Litecoin questiaaaano

[Butterfish]

I can't decide. Should i get two 290 or three 280x? 2x 290 has lower hash rate, but better power consumption. 

 

2x - 290 pros/cons

 

+ Lower wattage

+ Cheaper

 

- Shitty cooler (unless i wait for aftermarket)

- Lower hashrate

 

3x - 280x pros/cons

 

+ Better cooling

+ Higher hash rate

 

- More expensive

- Consumes more power

- Generates a lot of heat i would assume

 

2x 290 = ~900 khash/s pr. card (1800 khash/s)

3x 280x = ~750 khash/s pr. card (2250 khash/s)

[needmorewood]

id say the 290 solution by far that has rate isnt worth the extra wattage imo

[Vendetta]

I'd personally wait for the aftermarket 290's to come out and get two of a those.

[RuecanOnRails]

If you plan to be using your computer while mining, the 7970/280X would be the route to go.

 

280X/7970 runs at an intensity of 13, allowing full use of the computer for office work, youtube, emails, web browsing.

290 and most other cards require an intensity much higher 18 - 20. High intensity renders the computer completely unusable while mining.

[Butterfish]

If you plan to be using your computer while mining, the 7970/280X would be the route to go.

 

280X/7970 runs at an intensity of 13, allowing full use of the computer for office work, youtube, emails, web browsing.

290 and most other cards require an intensity much higher 18 - 20. High intensity renders the computer completely unusable while mining.

I plan on making a separate 24/7 mining rig, so usability is not important.

[FlakeyBanana]

i would take the 280's the money would return faster

[Butterfish]

i would take the 280's the money would return faster

I believe the break-even for 280x is 42 days and 290 49 days. With 290 i would make 325$ extra each month. Decisions! 

[needmorewood]

i would take the 280's the money would return faster

not exactly your power bill increases too

[Vitalius]

If you plan to be using your computer while mining, the 7970/280X would be the route to go.

 

280X/7970 runs at an intensity of 13, allowing full use of the computer for office work, youtube, emails, web browsing.

290 and most other cards require an intensity much higher 18 - 20. High intensity renders the computer completely unusable while mining.

I'm on a 290X, and I guess this is anecdotal, but my computer is usable at Intensity 20. I suppose it wouldn't be so for a 290 (less powerful due to less shaders). 

It is slow (in that the screen takes about 1 second to react), but that is fine for web surfing. 

I bump the Intensity to 18 or 19 to watch a movie or anything else that is slightly more video intensive and only lose about 30KH/s per notch down. So it's usable at 800KH/s at Intensity 18. 

Just saying. As I said though, anecdotal. Plus I have a pretty beast machine otherwise (3570k, 32GB of RAM, etc).

[Butterfish]

I'm on a 290X, and I guess this is anecdotal, but my computer is usable at Intensity 20. I suppose it wouldn't be so for a 290 (less powerful due to less shaders). 

It is slow (in that the screen takes about 1 second to react), but that is fine for web surfing. 

I bump the Intensity to 18 or 19 to watch a movie or anything else that is slightly more video intensive and only lose about 30KH/s per notch down. So it's usable at 800KH/s at Intensity 18. 

Just saying. As I said though, anecdotal. Plus I have a pretty beast machine otherwise (3570k, 32GB of RAM, etc).

You should be able to pull at least 900 kh/s from a 290x with the right tuning. Some have even got it to 1 mh/s

[Vitalius]

You should be able to pull at least 900 kh/s from a 290x with the right tuning. Some have even got it to 1 mh/s

I like that you said that, because I have tuned the ever loving crap out of my 290X and the most I have gotten is 865KH/s on average. 

My current settings are the following,

Using cgminer 3.7.2 with 13.11 & 13.11 Beta 5 drivers (at different times, testing each) on Windows 8.1:

--thread-concurrency 32765 (I've tried 30592, 8192, and using the default --shaders command with 2816 but this one gives the best results)

-g 1 (-g 2 limits me to 550KH/s max average with the right settings)

-I 20 (13 is max on -g 2, as 14 or higher at -g 2 gives Hardware Errors)

--gpu-memclock 1500 (lowering or raising lowers my hash rate significantly)

--gpu-engine 900 (lowering or raising lowers my hash rate significantly)

--lookup-gap 2 (won't run with anything else)

-v 1 (not sure what it does, haven't tinkered with it)

-w 256 (512 only increases rejects)

Max Hash rate: 865 KH/s

So yeah. I've tinkered. I even tried these settings and a few others with bfgminer, both 3.6.0 and 3.8.0. I get the same or slightly less results.

I think this is my max hash rate for this particular GPU. For the 290's (both X and non-X), I would say you can expect 800KH/s at worst and up to 875KH/s on average. If you get lucky (silicon lottery), you will get over 900KH/s. Just like with overclocks, it depends on luck imo.

For further clarification, I've helped two people set up all 290X's (one person had 3 and the other had 4) and all of the 290X's got in the 830-875KH/s range. 

So whoever is getting over 900KH/s has some voodoo magic I would like to borrow.

[RuecanOnRails]

I like that you said that, because I have tuned the ever loving crap out of my 290X and the most I have gotten is 865KH/s on average.

My current settings are the following,

Using cgminer 3.7.2 with 13.11 & 13.11 Beta 5 drivers (at different times, testing each) on Windows 8.1:

--thread-concurrency 32765 (I've tried 30592, 8192, and using the default --shaders command with 2816 but this one gives the best results)

-g 1 (-g 2 limits me to 550KH/s max average with the right settings)

-I 20 (13 is max on -g 2, as 14 or higher at -g 2 gives Hardware Errors)

--gpu-memclock 1500 (lowering or raising lowers my hash rate significantly)

--gpu-engine 900 (lowering or raising lowers my hash rate significantly)

--lookup-gap 2 (won't run with anything else)

-v 1 (not sure what it does, haven't tinkered with it)

-w 256 (512 only increases rejects)

Max Hash rate: 865 KH/s

So yeah. I've tinkered. I even tried these settings and a few others with bfgminer, both 3.6.0 and 3.8.0. I get the same or slightly less results.

I think this is my max hash rate for this particular GPU. For the 290's (both X and non-X), I would say you can expect 800KH/s at worst and up to 875KH/s on average. If you get lucky (silicon lottery), you will get over 900KH/s. Just like with overclocks, it depends on luck imo.

For further clarification, I've helped two people set up all 290X's (one person had 3 and the other had 4) and all of the 290X's got in the 830-875KH/s range.

So whoever is getting over 900KH/s has some voodoo magic I would like to borrow.

Try to compile the Cgminer source yourself, except increase the intensity limit to 30. It will give more headroom to get a higher hash rates.

[Vitalius]

Try to compile the Cgminer source yourself, except increase the intensity limit to 30. It will give more headroom to get a higher hash rates.

I got a forked version of cgminer that bumped the max to 42, but it required me to install MinGW which the instructions didn't coincide with what I was seeing on the program. 

Got confused. Tried feeling my way around, but that didn't work either. Failed. Uninstalled. 

I'll try it again later. The thing is, the reported Intensities on the wiki for the 900+KH/s' on both 290's and 290X's has been 20. Not anything over.

Oh well, we will see. Since my computer is still responsive at 20, I could have some headroom. Makes sense. Thanks.

[Hazy125]

I got a forked version of cgminer that bumped the max to 42, but it required me to install MinGW which the instructions didn't coincide with what I was seeing on the program. 

Got confused. Tried feeling my way around, but that didn't work either. Failed. Uninstalled. 

I'll try it again later. The thing is, the reported Intensities on the wiki for the 900+KH/s' on both 290's and 290X's has been 20. Not anything over.

Oh well, we will see. Since my computer is still responsive at 20, I could have some headroom. Makes sense. Thanks.

Might also be a problem with the new generations "Up to" frequencies

[Vitalius]

Might also be a problem with the new generations "Up to" frequencies

Not sure what you mean, but I agree with the new generations being inefficient due to a lack of optimization.

There really should be a dedicated scrypt miner made, on par with cgminer or something equivalent. Not a BTC miner gone LTC (and other altcoins). 

I wonder how much we would get if someone supported cgminer the way kolivas did (the guy who made cgminer) but for the new GPUs in regards to scrypt. 

There's just not enough interest yet I guess. 

[Hazy125]

Not sure what you mean, but I agree with the new generations being inefficient due to a lack of optimization.

There really should be a dedicated scrypt miner made, on par with cgminer or something equivalent. Not a BTC miner gone LTC (and other altcoins). 

I wonder how much we would get if someone supported cgminer the way kolivas did (the guy who made cgminer) but for the new GPUs in regards to scrypt. 

There's just not enough interest yet I guess. 

They advertise clock speeds of up to 1Ghz but after a few minutes of use the frequencies drop down to even sub 900MHz, and even that differs. For instance, the cards that AMD gave to reviewers had a tendency to drop to only 920MHz or there abouts while aftermarket consumer cards dropped to 870Mhz and ran hotter

[Vitalius]

They advertise clock speeds of up to 1Ghz but after a few minutes of use the frequencies drop down to even sub 900MHz, and even that differs. For instance, the cards that AMD gave to reviewers had a tendency to drop to only 920MHz or there abouts while aftermarket consumer cards dropped to 870Mhz and ran hotter

Is this independent of temperatures, or if I boost the fan speed to like 55%, can I get 1000MHz all the time?

Just for clarification, as I said, my clock speeds are at 900 (engine) and 1500 (memory) respectively. And from me checking it, at around 86C, they stay at those clock speeds. If I let it get to 93C, they can throttle then.

[Hazy125]

Is this independent of temperatures, or if I boost the fan speed to like 55%, can I get 1000MHz all the time?

Just for clarification, as I said, my clock speeds are at 900 (engine) and 1500 (memory) respectively. And from me checking it, at around 86C, they stay at those clock speeds. If I let it get to 93C, they can throttle then.

Having the card in Uber mode seems to force 1Ghz, so I'm assuming the fan boost and thermals account for that. Here is an interesting article pertaining to the frequency variance present. One graph shows the constant spiking, so I doubt that your card is running at 900MHz all the time http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Retail-Radeon-R9-290X-Frequency-Variance-Issues-Still-Present

[Vitalius]

Having the card in Uber mode seems to force 1Ghz, so I'm assuming the fan boost and thermals account for that. Here is an interesting article pertaining to the frequency variance present. One graph shows the constant spiking, so I doubt that your card is running at 900MHz all the time http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Retail-Radeon-R9-290X-Frequency-Variance-Issues-Still-Present

Thanks for that.

Interestingly, I haven't seen or touched anything regarding "uber mode" or "quiet mode". I have an XFX 290X. Where might the switch for it be on the board? I looked at it when I got it and didn't see one. Not that I was looking for it, but still. 

Mine is probably in quiet mode, but I have heard of people getting theirs in uber mode by default. 

That is annoying though.

[Hazy125]

Thanks for that.

Interestingly, I haven't seen or touched anything regarding "uber mode" or "quiet mode". I have an XFX 290X. Where might the switch for it be on the board? I looked at it when I got it and didn't see one. Not that I was looking for it, but still. 

Mine is probably in quiet mode, but I have heard of people getting theirs in uber mode by default. 

That is annoying though.

It's usually on the bottom of the card to the right of the PCI connector.... From memory at least, it's a relatively small switch.

 

EDIT: I was wrong, it's on the top to the right of the SLI fingers. Switch it to the left for quiet and right for uber