mhz all cores running @ 404,3 Mhash/s with -k phatk VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=11 WORKSIZE=128. Switching back to my standard setting -> 870/625 Mhz = steady 385,7 Mhash/s on each core. That's enough for me.

I came to the conclusion that it has something to do with the excellent cooling solution i saw in the second picture + AUSUM switch to overclocked position + possibly something special we don't know. If i could see a picture of the Mhashrate + settings + clocks for all three cards then i would believe it, when not i think it's a hoax.

Hmmm... I do have 450 CFMs blowing over the cards... my OC switch is on.

I have two XFX 6990's.

Departure is running on PowerColor 6990.  I have Sapphire 6990.
Any others try this?  Does it work for you, or not?

What kind of average hash rate are you getting reported at the pool your mining through? Does it match up with what your seeing on your miner? Also, what is your stale shares percentage when mining at those speeds with Phoenix?

Nope. I get about 405-410 mhash/s per core at 900 or 910 OC.
Had to point 2 table fans at the card to keep it cool, too.

Tbh I just don't see how you could get 450mhash/s with 910 core clock. I'm not calling you a liar by any means, but proof would be nice.

Since all 6990's are reference (they are all exactly the same except for the stickers of the manuf. on the front)
it can't be a hardware issue.

His picture in the signature shows now: 2314 Mhash/s
Some calculation reveals: 2314 Mhash/6 cores = 385,6 Mhash per core. ;)

sorry I haven't replied, been moving around a fair bit, im over in the states now so running my bitcoin machine from vnc viewer... yeah I will be glad to send you a screenshot of those setting and hash rates, Currently not running them at that setting due to being away and wanted something I know is stable in case I run into any problems... yeah my signature changes all the time depending on the pool server, I have seen my signature at 2800+ hash rate which I know is not possible, I also have stale fairly high stale rate due to the mining pool server I am connecting to.  anyway would you like the screen shot in GUIminer or Aoc?


//Edit
Screenshot
http://i56.tinypic.com/25spdfd.png

What is this 3% patch for phatk?

FYI I discovered these settings work great for any cayman processor.  I have a 1x6990 and 1x6970 configuration and also tested on a 2x6970 configuration.  910/840/Factory voltage works well.  Here's a screencap from the 2x6970 machine.

I'm running xpsp3 and 11.6b drivers.

The dual 6970 configuration seems superior to 1x6990 for cost, availability and cooling reasons, assuming you've got the slots.

http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww239/axsever/2x6970cap.jpg

Instance 1 - GUI Miner, OpenCL -v -w 128
OC Switch = On
812 Mhash/s combined
920MHz core
Memory clock doesn't effect my rates.
100% fan
Temperature hovers 77C

Instace 2 - GUI Miner, Pheonix, Phatk, EXACT flags as OP
OC Switch = On
784 Mhash/s combined (390 each or lower)
920 MHz core
850MHz clock is optimal, the hash doesn't move as much
100% fan
Temperature hovers 80C

I tried using AOLCBF. It won't run correctly on my rig, the Run button gets pressed and it simply becomes grey with no response. I do use it to set the memory clocks under the regular.
Tomorrow Im going to try without the OC switch but I CANT see it somehow making my results better.

Im on bitcoins.lc if that makes a difference. You think maybe?

Getting 440Mh/s per core just from GUI miner's OpenCL with -v -w128. No mods or anything in this thread aside from the overclocked switch on and the cores at 920mhz along with powertune at 10%.

Yet when I do the pheonix phatk mod along with the flags, I only get 340-380Mh/s. So peculiar.

Actually, I see the opposite...

Is that not the strangest thing? Kind of doesnt make sense. What is so different in our setups then?

@Jack of Diamonds - I don't have any 6990's but out of 7 AMD/ATI cards I've got so far, 5 of them had crappy TIM/thermal paste applications. I'd bet cleaning and re-applying with some quality thermal paste could solve your issue with that overheating core.

Is mining under LinuxCoin much slower than under windows? I make only about 330-350M with same configuration like the first post...  ???

You need two instances running. One for each core.

Ah, that means he has for both instances all together 455 Mh/s?

I have per core about 330-350 Mh/s. But I can not believe that linux is that much faster... or am I wrong?

No no - per core for him is 450 mh/s. So 900 combined. I dont know how. In windows Im get 410 mh/s per core combined 820.

Im saying you hve to run two seperate instances which you apparently are. 350 is a little low. Are you on OC switch?

No, my OC switch is off...
So he is still 100 mh/s above my rate...