12x 1080 TI Mining Rig Build (8300 sols)

[P00P135]

 Cryptonight on Vega is very high profitability right now, if you can get your Vega doing the frequently quoted 1800-2000 hashrate ballpark (this seems to require use of Windows 10 or PERHAPS LINUX, though I wonder how you get the cards to undervolt enough in LINUX to support higher core clocks without overheating or exceeding TDP).
 Forget trying it on Windows 7, even though AMD *CLAIMS* the blockchain driver works on 7 it does not work AT ALL in every attempt I've made to get it working - either constant crashyness on known good hardware, or doesn't recognize the GPUs at all.

 The $399 price point for Vega 56 seems to have been a VERY short lived abberation - 2 or 3 days at most.

I have 2 x 64s (Sapphires) and 2 x 56s (GA) coming next week -- so whats my chances of getting these to work on WIN10 ?

 Good - and at this point that is your ONLY choice for getting high performance out of them, as AMD is being VERY VERY SLOW about getting Vega support working in AMD-GPU Pro for LINUX.

 After much pain and tribulation, I DID finally my 56 to run at high speed on XMR - using Cast as I'm pointing the miner at Nicehash for now and XMR-Stak STILL does not support Nicehash.
 It's a major pain having to "disable" and "enable" the card after EVERY BOOT to get it to do high speeds though, but nothing else I tried out to get it to work right gets the job done.

 Usage of Afterburner vs usage of JunkWattman doesn't seem to matter - neither support undervolt on the blockchain driver, and otherwise they're more or less equal about getting stuff configured (except that Afterburner STILL blows Wattman away on fan control, NO CONTEST, and is just overall easier to use and work with by a TON).

 Sapphire Vega RX 56, not BIOS flashed (though Cast identifies it as having 64 compute units ANYWAY), runs about 1940 hash/s at -10 TDP 940 memclock and core downclocked in Afterburner to 1400 (or -10% core on Junkman).
 Didn't play much with the settings, as it seems like adjusting them CAUSES the hashrate to back down to the under 1400 range every time I tried until the "uninstall/reinstall" trick is done AGAIN.
 I also noticed that adjusting the settings caused the memory clock to reset to 800 Mhz and NOT BE FURTHER ADJUSTABLE a lot of the time - which contributes to the low hashrate issue.

 Not sure how long I'm going to put up with this very unstable BUGGY AS HECK setup, as I have another use I'd like to put the card back to.


 I can verify that Cast doesn't seem to CARE about that "HBCC" setting in Wattman - if I had this whole mess to do over again, I'd install JUST the driver and nothing else in the hopes of eliminating some of the buggyness.

https://vegamining.blogspot.co.uk/  Check this out, it really helped fine tune my rig.

[QuintLeo]

Saw that one and pulled a couple ideas out of it - but can't run Stak as I'm pointing to Nicehash so I have to run Cast.

 Hashrate seems to be pretty similar between the two of them (I think they use the same "core" Wolf0 wrote).

 Someone needs to update a Monero miner so it does NOT need that bloody "blockchain" driver to get good hashrate though - I'm pretty sure most of the changes the Blockchain driver made have been rolled into the most recent "standard" drivers - and that Blockchain driver is buggy unstable junk when you can get it to work at ALL.

[dawidt]

Nice work and video! Thank You!

[hanskan]

Really nice rig, I only wish my electricity price wasn't so high, would really like to build something like that myself. Keep up the good work!

[VoskCoin]

 Cryptonight on Vega is very high profitability right now, if you can get your Vega doing the frequently quoted 1800-2000 hashrate ballpark (this seems to require use of Windows 10 or PERHAPS LINUX, though I wonder how you get the cards to undervolt enough in LINUX to support higher core clocks without overheating or exceeding TDP).
 Forget trying it on Windows 7, even though AMD *CLAIMS* the blockchain driver works on 7 it does not work AT ALL in every attempt I've made to get it working - either constant crashyness on known good hardware, or doesn't recognize the GPUs at all.

 The $399 price point for Vega 56 seems to have been a VERY short lived abberation - 2 or 3 days at most.

I have 2 x 64s (Sapphires) and 2 x 56s (GA) coming next week -- so whats my chances of getting these to work on WIN10 ?

 Good - and at this point that is your ONLY choice for getting high performance out of them, as AMD is being VERY VERY SLOW about getting Vega support working in AMD-GPU Pro for LINUX.

 After much pain and tribulation, I DID finally my 56 to run at high speed on XMR - using Cast as I'm pointing the miner at Nicehash for now and XMR-Stak STILL does not support Nicehash.
 It's a major pain having to "disable" and "enable" the card after EVERY BOOT to get it to do high speeds though, but nothing else I tried out to get it to work right gets the job done.

 Usage of Afterburner vs usage of JunkWattman doesn't seem to matter - neither support undervolt on the blockchain driver, and otherwise they're more or less equal about getting stuff configured (except that Afterburner STILL blows Wattman away on fan control, NO CONTEST, and is just overall easier to use and work with by a TON).

 Sapphire Vega RX 56, not BIOS flashed (though Cast identifies it as having 64 compute units ANYWAY), runs about 1940 hash/s at -10 TDP 940 memclock and core downclocked in Afterburner to 1400 (or -10% core on Junkman).
 Didn't play much with the settings, as it seems like adjusting them CAUSES the hashrate to back down to the under 1400 range every time I tried until the "uninstall/reinstall" trick is done AGAIN.
 I also noticed that adjusting the settings caused the memory clock to reset to 800 Mhz and NOT BE FURTHER ADJUSTABLE a lot of the time - which contributes to the low hashrate issue.

 Not sure how long I'm going to put up with this very unstable BUGGY AS HECK setup, as I have another use I'd like to put the card back to.


 I can verify that Cast doesn't seem to CARE about that "HBCC" setting in Wattman - if I had this whole mess to do over again, I'd install JUST the driver and nothing else in the hopes of eliminating some of the buggyness.

Ugh this is stressing me out just reading it xD I can definitely feel the anger you've had at these rig(s) lol -- we have all been there!
Whats the other use you'll put it back to and @Citronick have you gotten your cards yet?

QuintLeo has the setup gotten any better? If you've gotten it stable it has to be pretty lucrative

[VoskCoin]

Really nice rig, I only wish my electricity price wasn't so high, would really like to build something like that myself. Keep up the good work!

Thanks my friend! What is your electric cost? Maybe it's solar time xD

[VoskCoin]

Nice work and video! Thank You!

thanks my friend and thanks for viewing

[VoskCoin]

  Really enjoyed all of your videos so far Vosk. Any best bang for your buck set ups are what I'm really looking into right now. I may try three card set ups with refurbished PC's next just to get my sols/s up quicker then go back to longer term builds with warranties.
   Thanks again, and keep up the good work.

Appreciate it man glad I could help!

What have you decided on to be some of the best bang for buck builds? That's actually a chapter I'm hoping to focus more on soon, I ordered 12x 1060 3b which I'm praying all have samsung memory (pipe dream probably) lol I pulled one out and surprisingly it is samsung but I doubt the other 11 all are

I like the 3 card setups for getting stuff up and running fast, my trio mining rigs have been rock solid since day one but chasing the better efficiency and condensing the parts has been the mission as of late

Thanks again man it's always awesome to get feedback and to know I could help someone out / or entertain

[crocozino]

well I read so much about glitches for amd rigs
and I'm terrified  that I have to do all this mamba umba stuff
cause after 10 days I'm gonna receive one vega.. I'll try to install and run it with my 1080ti all together
i hope I gonna make it

[QuintLeo]

well I read so much about glitches for amd rigs
and I'm terrified  that I have to do all this mamba umba stuff
cause after 10 days I'm gonna receive one vega.. I'll try to install and run it with my 1080ti all together
i hope I gonna make it

 The big issue right now with Vega is that AMD has taken forever to get WORKING drivers available for LINUX - so you had to use Win10 if you wanted to use the Blockchain drivers (needed for high XMR mining rates).

 In THEORY, the 17.40 drivers for LINUX have fixed that - but I've not had the chance to check that out (it's on my agenda for this week) and also include the Blockchain "fixes".

 Given that AMD CLAIMS the 17.30 "Blockchain" drivers are supported for Windows 7 WHEN IN ACTUAL FACT THEY DON'T WORK AT ALL UNDER 7, I am not holding my breath.



 AMD is doing a fairly good job of shooting themselves in the foot with their last 2.5 years of borked LINUX drivers, and their drivers that have been frequently total junk in general.

[hanskan]

Really nice rig, I only wish my electricity price wasn't so high, would really like to build something like that myself. Keep up the good work!

Thanks my friend! What is your electric cost? Maybe it's solar time xD

Already have 5kW solar system and selling absolutely nothing back to the grid. Will have to look into expanding. 20c US /kW. ~18kH/s currently and last electricity bill was ~$1700US per 60 days   
Even bought and installed solar+vent combo to save on cooling

[QuintLeo]

With THAT kind of an electric bill, you should consider moving to somewhere with lower cost electric.

 20 cent per KWH is prohibitive for long-term mining profits.

 My last bill was $550, and while I was "only" generating 15k-16k sol/s during that month I also had a ton of power feeding the A2 Scrypt farm (MORE than the ZEC farm I think, though it's gotten quite close) + some feeding my DNet/Moo Wrapper/BOINC farm, which includes all of my older powerhog HD7xxx and R9 280x/290 cards (along with some RX 470s and A10 iGPUs), and some feeding the CPUs I have mining Monero on most of the GPU-centric machines.


 Oh yeah - some of it was also going into the 1 Evap cooler I still have running, and a little into the A/C unit that keeps the seperate "office" type space cool.

[killerelite]

Nice man ! Good Work there
That rigs is compact and has really high density .
You can earn around 62 dollars from a single rig and thats only if you are mining zcash a stable coin
You can learn a lot more by mining niche coins like zcoin and others , thats like a 100 $ a day , i.e 1860 -3000 dollars minus the  power draw a day
Thats a good amount of money
Anyways would like to ask How much did it cost you in total and what amount are you earning realtime and how much power is it consuming .

[VoskCoin]

well I read so much about glitches for amd rigs
and I'm terrified  that I have to do all this mamba umba stuff
cause after 10 days I'm gonna receive one vega.. I'll try to install and run it with my 1080ti all together
i hope I gonna make it

haha that sounds like a headache in the making to me O_o how'd you get on with this?

[VoskCoin]

well I read so much about glitches for amd rigs
and I'm terrified  that I have to do all this mamba umba stuff
cause after 10 days I'm gonna receive one vega.. I'll try to install and run it with my 1080ti all together
i hope I gonna make it

 The big issue right now with Vega is that AMD has taken forever to get WORKING drivers available for LINUX - so you had to use Win10 if you wanted to use the Blockchain drivers (needed for high XMR mining rates).

 In THEORY, the 17.40 drivers for LINUX have fixed that - but I've not had the chance to check that out (it's on my agenda for this week) and also include the Blockchain "fixes".

 Given that AMD CLAIMS the 17.30 "Blockchain" drivers are supported for Windows 7 WHEN IN ACTUAL FACT THEY DON'T WORK AT ALL UNDER 7, I am not holding my breath.



 AMD is doing a fairly good job of shooting themselves in the foot with their last 2.5 years of borked LINUX drivers, and their drivers that have been frequently total junk in general.

I'm not nearly as experienced with AMD as you are but from everything I see I absolutely agree. . It's why I stick with the green team lol, I've seen some people give up with setting up a Vega rig lol

[VoskCoin]

Really nice rig, I only wish my electricity price wasn't so high, would really like to build something like that myself. Keep up the good work!

Thanks my friend! What is your electric cost? Maybe it's solar time xD

Already have 5kW solar system and selling absolutely nothing back to the grid. Will have to look into expanding. 20c US /kW. ~18kH/s currently and last electricity bill was ~$1700US per 60 days   
Even bought and installed solar+vent combo to save on cooling

ah that's tough . . where are you located?

I'm glad you have a solar system setup to help with that, did you setup your system yourself and if so how did that go?

[VoskCoin]

With THAT kind of an electric bill, you should consider moving to somewhere with lower cost electric.

 20 cent per KWH is prohibitive for long-term mining profits.

 My last bill was $550, and while I was "only" generating 15k-16k sol/s during that month I also had a ton of power feeding the A2 Scrypt farm (MORE than the ZEC farm I think, though it's gotten quite close) + some feeding my DNet/Moo Wrapper/BOINC farm, which includes all of my older powerhog HD7xxx and R9 280x/290 cards (along with some RX 470s and A10 iGPUs), and some feeding the CPUs I have mining Monero on most of the GPU-centric machines.


 Oh yeah - some of it was also going into the 1 Evap cooler I still have running, and a little into the A/C unit that keeps the seperate "office" type space cool.

I want to move to washington state to pursue my mining dreams T_T lol

Can you tell me more about why you dedicate those resources to a BOINC farm as opposed to slapping them on crypto?

[VoskCoin]

Nice man ! Good Work there
That rigs is compact and has really high density .
You can earn around 62 dollars from a single rig and thats only if you are mining zcash a stable coin
You can learn a lot more by mining niche coins like zcoin and others , thats like a 100 $ a day , i.e 1860 -3000 dollars minus the  power draw a day
Thats a good amount of money
Anyways would like to ask How much did it cost you in total and what amount are you earning realtime and how much power is it consuming .

Thanks brother!

Cost about 10k all cards bought at $700 or less all cards hash ~700 sols

Currently its on suprnova zen which is hard to monitor its exact output as opposed to being on a pool like zhash or luckpool https://zhash.pro/workers/znkPcNtQTKfBkwPqnQBdKRuifeVejrEhjRU where I get read outs for each rig w/ earnings

uses ~2600watts or so haven't measured it

[QuintLeo]

 My last bill was $550, and while I was "only" generating 15k-16k sol/s during that month I also had a ton of power feeding the A2 Scrypt farm (MORE than the ZEC farm I think, though it's gotten quite close) + some feeding my DNet/Moo Wrapper/BOINC farm, which includes all of my older powerhog HD7xxx and R9 280x/290 cards (along with some RX 470s and A10 iGPUs), and some feeding the CPUs I have mining Monero on most of the GPU-centric machines.

I want to move to washington state to pursue my mining dreams T_T lol

Can you tell me more about why you dedicate those resources to a BOINC farm as opposed to slapping them on crypto?

 Most of them are older AMD cards that wouldn't make a lot more doing mining (I've checked it occasionally), but are KILLER on the Distributed.net RC5-72 project (which I have been a participant in for well over a decade, and close to 2 decades working with DNet in general, but moved to working with it via the Moo Wrapper BOINC project a year and a half or so ago to monitize it somewhat via GridCoin).

 When I get tired of the instability of Win 10 as needed to run a Vega on Monero mining, the Vega 56 will be moving back over to Moo Wrapper as well - DNet is one of the few places that the Vega cards are comparable in performance to the GTX 1080 ti (not 1080, 1080 TI that was not a typo).
 I didn't manage to snag a Vega 64 before the prices on ALL the Vega cards got insane, but I suspect a well-tuned Vega RX 64 would be THE highest performance GPU for Dnet/Moo Wrapper work given how close the Vega RX 56 is - with the way overpriced Vega FE being a very close #2.

 The R9 290s, R9 280x, most of the HD 7xxx, and some of the RX 470s DID specifically mine crypto for a while before the big altcoin price/profitability jump, but I'm making enough right now that I don't NEED to squeeze every last penny out of every card I have.

 Turns out that my best current estimate on the "ZEC + Monero" machines is a hair more than the A2 farm is eating - but it's STILL quite close - 5800 watts vs right about 6000.

[VoskCoin]

 My last bill was $550, and while I was "only" generating 15k-16k sol/s during that month I also had a ton of power feeding the A2 Scrypt farm (MORE than the ZEC farm I think, though it's gotten quite close) + some feeding my DNet/Moo Wrapper/BOINC farm, which includes all of my older powerhog HD7xxx and R9 280x/290 cards (along with some RX 470s and A10 iGPUs), and some feeding the CPUs I have mining Monero on most of the GPU-centric machines.

I want to move to washington state to pursue my mining dreams T_T lol

Can you tell me more about why you dedicate those resources to a BOINC farm as opposed to slapping them on crypto?

 Most of them are older AMD cards that wouldn't make a lot more doing mining (I've checked it occasionally), but are KILLER on the Distributed.net RC5-72 project (which I have been a participant in for well over a decade, and close to 2 decades working with DNet in general, but moved to working with it via the Moo Wrapper BOINC project a year and a half or so ago to monitize it somewhat via GridCoin).

 When I get tired of the instability of Win 10 as needed to run a Vega on Monero mining, the Vega 56 will be moving back over to Moo Wrapper as well - DNet is one of the few places that the Vega cards are comparable in performance to the GTX 1080 ti (not 1080, 1080 TI that was not a typo).
 I didn't manage to snag a Vega 64 before the prices on ALL the Vega cards got insane, but I suspect a well-tuned Vega RX 64 would be THE highest performance GPU for Dnet/Moo Wrapper work given how close the Vega RX 56 is - with the way overpriced Vega FE being a very close #2.

 The R9 290s, R9 280x, most of the HD 7xxx, and some of the RX 470s DID specifically mine crypto for a while before the big altcoin price/profitability jump, but I'm making enough right now that I don't NEED to squeeze every last penny out of every card I have.

 Turns out that my best current estimate on the "ZEC + Monero" machines is a hair more than the A2 farm is eating - but it's STILL quite close - 5800 watts vs right about 6000.

That's really interesting thanks for sharing, I won't bug you with a ton of questions on it but I'm definitely going to go spend some more time researching this lol. Seems like a very cool project, you think GridCoin will have long-term usability or it will fall off? I imagine you believe in it as you dedicate a nice chunk of machinery to it!