Is it okay to mine on an artifacting card?

[cloudp]

so my setup is as follows
x2 5770
x1 5870

my 5870 artifacts at with a core clock of 1000. Can I just use one of my 5770's as the output to my monitor and continue mining with my 5870 with a clock of 1000+? Will this degrade my 5870? I have amazing cooling on the 5870 now. It never gets above 55c

[kliffen]

If it's already artifacting during regular use, just mine with it. I've had 2 5970s that would constantly BSoD and give me fucked up artifacts under normal use (even simple desktop things) But they would work fine while mining.

Not sure why, but i'm sure someone has a reasonable explonation for this:)

[Jaryu]

If it's already artifacting during regular use, just mine with it. I've had 2 5970s that would constantly BSoD and give me fucked up artifacts under normal use (even simple desktop things) But they would work fine while mining.

Not sure why, but i'm sure someone has a reasonable explonation for this:)

From what I think I understand about the cards, artifacts don't originate from the GPU but from the chips that convert the processed data stream from it into the analog pulses that goes from the card to the monitor. Since GPU/CPU's are exact mathematics systems if they started getting or causing corruption in the data that they are trying to work with, they would either crash or freeze-up. This would explain your card not working for "graphics" but the brain still working fine for mining since no externalized video is being processed by the card secondary components.

[Mousepotato]

Mining is much less strenuous on your cards than actual gaming.

[John (John K.)]

Mining is much less strenuous on your cards than actual gaming.

Not the shader processors, no. But yes for everything else like the ram and so.

[Shadow383]

Mining is much less strenuous on your cards than actual gaming.

Really? I run higher temps when mining than when gaming - obviously there's less VRAM usage etc but meh...

OP - you might get more invalid shares, also your increased power consumption is likely to make it less profitable than undervolting and running lower clocks.

[Miner612]

Get used to NEVER getting a straight answer on this forum, unless I read your post.

Can I just use one of my 5770's as the output to my monitor and continue mining with my 5870 with a clock of 1000+?

Yes.  Nothing wrong with that.  I am doing that (and have been for months) right now on the machine I am typing to you.

Will this degrade my 5870?

Of course!  But 5870 (ime) are some of the toughest cards out there, if not the toughest.  It will mine good at 1000 core, just under clock the ram to 300.  You should get about 400mhash, ime.

Just obviously don't run anything graphics intensive on the 5870 while mining, or you will probably fry a PSU.