7970 awesomeness: Mining and playing games at the same time

[Schrankwand]

Just a fun thread: I accidentally forgot to close Cgminer and started one of my favourite games today. With a single 7970, i was still easily playing a FLUENT game. Not ME3 or BF3, mind you, rather a less hungry MMORPG.

The only effect: CGMiner dropped to 510Mhash/s. That was all.

These cards are crazy...

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[notaek]

One time I accidentally started up Skyrim without shutting down my miner.  It wasn't until I alt tabbed that I realized I left it on.  Surprisingly it was still at 400KH/s. 

[glendall]

I have one 7950 pretty much always running on my PC at an intensity of 15 or 16 for about 500 k/hash, and can use the rest of the system fine. I turn it off if I game though, and turn down the intensity to 13 if I watch a movie .

[crazyates]

Ya I can always tell when I forget to shut off CGMiner before I load up SWTOR, cuz my driver crashes after a few minutes. Hashes for weeks at a time with no issues, and plays games great, but doing both at the same time crashes it every time.

Win8x64, 13.4 drivers.

[lazydna]

can play bf3 on low settings 60+fps minimum while mining scrypt @ 300khash -i 13 with my 7970, it's pretty sweet.

[pontiacg5]

I've got 4, and they are pretty awesome, but I found this kinda funny...

Statistics
Average FPS: 37.87
Duration: 32.90 sec
CPU Usage: 38%
System memory usage: 31%
Video memory usage: 94%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: Very High
Reflection Resolution: Very High
Water Quality: Very High
Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x16
Night Shadows: Very High
View Distance: 100
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Video Driver version: 290.53
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz

File ID: TBoGT-Benchmark.cli

The same settings, with a 7970 Ghz edition...

Statistics
Average FPS: 38.48
Duration: 32.30 sec
CPU Usage: 34%
System memory usage: 20%
Video memory usage: 36%

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
Video Driver version: 8.17.10.1191
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz

File ID: TBoGT-Benchmark.cli



If it weren't for the memory bottleneck of my 560 448 I think it might take the cake. Two in SLI do moderately better than one 7970 though.


Of course this is only one game, but I sure wish you could mine on mvidia cards...

[Crypt_Current]

I have two 7970s and I love them for exactly the reason OP stated   

[induktor]

I sell you my sapphire 7970  
It is eating power like crazy, nearly 200W itself at stock clocks! crazy!, and it is almost impossible to lower the voltage in llinux, and I couldn't find any low voltage bios to program it with, so it's useless for mining, I only have it for 15 days, and If i can sell it, i'll do it right now!

[Schrankwand]

I sell you my sapphire 7970  
It is eating power like crazy, nearly 200W itself at stock clocks! crazy!, and it is almost impossible to lower the voltage in llinux, and I couldn't find any low voltage bios to program it with, so it's useless for mining, I only have it for 15 days, and If i can sell it, i'll do it right now!

The newer cards are voltage locked.

[pontiacg5]

Why is it useless for mining? Litecoins? Are you trying to turn the core down or something?

I think the reason Sapphire and Gigabyte locked the Ghz edition cards is because they are hardly stable at the high voltage they run at, and would you really want to increase the voltage more than 1.25V? Of course that is stock clocks, doubt too many but miners would buy a 7970 just to turn it down a bit?

I wouldn't touch a Ghz edition card again with a 20 foot pole. I expect that the ref. cards are better and can probably hit stock Ghz clocks damn easy.

They sure are Hot. Hot. Hot. 

[grue]

Just a fun thread: I accidentally forgot to close Cgminer and started one of my favourite games today. With a single 7970, i was still easily playing a FLUENT game. Not ME3 or BF3, mind you, rather a less hungry MMORPG.
[...]
These cards are crazy...

old news. even 4000 series could mine and game at the same time.

[induktor]

Why is it useless for mining? Litecoins? Are you trying to turn the core down or something?

I wouldn't touch a Ghz edition card again with a 20 foot pole. I expect that the ref. cards are better and can probably hit stock Ghz clocks damn easy.

They sure are Hot. Hot. Hot. 

They are not voltage locked, but the stock is 1.175V which is WAY TOO HIGH for mining, and under linux there is no way (that i know of) to lower it.

The ideal spot will be something between 1.090V and 1.040V below that, the card is unstable at 950MHz (stock clock, my card is a sapphire 7970 OC Boost (NON GHZ edition))

I mine both BTC and LTC with the same linux flash drive i made, and for my surprise there is very little difference in power consumption between both, where the 7950 is completely different, the consumption in LTC is 30% higher, but in 7970 is only 10% higher, 7970 eats a lot even in BTC mining.

so , in short, 7970 is absolutely not worth for BTC mining, and not very good in LTC (although it is more efficient in LTC than BTC), and yes, the card is powerful, at stock clock I get 540 MH in BTC and 600KH in LTC which I think is quite good, one other thing , this card works a lot hotter than 7950,  (6 degrees more, at stock clock).

[pontiacg5]

They are not voltage locked, but the stock is 1.175V which is WAY TOO HIGH for mining, and under linux there is no way (that i know of) to lower it.

The ideal spot will be something between 1.090V and 1.040V below that, the card is unstable at 950MHz (stock clock, my card is a sapphire 7970 OC Boost (NON GHZ edition))

I mine both BTC and LTC with the same linux flash drive i made, and for my surprise there is very little difference in power consumption between both, where the 7950 is completely different, the consumption in LTC is 30% higher, but in 7970 is only 10% higher, 7970 eats a lot even in BTC mining.

so , in short, 7970 is absolutely not worth for BTC mining, and not very good in LTC (although it is more efficient in LTC than BTC), and yes, the card is powerful, at stock clock I get 540 MH in BTC and 600KH in LTC which I think is quite good, one other thing , this card works a lot hotter than 7950,  (6 degrees more, at stock clock).

I had no idea the ref. cards were also locked now, I thought that was only the Ghz cards. Ghz cards are locked at 1.25V!

I'm not sure why you only get 540 Mh/s from a 7970. I'm getting ~670 a piece from four Ghz cards downclocked to 1000Mhz one one rig.  



Hot, I know.

I'd be upset at 540Mh/s from a 7970. I've got a lone 7870 running 460Mh/s for well under half the price. Runs a hell of a lot cooler too...

If I were to build my rig again I'd go for 7950's hands down. Maybe even 7870's, 4 could be had brand new for less than $800 if you know how to shop.

[Cameltoemcgee]

Just Bought a MSI HD7970 twin frozr 3, its a reference card, brand spanking new one with boost up to 1050mhz and its not voltage locked, but it did come stock at 1.256 volts . i just undervolted it now the temps are 72c on that one at 1.2v and 1150mhz, the sapphire dual-x 7970 i've got is 1.2v and 1200mhz and about 63c(second card so it doesn't get as hot)

those are some mighty impressive numbers for 1000mhz.... i can get 730 on my sapphire dual-x but thats at 1200mhz and 1.2v

the MSI i just bought does just under 700 at 1150mhz and 1.2v.

[pontiacg5]

Just Bought a MSI HD7970 twin frozr 3, its a reference card, brand spanking new one with boost up to 1050mhz and its not voltage locked, but it did come stock at 1.256 volts . i just undervolted it now the temps are 72c on that one at 1.2v and 1150mhz, the sapphire dual-x 7970 i've got is 1.2v and 1200mhz and about 63c(second card so it doesn't get as hot)

those are some mighty impressive numbers for 1000mhz.... i can get 730 on my sapphire dual-x but thats at 1200mhz and 1.2v

the MSI i just bought does just under 700 at 1150mhz and 1.2v.

Thanks!

What's in your config? You are running the GPU_MAX bladaa-daa scrypt right?

[Soros Shorts]

I still have unused game codes that came with 7970's that blew up almost a year ago.