Tweaking your mining cards...squeeze every last KH/s you can from them

I find the biggest difference you can make to your hashing speed is the memory clock. Try to approach as close to 1500 mhz without going over if possible. After that it is just fine tuning the clock speed to squeeze out the last few remaining hashes.
before, i tired "--gpu-memclock 1500" but didn't see difference that moment, my stock memory speed was 1450
now i tried 1500mhz, i got almost 600mhs. thanks
but it's still lower than what i want, keke
my WU is looks lower, how to increase it?
anymore suggestions?
2znv03t.jpg


LTC mining is a really profitable? or waste of time?
 
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Increase intensity, I get my best results at I19, you're running at 13.

Also, if your WU is .9 of your Hashrate, you're good, from what I've seen/read WU will not equal your hashrate.

Also to make mining remotely profitable you need more cards. On a single card it is not very lucrative.
 
before, i tired "--gpu-memclock 1500" but didn't see difference that moment, my stock memory speed was 1450
now i tried 1500mhz, i got almost 600mhs. thanks
but it's still lower than what i want, keke
my WU is looks lower, how to increase it?
anymore suggestions?
2znv03t.jpg


LTC mining is a really profitable? or waste of time?

bring down your gpu clock speed to 1040, keep memory at 1500, should reach 680-700, make u are u are using 2 threads
 
For the 280x try 1040 (or actually 1030-1070 in 10 mhz increments) with memory at 1500 and gpu threads to 2, tc 8192, i 13,
if you are still having issues getting near 720 ish them make sure you have any monitoring like gpuz or afterburner turned off, if still having issues there are some issues with elpida ram latency timings and some fixes with custom bios stuff check out https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12369.0

also using a recompiled scrypt.bin may help a little with sgminer
http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoinmining/comments/1va8g2/ann_sgminer_400_release/ceqvjwn

i was having troubles with a sapphire 7970 vapor x, flashing to the 280x bios helped a lot (so mid 600s --> 710's then sgminer with recompiled bin around 730-740s ) I can even down volt the gpu a little (stock 1.4v --> 1.25 )
 
I have 2 XFX 290 reference in my ubuntu rig. Hynix mem. It doesnt like to run high mem. It wont start cgminer and hangs.

-g 1 -w 256 --lookup-gap 2 --thread-concurrency 32765 -I 20 --gpu-engine 1000 --gpu-memclock 1250

Both hashes consistant 880 with WU at 790-860

290's (both X and non-X) with Hynix memory do not need the memory clocks upped from what I've read. Since you're hashing at 880, consider yourself lucky. Highest I've read a 290 non-X get is 892 hash. I'm lucky to get 850 out of mine after hours and hours of tweaking.
 
For the 280x try 1040 (or actually 1030-1070 in 10 mhz increments) with memory at 1500 and gpu threads to 2, tc 8192, i 13,
if you are still having issues getting near 720 ish them make sure you have any monitoring like gpuz or afterburner turned off, if still having issues there are some issues with elpida ram latency timings and some fixes with custom bios stuff check out https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12369.0

also using a recompiled scrypt.bin may help a little with sgminer
http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoinmining/comments/1va8g2/ann_sgminer_400_release/ceqvjwn

i was having troubles with a sapphire 7970 vapor x, flashing to the 280x bios helped a lot (so mid 600s --> 710's then sgminer with recompiled bin around 730-740s ) I can even down volt the gpu a little (stock 1.4v --> 1.25 )
thanks, my card is sapphire 7970 vapor x with hynix memory
sound is too loud, i'll try under volt
 
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290's (both X and non-X) with Hynix memory do not need the memory clocks upped from what I've read. Since you're hashing at 880, consider yourself lucky. Highest I've read a 290 non-X get is 892 hash. I'm lucky to get 850 out of mine after hours and hours of tweaking.

Eh I completely disagree. I've owned 8 reference R9 290's and they all get 880 hash. Yes, you may have problems running at 1500mhz memory if the card is driving your display but if it's a secondary card it'll be fine. For the primary cards driving my display I flash the BIOS to the PT1T bios which removes the 2D downclocking and takes care of the memory issues.

I own 5 R9 290's that get 970 hash, all of which have Hynix memory. My other 2 R9 290's with Hynix memory get above 900 hash but don't reach 970 because their core clock can't go that high due to heat issues.
 
Eh I completely disagree. I've owned 8 reference R9 290's and they all get 880 hash. Yes, you may have problems running at 1500mhz memory if the card is driving your display but if it's a secondary card it'll be fine. For the primary cards driving my display I flash the BIOS to the PT1T bios which removes the 2D downclocking and takes care of the memory issues.

I own 5 R9 290's that get 970 hash, all of which have Hynix memory. My other 2 R9 290's with Hynix memory get above 900 hash but don't reach 970 because their core clock can't go that high due to heat issues.

I've got 2 more 290s on the way, should be here by Friday, one reference, one non-ref. I will see what those can do. I have no problems running my Elpida memory at 1500, I'm just saying even with my core at 950 or 1000 the best hash I can get is around 850 with max TC, core temp max @ 86C and VRM temps at max 78C. None of the cards will drive a display since I remote into it. Hopefully one of the new cards has Hynix memory so I can see the difference.

When you say "heat issues" what temps are you talking? >95C?
 
I've got 2 more 290s on the way, should be here by Friday, one reference, one non-ref. I will see what those can do. I have no problems running my Elpida memory at 1500, I'm just saying even with my core at 950 or 1000 the best hash I can get is around 850 with max TC, core temp max @ 86C and VRM temps at max 78C. None of the cards will drive a display since I remote into it. Hopefully one of the new cards has Hynix memory so I can see the difference.

When you say "heat issues" what temps are you talking? >95C?

I bet your config file isn't optimal. If you want I'll PM you my settings.

By heat issus I mean those two cards are in a case and even with +100mV they don't reach 1110 core. I actually just have them at 1000 core which gives me 890 hash since they have Hynix memory. I can't run them too hot because I don't want them to be loud since my family will be using that computer all the time.

My Sapphires in an open box run fantastically cool and quiet with 965 hash. I backed them up from 1110 core to 1100 in order to decrease the voltage and feel safer about how much power I was pulling through the wall.
 
I bet your config file isn't optimal. If you want I'll PM you my settings.

By heat issus I mean those two cards are in a case and even with +100mV they don't reach 1110 core. I actually just have them at 1000 core which gives me 890 hash since they have Hynix memory. I can't run them too hot because I don't want them to be loud since my family will be using that computer all the time.

My Sapphires in an open box run fantastically cool and quiet with 965 hash. I backed them up from 1110 core to 1100 in order to decrease the voltage and feel safer about how much power I was pulling through the wall.

Yeah, send your settings over and I'll kick them around. I'd be bouncing off the walls if I broke 900 hash, let alone 970. I'm going to attempt to unlock my 290 to a 290X using the guide on overclock.net when I get home today. Thanks for help.
 
Eh I completely disagree. I've owned 8 reference R9 290's and they all get 880 hash. Yes, you may have problems running at 1500mhz memory if the card is driving your display but if it's a secondary card it'll be fine. For the primary cards driving my display I flash the BIOS to the PT1T bios which removes the 2D downclocking and takes care of the memory issues.

I own 5 R9 290's that get 970 hash, all of which have Hynix memory. My other 2 R9 290's with Hynix memory get above 900 hash but don't reach 970 because their core clock can't go that high due to heat issues.

I used your exact settings and my hash hits a wall at 872. Card easily does 1110/1500 and is still 872, same hash rate as 1000/1500
 
Do you have Hynix memory?

Yes. I do notice the card downclocking the core from 1110 set, down to 850ish even though temps are in the 60's and hash rate is 100 lower than setting to 1000 core. At 1000 core it down clocks to 970ish.
 
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Yes. I do notice the card downclocking the core from 1110 set, down to 850ish even though temps are in the 60's and hash rate is 100 lower than setting to 1000 core. At 1000 core it down clocks to 970ish.

And that's exactly the problem. The core clocks must be stable. You need to flash the BIOS. I recommend the PT1T BIOS found on the unlock 290 thread on overclock.net
 
So can most 290 get above 900 kh? If so what else do I need to tweak to get there?
 
With allen's settings on my 290 I'm getting about the same hash as my previous settings, ~840 give or take 10. Been running for about 30 minutes now. The P1T1 bios sounds like it just fixes the black screen issue some people have (not me). I can't find any info about what else it does to clocks. I have noticed split-second drops in my core/memory clocks about once per minute. I assumed this was from cgminer getting new data to crunch. Sometimes it drops to ~300mhz other times to 700mhz. Using stock voltage and have not experienced any normal symptoms of too high OC.
 
And that's exactly the problem. The core clocks must be stable. You need to flash the BIOS. I recommend the PT1T BIOS found on the unlock 290 thread on overclock.net

Great advice. 1000/1500 gets me 880 hash and 1110/1500 gets me 960. Core is 72c and VRM is 87c. New bios eliminated the throttling I was seeing. Also bumped my Firestrike GPU score by a couple hundred at the same clocks.
 
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With allen's settings on my 290 I'm getting about the same hash as my previous settings, ~840 give or take 10. Been running for about 30 minutes now. The P1T1 bios sounds like it just fixes the black screen issue some people have (not me). I can't find any info about what else it does to clocks. I have noticed split-second drops in my core/memory clocks about once per minute. I assumed this was from cgminer getting new data to crunch. Sometimes it drops to ~300mhz other times to 700mhz. Using stock voltage and have not experienced any normal symptoms of too high OC.

Your core clock is probably unstable too. The BIOS flash will probably fix it. Don't flash your BIOS if you're using a reference cooler. It could overheat since the PT1T BIOS doesn't let your card throttle.

You will only get 970 hash if you have Hynix memory.
 
For the people who don't want to run their shiny new 290x cards balls to the wall:

You can get over 800 k/hash with a little underclock, 857 core / 1250 mem

TC 24700, Int 20, Worksize 512.

My dual XFX reference 290x machine doesn't even pull 600 watts at the wall with this config and i set the fan to 65% to keep the cards in the 70's range for temps.

Thanks for the tip! Working very well on my reference 290x!

Also, I was having some odd issues with flickering on the monitor that is connected to the 290x. I changed my main display to the secondary monitor I have connected to the intel gpu and set the refresh rate down to 60 from 144 on the asus monitor. That seems to have gotten rid of the oddities on the asus monitor thats hooked up to the 290x.
 
Thanks for the tip! Working very well on my reference 290x!

Also, I was having some odd issues with flickering on the monitor that is connected to the 290x. I changed my main display to the secondary monitor I have connected to the intel gpu and set the refresh rate down to 60 from 144 on the asus monitor. That seems to have gotten rid of the oddities on the asus monitor thats hooked up to the 290x.

The flickering occurs because of it switchiing back and forth between 2D and 3D clock speeds. What hash are you getting? I bet you get 1000 hash with a properly configured 290X with Hynix memory.
 
Your core clock is probably unstable too. The BIOS flash will probably fix it. Don't flash your BIOS if you're using a reference cooler. It could overheat since the PT1T BIOS doesn't let your card throttle.

You will only get 970 hash if you have Hynix memory.

What if I run the fan at 75% the entire time? I technically don't want it to throttle ever. My basement is around 17C right now.
 
What if I run the fan at 75% the entire time? I technically don't want it to throttle ever. My basement is around 17C right now.

Honestly it probably won't be enough. I guess if the cards aren't in a case they'll be fine.
 
The flickering occurs because of it switchiing back and forth between 2D and 3D clock speeds. What hash are you getting? I bet you get 1000 hash with a properly configured 290X with Hynix memory.

868 with clocks at 900/1400 and it's staying around 81c so I am happy with that.
 
Hey guys I haven't seen this mentioned, but are you guys re-thermal pasting your cards? I have for the 4 cards I own 2 290's and 2 290x's and a couple more for some buddies. I will say that getting the factory crap off and some good mx4 will make a huge difference at least in keeping you from throttling (95 C) and you may be even able to set a lower profile for the fans.

Also I am really stoked as there appears to be some work for the elpida ram latency issues on the 290x's and 290s over here which looks real promising as I am getting like 860-870 on my 290xs here:
https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12830.0 where basically there is some funny stuff going on in the memory controller for these cards :)

Also finally have any of you tried the gelid icy v2 on this card? I was thinking of installing this to quiet down my open air rig and help in the summer (Texas ) right around the corner but I am kind of worried about the voltage regulators. Maybe do the oven heat sink separation trick which melts the solder on the gpu copper plate and use the stock thing for cooling vrms and the ram. I dont think water is in the budget so any suggestions are welcomed.
 
Interesting read.

I agree with the original poster. I do tweak my cards to get the best hashing performance. I have a R9-290 which is unlocked to a R9-290X.

Driver: 13.12
Memory: Hynix
Bios: Asus R9-290x reference
Using Cgiminer 3.5.0
-I 20 --thread-concurrency 24550 --lookup-gap 0 --gpu-engine 1050 --gpu-memclock 1400 --gpu-powertune 50 -w 512 -g 1

Getting 950 k/hash Wu is between 890-910

Fan is set to max 70% with a custom fan curve in Afterburner. Temps stay under 90c. Reference card cooler. Fans speeds never go over 65% which isn't really that loud to me.

I have the card under water now so max temps have dropped to 49c. I haven't had much of a chance to tweak the card to much yet as I have been waiting to install the water block. I will likely have to revisit my settings now that I am running at higher speeds and maybe try updating my cgi-miner to a newer version. I bet I break 1000 k/hash
 
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Hey guys I haven't seen this mentioned, but are you guys re-thermal pasting your cards? I have for the 4 cards I own 2 290's and 2 290x's and a couple more for some buddies. I will say that getting the factory crap off and some good mx4 will make a huge difference at least in keeping you from throttling (95 C) and you may be even able to set a lower profile for the fans.

Also I am really stoked as there appears to be some work for the elpida ram latency issues on the 290x's and 290s over here which looks real promising as I am getting like 860-870 on my 290xs here:
https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12830.0 where basically there is some funny stuff going on in the memory controller for these cards :)

Also finally have any of you tried the gelid icy v2 on this card? I was thinking of installing this to quiet down my open air rig and help in the summer (Texas ) right around the corner but I am kind of worried about the voltage regulators. Maybe do the oven heat sink separation trick which melts the solder on the gpu copper plate and use the stock thing for cooling vrms and the ram. I dont think water is in the budget so any suggestions are welcomed.


You mean this post?

My 290 with Elpida behaved the same way he descirbed (i.e. non-linear on core/mem clocks). I'm going to try his settings tonight to see if it makes any difference. It sounds like he's creating a bios?
 
Yeah sorry linked wrong page.
But yes The Stilt dude is creating a new bios that patches out latency issues introduced with elpida ram in the 290 series of cards. Based on his work it looks like way better hash rates on both hynix and elpida ram at lower frequencies as well. From what I can gather the memory controller logic is very weird on the hawaii chips because of all of the throttling profiles and causes a lot of strange behavior when scrypt mining.

Hopefully this comes out soon :)
 
I would not oven treat the new cards(especially not Radeon) the solution is not lead like the old ones and it may damage it beyond repair they use a eutitic solution(melts at one temp and very rarely cracks/wears like the old lead based one that Nvidia was notorious for having fail after extended use, AMD pioneered the "new" way to do it back with the 2k series, Nvidia followed suit for the 200 series mostly)

I firmly stand behind giving a layer of fresh thermal paste either MX4(I do works awesome) or Indigo stuff you know the liquid metal stuff it takes careful prep but nothing touches it as far as performance is concerned.

Even my card a 7870 is non linear for mem/core for scrypt, example 980/1375 I get a very small bump if I go anything higher then 980 but then need to use 1530+ on memory for an ever so small bump in hashes and WU speed and its just not worth it.

Icy Vision probably not the one to go with for the 290s they push a lot of heat, possibly S1 Rev 2 cooler with decent fans and zalman ram sinks put on with a drop of mx4 and crazy glue I did this with a highly clocked 6870 and it worked amazing, they do have specific artic coolers meant for the 290 and apparently that one from Phanteks is nigh on the best one you can get for gpu cooling, though it is $.

For the cost, liquid might be the best way to go as it is only maybe $10 more then a decent aftermarket air cooler for the high end cards and blow them out of the water performance wise.

I think custom loop or that coolermaster one you would be looking at ~$220 for 2 gpu liquid cooled vs a good air sink is ~$100 per and you always need to add ram sinks 9/10, many choices, comes down to desired performance and budget, the S1 rev 2 with ram sinks and 2 decent 92/120mm fans would be ~$60.
 
I really despise the look of that % of gain +/- thing that are using for the 290/290x in the cat center, and absolute was a much better easier to understand thing, as in I want an extra 50Mhz not I want to raise +5%.

That might be the way the card/dev understands is but seriously, that is a stupid design choice, end rant :)
 
not all cards need the Vrm and such added cooling as some makers (MSI or whatever) know this is important and make sure it is well cooled by the baseplate ram sinks or whatever, though of course many cheap out and think that air on the core is good enough. Icy Vision 2 might work, but I would research it very well first as it may not be giving enough cooling potential to deal with a 290/290x, Prolimatech (MK13 or MK26) or Artic (various ones though I found their thermal tape that makes the sinks stick on is crap) have the best aircoolers for gpu cooling really.

I would just look at say MSI gaming 290 buddy got one and his temps are excellent, stock factory speeds and he games BF4 at 72c max.
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2012261/msi-290-gaming-temperatures-noise.html
Noise on Load:
>Gigabyte Windforce: 39.60dB
>Asus Direct CU II: 42.30dB
>Saphire Tri-X: 40.90dB
>MSI Gaming: 41dB<--

Temperature on Load:
>Gigabyte Windforce: 84ºC
>Asus Direct CU II: 76ºC
>Saphire Tri-X: 73ºC
>MSI Gaming: 73ºC

Looks like sapphire is the best in noise and temperature. I would stick with Sapphire, 73ºC is pretty sweet spot & since MSI is also pretty similar. Although sap provides 2 years warranty while MSI one provides 3 years.

Sources:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2013-vga-gpgpu/25-No...
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2013-vga-gpgpu/21-Te...

MSI source:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_radeon_r9_290x...

look more or less equal to me in the cooler regard. Sapphire one gets a faster "standard" clock at 1000/5200 core memory where the msi one you have to set to OC mode then it gets 1007/5000 :p so you are comparing sapphire to MSI, MSI tends to honor their warranties sapphire apparently not quite, 2 year for sapphire 3 year for MSI, so about equal, I still personally think the MSI one looks like it would be the better cooler possibly is cooling the Vregs and such better but I do not know 100%.
 
I picked up an MSI 280x and got 750KHs using I 13 ,TC 8192 -G 2 1080MHz core 1500MHz memory. The problem I'm having is that it doesn't seem to be accepting shares properly. I have 0 HW errors and 0 rejects but after 4 hours I only have 125 accepted shares. I tried a couple different pools with the same issue? Have any of you had this issue?
 
I picked up an MSI 280x and got 750KHs using I 13 ,TC 8192 -G 2 1080MHz core 1500MHz memory. The problem I'm having is that it doesn't seem to be accepting shares properly. I have 0 HW errors and 0 rejects but after 4 hours I only have 125 accepted shares. I tried a couple different pools with the same issue? Have any of you had this issue?

What you mining...?
 
run multi-pool or NMC maybe, the other factor that matters as much as hash rate, rejects, accepted is WU, this does not seem like much when you are talking a gpu but with asic the WU seems to balance out the high hashes and average hashes, so a higher constant WU/min along with the overall hashrate with least amount of rejected etc adds up to better return. Something is def up with this though. I am currently running a tad over 300KH with my 7870 was watching a show for ~1hr 34min, sitting at 2384 accepted 18 rejected WU of 8.9-9.2/min at I=13 as was watching show.

maybe the TC is to low or now enough work units? I run mine at 5 work units seems to give higher overall performance least with mine it does.
 
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