Tests with Radeon 7950

[Rhett]

Hi, yes I'm new.

Glad to say my weekend project was setting up my very first Litecoin mining machine. After much reading and testing I have some of my own results to show and would appreciate any comments.

System Specs:
Processor: AMD FX-8350  AM3+ 8-Core
Graphics Card: 1 x Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB
Motherboard: ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 AM3+
RAM: Corsair 8GB (2x4GB)

Mining with GUIMiner-Scrypt alpha (7950 cgminer)
OS: Windows 7

After reading some setting configurations https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117221.0 I tried some tests and got conflicting info.

http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/755857527.jpg

It seems when I pump up my concurrency and intensity I can get a reading of ~550khash/s in GUIMiner. But this actually significantly reduces my recognised rate in my mining pool. It seems the best settings in GUIMiner are it's defaults concurrency: 8192 and intensity: 13. For ~300khash/s recognised the same in both GUIMiner and Mining Pool.

Is this correct? Can anyone shed some light?

[Audi0]

So on a 1 day average your getting 200khash/s or mhash/s? I as well use a 7950 to mine but i am averaging ~550mhash/s.

[Rhett]

So on a 1 day average your getting 200khash/s or mhash/s? I as well use a 7950 to mine but i am averaging ~550mhash/s.

Forget the average line (it's skewed by previous low testing on my mac)
I'm averaging about ~300khash/s

If I increase intensity or concurrency settings I actually get a lower hash rate in my mining pool.

[Audi0]

Ok, what pool are you using? Because 300khash/s is EXTREMELY low for a 7950

[RikoOnWeb]

Ok, what pool are you using? Because 300khash/s is EXTREMELY low for a 7950

The OP is mining LTC, so he is supposed to be getting khash/s, not mhash/s, but 300 is still way too low. I will be getting my 7950 tomorrow and I am hoping and expecting 550-600 khash/s at a minimum.

[Rhett]

Ok, what pool are you using? Because 300khash/s is EXTREMELY low for a 7950

Mining Pool: https://lc.ozcoin.net
It's confusing that I can get my reading to ~550khash/s on GUIMiner if I up the settings but it translates to a lower outcome of khash/s in the pool.

[Raen]

Yeah I agree that 300Khash is low for a 7950. Damned if I know why it's that low though.

[RikoOnWeb]

Mining Pool: https://lc.ozcoin.net
It's confusing that I can get my reading to ~550khash/s on GUIMiner if I up the settings but it translates to a lower outcome of khash/s in the pool.

I have a feeling that the problem might be with the pool. Try another and see how it goes.

[Audi0]

I agree that there might be somthing going on with the pool. I know that Ozcoin has been suffering with DDoS attacks. That might have somthing to do with it.

[Raen]

Try coinotron.com just for a test, it seems pretty accurate to me at relaying what the miner is telling me my hashes are at. Sometimes it's a little lower, sometimes its more but on average it's on par.

[Rhett]

Try coinotron.com just for a test, it seems pretty accurate to me at relaying what the miner is telling me my hashes are at. Sometimes it's a little lower, sometimes its more but on average it's on par.

Will try coinotron.com right now. Do some more tests and report back. Thanks.

[bioshock]

hoping to get my 7950 soon . currently using http://litecoinpool.org/  pool.  you can give that a try .

[arthurb]

Is it still worth mining with GPU now that ASICs are out?

[RikoOnWeb]

Is it still worth mining with GPU now that ASICs are out?

ASICs are hardly out. Check out some calculators, so you can see for yourself that mining is not dead.

Yet.

In a month or two, the answer might be different.

[RambJoe]

Is it still worth mining with GPU now that ASICs are out?

ASICs are hardly out. Check out some calculators, so you can see for yourself that mining is not dead.

Yet.

In a month or two, the answer might be different.

The ASICs that are coming out are for bitcoin, not litecoin.

[Peleus]

Do not use the pool to measure you're hash rate, only measure it locally.

The reason is you're introducing more variables, such as how the pool averages the hash rate it's calculating, internet connection, rejects etc etc.

Secondly, the pool never actually receives your hash rate, it just sees X amount of shares per minute, hour, whatever for the pool and says "Ok, if they are sharing at this rate they must be hashing about Y kh/s". In general over time this will average out to be about correct, as luck plays a smaller factor long term but if you're trying to accurately benchmark it's not the way to go.

Again, only look at the figure in CGMiner (or whatever program you're using).

[Rhett]

Well I gave Coinotron a try today and the same issue. So it doesn't seem to be a pool issue. No pretty graph on their pool to show you but:

GUIMiner (litecoin edit)
Default settings for Radeon 7950 = Steady 296kh = Pool speed ~300kh
Change Intensity to 16 = Steady 484kh = Pool speed ~100kh

Tested over at least 100 accepted shares on both Stratum and not. Same result.
So it seems for some reason the increased hashing speed locally is resulting in lower hashing speed on the pool.

I read another guy saw a similar issue: http://forum.litecoin.net/index.php/topic,1957.0.html

I think it does matter what hash speed is reported on your pool's end as that's the result of valid shares and rewards dished out.

Still unresolved.

[starships]

Just to chime in as a 7950 owner, mine is @ 900mhz and it's usually at 460 Mhash/s in GUIMiner -f 60. Not sure if the flags affect performance but more details.

[Rhett]

Just to chime in as a 7950 owner, mine is @ 900mhz and it's usually at 460 Mhash/s in GUIMiner -f 60. Not sure if the flags affect performance but more details.

Just clarifying I'm talking Litecoins and Khash/s

[Rhett]

I think I've resolved this.

I was originally using GUIMiner v.02 which came bundled with cgminer 2.10.

I am now using GUIMiner v.03 which uses cgminer 2.11.3

This solves issues with my Radeon 7950

Found latest here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117221.msg1256502#msg1256502