Bitcoin Forum

Alternate cryptocurrencies => Mining (Altcoins) => Topic started by: miner765 on February 28, 2014, 04:14:06 AM



Title: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: miner765 on February 28, 2014, 04:14:06 AM
I find that to be an interesting question as I'm starting to see that people fix their mining problems with more RAM. Therefore, do you think it really matters? Can not having enough RAM (for some weird reasons) cause rigs to be instable and/or driver crashes?


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: dddbtc on February 28, 2014, 05:07:48 AM
I find that to be an interesting question as I'm starting to see that people fix their mining problems with more RAM. Therefore, do you think it really matters? Can not having enough RAM (for some weird reasons) cause rigs to be instable and/or driver crashes?

I have ran a 3x GPU rig using a minimum of 4GB of RAM.  I would not use any less.  Even with 4GB of RAM i experienced issues with my system, but mostly related to system usability not necessarily crashes.  After dealing with these issues for a few months I threw an additional 8GB of RAM in my system, might be a little bit overkill.  But all my issues were gone and my hashrate even increased slightly.

I hope I have answered your questions.


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: Starscream on February 28, 2014, 05:09:12 AM
Therefore, do you think it really matters? Can not having enough RAM (for some weird reasons) cause rigs to be instable and/or driver crashes?
Has nothing to do with what anyone thinks, it's like you'd ask us if we think 1+1 equals 2.
RAM will only matter if you're using Reaper as your mining software, otherwise (using cgminer, sgminer, etc) it has really minimal effect on your rig and you can easily run your mining rig with as little as 2GB of RAM.

The only reason adding RAM solves anyone's problem is because they misconfigured their rig to begin with.

Right before I bought my R9 290s I searched the forum a lot about the card and I remember seeing a whole thread with dozens of replies saying how the R9 290s require a lot of RAM for them to work properly (and I mean a lot - 8 to 16GB lol). I then got lucky enough to chat with a guy who has a big mining farm with a few R9 290 and he told me he doesn't need more than 2GB to run any of his rigs.

Needless to say, once I got my R9 290s I got them to work flawlessly with 4GB of RAM (which I already had from an old PC - if I'd buy, I'd buy only 2GB) and when you check system processes you can see that less than 2GB is being used at any given time.


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: dddbtc on February 28, 2014, 05:16:16 AM
Note that I am also using a multiple monitor setup


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: igroock on February 28, 2014, 06:36:43 AM
4gb is pretty much the minimum. You can get away with using 2gb but only for older cards, and only one card. When you start putting in multiple cards, 4gb is the least amount youll need or you will see crashes or mining software simply not mining at all.


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: paul09 on February 28, 2014, 08:25:13 AM
For plain scrypt I had no problem with 4gb on any of my rigs

However for scrypt-n (e.g. vertcoin) my rigs with 4gb ram can only run 3 280x's. My rigs all refused to run more than 3x280x with 4gb ram, excess cards showed as dead with error message in cgminer. I upgraded my rigs to 8gb ram and then all of them were fine, so I concluded that for scrypt-N 4gb ram can only run 3 280x cards, whereas 8gb ram seems fine for 6 280x.


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: cescan on February 28, 2014, 09:20:10 AM
yes RAM matter in a mining rig my minimum of 8GB of RAM.  I have been doing this for about 9 months now. I have my mining software running on a PC in the lab at university , so my power costs are zero.


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: miner765 on February 28, 2014, 01:27:51 PM
Therefore, do you think it really matters? Can not having enough RAM (for some weird reasons) cause rigs to be instable and/or driver crashes?
Has nothing to do with what anyone thinks, it's like you'd ask us if we think 1+1 equals 2.
RAM will only matter if you're using Reaper as your mining software, otherwise (using cgminer, sgminer, etc) it has really minimal effect on your rig and you can easily run your mining rig with as little as 2GB of RAM.

The only reason adding RAM solves anyone's problem is because they misconfigured their rig to begin with.

Right before I bought my R9 290s I searched the forum a lot about the card and I remember seeing a whole thread with dozens of replies saying how the R9 290s require a lot of RAM for them to work properly (and I mean a lot - 8 to 16GB lol). I then got lucky enough to chat with a guy who has a big mining farm with a few R9 290 and he told me he doesn't need more than 2GB to run any of his rigs.

Needless to say, once I got my R9 290s I got them to work flawlessly with 4GB of RAM (which I already had from an old PC - if I'd buy, I'd buy only 2GB) and when you check system processes you can see that less than 2GB is being used at any given time.

So maybe you will actually tell why or how it may be misconfigured?


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: evansearle42 on February 28, 2014, 02:16:56 PM
yes depending on how many gpu..


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: cloudrck on February 28, 2014, 04:29:52 PM
I run 2GB on a Linux system with 1xR9 290 and 2x R9 280x with no issues.


Title: Re: Does RAM matter in a mining rig?
Post by: Sinyk7 on February 28, 2014, 05:06:50 PM
I run 2GB of DDR on BAMT with 3 cards. No issues here. I should be able to run 1GB, I just haven't pulled the sticks out since I assembled the miner.

I also have a 4 card rig running 4GB of DDR2 and I get what can be considered the going rate for my cards.