SAVE money - undervolting 7970 XFX, self made VBE7 bios = TABLE OF CONTENTS =

[Wipeout2097]

Drakoin, in all honesty, scrypt PoW is a dead-end for the ones like us that pay through the nose for electricity, specially after ASICs and multipools.

Alongside with undervolting, it's actually interesting to look at coins that do not use scrypt or even worse scrypt-N.

[1714613238]

1714613238

[Amgclk65]

Hey fellow miners. Ive got a question about one of my rigs.
Its a gigabyte 7970 and his r9 280x. both are undervolted drawing 575 from the wall on a gold psi unit. do you guys think there's more room for undervolting
and keeping roughly 700 kh/s?

Your temperatures are high.


I get about 1513 khash, so about 4% more than you.
BUT I use only 516 Watts incl. everything, you use 11% more electricity than me.

However, of course, I had to invest 87 Euros more into my 2nd hand 7850.
Depending on the electricity prices sooner or later - but one day I will be better off :-)

I live in a super hot climate. i need to work on the temps.

I added a 7870 to the mix. undervolted to 1.030 as well. its seems like 1.030 is the the lowest for one gar and 1.060 for another at 1050 engine 1500 memory.
715 from the wall now
https://i.imgur.com/IyTRHQ7.png

[Amgclk65]

[/quote]

What settings did you use for this?

575w for both cards including the MOBO and peripherals?

[/quote]
Im running 1050 engine clock and 1500 memory.
 with seminer. the 575 was the whole system.
psu: evga 750 gold
chip: intel g 1830 lga 1150
mobo: msi z87m-g43
drive: 2.5 sata 3 320gb

[Amgclk65]

Now i need to get 6 r9 270 under bolted a bit better.
1000 from the wall.

https://i.imgur.com/AhWNPfM.png

[lordshawk]

Drakoin dude your work has inspired me.

have a couple shitty HIS 7970 reference cards that arent totally reference. Cant seem to hash over 570 (925/1375) on one and 710 (1024/1750) on the other.

Anyways I was running both with powertune +20, the 710 had 4500rpm fan speed at 1.256v while the 570 was taking 1.17v stock.

the 570 card is still hashing at 570 but at (812/1375 mhz) and a cool 1.025v with a powertune -20 .. fan is at 43% (2700 rpm). I might try and lower the v more but going to pick up a killawatt meter and give it a scan.

the 710 card is now hashing at 610 but at (885/1500 mhz) and a lower 1.200V with a powertune -20.. fan at 49% (3200rpm).

Will get the meter and post my results.. very interested in knowing the benefit and if I can maximize that spread further.

[lordshawk]

Updated by bios' again. Dropped the voltage on one card to 1.0v flat. (812/1375) .. 560khs. Powertuned -20.

The other 710khs, powertune 0 (-20 takes it to 610khs).. 1.125v (1024/1735)

in both cases powertune +20 helps nothing.

https://i.imgur.com/EA6GQqh.png

Should mention also that I use a thread concurrency of 10240 and -g 2

[flowerpots]

nvidia GTX 750 Ti - people are reporting 250khash from only 28W and 300khash from 38W

Wow, that would be 8-9 khash/Watt, so 2-3 times better than ATI. Almost as little as the GRID asics.
And the card costs less than 200 dollars? I have no experience with Nvidia cards,  and the 750 Ti is not yet in the hardware comparison list. Does anyone actually know about such a list with also all the Watt consumption values?  
Please post more such information. Thx.

I just ordered 2 of those GTX 750 Ti's. Will get them next week. If anyone wants to play with them on teamviewer: let me know!
I did read that 265 khash on 28W was possible with CudaMiner. Can't wait to put 5 of those in my rig!  

Cool. Looking forward to seeing your results!  
Do you own a wattmeter? If not, get one now, they are cheap.
I don't trust the internal power sensors, please measure the Watt differences on the wall plug (between: no card, card disabled, card full power)

thx

Just inserted them on my motherboard. Both cards do around 260 khash on cudaminer.

My system with 2 cards in idle: 75W.
Both cards full power: 200W.

So each cards around 62/63W and getting 260khash/s.

Edit: I tried to run it with 1 card:
My system with 1 card in idle: 62W.
1 card full power: 128W.

[lordshawk]

Updated by bios' again. Dropped the voltage on one card to 1.0v flat. (812/1375) .. 560khs. Powertuned -20.

The other 710khs, powertune 0 (-20 takes it to 610khs).. 1.125v (1024/1735)

in both cases powertune +20 helps nothing.

https://i.imgur.com/EA6GQqh.png

Should mention also that I use a thread concurrency of 10240 and -g 2

Keeping with a 0.59 ratio. I increased the cpu/mem clocks from 1024/1735 to 1060/1795. Kept the same voltage of 1.125 and boosted the powertune to +20. Now hashing away at 735+ khs. Incredible. To think I was running this at 1.256 and barely scratching 700. The GHZ reference bios is great. All it needed was to be tweaked down. Hashed all day with 1024/1735. Will continue hashing at 1060/1795 and see where it takes me.

[drakoin]

Drakoin, in all honesty, scrypt PoW is a dead-end for the ones like us that pay through the nose for electricity, specially after ASICs and multipools.
Alongside with undervolting, it's actually interesting to look at coins that do not use scrypt or even worse scrypt-N.

To look at it from another angle: Now with the low profitability it is more important than ever to save electricity.

It was still not a dead-end, when I started in December, but by now - I agree with you. A sad story it has become with scrypt coins on GPUs.

Why do you say "even worse scrypt-N" ?  I thought scrypt-N is ASIC resistant?

I tried vertcoin for quite a while, but never published my settings & measurements, sorry. And now the price is uninterestingly low.
Also tried ultracoin, and published my settings and measurements here in this thread, and in the ultracoin thread.

So yes, let's move on! Optimistic: Hey, what we've learnt here with scrypt ... will help us with other coin systems.

Which are interesting coins systems to look at, and optimize our cards for?

[drakoin]

about undervolting: http://ultracoin.net/undervolt.html

hex editor BIOS modifications - might be interesting for you if VBE7 doesn't help with your card.

[Wipeout2097]

Why do you say "even worse scrypt-N" ?  I thought scrypt-N is ASIC resistant?

No, I mean in the sense of scrypt-n using more power than scrypt. Now, I have no data to back up my claim, and it was a bit of apples and oranges, but vertcoin lead my cards to higher temperatures.

[virtualreality69]

nvidia GTX 750 Ti - people are reporting 250khash from only 28W and 300khash from 38W

I'd like to see proof of 250kh/s on < 30 watts.  Pic (or reliable source) or it didnt happen.

Just inserted them on my motherboard. Both cards do around 260 khash on cudaminer.

My system with 2 cards in idle: 75W.
Both cards full power: 200W.

So each cards around 62/63W and getting 260khash/s.

Edit: I tried to run it with 1 card:
My system with 1 card in idle: 62W.
1 card full power: 128W.

How long did you run the 750's? What temps are they posting? Did you undervolt at all?  If you didnt undervolt, test it our and let us know the kh/watt jump.

The low wattage (assuming stock) is nice, but the price of the card seems a bit high ($159 on newegg) right now.  Sure at 62 watts and 260kh the 4.2 kh/watt is nice, but with 6GPU's being the most supported by any consumer mobo at the moment I'm not excited.

I'm running 6 mildly undervolted (1.100v) 270's on one rig and they're also pushing 4+kh/watt (440 kh/s on 108 to 109 watts each).  From what I've read they can push 445kh/s rock solid on 1.000v which would likely drop them to under 100watts = almost 4.5 kh/watt!!

Even with the slightly less kh/watt on my rig you'd need more than 10 750 ti's to get the same hash rate.  So you're saving a fractional amount of electricity, but to get the same rate you'll need another CPU, mobo, ram , risers, psu (which could total almost $200). 

Can anyone argue that R9 270's are not the sweetest performance per dollar card?  Sub $200 investment for over 4kh/watt at around 450kh/s rock solid.

* Side note, the Asus R9 270's I got were at the price drop and averaged $179 per (thanks to open box finds) and will likely re-sell for around or over $200 in a few months when I upgrade.


- VR

nvidia GTX 750 Ti - people are reporting 250khash from only 28W and 300khash from 38W

Wow, that would be 8-9 khash/Watt, so 2-3 times better than ATI. Almost as little as the GRID asics.
And the card costs less than 200 dollars? I have no experience with Nvidia cards,  and the 750 Ti is not yet in the hardware comparison list. Does anyone actually know about such a list with also all the Watt consumption values?  
Please post more such information. Thx.

I just ordered 2 of those GTX 750 Ti's. Will get them next week. If anyone wants to play with them on teamviewer: let me know!
I did read that 265 khash on 28W was possible with CudaMiner. Can't wait to put 5 of those in my rig!  

Cool. Looking forward to seeing your results!  
Do you own a wattmeter? If not, get one now, they are cheap.
I don't trust the internal power sensors, please measure the Watt differences on the wall plug (between: no card, card disabled, card full power)

thx

Just inserted them on my motherboard. Both cards do around 260 khash on cudaminer.

My system with 2 cards in idle: 75W.
Both cards full power: 200W.

So each cards around 62/63W and getting 260khash/s.

Edit: I tried to run it with 1 card:
My system with 1 card in idle: 62W.
1 card full power: 128W.

[virtualreality69]

Oh snap, I forgot the 750ti is TINY at just  6.7 x 1.5 x 4.4 inches and no additional pci-e power needed. 

This could yield some sick new rig builds.  Anyone got an uber small foot-print 6 x 750ti build? Post pics or PM me please, I'd love to see them!

[jjj0923]

how do you get vb37 to run in dos mode?

I created a bootable dos stick, backed up my bios and when I tried to run the lastest version of vbe7 it said : cannot be run in DOS mode....

hmmmm

[virtualreality69]

I'm not sure who you're refereing to, but I run VBE7 in regular old windows (not dos mode).  The Actual flashing of the Bios is done in DOS mode. I use ATIflash, which from what I read is THE best method out there.

Cheers,
- VR 

how do you get vb37 to run in dos mode?

I created a bootable dos stick, backed up my bios and when I tried to run the lastest version of vbe7 it said : cannot be run in DOS mode....

hmmmm

[jjj0923]

I'm not sure who you're refereing to, but I run VBE7 in regular old windows (not dos mode).  The Actual flashing of the Bios is done in DOS mode. I use ATIflash, which from what I read is THE best method out there.

Cheers,
- VR 

how do you get vb37 to run in dos mode?

I created a bootable dos stick, backed up my bios and when I tried to run the lastest version of vbe7 it said : cannot be run in DOS mode....

hmmmm

thanks = must have had a brain fart this morning - forgot I could go back to my pc and edit the rom file there using VBu7 then take it back to my miner and upload the modified rom file.

[drakoin]

I wrote a another looooong explanation how to calculate a base price for a coin.

Have a look here: LOVEcoin posting #348 mining price

And this time, I came up with a really cool and short rule-of-thumb
to know if a (scrypt) coin costs you money or brings you money:

difficulty / blockreward / 2012 = coin price



Before asking, please read that posting #348 first. Thx ;-)

[Amgclk65]

Ive been very motivated by this thread to save electricity. Here's my latest under volt setting..
Im running  7970,280x,7950,7870. All running in the mid 800 clocks and 900 memory.
.950mv across all gpu.
https://i.imgur.com/NmJHbKcl.png

Here's my total system pulling 666 watts.

https://i.imgur.com/WgWqqjEl.jpg

[virtualreality69]

You are a god among men.  Please post more on your config for each card please.  One of these days my 280x's are going to burn the house down at 1070/1500, but they throttle hard at most of the lower settings I've tried.

Any good undervolting guides for linux out there? My 280x's at stock voltage seem blazing hott running in mid 70. I've been very happy with all my undervolted cards running on windows.  


UPDATE:
The UPS and PSU on my rig with 6 x R9 270's LOVES you (800/900)! I drop under 200kh/s (about 6-7%), but its consuming 110+ LESS watts (about 12-13%). Haven't done the exact math yet, but I'm liking the numbers so far

Do you have any lesser underclocked settings I can try on my 280x's? They really drop kh/s hard at 800/900. I'm not surprised though because they really spaz on most other settings besides 1070/1500. I'm testing ok around 825/1000, but its not as great as I'd like.


UPDATE AGAIN:
Power Color 280x's like 1020/1250 i19 and will run around 680 which is godly compared to the old 1070/1500 i19 getting 720.
Temps are down a bit with 1.100V, cant wait to measure the wattage from the wall and try to push 1.075!

Ive been very motivated by this thread to save electricity. Here's my latest under volt setting..
Im running  7970,280x,7950,7870. All running in the mid 800 clocks and 900 memory.
.950mv across all gpu.

Here's my total system pulling 666 watts.

[Amgclk65]

Hello.. Here's my config file for sgminer. It just takes time to find the sweet spot of most gpu. i start at a low memory clock and go the full range of engine clocks looking for a sweet spot. Low engine speeds is what really saves power. Also find the sweet spot before under volting. I don't have any guides. I use the normal vbe7.
https://i.imgur.com/D4GtGOql.png