Sherkel (OP)
aka Tombstoner
Full Member
Offline
Activity: 131
Merit: 100
|
|
December 01, 2011, 09:11:11 PM |
|
I'm considering asking for a GPU for mining for Christmas this year (yep I'm still that young,) and based on this page, I think a Radeon 5830 looks the best budget-wise. Seeing as I'm still a total noob, though, I want to get the inputs of some more experiences and/or knowledgeable users before I make my final decision. I hope this is in the right place (a bit worried about that seeing as there are apparently very few threads like this,) but I didn't see anywhere better to ask this.
|
What do you get when you cross dominoes and The Matrix? <A dominatrix!>
|
|
|
dark_st3alth
Newbie
Offline
Activity: 33
Merit: 0
|
|
December 02, 2011, 01:23:48 AM |
|
A little tricky topic.
ATI (ahem really AMD) are cheaper and might be what you are looking for.
nVidea has better quality cards, but can be more expensive. I'm sure people have tested the brands, so you should be able to go find information.
If your looking for pure hash to coin ratios, ATI cards will serve that purpose - but the question is how long if a card is that cheap?
|
|
|
|
RyNinDaCleM
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 2408
Merit: 1009
Legen -wait for it- dary
|
|
December 02, 2011, 02:18:24 AM |
|
^Wut? ATI/AMD 5xxx and 6xxx series cards definitely. nVidia is complete garbage for mining. The 5800 series is the best bang for buck period. I personally prefer XFX lifetime warranty.
|
|
|
|
worldinacoin
|
|
December 02, 2011, 02:26:10 AM |
|
5970 if they are on offer from newegg. Fantastic prices.
|
|
|
|
RyNinDaCleM
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 2408
Merit: 1009
Legen -wait for it- dary
|
|
December 02, 2011, 02:28:18 AM |
|
^Or that!
|
|
|
|
dark_st3alth
Newbie
Offline
Activity: 33
Merit: 0
|
|
December 02, 2011, 02:33:27 AM |
|
^Wut? ATI/AMD 5xxx and 6xxx series cards definitely. nVidia is complete garbage for mining. The 5800 series is the best bang for buck period. I personally prefer XFX lifetime warranty. I'm sure there's something up if Nvidea is charging more... For profits it comes down to how many hashes you can do in an amount of time - I have no problems with that. Finding the cheapest card to do the job is an important point to back that up. Out of curiosity has anyone compared ATI to Nvidea cards? I'm running an old nVidea card of mine at about 4.50 MHashes/sec, and use the other one for games.
|
|
|
|
worldinacoin
|
|
December 02, 2011, 02:39:21 AM |
|
I use my 6970 purely for games, it is super quiet and fast. Have only the basic Nvidia cards from Dell, never tried the expensive cards from Nvidia as the mining guide does not show them to be great for bitcoin mining. When I stop playing, my 6970 can have dual use as bitcoin mining with 300+mh.
|
|
|
|
|
DeathAndTaxes
Donator
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
|
|
December 02, 2011, 03:32:41 AM |
|
For profits it comes down to how many hashes you can do in an amount of time - I have no problems with that. Finding the cheapest card to do the job is an important point to back that up.
Out of curiosity has anyone compared ATI to Nvidea cards? I'm running an old nVidea card of mine at about 4.50 MHashes/sec, and use the other one for games.
Yes and NVidia sucks for mining. The cheapest lowest entry level AMD card runs laps around the highest most expensive NVidia card. Don't want to turn this into an AMD vs. Nvidia flamefest. NVidia makes fine cards but the architecture they use is complete poop (a technical term) for mining. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison
|
|
|
|
DeathAndTaxes
Donator
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
|
|
December 02, 2011, 03:35:05 AM |
|
If you find a 5000 series card generally they are cheaper and better for mining.
If you are in the US you pretty much can't beat the 5970 on MH/W or MH/$ or MH/slot. Watch newegg. Their normal price is $500 but on Black Friday they dropped it to $300. They might have another sale. If you snag a 5970 for $300 it is pretty much unbeatable.
|
|
|
|
dark_st3alth
Newbie
Offline
Activity: 33
Merit: 0
|
|
December 02, 2011, 03:42:49 AM |
|
NVidia makes fine cards but the architecture they use is complete poop (a technical term) for mining.
So technical
|
|
|
|
Gabi
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1148
Merit: 1008
If you want to walk on water, get out of the boat
|
|
December 02, 2011, 02:26:21 PM |
|
nVidea has better quality cards Uhm no.
|
|
|
|
dark_st3alth
Newbie
Offline
Activity: 33
Merit: 0
|
|
December 02, 2011, 05:53:37 PM |
|
nVidea has better quality cards Uhm no. I'd like to point the their cards don't need hearing protection to use.. Just take a little good search as I can't seem to find the video I was looking for: http://www.google.com/search?q=loud+ati+cardAnyways, wasn't my idea to start a war on this topic. It's about which card is better for mining.
|
|
|
|
Sherkel (OP)
aka Tombstoner
Full Member
Offline
Activity: 131
Merit: 100
|
|
December 02, 2011, 06:48:30 PM |
|
Thanks, guys! I guess it looks like I was right after all, and I don't want one that costs too much so I'll go with the 5830.
|
What do you get when you cross dominoes and The Matrix? <A dominatrix!>
|
|
|
|
Sherkel (OP)
aka Tombstoner
Full Member
Offline
Activity: 131
Merit: 100
|
|
December 02, 2011, 06:54:08 PM |
|
Nice! I'll be sure to show whoever I ask that link. I hope he doesn't run out anytime soon.
|
What do you get when you cross dominoes and The Matrix? <A dominatrix!>
|
|
|
Qoheleth
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 960
Merit: 1028
Spurn wild goose chases. Seek that which endures.
|
|
December 02, 2011, 07:01:47 PM |
|
NVidia makes fine cards but the architecture they use is complete poop (a technical term) for mining.
So technical A more technical explanation would be a combination of two factors: 1) ATI and nVidia chose different tradeoffs on how to get good graphics performance; ATI maximizes the number of shaders on the chip, whereas nVidia prefers more complex shaders running at higher clock speeds. For 3D rendering, which one of these is better depends on the application... but for the kind of work that is done by the SHA-256 algorithm, having 3x as many shaders is better than each shader running 2x as fast. 2) ATI's SPU architecture happens to have a "rotate right" opcode, whereas in nVidia's SPU architecture it takes 2-3 operations to do. SHA-256 uses bit rotation a lot.
|
If there is something that will make Bitcoin succeed, it is growth of utility - greater quantity and variety of goods and services offered for BTC. If there is something that will make Bitcoin fail, it is the prevalence of users convinced that BTC is a magic box that will turn them into millionaires, and of the con-artists who have followed them here to devour them.
|
|
|
Eveofwar
|
|
December 02, 2011, 07:05:46 PM |
|
NVidia makes fine cards but the architecture they use is complete poop (a technical term) for mining.
So technical A more technical explanation would be a combination of two factors: 1) ATI and nVidia chose different tradeoffs on how to get good graphics performance; ATI maximizes the number of shaders on the chip, whereas nVidia prefers more complex shaders running at higher clock speeds. For 3D rendering, which one of these is better depends on the application... but for the kind of work that is done by the SHA-256 algorithm, having 3x as many shaders is better than each shader running 2x as fast. 2) ATI's SPU architecture happens to have a "rotate right" opcode, whereas in nVidia's SPU architecture it takes 2-3 operations to do. SHA-256 uses bit rotation a lot. Correct. ATI Shaders > nVidia CUDA Cores (for mining)
|
|
|
|
jflegare
Newbie
Offline
Activity: 5
Merit: 0
|
|
December 02, 2011, 07:55:03 PM |
|
That's funny, I found out that my ATI cards were performing 3-4x better than my Nvidia equivalent cards...
Maybe I'm not using good engines ? I even used CUDA, which was supposed to help Nvidia cards..
|
|
|
|
Gabi
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1148
Merit: 1008
If you want to walk on water, get out of the boat
|
|
December 02, 2011, 08:14:05 PM |
|
It's a hardware thing, no matter what code or language you use.
|
|
|
|
|