MOAR New Radeon 5970 cards in stock for $499.99

[MajorMiner]

Apparently Unityelectronics got more of these ATI Radeon 5970 cards back in stock for $499.99 http://www.unityelectronics.com/products/6475/ATI_Radeon_HD_5970_PCI_E_PCI_Express_x16_2GB_GDDR5_2560x1600_Video_Card_Dual_DVI_Mini_Display_Port_102C0000300_New and they still come with these goodies:

DVI-to-HDMI Adapter (with Audio, p/n 6140063501G)
CrossFire Bridge (p/n 6110024000G)
Mini Display Port -to- Display Port Cable (p/n 6110028300G)

I've been running 5 of the Visionteks 5970s but ended up getting 3 more from the Unity guys. Excellent cards, came very well packaged in 2 days after I ordered (Cali to Cali), ATI original manufacturer, so far so good. 

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[gw4tt]

Newegg has them in stock as well http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814105001

[coinhammer]

Newegg has them in stock as well http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814105001

Bunch of people already complained about how Newegg crammed the cards diagonally and damaged the brackets. Either way glad to see more of these cool cards.

[AngelusWebDesign]

Who would be insane enough to buy more cards with BTC @ $5.80?

Sure, I'm not going to turn off the rigs I have, but to run out and fill my shopping cart with MORE of them, as if mining BTC was still a good money-making venture today? That would be insane.

I'm mining at a little over 6 GH/s right now, and pocketing less than $7 a day after electricity.  And it's taking a whole room of my house, etc. etc.
I'm only mining today because I already have the cards set up and running from a couple months ago.

Guess what? There are a 100 other things you could do with your time & money that will make you MUCH MORE. Pick one of those, for crying out loud.

Do you realize how close the BTC price is to the breakeven point? So close it's scary. It could easily inch closer to that point, and then you'd never see your $4,000 investment.

And don't think people are falling all over themselves to buy a used $500 video card -- especially in a world where you can't make money with Bitcoin (if Bitcoin collapsed, etc.)

I'm going to have a hard enough time selling my $100 and $200 video cards when the day comes...

Moral of the story: Only buy $500 mining cards today if you're prepared to spend that much on your future gaming rig. Because that's where the cards are going to end up.

[coinhammer]

Well the 5970 make for a banging gaming rig too!

[mike678]

well screw you for telling everyone, i need these to stay in stock

they aren't going any where anytime soon. Some where has always had them in stock for 500 since newegg first got them a few weeks ago. There was a short period where the price went up to 600 at unity but when newegg got more they all went to 500. I'm not quite sure why people are posting this again. This isn't really news since theyve never been off the market and 99% of the time they cost 500.

[fcmatt]

Assuming diff stays the same. Power costs .03 kW/hr. 400 watts to make it go.
The card can do 840 mh/s. It only truly costs 500 to make it operate (mb/ram/cpu/PSU/etc... already exist)

You are looking at 2.50 cents a day profit. More then 200 days to break even.

You basically need free or almost free power for this to make sense. If power costs .12 kW/hr.. you only
make 1.64 a day and the break even point is about 304 days.

I am beginning to think people are no longer in it to make "good" money.. they are just doing it for other reasons
that do not appeal to me.

Rough math but the break even time frame is basically moving farther and farther away. And I am making some
large assumption here.

[jjiimm_64]

Assuming diff stays the same. Power costs .03 kW/hr. 400 watts to make it go.
The card can do 840 mh/s. It only truly costs 500 to make it operate (mb/ram/cpu/PSU/etc... already exist)

You are looking at 2.50 cents a day profit. More then 200 days to break even.

You basically need free or almost free power for this to make sense. If power costs .12 kW/hr.. you only
make 1.64 a day and the break even point is about 304 days.

I am beginning to think people are no longer in it to make "good" money.. they are just doing it for other reasons
that do not appeal to me.

Rough math but the break even time frame is basically moving farther and farther away. And I am making some
large assumption here.

One of the biggest assumptions you made is that the price of btc stays at 6......  which I do not think will happen.  it will go up, or it will go down, but I doubt it will be at 6 in 2 months.

I just bot 4 of these.  I already have an 8 gpu rig pulling 1380 watts.  would love to have a 2900 Mhsh rig pulling 1200 W

[fcmatt]

What price do you think btc will be?
I am going to guess the constant selling by miners to pay the elect bill will keep steady downward pressure
while not enough fresh money will come in to negate it.
Thus a price of 4-7 is my 1-12 month price guess.

Obviously I am not buying more video cards. I will wait and see what 7xxx brings us and I may
very well sell most of my video cards in the next few weeks/months. That would allow me to purchase a couple
of nice 7xxx series cards for future gaming/mining and keeping me ahead of the curve tech wise.

If mining becomes unpopular for btc price reasons things will not look good for resale value of 5xxx series
cards. 6xxx should hold up slightly better but only the most desirable models.

[fcmatt]

Assuming diff stays the same. Power costs .03 kW/hr. 400 watts to make it go.
The card can do 840 mh/s. It only truly costs 500 to make it operate (mb/ram/cpu/PSU/etc... already exist)

Card doesn't draw 400W.  290 maybe.  If you underclock the ram it is more like 250.

I was being generous but I am assuming a full over clock to get the most speed out of it. So lets say greater
then 300 but less then 350. Then throw in the electricity needed for cooling/fans and a tiny bit more from the MB/ram/whatever.

But the point still stands. The numbers I was using for elect cost was really low at .03 and still quite good at .12
which easily offsets the 400 watt value i was using.

You can share your numbers with us if you want. I just do not care for the time line for pay off is my point.
Who knows what 500 dollars will buy in 3-5 months.

[coinhammer]

Everything in life has risk.  Obviously for you the risk is not worth the potential reward.

I was just pointing out it isn't as bad as you make it seem.  

I bought 3 more 5970s a couple weeks back for 3 reasons
1) they have good resale value.  check ebay completed sales on used 5970s.  going for $400+.  I expect they will be $300+ even after 7000 series.
So capital loss is reduced.  If one pulled the plug in next two - three months they would be looking at $100 loss per unit.  If they pulled the plug in a year it might be $200 to $300.  Much easier to reach break even if the equipment has value.

2) I have all the parts to build a rig other than GPUs so cost is limited to $1500.  The capital at risk is hedged by good resale value of 5970s.  Last 5 used 5970 auctions on ebay ranged from $450 to $530. The 5970s hold value because they are faster than ANY 6xxx series card except the 6990 (which runs $730).  Even @ $500 a gamer is getting 90% of the performance for 70% of the price.

3) My electrical rates are low ($0.095/kWh) and will go lower pretty soon when utility switches to fall/winter pricing.  That combined with fact I can leave rig in garage (no need to take up space & noise in house) makes it an easy call.

My current 3x 5970 rig uses ~850W at the wall and gets 2.5GH/s.  At current price and difficulty that works out to ~$200 per month net.  Simplisticly that is a break even of ~7 months but that is a crude way of looking at it.  The cards retain value and are slowly depreciating.  I hit break even in one month because the resale value of cards + revenue > capital cost of cards.

To each his own.  For someone w/ high electrical rates or needing to build entire machine it likely isn't worth it.  Someone who can't afford to run more than one (to reduce system cost / GPU) it may not be worth it.  Thats great.  Hopefully people turn off high cost rigs and difficulty goes even lower.

Awesome factual examples instead of the all too frequent "the Sky Is Falling" BS coming from people who were getting into Bitcoin thinking it was some Get Rich Quick Scheme. I didnt get into Bitcoin mining for the pump and dump of the moment either, and so far its been enriching, entertaining and educational.

[Splirow]

Everything in life has risk.  Obviously for you the risk is not worth the potential reward.

I was just pointing out it isn't as bad as you make it seem.  

I bought 3 more 5970s a couple weeks back for 3 reasons
1) they have good resale value.  check ebay completed sales on used 5970s.  going for $400+.  I expect they will be $300+ even after 7000 series.
So capital loss is reduced.  If one pulled the plug in next two - three months they would be looking at $100 loss per unit.  If they pulled the plug in a year it might be $200 to $300.  Much easier to reach break even if the equipment has value.

2) I have all the parts to build a rig other than GPUs so cost is limited to $1500.  The capital at risk is hedged by good resale value of 5970s.  Last 5 used 5970 auctions on ebay ranged from $450 to $530. The 5970s hold value because they are faster than ANY 6xxx series card except the 6990 (which runs $730).  Even @ $500 a gamer is getting 90% of the performance for 70% of the price.

3) My electrical rates are low ($0.095/kWh) and will go lower pretty soon when utility switches to fall/winter pricing.  That combined with fact I can leave rig in garage (no need to take up space & noise in house) makes it an easy call.

My current 3x 5970 rig uses ~850W at the wall and gets 2.5GH/s.  At current price and difficulty that works out to ~$200 per month net.  Simplisticly that is a break even of ~7 months but that is a crude way of looking at it.  The cards retain value and are slowly depreciating.  I hit break even in two month because the resale value of cards + revenue > capital cost of cards.

i.e.
month 0: $1500 in assets -$1500 cash (spent to buy cards)
month 1: $1200 in assets -$1300 cash ($200 BTC revenue, cards worth ~$400 ea)
month 2: $1200 in assets -$1100 cash (another $200 BTC revenue, cards worth roughly the same, won't depreciate them again until 6 months)
...
month 6: $900 in assets -$300 cash (this is rather conservative.  if 7990 is released or price drops on 6990 then I am devaluing the cards to ~$300 ea)
etc.

Of course that assume revenue stays constant (which it won't over the long run).

To each his own.  For someone w/ high electrical rates or needing to build entire machine it likely isn't worth it.  Someone who can't afford to run more than one (to reduce system cost / GPU) it may not be worth it.  Thats great.  Hopefully people turn off high cost rigs and difficulty goes even lower.

How are you getting 2.5gh/s? I have the same setup and only get 2.1-2.2 with out crashing.

[fcmatt]

he is totally over clocking the cards to at least get 833 mh/s per card. And that is one reason i sorta doubt his power
usage as the cards would be getting pretty darn close to 275 watts each. 296 is the TDB (whatever the acronym is).
Also the mining hardware chart also shows some serious wattage per card as they get overclocked/over voltage if necessary.
Then add the MB/ram/proc/fans/HD or flash drive/and PSU inefficiency... seems to me you would easily be over 900 watts and expect to have
a 1000-1200 watt psu.

but these are rough calcs and based on other people posting their power usage with multiple 5970s.

[Splirow]

The problem is power......

I think 3 5970 is too much of a power draw on the PCIE bus. the limit is 300w per. Overclocking to 900 uses to much power.

My setup
I have GUIminer
1075V
830 clock
500 mem clock
cool master pro PSU 1200watts

over clocked with afterburner

Windows7 with 11.7 Drivers.

which PSU ur using?

[Splirow]

he is totally over clocking the cards to at least get 833 mh/s per card. And that is one reason i sorta doubt his power
usage as the cards would be getting pretty darn close to 275 watts each. 296 is the TDB (whatever the acronym is).
Also the mining hardware chart also shows some serious wattage per card as they get overclocked/over voltage if necessary.
Then add the MB/ram/proc/fans/HD or flash drive/and PSU inefficiency... seems to me you would easily be over 900 watts and expect to have
a 1000-1200 watt psu.

but these are rough calcs and based on other people posting their power usage with multiple 5970s.

I actually was able to do 1 card on my MOB for 830m/s.
had it OC to 900.

did not have any problems. But when I use all three, thats when the issues begin.

[fcmatt]

he is totally over clocking the cards to at least get 833 mh/s per card. And that is one reason i sorta doubt his power
usage as the cards would be getting pretty darn close to 275 watts each. 296 is the TDB (whatever the acronym is).
Also the mining hardware chart also shows some serious wattage per card as they get overclocked/over voltage if necessary.
Then add the MB/ram/proc/fans/HD or flash drive/and PSU inefficiency... seems to me you would easily be over 900 watts and expect to have
a 1000-1200 watt psu.

but these are rough calcs and based on other people posting their power usage with multiple 5970s.

I actually was able to do 1 card on my MOB for 830m/s.
had it OC to 900.

did not have any problems. But when I use all three, thats when the issues begin.

what kind of PSU and how many watts?

[coinhammer]

running the memory clock down to 200 from 300 noticeably reduced my hashing, wasnt expecting that

[mikethebodacious]

Just a word of advice to anyone who has or is getting these 5970s.....Do not bother to open the card and put a different thermal paste on the GPU chips.  I applied a good amount of Arctic Cooling MX-2 on them and it actually raised my temps by 3C!  Also when I opened it up the thermal pads on the VRMs were smooshed/damaged and when I put it back together my pads don't make as well of contact now so the VRM temps rose by 5-8C!  It still is well below throttling range but I was so pissed the thermal paste made no difference.  I think I'm going to get new thermal pads and some Shin-Etsu but that probably won't make a huge difference either so like I said don't even bother.

[Splirow]

The problem is power......

I think 3 5970 is too much of a power draw on the PCIE bus. the limit is 300w per. Overclocking to 900 uses to much power.

Each PCIe slot can pull 75W however AMD has designed their cards to reduce the draw on the PCIe bus (in favor of PCIe connectors).  This is because the connectors are more reliable source of power.

8pin = 150W
6pin = 75W
bus = 75W

I have never had a 5970 pull >300W.   The 294W is AMD TDP spec (as in the max heat the card can handle without a dangerous failure).  That doesn't mean the card draws 294W.  At 100% load I measured (using kill-a-watt) 248W draw.

My setup
I have GUIminer
1075V
830 clock
500 mem clock
cool master pro PSU 1200watts

What is your power draw @ the wall?  I guarantee you it is no where near 1200W.  Probably somewhere around 900W - 1000W.

I am using this power supply.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153148

Maybe I was wrong about 850W.  I am going off memory.  Once I got the system solid I removed the kill-a-watt to use on my desktop (which I am also fiddling with).   I will recheck the wattage tomorrow but I am sure it isn't 1200W+.

Bringing your mem clock down to 300 will reduce heat & power output significantly.   The difference between mem @ 500 and mem @ 300 is probably 20W a card.  When I setup this rig I couldn't go below 300 but I haven't check recently and I saw a thread where someone was running 5970s @ 200 Mhz memory.  I may need to revist my settings.  

If you can't push the system further heat is likely your problem not power draw.  The only way to know for sure is measure it all the wall with a meter like "kill-a-watt".    In computer bios turn off everything you aren't using.  Onboard sound, EIDE controller, etc.  They may not be much but each pulls some power and likely is doing nothing.  If your motherboard has onboard video make sure that is disabled too.  Your CPU should be lowest power model you can find.  For AMD Sempron runs @ 45W max and idles at half that.  You can underclock/undervolt it (depends on MB BIOS options) and cut another 10W right there. Using linux distro and usb drive saves some power too.  Windows loves to use swap file for no reason and HDD is going to pull 5W or so.  It may seem like nickles and dimes but all those watts add up.

If you do nothing else work on getting mem frequency down.  Running @ 500MHz is just burning up cash and limiting your overclock potential.

If the voltage regulator gets too hot it will lock up the system.  Usually when GPU core is too high it results in artifacts, and bad results but if Voltage regulator overheats it is hard lock without warning.

Your right.....My power draw is 980-1020watts

Also, i am using data 2.5" HD. these use minimum wattage.

I will try to disable everything on MOB that i do not use.

How do I down clock the mem to 300? I am using afterburner and only can bring it down to 500.

Do you think by adding extenders with molex, I can over clock it some more? these cards should be able to handle OC at 900. (all three together) right?

Also, how much did you increase the voltage to?

thanks