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Bitcoin_Silver_Supply (OP)
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August 04, 2012, 08:40:57 PM |
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I just bought a non-reference ASUS 7970 DirectCU II card (non-factory overclocked) for under $400 and I felt it was a decent mining catch until I started looking at more reviews...
Apparently, these cards are very difficult to overclock at all with the voltage factory locked. I'm a layman when it comes to mining (I fire up Sapphire Trixx and go), so I'm wondering if anyone has an enlightened opinion on whether the DirectCU II is worth it for mining or whether the TOP version (factory overclocked) would be better? Perhaps these cards are simply not the best 7970s for mining?
Thanks.
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scifimike12
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August 04, 2012, 09:57:05 PM |
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Perhaps these cards are simply not the best 7970s for mining? They were before Asus locked the voltages. On the flip side, they do cool well. Mine hovered around 63°C when clocked at 1100/170. |
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Testit
Member
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Activity: 65
Merit: 10
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August 04, 2012, 10:08:53 PM |
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I am curious how did you clock Asus memory to 170?
all i can do is core -150
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Shadow383
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August 04, 2012, 10:47:31 PM |
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Depends on what your power rates are - I'm currently locked into quite an expensive contract for the next couple of months and my three reference cards are sat mining at 950Mhz & 0.95V. Gets about 550Mhash per card and uses really very little power (about 115W per card).
To be honest, I'd just pick up the cheapest that you can get decent RMA support with - the 7970s haven't seemed fragile so far but we all know what mining does to these sorts of cards long-term...
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Bitcoin_Silver_Supply (OP)
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August 04, 2012, 11:46:07 PM |
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Depends on what your power rates are - I'm currently locked into quite an expensive contract for the next couple of months and my three reference cards are sat mining at 950Mhz & 0.95V. Gets about 550Mhash per card and uses really very little power (about 115W per card).
To be honest, I'd just pick up the cheapest that you can get decent RMA support with - the 7970s haven't seemed fragile so far but we all know what mining does to these sorts of cards long-term...
Yeah I have elec included in my rent so it's not a huge concern; however, if I could pull 550Mhash out of 115W it would seem doable to shove another 5830 in for some extra lower-profile mining. My impression is that 5830s pull about 180W. Is $370 after rebate considered a good price on the locked ASUS DirectCU (minus OC)? |
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Bitcoin_Silver_Supply (OP)
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August 04, 2012, 11:47:23 PM |
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Perhaps these cards are simply not the best 7970s for mining? They were before Asus locked the voltages. On the flip side, they do cool well. Mine hovered around 63°C when clocked at 1100/170. Annoying... Is there any way to check whether you have an older model asides plugging it in and seeing? Or are pretty much all of them locked now? I still have 7 days to consider a return. |
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scifimike12
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August 05, 2012, 02:37:29 AM |
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Annoying... Is there any way to check whether you have an older model asides plugging it in and seeing? Or are pretty much all of them locked now? I still have 7 days to consider a return.
Not that I know of but I'm sure that if you removed the cooler and checked the voltage regulator that you'd be able to determine if it supported software voltage control or not. |
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muqali
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August 05, 2012, 05:01:45 AM |
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Annoying... Is there any way to check whether you have an older model asides plugging it in and seeing? Or are pretty much all of them locked now? I still have 7 days to consider a return.
Not that I know of but I'm sure that if you removed the cooler and checked the voltage regulator that you'd be able to determine if it supported software voltage control or not. What I want to know is has anyone used the solder pads to connect the Asus DirectCU II to a Rampage IV Extreme to control the voltage in the motherboard BIOS. I got a Sabretooth X79 so I can't try it. I got this card because I don't plan on clocking it very high and wanted a low noise solution, so far I'm not disappointed. |
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Bitcoin_Silver_Supply (OP)
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August 07, 2012, 03:26:21 AM |
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Is there any mining value to having an ASUS "Top" (factory overclocked) model vs non-overclocked?
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Raralith
Newbie
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August 07, 2012, 06:16:10 AM |
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Not once you overclock it yourself. The only question is whether "top" have binned chips.
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tacotime
Legendary
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Activity: 1484
Merit: 1005
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April 24, 2013, 05:06:15 AM |
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For the love of God, do not buy 7970 DC II or 7970 DC II Top cards... I just got a couple through the forum here and I managed to kill one in two days. It now crashes upon mining or upon booting Windows with it plugged into the display. Apparently it's a known problem: http://www.overclock.net/t/1220328/behardware-asus-hd-7950-directcu-ii-fault-reportI just checked out the VRM temps on the remaining card I have that still mines okay and they were sitting at 100C+, while the card itself was undervolted to 1038 mV. Just awful! If you have one of these cards do not run it at more than 950 mV mining or you'll wreck it pretty quick!! |
XMR: 44GBHzv6ZyQdJkjqZje6KLZ3xSyN1hBSFAnLP6EAqJtCRVzMzZmeXTC2AHKDS9aEDTRKmo6a6o9r9j86pYfhCWDkKjbtcns |
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