To start:Important info i see most people missing in their configs or they do not set them right for each coin (each coin is different from how popular it is(more hashing power at it) difficulty rising to how it was programmed for how fast miners should be finding new blocks.
--queue|-Q <arg> Minimum number of work items to have queued (0 - 10) (default: 1)
--no-submit-stale Don't submit shares if they are detected as stale
--expiry|-E <arg> Upper bound on how many seconds after getting work we consider a share from it stale (default: 120)
My setup:cgminer 3.5.0
radeon r9 290x (i always update drivers, never had a problem yet, only down side to remember is when you install or update amd drivers with more than one card the new drivers automatically set crossfire to on so you have to go in and turn it off)
brands for each card (3cards total) asus, xfx, msi
intel i7 4770 stock
asus sabertooth z87
gskill ripjawz 2x8gb sticks 1333mhz
128gb ssd ocz vertex 3
ocz 750w psu
thermaltake 500w psu
add2psu
table top fan(air flow)
windows 8 64bit
each card 920-940k/hs
each card 800-850wu
cgminer configintensity - 19 (going to 20 only gives 75k/hs extra total, not worth it in my opinion)
thread concurrency - 32768 ( also 24000 works but has some issues with random restarts, cgwatcher comes in handy in those situations)
as mentioned above: queue is 0 because the coin is found so fast no need for a queue, no stale submit because why bother submitting crap shares, expirey set to 90(change as needed based on coin) since each coin i mine at the moment is suppose to be found in 30 sec on average(which give or take a few seconds seems to be right) then if my cards are working on something after 90 seconds then that work is almost guaranteed to be worthless so trash it and get fresh work on the new block).
only other setting that i have seen make a difference is turning autofan off and setting my fans to start and stay at 85% all the time unless they reach 94c then tune to 100%(never reached this nor had a problem, if your getting close to 94c then you should check your airflow).
Where to place your rig:If you don't have a basement place front of rig or "intake" at an ac vent or open window(in winter). if you have a basement(as i do) it works great if its not completely insulated, mine is underground so it stays cool all season and very cold in the winter.
Card temps:gpu1 - 77c gpu2 - 68c gpu3 - 88c
currently i do not have risers so my cards are close together(ordered risers from 3 different places still have yet to recieve any hopefully 3rd times a charm, just order some 2 days ago from cali)
*side not on risers: don't order from ebay china, never received them and no usa sellers had them, buyahash.com ordered payed with coins received usps tracking never received them(4 weeks now in case your wondering) last place i order cryptocables.com, seems fine for the moment, if i remember i will update this if i receive them, they also accept bitcoins as payment which is how i paid.
Overview:my settings and setup is from 7 days of tweaking it to work the best i think it can for the moment(always room for improvement in my opinion). currently have been mining for 4 weeks(after the initial 7) with very little issues. I have had some pool issues so keep in mind that you should at least check your pool to make sure its up and you are mining on it, also always have a failover setup in config file so that if one pool goes down your rig isn't doubling as a paper weight.
hopefully this might help someone who is mining with the 290x or anyone who wants to mine with them. i have had great results with them and glad i didn't spend around the same for used 7970's but to each his own.
*I wont be checking this post for comments (don't take it personally i just choose not to) so anything specific feel free to pm me.
