Asus Ares 5870 x2 Mining Details - ~440mhash/s

[ataranlen]

Just wanted to let the community know about my experience running two of these cards!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121388

My mining rig:
1200w Antec PSU, very nice for this type of hardware.
AMD 1090T
MSI 870A Fuzion motherboard
Zalman GS1000 case

I've run a variety of GPU's in this case, and none of them perform as well as the Ares. When mining with a typical 5970 in quad-fire, I used to see temps at 80-90c for all four GPU's, and VRam temps usually at 120c. You could have literally cooked breakfast in my case! And this was at 100% fanspeeds!

In contrast at stock:
Single Ares mining temps: 60c-69c for both GPU and Vram!
Fan Speeds at around 45-60%

Dual Ares mining temps Stock:
Top card- 84c,89c GPU, 96 Vram
lower card- 69c,75c!
Fan speeds at around 45-60%
OCED 975mhz, 300mhz mem:
Top Card- 80c, 98c
Lower Card- 83c, 94c


Hashrates are about what you would expect for stock 5870's:
Standard Poclbm-gui:
318mhash/s per core. -v -w 128

Phoenix:
850MHz - ~350 mhash/s AGGRESSION=7 FASTLOOP WORKSIZE=128 VECTORS BFI_INT-k poclbm
925MHz - ~385 mhahs/s AGGRESSION=13 WORKSIZE=128 VECTORS BFI_INT -k poclbm
975MHz - ~407 mhash/s AGGRESSION=13 WORKSIZE=128 VECTORS BFI_INT -k poclbm
950Mhz - ~412 mhash/s AGGRESSION=13 WORKSIZE=128 VECTORS BFI_INT -k phatk
1000MHz - ~ 440 mhash/s AGGRESSION=13 WORKSIZE=128 VECTORS BFI_INT -k phatk

[eleuthria]

Hopefully you got a good deal on them.  It's been my experience (limited to 8 5870s so far) that brand means very little.  Current rigs have Sapphire (1), Gigabyte (3), MSI Lightning II (2), and an XFX (1).

All of them are currently OC'd to 975 core, 300 memory.  The GigaBytes, Sapphire, and XFX I undervolted to 0.950 volt (which is their stock voltage for idle), MSI Lightnings I kept at stock (they didn't like undervolting).

All of them at those settings run around 73-75C (in dual card systems), pulling 423-424 mHash/sec.  The exception is one GigaByte card which runs at 83C, but still stable at those same settings (and even at stock it always runs about 5-10C hotter).

At this point, I get whatever 5870 I can for under $220, because I've yet to get one out of those 4 brands that runs noticeably different from the other brands.

[ataranlen]

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1721160265035.153669.1119150251&l=4b4e48c00e

[eleuthria]

I'd definitely test what temperatures you can get at 975/300 clock speeds.  That's been the sweet spot for energy/watt ratio in my testing, and the underclocking memory that far seems to keep the temperatures comparable to stock speeds.

[ataranlen]

We'll see how much we can pull out of em at those speeds

At 925Mhz, I'm seeing ~385 mhash/s

975Mhz - ~407 mhash/s

[eleuthria]

How are the temps at 975?  And if you move it to a dedicated rig (or when you're going to sleep/work), I'd recommend seeing aggression=12 or 13.  At least on my linux installs that squeezes out an extra 10-15 mHash/sec (although the GUI becomes unusable, luckily my machines are headless now).

[ataranlen]

As seen in the original post:

OCED 975mhz, 300mhz mem:
Top Card- 80c, 98c
Lower Card- 83c, 94c

And yes, its already at Aggression 13, with no hang to my gui 

[JorgePasada]

Is this essentially 2 5870 cards thus making it (albeit physically larger) basically a 5970?

[eleuthria]

Maybe try playing with aggression a little.  It seems weird that the cores are about 15 mHash slower than the same clock speeds would produce in linux.  I want to see what that thing can do so I can do some calculations on what price I'd have to snipe them at to beat out just building two machines with dual 5870s each.

[sniper_sniperson]

410Mhash/s for one gpu or for the whole card? Cause Ares is dual-gpu platform ... Just asking

[Kick]

410Mhash/s for one gpu or for the whole card? Cause Ares is dual-gpu platform ... Just asking

If it were not, then why would he be praising the Ares cards.

I, pretty sure along with OP, assume most people have enough common sense to figure that out.

[sniper_sniperson]

Just asking about 2x410 Mhash/s per Watt ratio, didn't see

318mhash/s per core. -v -w 128

... One of mine 5870' is Gigabyte SO with default core freq 950, and still draws ~190W like in specifications

[eleuthria]

Do you have a Kill-A-Watt or similar energy meter?  Very curious how the Ares 5870x2 compares to the 5970 in terms of power consumption.

[allinvain]

Do you have a Kill-A-Watt or similar energy meter?  Very curious how the Ares 5870x2 compares to the 5970 in terms of power consumption.

It should consume more than a stock 5970 due to having 4 GB VRAM alone. I happen to have a similar card (Sapphire 5970 4 GB Toxic) which also consumes more than a stock 5970. It requires TWO 8 pin PCIe connectors unlike a standard 5970. Also the stock clock on a standard 5970 is less.

[sniper_sniperson]

Yeah, depending of the version some 5970s are 725MHz versions, others 735MHz. Anyway the card becomes really hot above those levels (around 850MHz) so we just put on some of them Thermalrights or other models of cpu air coolers, including long radiators from accelero s1 rev2 on vrms ...

[Grinder]

It should consume more than a stock 5970 due to having 4 GB VRAM alone. I happen to have a similar card (Sapphire 5970 4 GB Toxic) which also consumes more than a stock 5970.

It's because it's factory overclocked and overvolted, not because it has 4 GB RAM.

[allinvain]

It should consume more than a stock 5970 due to having 4 GB VRAM alone. I happen to have a similar card (Sapphire 5970 4 GB Toxic) which also consumes more than a stock 5970.

It's because it's factory overclocked and overvolted, not because it has 4 GB RAM.

That's the prime factor yes, but also the amount of VRAM makes a difference as well. You'd be surprised how much.

[ataranlen]

Still haven't had a chance to check the power consumption, I don't own a kill-a-watt >.< Also, this has Two 8 pins, and a 6 pin, so that should tell you something!

But I did take some pictures to add to my review

[allinvain]

Yeah that thing is sheer insanity! It will suck so much juice you'll need a nuclear power plant next door just to power it..heheh..

I wonder though why they could not get away with having just two 8 pin connectors. I have a similar card with similar specs yet it has two 8 pin connectors. What's with all that needed juice? Overclocking headroom? I dunno.

Hope you got a good deal on it, cause I think these cards still sell for over $600 USD, no?

[ataranlen]

yeah, they are power hungry