Mining with "obsolete" graphics cards (memory<2GB)

[Cereberus]

The 7850 and 7870 are the best option to mine with 2 GB memory. They are worth in Zcash and lately in Winminer you can use them to mine Bitcoin gold which is based on the same algorithm. However keep in mind that they are not energy efficient as they consume more power than newer generations and have less hashrate.

[1715108195]

1715108195

[1715108195]

1715108195

[1715108195]

1715108195

[LandOwner]

The 7850 and 7870 are the best option to mine with 2 GB memory. They are worth in Zcash and lately in Winminer you can use them to mine Bitcoin gold which is based on the same algorithm. However keep in mind that they are not energy efficient as they consume more power than newer generations and have less hashrate.

If I have these cards I will exchange them for faster ones.

[mach123coin]

Older GPUs need to use Nicehash legacy. Latest clients do not support older GPUs

NiceHash Legacy is Windows-only up to date. Still need Windows driver. So we are again stuck with 8-GPU maximum for old ADM drivers (ex latest windows driver for HD6990 by AMD is Crimson 15.7).

You can used other mining applications and just point to the nicehash pool addresses.  
For example you can run xmr-stak instead of using the latest excavator or Nicehash legacy miner for even an old HD6870 with a mix of Nvidia cards also.

The lowest card I've gotten to work on Nvidia is compute 2.0 cards that are at least based on the gf100 Fermi chipset or later. Even 1GB cards such as the GTX 460,465, 560, 650, and 590, and Quadros will mine pretty good for cryptonight algo, v7, and lite including the v1 variant.
A good site to check monero hashrates is with http://monerobenchmarks.info/index.php, I have been adding the older cards as I come across them.

The lowest efficiency award goes to is the Tesla s2050,c2050,m2070 cards with the 341.81 driver and then install the older cuda 8 toolkit for Windows 7 x64.
On Windows 10 x64 , as soon as you install a Geforce card of the latest driver 391.01 or later you get cuda support for all the fermi or later cards. Even the older Tesla cards just need the basic driver installed, then the geforce driver for cuda can be installed.  They are cheap, power hungry, but if you are off grid renewable or free power, go for it.
There is a build of genoil's ethminer that can mine 3.8 mh per tesla m2070(6gb ram). use the Nicehash Legacy 1.75 ethminer.
There was redo of that github repository, I think it was called Mist. I will edit if i can find it again.

Retire them to folding@home after not being able to keep up with the AMD boys.  The fpga cards might just damned the lot of GPUs to archaic realms anyway.

[btckesh]

i usually mine some coins background and hold them for a later surprise.

[Suslived]

This thread is for miners with older cards that can't mine ETH or other "mainstream" coins anymore.
I was wondering if anybody has any ideas what coin to mine for miners with GPU memory 2GB or less. I would like to use my prehistoric 5850s again. Discuss

Why would you do such a thing unless you have free electricity (which is almost always fallacious because even if you aren't the one paying for electricity directly, someone else probably is)?

Mining with old GPUs like 5850 could bring in more cost than profit. Remember when dealing with old hardware you expose yourself to more risks. What if your obsolete GPU suddenly gave up on itself and caught fire? A house is expensive.

[warrior333]

It seems to me that there is nothing to discuss in this topic. outdated equipment is absolutely not profitable. Now the profitability of mining has decreased even on new equipment. Why would you reinvent the wheel? You have to buy new equipment or choose another business.