[ETH] Old hardware, rx 560 and more questions !

[Breesus]

Hi there !

A couple of friends and I finally decided to jump in the ETH wagon. We know we're a little bit late to the party, but this is what we have been telling ourselves since the beginning of the year so well... at some point you have to act !

So here we are, trying to figure out how to start all this. After spending quite some time on the internet, we're starting to have an idea about where to start but we still have about one billion questions, so I hope you guys will be able to answer few of them !

1. Living in Europe (on both sides of the Channel, the UK and France), we're facing a shortage of RX 470/480/570/580 just like anyone else. Here are what we found (I'll convert the prices in USD so that everyone can have a rough idea of how much it costs).

-  HD 7970 3GB for approximately $110 each (reference card)
-  RX 570 4GB for $240 each (MSI ARMOR OC)
-  RX 560 4GB for $130 (even the 4GB ones are hard to find nowadays)

Now there is one important parameter to take into account : we do not have to pay for our electricity bil, which instantly makes the HD 7970 a relevant card.

What we struggled to find for these cards is their ACTUAL hashrate. We know it can change a lot, depending on the type of memory you end up with. However we really struggled to find some relevant Hashrate information for the HD 7870. All we could find are old message board posts from 2015/2016 which say that the HD 7970 hashrate is anywhere between 15 and 24... Any information on that would be much appreciated!

Regarding the RX 560. While initially it was deemed as not worthy, with the 570/580 shortage it seems like more and more people are buying them. if I'm not mistaken you can get a hashrate of about 14.5mh/s (see here https://youtu.be/GZsAQziUgdA?t=258 it's in russian but the only thing that matters is the number on the screen !). What's your take on those cards ?

We believe (but we could be wrong !), give the current price, the best option would be to get as many RX 570s as we can for $240 and then... well then we don't know. We don't have enough information on the HD 7870 so we tend to believe that the RX 560 is not a "bad buy", considering we roughly get half the hashrate of a RX 570 for about half the price !

According to you guys, what would be the best buy (bear in mind once again, we do not pay for the electricity cost).

2. Considering we're mainly looking to mine ETH (maybe Zcash later on), what would be the best OS between Windows 7, Windows 10 and Ubuntu/Linux and why ?

3. How do you chose your pool ? I know you have to check out the pay out system, but other than that, how do you check what is the most efficient pool for you (i.e. the one where you get the highest hashrate)? Is there any other way than simply testing them yourself, one by one ?

4. We may start our first rig with different graphic cards plugged onto the same motherboard (old and new hardware mixed, like hd 7870, rx 480, rx 570 etc...). Is it going to be an issue or as long as each card has its own driver, it doesn't make any difference ?

5. That's an important one. Why do you need to change the BIOS of each card ? By changing the BIOS I mean why would you change the frequencies in the BIOS instead of using MSI afterburner or any other OC software ? What's the difference ?

I guess that's it for now, we sincerely appreciate your help ! Thanks !

edit : 7970 (not 7870!)

[1715544126]

1715544126

[adaseb]

Hi there !

A couple of friends and I finally decided to jump in the ETH wagon. We know we're a little bit late to the party, but this is what we have been telling ourselves since the beginning of the year so well... at some point you have to act !

So here we are, trying to figure out how to start all this. After spending quite some time on the internet, we're starting to have an idea about where to start but we still have about one billion questions, so I hope you guys will be able to answer few of them !

1. Living in Europe (on both sides of the Channel, the UK and France), we're facing a shortage of RX 470/480/570/580 just like anyone else. Here are what we found (I'll convert the prices in USD so that everyone can have a rough idea of how much it costs).

-  HD 7870 3GB for approximately $110 each (reference card)
-  RX 570 4GB for $240 each (MSI ARMOR OC)
-  RX 560 4GB for $130 (even the 4GB ones are hard to find nowadays)

Now there is one important parameter to take into account : we do not have to pay for our electricity bil, which instantly makes the HD 7870 a relevant card.

What we struggled to find for these cards is their ACTUAL hashrate. We know it can change a lot, depending on the type of memory you end up with. However we really struggled to find some relevant Hashrate information for the HD 7870. All we could find are old message board posts from 2015/2016 which say that the HD 7870 hashrate is anywhere between 15 and 24... Any information on that would be much appreciated!

Regarding the RX 560. While initially it was deemed as not worthy, with the 570/580 shortage it seems like more and more people are buying them. if I'm not mistaken you can get a hashrate of about 14.5mh/s (see here https://youtu.be/GZsAQziUgdA?t=258 it's in russian but the only thing that matters is the number on the screen !). What's your take on those cards ?

We believe (but we could be wrong !), give the current price, the best option would be to get as many RX 570s as we can for $240 and then... well then we don't know. We don't have enough information on the HD 7870 so we tend to believe that the RX 560 is not a "bad buy", considering we roughly get half the hashrate of a RX 570 for about half the price !

According to you guys, what would be the best buy (bear in mind once again, we do not pay for the electricity cost).

2. Considering we're mainly looking to mine ETH (maybe Zcash later on), what would be the best OS between Windows 7, Windows 10 and Ubuntu/Linux and why ?

3. How do you chose your pool ? I know you have to check out the pay out system, but other than that, how do you check what is the most efficient pool for you (i.e. the one where you get the highest hashrate)? Is there any other way than simply testing them yourself, one by one ?

4. We may start our first rig with different graphic cards plugged onto the same motherboard (old and new hardware mixed, like hd 7870, rx 480, rx 570 etc...). Is it going to be an issue or as long as each card has its own driver, it doesn't make any difference ?

5. That's an important one. Why do you need to change the BIOS of each card ? By changing the BIOS I mean why would you change the frequencies in the BIOS instead of using MSI afterburner or any other OC software ? What's the difference ?

I guess that's it for now, we sincerely appreciate your help ! Thanks !

1)

7870 can't mine ETH. Mine ZEC at like 175 H/S. You sure its 7870 and not 7970? Because 7870 are all 1/2GB.

2) All are the same. Windows is easier. Windows 10 is required for 5+ GPUs however.

3) They are all the same

4) Yes you can do that

5) You change the bios to change the memory timings which are required for faster ETH speeds with the RX series. For overclocking you can use afterburner.

[Breesus]

Thanks mate, short but precise answers, exactly what I'm looking for.

It's a 7970 indeed, my bad !

In terms of GPU, which way would you go and why (between the GPU I mentionned aboveHD 7970@$110 each and RX 560 4GB@$130) ? I guess the RX 570 is a no brainer but there's only a limited amount available at a decent price.

[adaseb]

Thanks mate, short but precise answers, exactly what I'm looking for.

It's a 7970 indeed, my bad !

In terms of GPU, which way would you go and why (between the GPU I mentionned aboveHD 7970@$110 each and RX 560 4GB@$130) ? I guess the RX 570 is a no brainer but there's only a limited amount available at a decent price.

Get 7970 and mine zec at 300 h/s

[Breesus]

Got it, I've read more and more stuff about old hardware and Zcash and it seems like it's the way to go.

In terms of ROI, is a 7970@$110 mining ZEC more interesting than a RX570@$240 mining ETH (just asking out of curiosity, we've already ordered some 570) ?

[adaseb]

Got it, I've read more and more stuff about old hardware and Zcash and it seems like it's the way to go.

In terms of ROI, is a 7970@$110 mining ZEC more interesting than a RX570@$240 mining ETH (just asking out of curiosity, we've already ordered some 570) ?

570 is better but like you said, sold out. It also uses less power.

[Vann]

If you want to mine ETH go with the RX cards. The RX 460 4GB can do ~14 MH/s at ~50 W per card and some don't require a 6/8 pin connector on the card.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VuPm8N5T0w

The GTX 1060 is another option at around $200 it can do ~23.5mh ETH and ~268 SOL/s ZEC each @ ~60W per card.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uhSfOpvHks&feature=youtu.be&t=7295

I have 5 cards running in Windows 7. Two RX 480 ~315 H/s ZEC, 1 RX 580 ~330 H/s ZEC a HD 7850 ~195 H/s ZEC and a GTX 1080 ~550 H/s ZEC. If you mine with GCN 1 and 2 cards (Tahiti, Pitcarin, etc) and want to mix them with GCN 3 or newer cards, Windows is really your only option. The AMDGPU Pro drivers in Linux only supprt GCN 3 or newer cards. There is supposedley a workaround to get the older GCN 1 & 2 cards to work together in Linux using the open source drivers, but I couldn't get it to work. The Windows Crimson Relive drivers support all GCN and up cards.

You want a pool that has low latency to you so you have less stale shares and rejects. Use a pool located near you.

Modding the memory timing straps in the Bios (AMD only) mostly helps with ETH, which likes fast memory. It has less to no effect on most other coins. You still need to find the core and memory clocks that work the best for your card. If you have diffrent cards, then you need to set each one seperatly. Having cards that are all the same makes it simpler.

[Breesus]

@Vann Really appreciate your feedback.

We're currently buying all the hardware, we found a H81 Pro BTC 2.0 for about $160 (the price of 6PCIe motherboard has skyrocketed recently, even the second hand ones sell for a minimum of $130) and we were wondering if there is any point NOT going for the cheaper CPU ? I mean does it makes a difference to go for a $80 Pentium instead of the cheap $40 one ?

Same question regarding the RAM, any point getting more than 4GB ? (For reference we're gonna use a ASRock H81 PRO BTC 2.0 mobo)

Also, do you guys have any recommendations in terms of PSU ? We're going for a 6*GPU rig (rx 570), is there any go to PSU for this kind of rig (in terms of price/performance) ?

Finally, is there any rx 570 which stands out ? The cheapest ones we can get are the Asus Expedition 4GB one and the MSI Armor 4GB.

[QuintLeo]

HD 7970 is basically a pre-rebadge R9 280x with slower memory, will do perhaps 14 Mh/s at most on ETH with a serious overclock.

 MUCH better choice for ZEC, where it's at least somewhat competative with current cards.

 For a pure mining rig, get the cheapest low-power CPU that fits in the socket.
 More ram CAN sometimes be usefull, some miners like Claymore seem to want more ram for multi-GPU setups. 8 or 16 should be plenty though.

 The only real difference from a miner standpoint on any RX 570 is the memory - some brands of memory seem to clock better, which can be quite important to ETH/ETC/other ETH spinoffs and helpfull on everything else.