Hi everyone,
(TL;DR Stuck at sub 700 with 11221-00-20G. Trying for a solid week with little improvement... Feel like I've tried everything... please help!)
Just a quick note before I start, this is concerning the Sapphire Radeon R9 280X Dual-X OC (11221-00-20G) graphics card. There are many flavors of 280X cards out there, some very similar yet it seems to me that any advice that's not directly tailored to the 11221-00-20G doesn't help (or at least hasn't so far) So if we can please keep discussion here limited to that card (and not 7970's, Asus 280X's... etc. etc.) I would greatly appreciate it. I've spoken with many people at other sites, and met many people who have had similar issues in the past, but I cannot seem to find anyone who hasn't been able to resolve their initial difficulty getting their 11221-00-20G GPU's running at optimal performance. I've read that some people get them going up to the 740 range. Some people even get 700+ right out the box (say what!!?
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I am running 3 cards right now and the fourth one will be installed in a day or two. Presently they are topping out at 670-680Kh/s each. Not terrible and much better than I had at first, but obviously I'm missing out on at least 60Kh for each card and want to make the most out of the electricity they are consuming.
To begin with, here is my hardware setup:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsTxUyvOU-ZtdFFTcWszR0dBOEFEY2RSYVZxbTVRTnc&usp=sharingComputer has Windows ultimate x64 installed, no unnecessary software installed in addition (except chrome because ie can suck it!!)
Drivers and SDK:13.250.18.0 & AMD APP SDK 2.9
Should I try using older drivers? Older SDK?
Miner:Most all of my tests have involved using cgminer 3.7.2. However I started using sgminer 4.0.0 a few days ago and saw my performance increase about 20Kh/s per card (moving from 660ish to 680ish). Also running CGWatcher to ensure miner stays alive when I'm away.
Am I using the right miner??
Miner .bin and files:I've downloaded several .bin files but unfortunately I haven't found any yet that made any meaningful difference. And some made my hash rate plummet.
Vbios:It sounds like this isn't something that I should need to mess with, but I have experimented regardless since I had tried almost all other options. I'm using the bios that the cards come with right now (015.042.000.001.000000) because it has given me the best performance. I installed older versions but saw either no gains or major losses. (Tried 015.041 and 015.039 as well as some customized bios from the_stilt, to no avail)
Settings:I've tried many, many configurations. Self experimentation as well as input from other members here and on Reddit. To date the best configuration I've found is this one:
--lookup-gap 2 --thread-concurrency 8192,8192,8192 -g 2 -I 13 -w 256 --auto-fan --gpu-fan 30-85,30-85,30-85 --temp-cutoff 90,90,90 --temp-overheat 85,85,85 --temp-target 75,75,75 --gpu-memclock 1500,1500,1500 --gpu-engine 1030,1030,1030 --gpu-powertune -20,-20,-20 --expiry 15 --scan-time 15 --queue 0
I haven't seen any real difference when I mess with these settings. Thread concurrency (8192 vs. 11200), Gpu-engine (anything outside of 1020-1040 seems to reduce hashrate) gpu-memclock (doesn't seem to matter what this is, nothing changes up or down when I adjust)
Power / Cooling:My rig is powered by two 750watt EVGA psu's, connected with an add2psu device (as listed in my google doc), and each powersupply is providing energy for two cards at the most (currently 2 on one and 1 on the other, until I setup the 4th card anyways). Also my pci riser cables are each powered. I also have a box fan directly on the rig 24/7, and my sgwindow tells me that the cards are staying around 73C. So I'm pretty sure nothing is wrong here, but I'm listing it out just in case.
Voltage & Under volting, etc:I am not doing this at present.
So that's it... It seems to me like I'm not dealing with faulty hardware since I have three of these cards all more or less performing the same. Whenever I've been stuck like this with computer problems previously, I usually find out that I made some false assumption in the way I did things, or that something obvious was wrong that I just need to fix that one thing before everything goes right. Whether it's building a Hackintosh or troubleshooting a python script- the answer usually slaps me in the face one day and I thinking to myself "Well obviously..." But thus far it hasn't happened and I feel like I'm running out of options to try.
Any input would be more than appreciated! Thanks
