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

[drakoin]

This is my main confusion, specs on post #13 are different from the list you have written.

Sorry for your confusion, but this is not a thread in which it a final result is presented right from the beginning, but this is a thread in which several settings were tried out. 2 weeks ago, I did not know anything about this. In this thread, I reported four settings: (0) was the stupid unefficient stock settings with which the card was sold to me. And not only (C), but also (A) and (B) are all three good parameter combinations. They all optimize somehow:

(A) the best I could get with stock voltage, without changing the ROM. Least dangerous so to speak.
(B) the highest khash I could get without going to crazy temperatures, or instability.
(C) the overall optimum so far. Less khash than max, but much less power consumption.

All I would love to know is that:
gpu-engine in cgminer: 854? or 1025?
gpu-memclock in cgminer: 799? or 1635?
gpu-vddc in cgminer: 0.975? or 1.035?

The best answer is probably: Both :-)

The 1.038, 1025, 1635 is the superdooper maximum-khash settings (B) in posting #28,
while the 0.893, 854, 799 is the setting (C), it was found much later as being incredibly economical in terms of khash/Watt.

Is it clearer now?  If it works, please leave it running for a while with the "support mining for drakoin" pool settings cgminer.conf.
And please remember us in a month - let's say on Valentine's day - and tell us about your experiences, and how much you saved.

[Mestremuten]

I understand that.

You don't understand me or I express myself very bad.

What are your BIOS specs?

core clock in BIOS:
memory clock in BIOS:
voltage in BIOS:

Are these the same for the supper dupper power and the max Khash/Watts ratio?

All I need to know now are BIOS specs.

[drakoin]

You don't understand me or I express myself very bad.

No problem, your trying it out just makes this manual better :-)

What are your BIOS specs?

The BIOS specs are in posting #36.

After flashing with that BIOS - I did that only once! - I could choose the whole range of voltages all the way down to 850 mV.
From then on, all changes were only done with cgminer.conf, or manually inside cgminer.

[Mestremuten]

OK, I didn't saw that last night... strange..
those BIOS specs are for both ?? for supperdupper and Watts optimization? or do you use supperdupper with another BIOS specs.

[drakoin]

Here's

• a new BIOS with more stable settings, and
• a longer manual with much more explanations,
• now including instructions how to BIOS atiflash in DOS (instead of the unsafe atiwinflash).
• Moreover, there are 4 cgminer.conf settings files, for the 3 different optimal points - and factory settings for comparison.

Download:
https://mega.co.nz/#!x8g1WJ4Z!D8Sw9Ue3MRxhYpUBmY3GbA8MGl862caCZfREg8dj47g


For more explanations, visit #37, and for a summary of the analysis ... #103.

I only changed 3 values compared to the original vgabios rom:



Is that it, now? I guess, soon I can take care of different challenges :-)

Happy mining!

[noedelx]

might give it a shot again to edit my 6970 Bios ( my current one from factory is broken and cant overclock)


edit : seems to be only for 7970 =[

[drakoin]

might give it a shot again to edit my 6970 Bios ( my current one from factory is broken and cant overclock)
edit : seems to be only for 7970 =[

The strategy will work.
Please try this BIOS editor http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1962/techpowerup-radeon-bios-editor-v1-28/ and tell us if it works for your card's BIOS.

Still download my package, because of the detailed instructions in there.

[Mestremuten]

NOW YES, it is super very clear.

Drakoin FOR PRESIDENT.

THis is PURE aWeSoMe.

I'm getting 600 k/hash highly undervolted.

I will post how to stays in 24h and I will try to get my ASIC quality of the card.

EDIT:
what confuses me is that you dont use the typical:
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1

why?

[Mestremuten]

OK, I've experienced missfunction after entering windows (the display just fucked up), having 0,850 at performance in bios is too dangerous for my gpu card, it seems that after loading ati control center the card goes to performance mode (and thus the fail). So boot at 0,950V and now I have 0,950V at perfomance too. All is working flawlessly.
I've bought another XFX 7970 same model just to have the twin. At 244€ these monsters are really cheap. Next days I'm going to lower voltage in the config file and see what I get.

The twin is goign to be checked just in case the card was narrowly better to undevolt. I'm going to keep one at stock value. I need to play BF4 guys .

I have to start undervolting one 7950 that I have also. What I've learnt is that the 7970 with "magical" values in config works very very stable at 700 Khash and at 80ºC at 100% fans with I=13. HD 7950 values were rising and falling constanly albeit using high intensity values resulting in poor windows performances (I had only one gpu).

I've read that XFX models are avoided by the community, with this post has been clearly demonstrated that 7970 (and a XFX one) is a BEAST. 7950 was considered the best option.... I feel happy to know that 7970 is much better by far.

This is the post of the year guys.

P:D: I don't have faith in undervolting my 7950....

[drakoin]

NOW YES, it is super very clear. Drakoin FOR PRESIDENT. THis is PURE aWeSoMe.

Made me smile. Thanks a lot. :-)

Spread the word!
Imagine, the whole network starts saving 25% or 33% or even 50% electricity per khash.


Can use this image:
http://cdn.overclock.net/1/13/900x900px-LL-13f010ab_www.tiny.cc_-improve7970.gif

I'm getting 600 k/hash highly undervolted.
I will post how to stays in 24h and I will try to get my ASIC quality of the card.

cool. Once you have it >24h stable, please report all relevant values.

what confuses me is that you dont use the typical:
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
why?

Yes, I had a START.bat file with those commands, but now I am starting and controlling cgminer with cgwatcher. Wait, I have an idea ... yes I can put a .BAT file into cgwatcher. Done.   But still: I don't see ANY difference. Does anyone know what these commands really do?

OK, I've experienced missfunction after entering windows (the display just fucked up), having 0,850 at performance in bios is too dangerous for my gpu card,

But the 850mV is just for booting. Then cgminer takes over, anyways.
I can also not run it with 850mV with much higher than 500 engine speed, e.g. CC550 MC825 at VDDC850 crashes. I tried that out.

it seems that after loading ati control center the card goes to performance mode (and thus the fail).

ah, alright. To which enginge/memory-clockspeeds?

I am not using that ati control center. Do you have to?



I tried what happens if I don't specify any clockspeeds in cgminer, and
then it jumps to CC501 MC1375  - which is the "#2" that I can see in VBE7.

I am wondering if I should make an "end-user BIOS" (for people who don't want to tweak)
with
#0 VDDC=910
#0 cc=404 mc=555
#2 cc=854 mc=799
that's a slightly higer than optimal voltage, for stability.

But with those settings, as far as I understand it now,
cgminer should then be able to be run without giving any clockspeed settings.
?

But before I create that rom, I am still hoping for even better settings.

How many khash at how much Watt do you get out of the cc854/mc799 settings (if you are using them), and what is your lowest stable voltage?

So boot at 0,950V and now I have 0,950V at perfomance too.

but now you cannot go lower with your voltage in cgminer, no?

All is working flawlessly.
I've bought another XFX 7970 same model just to have the twin. At 244€ these monsters are really cheap.
Next days I'm going to lower voltage in the config file and see what I get.
The twin is goign to be checked just in case the card was narrowly better to undevolt.
I'm going to keep one at stock value. I need to play BF4 guys .

Sounds enthuasiastic :-)   I like that.  Tweaking hardware is fun, isn't it?

I have to start undervolting one 7950 that I have also. What I've learnt is that the 7970 with "magical" values in config works very very stable at 700 Khash and at 80ºC at 100% fans with I=13.

ooops.
100% fan --> Say bye bye to the fan earlier
80ºC --> Say bye bye to the GPU earlier
80ºC --> much much energy consumption

Mine is running at 67ºC now, very low fan.

Do you have a kill-a-watt / wattmeter?

HD 7950 values were rising and falling constanly albeit using high intensity values resulting in poor windows performances (I had only one gpu).
P:D: I don't have faith in undervolting my 7950....

when large fluctuations, I go slightly higher with memclock, or slightly (like 1, 2 or 5) lower with engine clock.

I guess, every card has a sweet spot. Keep on trying, I'd say. The recipe is clear now.

I've read that XFX models are avoided by the community, with this post has been clearly demonstrated that 7970 (and a XFX one) is a BEAST. 7950 was considered the best option.... I feel happy to know that 7970 is much better by far.

YES. And I got mine for 229 euros, just before the rush! I could afford only 1, though.

This is the post of the year guys.

hahaha *proud* thank you very much.

Please consider to have your rig running a bit for me, I am really poor:

Code:

{"pools" : [{
"name" : "support mining for drakoin at middlecoin.com",
"url" : "stratum+tcp://middlecoin.com:8080",
"user" : "15UipUK3kGcArJzRyHbVKrwG5TsqYi1b9N",
"pass" : "x", "pool-priority" : "0"
},{
"name" : "support mining for drakoin at doge.crypto49er.com",
"url" : "stratum+tcp://doge.crypto49er.com:9555",
"user" : "DFPA5UXRH8jzJGEGWtJQVq27jyf1Nd4KEt",
"pass" : "x", "pool-priority" : "1"
}]}

or donate directly BTC 15UipUK3kGcArJzRyHbVKrwG5TsqYi1b9N or [doge] DFPA5UXRH8jzJGEGWtJQVq27jyf1Nd4KEt

[Thirtybird]

	voltage	CC	MC	CC/MC	temp	fanspeed	khash/s	Watt	khash/Watt	electricity	coins	profit/month
(0)	1.175	925	1375	0.673	71	65%	475	237	2.00	33 €	86 €	52 €
(C)	0.893	854	799	1.069	67	45%	578	153	3.78	24 €	104 €	80 €

So, I'm expected to believe that by going from 0 (high clocks) to C (low clocks), your hashrate has gone up?  But in your other table, the numbers are not the same...

	CC	MC	Volt	Celsius	khash	Watt	khash/watt
(A)	907	1450	1.175	74	622	277	2.25
(B)	1025	1635	1.038	73	692	240	2.88
(C)	854	799	0.893	70	578	153	3.78

I think you've got a typo in your first table where you're claiming 2khash/watt - verify what that hash rate actually is - I'm guessing it's going to be somewhere between the first two lines in your second chart.

I do like what you've done, and I agree with the concept - I'm mining coins with cards that only use about 25W to generate ~.004 BTC day each

[drakoin]

thanks for your attention, Thirtybird, cool name  

So, I'm expected to believe

No, of course not. Don't believe - just try it out yourself.

that by going from 0 (high clocks) to C (low clocks), your hashrate has gone up?  

Yes. Exactly. You are hitting the point. Big surprise, isn't it?
And this is where the huge electricity savings are actually happening.
THERE IS a sweet spot down there. And even weirder, with CC > MC.

You can read this posting #28, that was typed directly after that discovery:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395004.msg4358354#msg4358354

But in your other table, the numbers are not the same...
I think you've got a typo in your first table where you're claiming 2khash/watt

	voltage	CC	MC	CC/MC	temp	fanspeed	khash/s	Watt	khash/Watt	electricity	coins	profit/month
(0)	1.175	925	1375	0.673	71	65%	475	237	2.00	33 €	86 €	52 €

Numbers ARE the same. Just doublechecked them again. Only diff is the temperature, 67 vs 70C, but that WAS different in both moments.
Just for clarification: There are FOUR settings (0), (A), (B), and (C).  (0) is factory settings, NOT optimized for mining. (A)-(C) optimized for mining.


And: Nope. No Typo for the Watts, nor the khash, nor the quotient:
475khash/s divided by 237Watt result in ... 2.0042  
That's the factory settings, which I took as the baseline to compare all my later improvements.

- verify what that hash rate actually is - I'm guessing it's going to be somewhere between the first two lines in your second chart.

How can I get you from guessing to trying out?

- I'm mining coins with cards that only use about 25W to generate ~.004 BTC day each

Very cool. THAT is efficiency.  Now I have to guess: You are not from the future, no? So you are using very different hardware.

When I started 2 months ago ... of course, I first stumbled into ASIC miners. But what I didn't like was the time-until-delivery, the price, and most of all, that they can only be used for this in itself rather useless hashing calculation, nothing else.  By now, I might be willing to change my opinion. The immense power consumption of GPUs is just crazy.  

So it seems to boil down to two choices:
Otherwise-useless hardware (which is also difficult to buy) but with good hash/watt ratio...
... versus bad hash/watt ratio on versatile ubiquitous hardware - which can be sold to gamers.

It's a bit like ... rare metals, water consumption & pollution .... versus peak oil and CO2, isn't it?

After how many days will you break even with the purchasing costs?

I do like what you've done, and I agree with the concept

Thank you very much. Happy to read that!  

Do you have GPU friends? -->

Let's spread the word, imagine the altcoin network starts saving 1/4, 1/3 or even 1/2 of electricity.

[marcje]

DRAKOIN MAN!!!! THANKS DUDE!

I flashed both of my 7970 and now pulling 400 Watt out of the socket for the whole system, my cards run 2x 586 Kh/s

You are awesome!!!

[Mestremuten]

but now you cannot go lower with your voltage in cgminer, no?

I don't know what really happens when you write a lower V in config than in bios... This could be proved easily by writting a very low voltage and see what happens... could the GPU be damaged?

[drakoin]

DRAKOIN MAN!!!! THANKS DUDE! You are awesome!!!

And you make me very happy with that. What a good start into my day. Thanks  

Still, these days are a bit frightening for me. I am not earning enough with this whole cryptocurrency thing. That has to change - or I have to quit!  I seem too technical, and too little into actually making money (teach me how to make money!).   After all of my work for this here, and your enthusiastic reaction ... I ask for direct tips, or that you let your rig run a little bit for me. Use a cgminer.conf from the download package #45  or from the end of posting #50 - or just send me some bitcoin dust to BTC 15UipUK3kGcArJzRyHbVKrwG5TsqYi1b9N or [doge] DFPA5UXRH8jzJGEGWtJQVq27jyf1Nd4KEt

I flashed both of my 7970 and now pulling 400 Watt out of the socket for the whole system, my cards run 2x 586 Kh/s

COOL. Congratulations. Yes, 586 seems about right, same here. That's the most optimal sweet spot so far. Looks low at first glance, compared to all those people reporting 750 khash/s - but they are running their systems at 80-90 degrees, full throttle fans, and with insane power consumption.

I guess, you use the settings (C) cgminer.conf with cc=854 mc=799 ?  

Which voltage? What temperature before/after?  

What was the power consumption of the whole system before?

Thanks!
 

[drakoin]

but now you cannot go lower with your voltage in cgminer, no?

I don't know what really happens when you write a lower V in config than in bios...

When I tried, it did not work. The BIOS #0 voltage VDDC was always the lowest I could go to.

This could be proved easily by writting a very low voltage and see what happens...

Yes, I guess one day I will also make such an all-easy-peasy BIOS. But I am still hoping that someone finds an even better combination of settings. It would be nice to squeeze a few more absolute khash out of our cards, with the same power consumption ratio khash/Watt - wouldn't it?

could the GPU be damaged?

Man, you are asking THE question that worried me right from when I started to look into this. Of course, the GPU can be damaged, and with all we are doing here. YES. That's why I say everywhere: Do you own research, read the whole thread.  The company which sold the GPU to us has found values which hopefully are relatively safe for extended gaming - and who knows if even that is true?  But we are leaving their path (which was made for gaming, anyways.) We are pushing the boundaries by changing voltages, clockspeeds - and letting them run for 24/7, of course. I cannot, and will not guarantee anything. It's all your own responsibility.
If I were to own a GPU farm, I would be happy out of my mind finding this manual here, because I could safe some real bucks, increase my profit, and that's not only in expensive countries - BUT I would probably first try it only on a small portion of my rigs, and see how they behave long term. If they still do well after a weeks ... I would go back here, tell everyone, and donate a 2nd time to drakoin :-)
The way to reliably destroy your card is OVER-VOLTING too much, I read in several places. Water-cooling-gamers dare that to get stability with even higher clockspeeds. But I am almost sure, that will come with over-proportionally higher electricity consumption, so I am not interested in going there anyway. I want to extend my cards' life (low temperature, stable running), get as much khash as possible (they cost a fortune, and I need to reach break-even early) - and I want to reduce the necessary power (lowest possible voltage, optimal sweet spots) per khash. 
Actually, thinking about it now - there is one more reason to do this, and that's saving money when buying hardware: I do not need expensive crazy 1500W PSUs, because my whole system uses so little now.  And 1000W or 700W PSUs you can get second hand, too! So:

Spread the word!

Use the banner above, if you want to. Or change your signature to
= Make 50% more profit = save power, pollute less = just tweak your GPU = www.tiny.cc/improve7970 =

Code:

[glow=white,2,300] [color=red] = Make 50% more profit[/color] = [color=green]save power, pollute less[/color] = [color=orange] just tweak your GPU[/color] = [url=https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395004.msg4500529#msg4500529]www.tiny.cc/improve7970[/url] = [/glow]

Enjoy your day. Happy mining!
(click)

[marcje]

DRAKOIN MAN!!!! THANKS DUDE! You are awesome!!!

And you make me very happy with that. What a good start into my day. Thanks  

Still, these days are a bit frightening for me. I am not earning enough with this whole cryptocurrency thing. That has to change - or I have to quit!  I seem too technical, and too little into actually making money (teach me how to make money!).   After all of my work for this here, and your enthusiastic reaction ... I ask for direct tips, or that you let your rig run a little bit for me. Use a cgminer.conf from the download package #45  or from the end of posting #50 - or just send me some bitcoin dust to BTC 15UipUK3kGcArJzRyHbVKrwG5TsqYi1b9N or [doge] DFPA5UXRH8jzJGEGWtJQVq27jyf1Nd4KEt

I flashed both of my 7970 and now pulling 400 Watt out of the socket for the whole system, my cards run 2x 586 Kh/s

COOL. Congratulations. Yes, 586 seems about right, same here. That's the most optimal sweet spot so far. Looks low at first glance, compared to all those people reporting 750 khash/s - but they are running their systems at 80-90 degrees, full throttle fans, and with insane power consumption.

I guess, you use the settings (C) cgminer.conf with cc=854 mc=799 ?  

Which voltage? What temperature before/after?  

What was the power consumption of the whole system before?

Thanks!
 

Im running the cc=854 mc=799 config and its just working smooth, 1 card does the job with .955v and cant go any lower while the other is stable at .895v. The cards only get to 65C with 55% fanspeed so its really great!

The power consumption on the system before was like 600W, now its at 370W so thats a 230W decrease which is just alot! Thankyou for that!:)

I am gonna send you some doge's when i get home!:)

[Aaroenz0r]

Why don't you guys just switch to watercooling?

My 2 xfx (reference design) @ 1060/1760 do 750 khash each. 1050mv core voltge, 1550mv mem voltage

system pulls 570 watt, and de card won't go above 52 degrees.

Increase of 10 degrees results in ~75 watt more power out of the socket, so keep you cards cool people!

[Grim]

Nice thread!

Why dont you guys also lower your MEMORY voltage?
With only 799 mhz this should be easily possible and reduce wattage even more.

Or is the memory voltage not adjustable with these xfx models?


Besides that I assume that at memory clock of 800+mhz the TIMINGS of the memory go up.
See Stilts thread here for more info: https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12369.0

Stilt can also tighten the memory timings so that you could maybe even go lower with your memory clock.
Tighter timings use less wattage than higher clocks so another factor you could reduce wattage with.

[Zukii]

Very interesting read.
Mine are currently at 1.087 vddc, 1000 core and 1700 mem for 650kh/s (and top card is ~78c both with 100% fan).

I'm using Sapphire 7970s Dual-X OC with Boost.
I flashed them both and for ages couldn't find a rom that even worked, let alone gave me > 700 as everyone suggested was possible.

This looks really good for reducing wear on the cards and saving energy bills! Will take a longer look into this.

Do you think it'd be possible with these settings to have 4 cards on one power supply? Maybe even 5?
e.g. Get a 1200W/1500W? Platinum/Gold and it would be able to power all 5 + cpu/mobo etc?