5870 running at 421 mHash/sec!

[eleuthria]

Just wanted to share the results of my new mining rig.  Original plan was a 6990, but TigerDirect FUBAR'd that order.  I ended up getting a 5870 delivered before fixing the 6990 order issue, and I'm amazed at how well its performing.

GPU Overclocked to 950 (stock voltage).
Memory underclocked to 600 (haven't been able to go under that inside linux?).
Fans running at ~50% (2400-2500 RPM out of 5100 according to AMDOverdriveCtrl).
Runs at a steady 65-67C.

That's producing a 362-364 mhash/sec rate of mining (m0mchil's poclbm), which is higher than any of the wiki entries for a 5870.  I'm going to slowly drive up the GPU clock rate every few hours to find the sweet spot for power consumption, temperature, and mining rate.  So far the 950 clock rate is a better mhash/watt ratio than 850, 900, and 925.

Has anyone else been pulling these numbers (or better) on a 5870 with just stock cooling?  I'm curious why the wiki numbers are quite a bit less.

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Update 4/25/11:  I switched over to the Phoenix miner 1.1, and now run at 421-423 mHash/sec on all of my 5870s.  Clock settings are 975/300, using 0.950 voltage.  They're running cooler, sucking less power, and running significantly faster with Phoenix!

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[trentzb]

I am interested in all the details you care to share. If you can measure actual power consumption that would be interesting to know. Is this a standalone miner/card? What driver/sdk are you using?

[AmpEater]

How do you manage 1000MHz, my many 5870 in ubuntu wont accept any clock setting over 900MHz, at which they are perfectly stable.

[Zamicol]

No, and I wish I knew how you did that.  Whenever I underclock my 5870's any lower than 900 it affects the hashrates. I get about 350,000 running @ 940 @ ~70 degrees C.

I'm running Ubuntu, and I have Gigabyte 5870's.


And thanks for mentioning AMDOverdriveCtrl.  That so much better than what I was using before!

[rezin777]

Has anyone else been pulling these numbers (or better) on a 5870 with just stock cooling?  I'm curious why the wiki numbers are quite a bit less.

Yes, on multiple cards jammed next to each other with stock cooling and stock voltage. My temps average 60 degrees. Core 950 / Memory 300.

I considered adding voltage to the reference boards to go further with the o/c, but that will just increase temperatures and electricity use for what I would guess to be minor gains.

What I really wish I could do is reduce memory voltage with a soft mod. It's possible to play with VTT registers via BIOS but from what I've read that isn't exactly memory voltage.

[rezin777]

How do you manage 1000MHz, my many 5870 in ubuntu wont accept any clock setting over 900MHz, at which they are perfectly stable.

Possible BIOS limitation.

[trentzb]

What I really wish I could do is reduce memory voltage with a soft mod. It's possible to play with VTT registers via BIOS but from what I've read that isn't exactly memory voltage.

I am not sure about memory voltage control via AMD's ADL but core voltage, mem/core clock, fan control is there. I would assume ADL is what AMDOverdriveCtrl is using.

I hacked up a tweak program using ADL (before I ran across AMDOverdriveCtrl) but found BIOS mods somewhat easier.

[eleuthria]

I am interested in all the details you care to share. If you can measure actual power consumption that would be interesting to know. Is this a standalone miner/card? What driver/sdk are you using?

The whole computer is consuming 272 watts right now with the card at 1000 mhz.  I'll be able to give an "isolated" card power consumption this weekend when I get the 2nd 5870, by taking the total PC consumption less the 272 I already know it consumes.

It's running Ubuntu 10.10 desktop install.  ATI Stream SDK 2.1.  The ATI driver is Catalyst 11.3.

[trentzb]

What CPU/MEM are you using? Are you using a desktop hard drive or a USB/SSD drive? Any other power consumers beyond that one 5870?

[eleuthria]

What CPU/MEM are you using? Are you using a desktop hard drive or a USB/SSD drive? Any other power consumers beyond that one 5870?

AMD Sempron 140 with the 2nd core unlocked.
2 solid state drives (1x Kingston 16 gB, 1x OCZ 60 gB)
4x case fans (3 230mm, 1x 140mm)
1000 watt PSU (Cooler Master Silent Pro, got such a massive one in case it ever expanded into dual 6990s)
4x GB RAM (4x 1 gig).

I'm planning on using the rest of the build for a medium sized web server while the GPUs do their mining, thus the double SSDs (boot drive & mysql/storage drive), RAM, and unlocked 2nd core of the processor.

[Beremat]

The highest I can push my XFX 5870 is ~372-375Mhash at around 985 Core. Anything higher and it starts freezing and crashing.

Well done

[eleuthria]

The highest I can push my XFX 5870 is ~372-375Mhash at around 985 Core. Anything higher and it starts freezing and crashing.

Well done

Yeah, I really just started the heavier OC'ing today, last night I ran it at 900 and all went well.  When I got home from work I pushed it to 975 just to be risky and saw the temps barely rise and power consumption only go up maybe 8 or 9 watts.  After a few hours at that I've put it at 1000 and will let it run 12-24 hours at that speed before I try going any higher.

[Adeq]

I have 381M/s with HIS iCooler5 5870 980MHz Core and 900MHz Memory, Core Voltage Stock, Temperatures about 62*C.
m0mchill miner - -v -w 128 -f 1

[AtlasONo]

Man I'm running the same temp & clock settings and getting 368mHash/s but I have 2 massive coolers strapped to my card. 

[eleuthria]

GPU ran all night hashing away at 1020 core and 600 memory, maintaining the 385 mHash/sec, and only hitting 68C without fail.

I actually tried restoring the memory to the 1200 original clock speed, and it did increase my mHash/sec to 398, but the power consumption increase reduced the mHash/watt ratio.  After work tonight I'll start working on different memory clock speeds to find the sweet spot for mHash/watt.

My second 5870 gets delivered today as well, hopefully I get one that performs like the first!

[proudhon]

I have 381M/s with HIS iCooler5 5870 980MHz Core and 900MHz Memory, Core Voltage Stock, Temperatures about 62*C.
m0mchill miner - -v -w 128 -f 1

Where can I find out what all this stuff means:  "-v -w 128 -f 1"?  I'm trying to figure out if I should be using any of those with my 6990.  I'm using poclbm-gui.

[Nonlin]

So I recently did a reformat and now my card is running 5-6C hotter with 25% faster FAN speed with the Bitcoin GPU client then it did before I reformatted.

Only differences now is that is that I'm using CCC 11.4p and ATI Stream SDK 2.3 along with a new GUI Mining Client (provided here) that seems to give me an extra 30 mhashes/sec but that could be because of the updated drivers? Before I used 11.2 and ATI Stream 2.1.

The confusing part is that my volts this time around are slightly lower than before. I use Asus AI tweaker (Its a bit glitchy I can never get it to give me the volts I tell it too) to modify volts and then monitor it with GPUz. Before I had 2.985 volts and now I have 2.875 with hotter temps.

Are the updated drivers enough for the Mhash/s Boost and increased temps?

I suppose I'll get a better idea once I play some games, but I'm waiting to get my steam account back atm.

Also is 85-86C safe temps for an HD5870?

Also I'm getting 364.6 Mhashes/sec with 977/1250 Clocks is that normal? Using -v -w128 -f 1 (which I have no idea what it means)

[Zamicol]

I have 381M/s with HIS iCooler5 5870 980MHz Core and 900MHz Memory, Core Voltage Stock, Temperatures about 62*C.
m0mchill miner - -v -w 128 -f 1

Where can I find out what all this stuff means:  "-v -w 128 -f 1"?  I'm trying to figure out if I should be using any of those with my 6990.  I'm using poclbm-gui.

That's it!  I get about 360Mh/s using -f @ 930 MHz clock speeds.  This also lessens the effects of lowering the memory below 900.  So now my command looks like -v -w 128 -f.  It makes my system really slow, but if I am only using it for mining, who cares? 

Here's a post by another forumer about -f:

My speculation is -f regulates the interval of time for which GPU processes single unit of work, much like a quantum of time in Windows task manager. Or, rather, it specifies a frequency with which GPU changes context. Again - it's only my speculation.

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5492.0

[EPiSKiNG]

I have two ASUS 5870 stock in my intel rig running non-crossfire at 975core/900mem fans at 63%.  Temps at 60 for GPU1 and 67 for GPU2.  Getting 368MH/s each. (-v -w 128)  371MH/s (-v -w -f 0)

When I lower the mem down to 600, I loose ~20 MH/s on each card.

And AFAIK, the -f switch has to do with the window allowed for framerate to the desktop.  You can set it to -f 120 and play starcraft while mining.

-EP

[eleuthria]

I have two ASUS 5870 stock in my intel rig running non-crossfire at 975core/900mem fans at 63%.  Temps at 60 for GPU1 and 67 for GPU2.  Getting 368MH/s each. (-v -w 128)  371MH/s (-v -w -f 0)

When I lower the mem down to 600, I loose ~20 MH/s on each card.

And AFAIK, the -f switch has to do with the window allowed for framerate to the desktop.  You can set it to -f 120 and play starcraft while mining.

-EP

I'd recommend checking your power consumption.  I lose about 20 mH/sec underclocking my memory, but it is more profitable (mHash/kWh).