Bitcoin Forum

Hello guys,
As you know, in few days, there will be New Radeons R9 270X, 280X, 290X in stores.

Interesting fact is a new API "Mantle" (ofcourse there is also DX 11.2 and OpenGL 4.3)

I think that Using Mantle API will give us big improvment in hashing scrypt alghorytm.

Tell me what do you think about it ?

http://twojepc.pl/graph0/news13/29835_2.jpg

950-1050 Kh/s

The 290 and 290X will not be released until later this month.
The 270 and 280 models later this week will be rebranded existing chips.
I don't know if Mantle will improve hashing power but I guess someone first needs to write a mining program that uses the Mantle API.

I might be wrong but Mandle seems a replacement for direct3d/opengl and not opencl(/cuda) as one usually need for GPGPU stuff like coin hashing. If so it would be like using 3d gfx api for mining. So I doubt Mantle will change much.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-280x-r9-270x-r7-260x,3635-17.html

if you're interested, going by THW, its not as good as you think

Anybody know the energy efficiency for R9 280x compare to HD 7970?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-280x-r9-270x-r7-260x,3635-18.html

Someone needs to go buy one and do some testing. Tom's hardware knows next to nothing about mining.

as same as 7970,lol

Someone who pre-ordered please update the status of the gpu. I wanna know the energy efficiency vs HD 7970

+1

The scrypt fpga coming out are 4x more efficient than 7950. I wonder what these will be.

Scrypt FPGA are a lot more expensive too?

Not sure no pricing released as yet i think.

Base on speculation, its 1.5x more costly then GPU.

that would still be a good deal then if it is 4x more efficient. The new gen of cards won't come anywhere near that efficiency i'm sure. In term of cost of production surely scrypt coins are totally undervalued right now in terms of power needed to create them anyway. I don't mean bitcoin since that is kind of a league of it's own but new 256coins vs new scrypt if the same total coins, block size , rate etc all the same. The scrpyt coins should cost more?

Well i have free power so... depends i guess.

that must be quite a rare position, i don't know anyone that gets free power. Must be a nice position all the same.

People have to remember that AMD made these GPU cards primarily for gaming and HD content, not mining. If they did make one on mining, I bet they can make GPU cards just as efficient as the rumored fpga scrypt miners. Gaming/HD market > Mining market in overall profits....Gamers buy more games and miners just mine, which only the electricity company gains profit.

Hope your not stealing it....Are you getting solar power? Or you at a college dorm that includes utilities? Or at a company using mining as a way to test hardware?

It's a felony and imprisonment plus fines....

An R9 280X has been added to the hardware comparison page. With OpenGL, it's either as good as the original 7970s or better. At this point, it seems to be way better than the 7970s. It looks like whatever they changed has fixed the original 7970 issues.

https://litecoin.info/Mining_hardware_comparison

I doubt that, I have security cameras and watch my PG&E meter reading...

That's pretty impress at I=13..Wonder what it does at I=18?...Maybe 800~900 kh/s....

I get 750 kh/s with my Sapphire 7970s (w/ default firmware, 1080 engine, 1500 mem, I 13)

They're getting 740 kh/s on the 280x at 1100/1500. Obviously the same chip...so I wouldn't expect much different I suppose...but still a bit disappointing.

I'm also interested to know too, I find it so hard to reduce my electricity bills.

Just use your electricity during off peak hours and partial peak hours, that should help. Look at your electric bill for that info. Nothing is free in life.

The driver is in beta still, so you can say it's a fail yet. HD 7970 is a mature product and the R9 280X is still in it infancy. The price is the same as any other HD 7970 and will eventually drop over time.

I believe I=13 would be the highest point, some card just don't work well in high intensity.

In my place, only commercial have off peak. For resident its all the same.

In my area of California, we have off peak hours from 9pm to 10am M-F. Weekends, off-peak more of the 2 days except for a part of the afternoon. On peak hours are M-F from 1pm to 7pm, until winter time. Rates in my area are as follows: $0.1323/kwhr Off Peak, $0.153/kwhr Partial Peak and $0.3125/kwhr On Peak....


If it's like the HD 7970, it can do I=18, even I=20....But on average, most single GPU cards can do at least I=18...I do I=80 on my 2x HD 5870's and HD 5850...

Keep in mind that he just tried generic 7970 settings. He didn't tweak the settings for that card at all.

By the way, submit your own hardware configs to the wiki by filling out the form here: http://www.lurkmore.com/hardware-compare/

Wow, you must not be making much mining after electricity cost, if anything at all.

I'm currently paying $0.03/kwh for power and $0.04kwhr delivery. Thats $0.07/kwhr total no peak/off peak and I'm locked in for the next 6 months. That sounds great but half of my mining profits still go toward power, more than half if I'm running them in air conditioning.

I've been told that I have some of the cheapest power in the country, if that's the case, how does everyone else stay above power cost mining?

Which graphic card you are using?

That sounds like rates in Washington state, but what state do you live in for those rates. I make a profit, just have to be very careful on the hours usage and what I mine. I'm just running two rigs, nothing too wild.

Im jealous, im paying 0.14/kwh. Double of what you paid...

What state/county you live in? Sounds like a Californian rate. I'm paying $0.1323/kwhr on off peak times.

Not all 7970's are the same. Some need to run at 13. Going over 13 will just slow them down, depending on the card.

7970 giga,sapphire,powercolor,his,asus..all of them can run with I13..and with edited bios :))

How did you edit it? I couldn't figure out how to improve mining speeds on my giga cards.
Using the tpu editor right? WHat values?

Which bios version do you have

The driver is not in beta, the driver released for review testing and BF4 is a beta. The R9 280x IS a 7970, they are XT2 boards and have nothing other than a flashed bios and a different cooler. To think you will see any increased performance over a 7970 is crap and there is nothing at all infant about the R9 280x.

ALL 7970s (R9 280x) can push over 720Kh/s - The main difference between cards ignoring gpu/mem clocks is the configuration of 3 key miner settings:

--gpu-threads
--thread-concurrency
--Intensity

Some 7970's especially older ones do best on a single gpu thread with a high thread-concurrency and intensity. eg, "--gpu-threads 1 --thread-concurrency 24000 --intensity 19"

A lot of newer boards (GHz editions) including the rebranded R9 280x do best with two gpu threads and a lower thread-concurrency and intensity eg, "--gpu-threads 2 --thread-concurrency 8192 --intensity 13" (have also found an odd thread concurrency such as 8191 give even better results)

I have personally tested this on several 7970 boards and even 7950s are affected the same way. No BIOS flashing or modding has ever been needed just a correct miner configuration and the right gpu/mem clock ratio which I have found to be very different on some cards simply because of the type of ram used and the different timings some memory chips run at which is why some users get lucky with low mem frequencies and others simply do not.

Bear in mind also that the R9 280 (non x variant) if and when its released will be a re-branded 7950 so could turn out to be a very good bang for buck card. Avoid the R9 270x as this is just a re-branded 7870, again the non x variant will be a rebrand of the 7850.

Do enjoy your AMD re-branded kit while we wait to see if the real news here the R9 290x will be a mining king.  ;)

I don't have it anymore but it was a rev 1.0 unlocked Gigabyte Windforce OC 7970...and before I had a HIS IceQ X2 7950 without boost.
Tried many bios flashes and it never got better.
Never tried 8191 for tc, always used 8192 or higher xD, and got hw or lower perf when doing more than i 13 (despite the high tc and available system ram ->8gb ddr3)

Anybody manage to give R9 270x a try? any better then the old HD 7950?

The R9 270X is NOT a rebranded 7950 but it is a rebranded 7870.
I haven't tested it myself but I guess it's safe to say it will not perform as good as a 7950.

If you use -g 2 (gpu-threads 2) then anything over intensity of 13 will HW error. If you want to use higher intensities of 18-20 use 1 gpu thread and a high thread concurrency.

I know, I've tried both, and understand the process...but don't get why that card sucked so bad at mining scrypt.

we don't need to use OpenCL for hashinh, any language can do the job, at least most of them...

mantle has way, way 'less loss' in in cycles, memory bandwitdh and tons of other stuffs that other apis still have today.
so yest, it is possible to use new mantle, but as he sayd, some one need to write down a miner that uses that, as when is finished, we should get the 'is it better or not for mining bitcoin/altcoins' but i think will be for sure...

Sorry for long quote!

I=80!?

You can, just need to do some modification..

Managed to get 750Kh/s from a pair of Sapphire R9 280x rather easily, 1085/1500 so there might be more left.

Mostly just for fun, not strictly for hashing  ;D

In case anybody is interested, here I found some testing results for the mining performance of the R9 290X
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/169402-to-slay-a-titan-amds-radeon-r9-290x-piledrives-nvidias-high-end-product-line/3

i confirm this with my 7950, better have gpu to 2 and I to 13