Bitcoin Forum

So ive been seeing a few post online, including a deleted reddit post claiming it was possible:

https://www.removeddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/kj0c9y/psa_you_can_fully_utilize_xbox_series_x_or_s_for/

We know that the hardware in the Series X (and Series S to a lesser extent) is RDNA2 and of course very capable of a decent hashrate.

What some may not know is that the Xbox Series X has a 320 Bit memory bus, even the 6900 XT only has a 256 bit bus. 560 GB/s vs 512 GB/s.

So one could expect at least 60 MH/s, but likely closer to 65 MH/s. Series S would likely be around 30 MH/s.

Ive read that you can load your own apps through dev mode ($19 upfront cost), so certainly it seems like something that can be done.

Ive got a Series X that sits around not doing much 95% of the time, really want to put it to work. Anyone here know anything about this? These are very powerful and cheap rigs if this can be easily done.

Its protected against mining and gpu use is restricted in dev mode I believe. its not as easy as you'd think :D Just like you can't mine on the iphone.

https://www.howtogeek.com/703443/how-to-put-your-xbox-series-x-or-s-into-developer-mode/

Seems like the most difficult part would be to port a miner into a UWP app.

This is like been in a resting mode and going out to seek for unrest, this is inviting trouble on yourself, pls answer the following questions?

1. Are you ready to void your warranty because you want to use the xbox gpu to mine?

2. Have you thought about the miner that you will run on the Xbox when none is available? Oh can you build one yourself?

Exactly, so one could put it into dev mode and simply compile a miner into a UWP app.

It seems like its very doable, just wondering if anyone had pulled it off.

I am currently trying to see if I can compile ethminer into a UWP app.  :)

Wasn't something similar like this done with the Xbox (or Xbox 2 or whatever its called) to mine Litecoin back in 2013.2014? If I recall the GPU inside the Xbox was the Tahiti chip Radeon 7950. That GPU was more or less the 7970/280X with a slightly lower core clock however it was the most efficient GPU to mine LTC at the time. And late 2013 GPUS were sold out everywhere so people decided to try and mine with the Xbox instead.

I have a feeling that if this is possible there will be a shortage of Xbox's everywhere due to GPU mining. So far all GPUs are sold out. Now people are buying gaming desktops and gaming laptops with GPUs inside to mine and if its possible to mine on a console then miners will start buying Xbox's and Playstations next. Crazy times...

There is going to be shortage of xbox everywhere due to mining? Serious you believe that people will start buying xbox series X so they can mine of them? I don't believe this because even if it's possible only a tech savvy personal can get this running

I'm still not sure if this will make sense, xbox one x for example draws up to 350 watts in gaming and I believe the gpu inside is something close to gtx 1080ti in power so mining on this thing will only benefits those who have free electricity or cheap gpu, I won't expect anything more than 50mh from this gaming device and as for the series hmm that should make more sense cos it's gpu is RDNA 2 capable

I remember something like this as well but actually the xbox one/ one s are very shitty hardware. They were not even that good when they came out, less than a mid range PC actually in 2013.

Xbox one /s has the same GPU, the s is very slightly OC'd like 7%. Its closest to something like a Radeon 7790 (or even 7750) and only has GDDR3 memory so isnt very fast. It had on die EDRAM for some trickery the game devs could do to code for the hardware and pull off impressive visuals.

Even the PS4 only had a Radeon 7850.

But now though, we have powerful consoles with RDNA 2 chips that actually could trade blows with cards like the 2080 Super.

Based on the specs, and knowing we can not tweak the GPU in any way, I would expect around 65 MH/s on a series x (given what we know about RDNA 2 hashrates). For $500 this is actually a very excellent hashrate for the money and roughly the same price to performance ratio of the RTX 3080. Mind that the memory bus on the series x is wider than even the 6900 XT so 70 MH/s may even be possible.

If one could get a miner running on it in Dev mode, and could secure a sizeable quantity then it would be a very very low risk investment since these will stay at $500 for years potentially.

its should be awesome if these console can mine eth its pretty decent hardware, and already activated amd smart memory,
while rx6800 can do 84 mhs on 256bit memory with more compute core, xbox should got decent number if dev can deploy some miner, and most likely it wont happen before they pass jailbreak and put homebrew to install linux

Playstation 4 is already jailbroken and you can run some homebrew and games on the console with image files but xbox haven't seen any jailbreak since launch, it shows that xbox have learnt alot from their past console experience, xbox and xbox 360 was easily jail broken but not this time, it will be the same for series X and S

how can you squeeze 84 mhs out of rx6800 ? I have 6900xt in my main computer (primary fuction gaming, if not gaming then mining (most of time actually you dont play :) - first only for heating purposes but now it is more than just heating the room) and I get around 64mhs ... I do have 5800x and x570 mobo with smart access enabled ... am I missing something ? how can I get more mhs :)

Probably through intense overclocking? I have a rx6800xt here and I'm getting only 63MH out of the thing, I've tried every single downclocking and overclocking I knew but nothing more stable than this, it also has something to do with the memory of the rx6800xt, samsung memory performs better than hynix

that's what I mean, I have also tried this and that way but cant got much more out of it, 64mhs is stable ... and rx6800 rx6800xt and rx6900xt have exactly same bottleneck - 256bit memory bus ... so I was wondering is there something that I am missing ...

It's going to cost alot to hack a xbox series x for homebrew and other, I don't think it's worth it because xbox team are so certain about their console security, might be possible on playstation cos it's more easier to hack than xbox consoles since xbox one

1. Series X is protected against mining.
2. There's no cryptocurrency miner that can mine on Xbox/PS
3. I don't have one of these consoles, but like laptops, it probably doesn't have enough cooling to substain the 100% GPU use 24/7.
4. You could just buy a new GPU for the same price and mine with it and earn much more (And with drastically less risk)

It's possible on PlayStation but not Xbox one because Xbox team have upgraded their security since Xbox 360 console, in the past Xbox is the easiest console to jailbreak but today it is Playstation, you can easily run homebrew on PlayStation console but it's impossible on Xbox one

Is there a whitepaper on the Series X's protection against mining?  I'd be interested in tearing into that a bit.  Is it just the ID@Xbox requirement for full access?
There is no miner available yet, but we should be able to send OpenCL commands to the Xbox Series X.  Ethminer may just need a recompile to UWP tagged as "Game".
There is a really good chance the Series X can cool at 100% GPU use 24/7.  It's cooled exceptionally well for its size.  It cools far better than most SFF builds which many are using happily for mining.

A couple weeks ago you could hav bought a new GPU for the same price, but certainly not right now!  The Xbox is also likely tempting as it is an "extra" GPU we have in our homes that sits idle 95% of the time.

Any progress on this? I'm thinking of trying this out ...

lol dont expected mining on console if pirated games still dont exist, even homebrew cant run on newer console, it just wild theory some ppl expected alternative cheap console compared buying gpu, you got entire rig same as gpu price lol

homebrews and pirated games already can run with xbox dev mode.

Install RetroArch, and its piracy galore. Heck, before MS took retroarch down from xbox store, you don't even need dev mode to pirate AFAIK.

anyway, back to topic, theoretically, yes the OP is right. With dev mode, someone should be able to dev a miner for xbox. There's no known special protection against mining on Series X AFAIK

there are different layers of HW access tho, IIRC.

- limited access = UWP dev (the 20 dollars registration thingy)
- full access = ID@Xbox

Yes I saw this tutorial on reddit but I wonder if there's really someone out there really try this on there Xbox. Using it on mining will just destroy his console overtime due to continuous use of it which is the nature of mining although its somehow same as hardcore gaming. I think building a dedicated mining rig is still good rather using a console which is not dedicated for mining.