So if mining is gentle on GPU cards why all the massive cooling

L

_l_

[H]ard|Gawd
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I've seen quite a few comments here at [H] that said mining is actually more gentle on a GPU card than gaming but if that is true, why do they have to use external fan cooling when mining or open bench type platforms instead of a PC type case? All the mining rigs I saw at retailers online were open bench type cases. Eventually many mining cards will be getting posted on ebay, many being sent back to EVGA and all other companies for repair and these companies take those cards, repair them then send them out. I don't know about ASUS and the others but EVGA doesn't sent you back the card you sent in, they send you one they have already repaired and in the near future that means it can easily be a used to be mining card.

Between that and the stupid high prices on GPU gaming cards I just can't see how folks will continue to build a new or upgrade their present gaming PC's. At this point it's looking like Console will be king of the gaming hill soon ...
 
PC cases can’t hold as many GPUs as a wire rack, and the box fan is just for blowing fresh air onto the rack for those 12+ GPUs.
 
not to mention if a card is set up properly you dont need to run it 100% power mining. I run a 1060 card to mine at 70% and ramping it to 100% gets me no higher hash values at all. Depending on what you are mining of course.
 
IIRC there is also an efficiency argument to be made. Cooler cards pull less power, and the ROI of mining lives in your hash rate exceeding your electrical costs.
 
_l_ said:
I've seen quite a few comments here at [H] that said mining is actually more gentle on a GPU card than gaming but if that is true, why do they have to use external fan cooling when mining or open bench type platforms instead of a PC type case? All the mining rigs I saw at retailers online were open bench type cases. Eventually many mining cards will be getting posted on ebay, many being sent back to EVGA and all other companies for repair and these companies take those cards, repair them then send them out. I don't know about ASUS and the others but EVGA doesn't sent you back the card you sent in, they send you one they have already repaired and in the near future that means it can easily be a used to be mining card.

Between that and the stupid high prices on GPU gaming cards I just can't see how folks will continue to build a new or upgrade their present gaming PC's. At this point it's looking like Console will be king of the gaming hill soon ...
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Because cards are in close proximity to each other running 24hrs at near max throughput.
Despite the cards not being pushed to the max they still produce a ton of heat.
I can stick a low power SSD in a thermal blanket and kill it easily.
When heat builds up anything can be harmed.
 
Just picked up a 1070 Ti to test out.

OP, I'm buying all your cards.





... got any cheap 1070s lying around collecting dust?
 
_l_ said:
At this point it's looking like Console will be king of the gaming hill soon ...
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I don't think that will happen anytime soon if ever! They don't update consoles quick enough.

New pc gear comes out every year.

Xbox x just came out and I don't think is doing 4k at 60hz.. 30hz maybe. Soon we will have monitors that will do 120hz at 4k for pc's.
 
Completely depends on how you treat your cards.

Size of cooling is irrelevant however for a correlation to degrading the cards. If anything it's a good thing. Like others mentioned a box fan blowing on open air case... I'd buy those cards in a heart beat. Lower temps, lower fan speeds, ect.
 
In my HTPC case I have a Radeon 290 mining with the RyZen @3.4ghz 1700x (Ryzen ~1$/Day, 290 ~$1.8/Day) 24/7- free heating or in other words electrical costs is no different than running the heater. No cooling issues, reference 290 is set at 85c in Wattman because at default 95c it starts smelling of hot plastic :LOL:. While it mines I have no problem playing a Blu-Ray or watching Netflixs, Youtube. I may buy the bigger version of the Silverstone case that accepts up to ATX motherboards so my mATX motherboard will be able to have a GPU in the second PCIe 16 slot and allow a bigger cpu cooler as well. I just updated it with a 750w Seasonic Gold power supply.
 
Decibel said:
IIRC there is also an efficiency argument to be made. Cooler cards pull less power, and the ROI of mining lives in your hash rate exceeding your electrical costs.
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How so? If the card's performance is being limited by reaching the thermal target, but it's not yet reached its power target, better cooling will provide more headroom and allow it to draw even more power while simultaneously increasing performance. If, on the other hand, the card is limited by power rather than temperature, better cooling will make no tangible difference in terms of power draw, discounting any power wasted by running the fans faster or having more fans than necessary.
 
I have 13 Gtx 1060 mining and they are set to 76% power only and fans to 50%.
It's about +10c outside and I'm cooking inside, I have even turned off all the heating in my apartment.
 
sonyman said:
How so? If the card's performance is being limited by reaching the thermal target, but it's not yet reached its power target, better cooling will provide more headroom and allow it to draw even more power while simultaneously increasing performance. If, on the other hand, the card is limited by power rather than temperature, better cooling will make no tangible difference in terms of power draw, discounting any power wasted by running the fans faster or having more fans than necessary.
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Cooler silicon leaks less current, so is able to do the same amount of work while wasting less power than an equally clocked chip running at a warmer temperature. "[A] common rule of thumb is that leakage current doubles for every 10C increase in temperature..."

From: http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9781461407478-c1.pdf
 
The biggest thing is the heat density. A normal rig will have 1 or 2 gpu's. Not 6-13 in the same computer
 
How are you supposed to fit 8+ GPU's inside a normal case? Extra cooling is because they are running so many gpu's in a close area, same as any environment where you are running lots of hardware in the same space. Is mining "harder" on a gpu then gaming? It's probably a wash, mining cards are undervolted as much as possible but run 24/7, gaming cards are usually overclocked but don't run nearly as many hours.

Really the only thing to worry about when buying a mining card is worn out cooling fans.
 
Depends who is doing the mining.
Not all people dipping their toes understand economics or hardware.
 
Decibel said:
Cooler silicon leaks less current, so is able to do the same amount of work while wasting less power than an equally clocked chip running at a warmer temperature. "[A] common rule of thumb is that leakage current doubles for every 10C increase in temperature..."

From: http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9781461407478-c1.pdf
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Yes, you are correct, and it additionally appears that the effect may be noticeable. For example:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_480_Amp_Edition/27.html

However, with a sufficiently high power limit, even accounting for the reduction in leakage, the card may still end up drawing more power than it otherwise could if it previously was limited by thermals rather than power, e.g. in the case of my GTX 1080 FE. What I don't know is whether it would end up higher than its baseline power draw with stock cooling at high temp. Ultimately, whether total power draw goes up or down, if the card can perform more work that should mean higher net income, since the net change in work performed vs. power draw per unit time, i.e. efficiency, should be small.
 
What I'm about to say applies to ETH mining....

For equal amount of hours... It's easier on the GPU, but a lot harder on the VRAM. It's common practice for miners to under clock the GPU and reduce the power target and OC the shit out of the VRAM. You can get away with much higher VRAM OC for ETH mining than you can gaming so a lot of mining cards have their VRAM OC'd to levels that would be unstable if it were used for gaming.

Then there's the fact that most mining cards have a 24/7 load on them for months on end, either until the card dies or it's no longer profitable for whatever reason.

I wouldn't mind, and have bought cards from folks on here who are also gamers. I tend to think they would take better care of the cards. There's no way I would buy a card used for mining from someone with relatively few posts who's sole purpose was to mine with the cards as they are, IMO, more likely to OC them to near death.
 
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