excavator by NiceHash - multi-algorithm NVIDIA GPU miner [1.5.6a]

[alucard20724]

Hi, miners.

We are presenting excavator - multi-algorithm advanced CUDA miner. Miner is close-sourced, but open to ANY pool and does NOT contain any fees. excavator is brought to you by NiceHash.

Supported algorithms:

equihash
pascal
sha256t

Some speed results:

equihash:
optimized GTX 1080 at 60% TDP = 500 Sol/s
optimized GTX 1070 at 60% TDP = 440 Sol/s

pascal:
optimized GTX 1080 at 60% TDP = 1240 MH/s
optimized GTX 1070 at 60% TDP = 970 MH/s

The main goal of excavator is to reach the best possible ratio between performance and energy consumption, thus providing the highest overall profits.

Download windows binary

Use

Code:

excavator.exe -h

for all available options.


Example: Mining with NVIDIA GPU on NiceHash EU location using Pascal algorithm:

Code:

excavator.exe -a pascal -s pascal.eu.nicehash.com:3358 -u [YOUR-BTC-ADDR].[YOUR-WORKER-NAME] -ca

Available locations are eu, usa, jp, hk.


Thank you for your using our service and keep on hashing!

Best regards,
NiceHash team

I will be getting two geforce 1080 ti and 1 geforce 1080

this will be my first all nvidia rig I want to mine zec on the nichhash website.


so


excavator.exe -a equihash -s equihash.usa.nicehash.com:3357 -u 1JdC6Xg3ajT3rge3FgPNSYYFpmf53Vbtje.nvidia3 -ca


would be correct for the bat file?

and windows 7 will work?

i think you do -ca -ca  (two -ca, not one -ca)
You also might want to look into ewbf version.  I get better hash.  I get 435 on ewbf, where as i only get 400 on excavator on stock speed/voltage for my 1070.     nicehash does allow most profitable algorithm though.

[1714024124]

1714024124

[1714024124]

1714024124

[1714024124]

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[philipma1957]

Hi, miners.

We are presenting excavator - multi-algorithm advanced CUDA miner. Miner is close-sourced, but open to ANY pool and does NOT contain any fees. excavator is brought to you by NiceHash.

Supported algorithms:

equihash
pascal
sha256t

Some speed results:

equihash:
optimized GTX 1080 at 60% TDP = 500 Sol/s
optimized GTX 1070 at 60% TDP = 440 Sol/s

pascal:
optimized GTX 1080 at 60% TDP = 1240 MH/s
optimized GTX 1070 at 60% TDP = 970 MH/s

The main goal of excavator is to reach the best possible ratio between performance and energy consumption, thus providing the highest overall profits.

Download windows binary

Use

Code:

excavator.exe -h

for all available options.


Example: Mining with NVIDIA GPU on NiceHash EU location using Pascal algorithm:

Code:

excavator.exe -a pascal -s pascal.eu.nicehash.com:3358 -u [YOUR-BTC-ADDR].[YOUR-WORKER-NAME] -ca

Available locations are eu, usa, jp, hk.


Thank you for your using our service and keep on hashing!

Best regards,
NiceHash team

I will be getting two geforce 1080 ti and 1 geforce 1080

this will be my first all nvidia rig I want to mine zec on the nichhash website.


so


excavator.exe -a equihash -s equihash.usa.nicehash.com:3357 -u 1JdC6Xg3ajT3rge3FgPNSYYFpmf53Vbtje.nvidia3 -ca


would be correct for the bat file?

and windows 7 will work?

i think you do -ca -ca  (two -ca, not one -ca)
You also might want to look into ewbf version.  I get better hash.  I get 435 on ewbf, where as i only get 400 on excavator on stock speed/voltage for my 1070.     nicehash does allow most profitable algorithm though.

thanks    .


 is there an options list on this thread   can't seem to find it.

[BitTeo]

Anyone try it with a nvidia 1080ti ? what the sol ? .

[philipma1957]

Anyone try it with a nvidia 1080ti ? what the sol ? .

it will do 700 plus I  am getting one in on Friday and one in on Saturday


below is my 1080 mini from zotac

current settings on msi
 
core seems locked........ +0
power limit ........           73%
core >>>>>>>>>>   +233
ram >>>>>>>>>>    +333
fan  ......................         68%
temp >>>>>>>>>>>> 52c


 Some photos  on my 1080ti/1080ti/1080 build

 I am using EWBF_   as I have yet to figure this software out

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1851004.msg18479423#msg18479423

[Kompik]

Anyone try it with a nvidia 1080ti ? what the sol ? .

it will do 700 plus I  am getting one in on Friday and one in on Saturday


below is my 1080 mini from zotac

current settings on msi
  
core seems locked........ +0
power limit ........           73%
core >>>>>>>>>>   +233
ram >>>>>>>>>>    +333
fan  ......................         68%
temp >>>>>>>>>>>> 52c


 Some photos  on my 1080ti/1080ti/1080 build

 I am using EWBF_   as I have yet to figure this software out

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1851004.msg18479423#msg18479423

I dont know what memory you have, but you should be able to do +550 ram with any (micron/samsung). If you have samsung you can usually even go +700 and more. The core is locked for nvidia cards so use power limit which is sufficient to controll the wattage.

[philipma1957]

Anyone try it with a nvidia 1080ti ? what the sol ? .

it will do 700 plus I  am getting one in on Friday and one in on Saturday


below is my 1080 mini from zotac

current settings on msi
  
core seems locked........ +0
power limit ........           73%
core >>>>>>>>>>   +233
ram >>>>>>>>>>    +333
fan  ......................         68%
temp >>>>>>>>>>>> 52c


 Some photos  on my 1080ti/1080ti/1080 build

 I am using EWBF_   as I have yet to figure this software out

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1851004.msg18479423#msg18479423

I dont know what memory you have, but you should be able to do +550 ram with any (micron/samsung). If you have samsung you can usually even go +700 and more. The core is locked for nvidia cards so use power limit which is sufficient to controll the wattage.

thank you for info.  I will push  ram higher and get back in a bit.

[FuzzySupernova]

Hello everyone. I have MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X, and I decided to try some mining. Chose the easiest way to begin - downloaded NiceHash miner.
I'm currently mining equihash with excavator. In two words, I started to think if there is a way to lower power consumption without any critical mining speed reduction. Then I paid attention to "efficiency" parameter in excavator. So I decided to google some information about it and found an interesting article - Looking For The Efficiency Sweet Spot of GTX 1080 Ti, where author says that with greatly reducing Power Limit (TDP) you get almost the same speed with much lower power consumtion, less heat and noise.
And then I started to try different GPU settings in MSI Afterburner. By the way, I've got efficiency something about 2,4-2,7H/W with default settings.
My first parameters gave me:
Efficiency: ...................4,05-4,2H/W
Consumption: ..............84-87W
Speed: .......................344-360H/s
Temperature: ...............59C
Fans: ..........................28%
Good efficiency, but not the best mining speed.
To achieve these results I set memory frequency in MSI Afterburner to minimum (it lowers power consumption for several watts) and boosted core frequency (again, it somehow reduced power consumption a little bit).
But I discovered that when you start miner GPU rises core frequency (switches to boost frequency). That was the reason why my card switched between 98W and 152W power consumption rose a lot, strongly lowering productivity.
As i managed to find out, this happens when "utilization limit" or "no load limit" parameter in Afterburner switches from 1 to 0. When this thing happens it means your GPU decides it is loaded heavily and needs to boost up frequency. It becomes faster, but consumes a lot of electricity. So I tried to find a simple way to switch it back to base freq - all you need is to open your browser and try to search something in google. When card switches parameter back to 1 you can minimize browser window:)
...
My second parameters gave me:
Efficiency: ...................4,05-4,2H/W
Consumption: ..............~95W
Speed: .......................~394H/s
Temperature: ...............61C
Fans: ..........................30%
This time I tried to overclock memory. Set slider for +705MhZ, with memory clock 4514MHz. Mining stabilised at ~394H/s and 95W with 4.0-4.2H/W efficiency without any temperature rise.
I also tried to look if anything happens if I set power limit in Afterburner back to 100%. Nothing happened, gpu power consumption still showed the same 40-41%.
I also set core clock frequency slider to +139MHz. While "utilization limit"/"no load limit" parameter showed 0, core clock showed default base frequency 1582MHz. At the same time, GPU-Z showed me base freq at 1721MHz and boost at 1911MHz which are very high values with small chances for gpu to work at.
Trying to visit some heavy sites during mining, or simply trying to start a game makes "utilization limit"/"no load limit" parameter change to 0 and frequency rise above 2000MHz which causes miner restart or driver crash.
Does anybody know a way to lock "utilization limit"/"no load limit" at 1 or turn off GPU boost?
I also tried to max out GPU performance.
These are results with "utilization limit"/"no load limit" at 1:
Efficiency: ...................~4H/W
Consumption: ..............~95W
Speed: .......................384-390H/s
Temperature: ...............61C
Fans: ..........................31%
These are results with "utilization limit"/"no load limit" at 0:
Efficiency: ...................~2,5-2,6H/W
Consumption: ..............~180W
Speed: .......................~459H/s
Temperature: ...............71C
Fans: ..........................55%
Power: ........................74-78%

[fabric1771]

Anyone try it with a nvidia 1080ti ? what the sol ? .

it will do 700 plus I  am getting one in on Friday and one in on Saturday


below is my 1080 mini from zotac

current settings on msi
  
core seems locked........ +0
power limit ........           73%
core >>>>>>>>>>   +233
ram >>>>>>>>>>    +333
fan  ......................         68%
temp >>>>>>>>>>>> 52c


 Some photos  on my 1080ti/1080ti/1080 build

 I am using EWBF_   as I have yet to figure this software out

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1851004.msg18479423#msg18479423

I dont know what memory you have, but you should be able to do +550 ram with any (micron/samsung). If you have samsung you can usually even go +700 and more. The core is locked for nvidia cards so use power limit which is sufficient to controll the wattage.

thank you for info.  I will push  ram higher and get back in a bit.

with the 1080 zotac mini I use +710 ram  (60% power limit) as I wrote 2 days ago  

[Kompik]

Temperature: ...............71C
Fans: ..........................55%
Power: ........................74-78%
...

I believe the best settings for a 1070 currently is 440 sols @ 120watt. I have a lot of 1070 brands and all can achieve it.

[exus]

I believe the best settings for a 1070 currently is 440 sols @ 120watt. I have a lot of 1070 brands and all can achieve it.

I found the 440sols/120w to be my sweetspot aswell on my 1070s(I can reach that value +-5 with both micron and samsung cards)

[Tidsdilatation]

I believe the best settings for a 1070 currently is 440 sols @ 120watt. I have a lot of 1070 brands and all can achieve it.

I found the 440sols/120w to be my sweetspot aswell on my 1070s(I can reach that value +-5 with both micron and samsung cards)

what settings do you use for that? i cannot manage to hit 440sol/s. Memory MHz, power limit% and core clockk MHz?

[newmz]

Temperature: ...............71C
Fans: ..........................55%
Power: ........................74-78%
...

I believe the best settings for a 1070 currently is 440 sols @ 120watt. I have a lot of 1070 brands and all can achieve it.

why do you call this your "sweet spot"? surely the sweet spot is when you get the best efficiency for hash per watt right?

I have been watching the excavator efficiency figure at various wattages - using MSI Afterburner to adjust the power. I have also tried all kinds of overclocks of memory and core, but it's pretty hard to work out which is more important because it looks like Excavator adjusts itself depending on available resources.... but anyway -

If I set my 1070 (Gigabyte G1 Gaming) at stock core and memory, but adjust the power to around 120W (according to excavator), which seems to be at 67% on afterburner's power limit setting - the efficiency is roughly 3.1-3.3 H/W.

If however I set the power limit in afterburner to 51%, which excavator says is around 90W - the efficiency goes up to 3.8-4.0 H/W. It's only doing 350 sol/s but at 90W!

Anyone can get a 1070 to do 440 sol/s but you pay for it in the power consumption. Wouldn't the so called "sweet spot" be wherever the highest efficiency is? Unless of course you pay nothing for power in which case you should just crank up everything in afterburner so you are doing 480 sol/s or more.

Am I missing something here? Doesn't it make the most sense to find the highest efficiency possible?

[FuzzySupernova]

I believe the best settings for a 1070 currently is 440 sols @ 120watt. I have a lot of 1070 brands and all can achieve it.

why do you call this your "sweet spot"? surely the sweet spot is when you get the best efficiency for hash per watt right?

I think they call this a "sweet spot" because, according to calculators, this configuration maxes out your profitability per day/month/year.
Look at my calculations:
https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/zec?HashingPower=440&HashingUnit=H%2Fs&PowerConsumption=150&CostPerkWh=0.07
This are results at so called "sweet spot". Power consumption is set at 150W because during mining my UPS shows 25% load with maximum load 600W.
https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/zec?HashingPower=353.3&HashingUnit=H%2Fs&PowerConsumption=138&CostPerkWh=0.07
These are results when I try to achieve 4-4.2H/W efficiency.
As far as I calculated, you get a little bit lower profitability per day/month/year if you try to max out efficiency for hash per watt to achieve 4-4.2H/W.
I think this happens because:
1) Your PC, excluding GPU, consumes certain amount of power while mining anyway, this variable is more or less the same and you need to keep this in mind while calculating profitability.
2) The more H/s your GPU makes the more money you get, so you have to find a spot with the H/s as close to maximum as it could be with minimum possible GPU power consumption but not maximum efficiency due to excavator.
OR
1) You really must achieve the best efficiency, but you need to calculate it according to total power consumtion of your PC, not only consumption of your GPU.

[guytechie]

I haven't played around with the settings as much as some of you, but my best speed (and OC) is around 648 S/s.  Power lim at 120%, +140 core, +500 mem.  Temp gets as high as 85c.  I think efficiency was somewhere around 2.x - Core was at around 1980 MHz while mem is 5508 MHz.  Power draw was around 275W I think.  Fan was at around 80%

I found the best efficiency I could do was just leave it at base clock (1480/5005).  Dialed the power lim it 63% and leave the core and mem clock at +0.  This leaves me with 540 S/s at 3.4 efficiency, 72c (lower fan speed - 42%) and power draw of 157W.

[NiceHashSupport]

I haven't played around with the settings as much as some of you, but my best speed (and OC) is around 648 S/s.  Power lim at 120%, +140 core, +500 mem.  Temp gets as high as 85c.  I think efficiency was somewhere around 2.x - Core was at around 1980 MHz while mem is 5508 MHz.  Power draw was around 275W I think.  Fan was at around 80%

I found the best efficiency I could do was just leave it at base clock (1480/5005).  Dialed the power lim it 63% and leave the core and mem clock at +0.  This leaves me with 540 S/s at 3.4 efficiency, 72c (lower fan speed - 42%) and power draw of 157W.

For GTX 1080 Ti, best setting is: +240 core, -300 mem, 60% TDP. You get 630 sol/s (if you keep temps low) at 150 W.

[Kompik]

Temperature: ...............71C
Fans: ..........................55%
Power: ........................74-78%
...

I believe the best settings for a 1070 currently is 440 sols @ 120watt. I have a lot of 1070 brands and all can achieve it.

why do you call this your "sweet spot"? surely the sweet spot is when you get the best efficiency for hash per watt right?

I have been watching the excavator efficiency figure at various wattages - using MSI Afterburner to adjust the power. I have also tried all kinds of overclocks of memory and core, but it's pretty hard to work out which is more important because it looks like Excavator adjusts itself depending on available resources.... but anyway -

If I set my 1070 (Gigabyte G1 Gaming) at stock core and memory, but adjust the power to around 120W (according to excavator), which seems to be at 67% on afterburner's power limit setting - the efficiency is roughly 3.1-3.3 H/W.

If however I set the power limit in afterburner to 51%, which excavator says is around 90W - the efficiency goes up to 3.8-4.0 H/W. It's only doing 350 sol/s but at 90W!

Anyone can get a 1070 to do 440 sol/s but you pay for it in the power consumption. Wouldn't the so called "sweet spot" be wherever the highest efficiency is? Unless of course you pay nothing for power in which case you should just crank up everything in afterburner so you are doing 480 sol/s or more.

Am I missing something here? Doesn't it make the most sense to find the highest efficiency possible?

No this is where I get the most profit - that is what matters the most. Also if you see 440/120 = is 3,66 H/W ratio.... And you can get the 1070 even to 480+ sols if needed, but not the most profitable or efficient of course.

[newmz]

I believe the best settings for a 1070 currently is 440 sols @ 120watt. I have a lot of 1070 brands and all can achieve it.

why do you call this your "sweet spot"? surely the sweet spot is when you get the best efficiency for hash per watt right?

I think they call this a "sweet spot" because, according to calculators, this configuration maxes out your profitability per day/month/year.
Look at my calculations:
https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/zec?HashingPower=440&HashingUnit=H%2Fs&PowerConsumption=150&CostPerkWh=0.07
This are results at so called "sweet spot". Power consumption is set at 150W because during mining my UPS shows 25% load with maximum load 600W.
https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/zec?HashingPower=353.3&HashingUnit=H%2Fs&PowerConsumption=138&CostPerkWh=0.07
These are results when I try to achieve 4-4.2H/W efficiency.
As far as I calculated, you get a little bit lower profitability per day/month/year if you try to max out efficiency for hash per watt to achieve 4-4.2H/W.
I think this happens because:
1) Your PC, excluding GPU, consumes certain amount of power while mining anyway, this variable is more or less the same and you need to keep this in mind while calculating profitability.
2) The more H/s your GPU makes the more money you get, so you have to find a spot with the H/s as close to maximum as it could be with minimum possible GPU power consumption but not maximum efficiency due to excavator.
OR
1) You really must achieve the best efficiency, but you need to calculate it according to total power consumtion of your PC, not only consumption of your GPU.

OK - using those calculators I can see what you mean, but it doesn't seem to make any sense. It just seems that the best H/W should win.

Anyway - are you using EWBF or excavator?

If I use excavator it seems like it just seems to max out (on my 1070) at 430sol/s, whereas with EWBF at a similar power level I can get 437-445sol/s but then EWBF is taking out a dev fee so I wonder if 430sol/s with no dev fee is better than 445sol/s minus the dev fee.

If I go all out with EWBF (afterburner core voltage +10%, power limit 108%, core clock +80, mem clock +700) I can get 475-480sol/s but it must be using a hell of a lot of watts.

 

[kopija]

I haven't played around with the settings as much as some of you, but my best speed (and OC) is around 648 S/s.  Power lim at 120%, +140 core, +500 mem.  Temp gets as high as 85c.  I think efficiency was somewhere around 2.x - Core was at around 1980 MHz while mem is 5508 MHz.  Power draw was around 275W I think.  Fan was at around 80%

I found the best efficiency I could do was just leave it at base clock (1480/5005).  Dialed the power lim it 63% and leave the core and mem clock at +0.  This leaves me with 540 S/s at 3.4 efficiency, 72c (lower fan speed - 42%) and power draw of 157W.

For GTX 1080 Ti, best setting is: +240 core, -300 mem, 60% TDP. You get 630 sol/s (if you keep temps low) at 150 W.

Any info on ETA of Linux version of excavator?

[guytechie]

I haven't played around with the settings as much as some of you, but my best speed (and OC) is around 648 S/s.  Power lim at 120%, +140 core, +500 mem.  Temp gets as high as 85c.  I think efficiency was somewhere around 2.x - Core was at around 1980 MHz while mem is 5508 MHz.  Power draw was around 275W I think.  Fan was at around 80%

I found the best efficiency I could do was just leave it at base clock (1480/5005).  Dialed the power lim it 63% and leave the core and mem clock at +0.  This leaves me with 540 S/s at 3.4 efficiency, 72c (lower fan speed - 42%) and power draw of 157W.

For GTX 1080 Ti, best setting is: +240 core, -300 mem, 60% TDP. You get 630 sol/s (if you keep temps low) at 150 W.

That's pretty amazing.  I'm going to try this when I get back home.

[guytechie]

I haven't played around with the settings as much as some of you, but my best speed (and OC) is around 648 S/s.  Power lim at 120%, +140 core, +500 mem.  Temp gets as high as 85c.  I think efficiency was somewhere around 2.x - Core was at around 1980 MHz while mem is 5508 MHz.  Power draw was around 275W I think.  Fan was at around 80%

I found the best efficiency I could do was just leave it at base clock (1480/5005).  Dialed the power lim it 63% and leave the core and mem clock at +0.  This leaves me with 540 S/s at 3.4 efficiency, 72c (lower fan speed - 42%) and power draw of 157W.

For GTX 1080 Ti, best setting is: +240 core, -300 mem, 60% TDP. You get 630 sol/s (if you keep temps low) at 150 W.

I'm only getting around 580 Sol/s with those settings, but efficiency gone up a bit - now at 3.8.  If I drop to 58% TDP, I get 563 Sol/s but my efficiency goes up to 4.