Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 LTC mining

[iruleeveryone28]

Hey guys, im about to purchase this card for mining LTC puposes.

Just a few checks I hope you can help me with.

I'm thinking of installing it in an old system :-

Athlon 64 2.8ghz
2.5 GB 533mhz RAM
650W PSU
M2V Asus mobo
case is very well ventilated and will be left open 24/7

I'm wondering if there will be any limitation in terms of mining purposes.  I was told earlier on that the interconnectivity has no real implications in terms of khash/s.  I.E. the fact my mobo is PCI-e 1.0 16x will have no effect on its mining performance.  Any other issues I should look at before purchasing?

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[bob777fred]

Hey guys, im about to purchase this card for mining LTC puposes.

Just a few checks I hope you can help me with.

I'm thinking of installing it in an old system :-

Athlon 64 2.8ghz
2.5 GB 533mhz RAM
650W PSU
M2V Asus mobo
case is very well ventilated and will be left open 24/7

I'm wondering if there will be any limitation in terms of mining purposes.  I was told earlier on that the interconnectivity has no real implications in terms of khash/s.  I.E. the fact my mobo is PCI-e 1.0 16x will have no effect on its mining performance.  Any other issues I should look at before purchasing?

You should have no limitations with using your 7970 in this build out that you have described. I just put a Sapphire 7970 into a double case (acrylic full body case to keep out dust, and a NZXT case inside of it), and it still runs around 71C full load, 13 intensity, 24 hours a day with ~640kh/s. I tried with an older board that is PCI 2 (not 1) and saw 0 difference in my stable hashing rates, so I don't believe you will have any slowdowns with that

[iruleeveryone28]

Hey guys, im about to purchase this card for mining LTC puposes.

Just a few checks I hope you can help me with.

I'm thinking of installing it in an old system :-

Athlon 64 2.8ghz
2.5 GB 533mhz RAM
650W PSU
M2V Asus mobo
case is very well ventilated and will be left open 24/7

I'm wondering if there will be any limitation in terms of mining purposes.  I was told earlier on that the interconnectivity has no real implications in terms of khash/s.  I.E. the fact my mobo is PCI-e 1.0 16x will have no effect on its mining performance.  Any other issues I should look at before purchasing?

You should have no limitations with using your 7970 in this build out that you have described. I just put a Sapphire 7970 into a double case (acrylic full body case to keep out dust, and a NZXT case inside of it), and it still runs around 71C full load, 13 intensity, 24 hours a day with ~640kh/s. I tried with an older board that is PCI 2 (not 1) and saw 0 difference in my stable hashing rates, so I don't believe you will have any slowdowns with that

Thanks, great to hear from someone with the card.  So I assume your initial build was PCI-e 3.0?  Or am I misinterpreting that, and you moved from 1.0 to 2.0?  Interesting that 13 intensity is optimized.  I take it you've tried higher?  Also, as it's running at 71C, have you thought about OC'ing it?  Looks like a card built for it, I'd like to reach 700khash/s :D

Oh and actually, what PSU have you in your system?  I'm worried 650W may not be enough for this beast.

[Vorksholk]

Hey guys, im about to purchase this card for mining LTC puposes.

Just a few checks I hope you can help me with.

I'm thinking of installing it in an old system :-

Athlon 64 2.8ghz
2.5 GB 533mhz RAM
650W PSU
M2V Asus mobo
case is very well ventilated and will be left open 24/7

I'm wondering if there will be any limitation in terms of mining purposes.  I was told earlier on that the interconnectivity has no real implications in terms of khash/s.  I.E. the fact my mobo is PCI-e 1.0 16x will have no effect on its mining performance.  Any other issues I should look at before purchasing?

You should have no limitations with using your 7970 in this build out that you have described. I just put a Sapphire 7970 into a double case (acrylic full body case to keep out dust, and a NZXT case inside of it), and it still runs around 71C full load, 13 intensity, 24 hours a day with ~640kh/s. I tried with an older board that is PCI 2 (not 1) and saw 0 difference in my stable hashing rates, so I don't believe you will have any slowdowns with that

Thanks, great to hear from someone with the card.  So I assume your initial build was PCI-e 3.0?  Or am I misinterpreting that, and you moved from 1.0 to 2.0?  Interesting that 13 intensity is optimized.  I take it you've tried higher?  Also, as it's running at 71C, have you thought about OC'ing it?  Looks like a card built for it, I'd like to reach 700khash/s :D

Oh and actually, what PSU have you in your system?  I'm worried 650W may not be enough for this beast.

650W should handle one 7970 just fine, I am throwing 3 7970s into a system with 1000W.

[marketermac]

Oh and actually, what PSU have you in your system?  I'm worried 650W may not be enough for this beast.

My rig with 2 7970s pulls about 680w at the wall while mining LTC and it uses a power hungry processor, more RAM, etc. then your setup. 650w is more then enough for just 1 7970.

[iruleeveryone28]

Excellent guys, cheers.  Anyone tried OC'ing the 7970's?  

*EDIT*

And if so any performance gain?

[iruleeveryone28]

Just recieved an email from Sapphire claiming that this card will not be supported by any motherboard below PCI-e 2.0v

I'm wondering if this is correct, and if so, does it apply to all 7970's.

I've an email sent out to Gigabyte regarding their OC'd 7970, here's to hoping some PCI-e 3.0 cards work on 1.0.

[anonadeus]

My Sapphire 7970 gets ~510khs with cgminer in guiminer-scrypt on intensity 13. I have to undervolt it to keep the temperature down. Any suggestions?

[hi]

my sapphire 7970 has all kinds of problems mining ltc...cant get above 400khs with it.  Tried all the suggestions..no luck so far either with reaper or cgminer...any ideas?

[iruleeveryone28]

My Sapphire 7970 gets ~510khs with cgminer in guiminer-scrypt on intensity 13. I have to undervolt it to keep the temperature down. Any suggestions?

Make sure no other PCI cards are anywhere near it, and maybe keep your case open?  I read that, although the dual fans are excellent at cooling the GPU, things can get a bit stuffy in there as there is no usual exhaust.  That's about all I can offer.

[akipfer]

hey, my mothrboard is an Gigabyte H55m-S2 from gigabyte(no way, really?)
cai i run this card on it for mining, my processor is an i3 540 3.06Ghz.

my Psu is MTEK 650w P2L 650, not sure if the PSU can handle it, but if can't, i buy a new one!.....

edit* My motherboard has 2.0 PCIe....the card is 3.0, so i think is okay to use, but for games would be better a 3.0 motherboard right? is not for gaming, is kinda 24/7 mining rig, some times maybe games

[gica_contra]

If you want to keep the temp down don't leave the case open, invest in a cheap case fan, if you have the option of mounting it on the side. My temps dropped with 10 and 5 deg on my 2 7850s with fan vs case open. This is especially true if you are running multiple cards in the same case. The fans of the top ones will "suck" heat from the cards beneath rather than fresh air.