Mining hardware

Performance of AMD RYZEN processors on RandomX algorithm cryptocurrency Monero

As you know, the Monero cryptocurrency is going to switch to the new RandomX mining algorithm in October 2019 to exclude centralization of mining on ASIC devices. For maximum decentralization, the main emphasis is on mining on central processors, as was actually the case with the current Cryptonight mining algorithm. Only with the advent of RandomX, the performance of the CPU on this algorithm will already significantly exceed video cards, which means that the profitability of mining on the CPU will also increase. Therefore, it will be interesting to compare the performance of different generations of AMD Ryzen processors on the RandomX mining algorithm and choose the most profitable option for them according to the payback period.

Asics OW Miner OW1 and SKC Miner Turing R1 for the X16r algorithm exist

Throughout August 2019, disputes in the reality of the existence of asic miners for the popular mining algorithm - X16r (cryptocurrencies Ravencoin, BitCash, Hilux, Motion, Gravium) did not subside. Asic miner from the unknown company OW Miner with the name OW1 was called as the main applicant, the second applicant is asic miner Turing R1 from the unknown brand SKC Miner. We, in turn, carefully avoided this topic as so far there has not been a single more or less reliable fact of the existence of these devices in reality. But the sharp increase in the hashrate of the Ravencoin cryptocurrency network doubled from 10 to 20 TH / s with a steadily falling value of the cryptocurrency itself, nevertheless gives reason to believe in the existence of asic miners for the X16r algorithm.

Bitmain Antminer S17e and T17e - improved models of ASIC miners SHA-256

Bitmain today announced the new 7nm ASIC miners for the SHA-256 (Bitcoin) algorithm - Antminer S17e and T17e at 64TH/s and 54TH/s, respectively. Unfortunately, the energy efficiency of new products has remained unchanged at 45J/TH for the S17e and 55J/TH for the T17e. The increase in productivity is provided only by increasing energy consumption. The dimensions of the ASIC miners themselves also became larger.

What can mining legends AMD Radeon HD 7970 and R9 280X in 2019

Released in 2012, the new line of AMD Radeon HD 7000 graphics cards with then breakthrough GCN 1.0 technology, according to many miners of the first wave of interest in cryptocurrencies, gives this generation of video cards a cult status, because it is this generation of video cards, and in particular the Radeon HD 7970 and Radeon R9 280X, that were most popular and effective in all the main eras of cryptocurrency mining on GPUs: Bitcoin in 2012-2013, Litecoin and Dogecoin 2012-2014, Monero and Dash (Darkcoin) 2014, Ethereum 2015-2016 and Zcash in 2016 - 2017. In addition to the new GPU architecture, AMD Tahiti chips at that time had the most energy-efficient 28nm process technology and 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface. For example, the Radeon R9 7970 video card in the early epochs of Ethereum mining in 2015 showed 27-28MH/s, but its successor RX480 (RX580) after 4 years, only 24-26Mh/s (excluding changes in memory timings). But this was in 2015, and in 2019 everything changed dramatically: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Zcash under Asics, Ethereum is not available for mining with 3Gb memory, most modern miners do not support video cards with the first generation GCN architecture, and the process technology is 28nm now it looks extremely inefficient. Despite this, the Radeon R9 7970 and R9 280X remain a sufficiently powerful mining solution for cryptocurrencies and how these mining legends will behave in 2019 in  our article.

Asic Innosilicon T3 + - 57Th with a power consumption of 3300W on the SHA-256 algorithm

On the official website of the manufacturer of ASIC miners Innosilicon , a new ASIC model for mining Bitcoin (SHA-256 algorithm) -Innosilicon T3 + was launched for sale at a price of 2310 USD. For this amount, the buyer will receive not the most energy-efficient device on the market, because The T3+ model is an enlarged last year modification of the ASIC Innosilicon T3 (43TH and 2100W) with an energy efficiency of 58W/TH. The latest models from the market leader Bitmain Antminer S17, recall, have an energy efficiency of about 40W/TH, which is 45% better than the presented "new items".

 

Mining test of the EVGA Geforce GTX1660 6GB GDDR5 video card

Nvidia GTX1660 video cards (without Ti) with GDDR5 memory were introduced back in March 2019, but until today we have not published detailed tests in the mining of this model of video cards. Previously, we only compared the GTX1660 and GTX1660Ti on the same Ethash algorithm, and since we gave preference to a simpler version of the GTX1660 because of a faster payback, so a more detailed test of this video card on other mining algorithms will be no less interesting for our readers.

 

Motherboards for assembling GPU mining rigs in 2019

When assembling GPU mining rigs, the selection of components is important for reliable and stable operation of the entire system under increased load during mining 24/7. Motherboard -one of these main components that require special attention when choosing. On which the number of installed video cards, the amount of memory, the processor and the overall stability of the entire system will depend. In addition, mining motherboards must withstand increased current loads so that the power paths on the board itself do not burn out. In order to simplify the choice for miners of components for their GPU rigs, manufacturers began to produce motherboard models specifically designed for mining, i.e. under the requirements of highly loaded systems, plus the possibility of connecting a large number of GPUs is provided

AMD Radeon RX5700XT - 73Mh/s on the Lyra2Rev3 algorithm (Vertcoin)

Yesterday we introduced you to the performance of the AMD Radeon RX5700 video card in mining using the miner WildRigMulti 0.19.0, which was the first to receive support for these video cards with the RDNA architecture. This time, the top model AMD RX5700XT tested in more detail on the Lyra2Rev3 algorithm used for mining Vertcoin cryptocurrency. The same WildRigMulti 0.19.0 is used as a miner.

 

AMD Radeon RX5700 mining test with WildRigMulti 0.19.0

Miner WildRigMulti in version 0.19 received support for a new generation of AMD video cards - the Radeon RX5700 and RX5700XT. Because at the moment it is the only miner that is optimized to work with the new AMD GPU architecture - RDNA, so everyone will be interested to know what results the miner managed to achieve from the RX5700 video cards. Recall that the AMD RX5700 and RX5700XT video cards on all current miners showed mining performance worse than the RX580, and on some algorithms the RX5700 showed very low results.

Obelisk - may cancel the production of asic miners for cryptocurrency GRIN

On July 20, Medium CEO Obelisk - David Vorick created a post in which he reports that due to weak investor interest in the GRN1 project, the company will have to stop developing the ASIC for the Cuckatoo31 algorithm (GRIN cryptocurrency). On the official website of this information has not yet been published. Recall, the Obelisk company in January 2019 began collecting pre-orders for an asik GRN1 worth 3000USD, but already in April, instead of one device, 3 models were presented priced from 2000USD to 10000USD. According to David Vorick, the company will refund customers all pre-orders in USD, but the payments will be in Bitcoin at the current rate. As a result, at the moment there is only one Innosilicon company with plans for the production of ASICs for GRIN31.

Videocard Nvidia Geforce RTX2070 Super- testing in mining cryptocurrency

The Nvidia Geforce RTX2070 Super video card belongs to the RTX video card line updated in 2019, offering slightly more performance for the same money as the original RTX models released in the fall of 2018. The announced price for the RTX2070 Super - 499USD, which immediately tells us that this card will not be in great demand with the miners, at least for the first time while the prices are kept at that level. But in any case, it will be interesting for everyone to find out right now what the RTX2070 Super graphics card in cryptocurrency mining is capable.

Fanshu Alum F1 - FPGA miner for X16r algorithm

The first public FPGA miner for the X16R algorithm, called ALUM F1 from the previously unknown Chinese company Fanshu Data Tech, went on sale at a price of 2500 yuan (380 USD). According to the press release on fanshudata.com, the FPGA miner on the X16r algorithm (Ravencoin cryptocurrency) is able to provide a hashrate of 30MH/s with a power consumption of 50W. For comparison, the similarly priced Nvidia RTX2060 video card on the same mining algorithm produces 23Mh/s and at the same time the power consumption is 130W.

AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics card - use of mining cryptocurrency in 2019

Released in 2015, the High-End AMD R9 Fury X graphics card looks pretty good even by today's standards. With a clean performance of 8600Gflops and HBM memory with a bandwidth of 512Gb / s, Fury X surpasses even the recently released AMD RX 5700 graphics card in these parameters, although there is a  4-year difference between them. But what gives the age of R9 Fury is an outdated process in 28nm and correspondingly high power consumption compared to more recent cards at 14 nm and 7 nm technical processes, and in addition to this, this is the 3 generation GCN architecture. For comparison, the RX480 / RX580 uses GCN 4, the RX Vega 56/64 architecture is GCN 5, and the new RX5700XT and RX5700 have a new RDNA architecture. Knowing all these introductory data, it became interesting for us to learn how the Hight-End AMD video card of 2015 in the realities of 2019 behaves in cryptocurrency mining. Moreover, the Asus Strix Radeon R9 Fury 4Gb has been gathering dust on the shelf for a long time.

Nvidia Geforce RTX2060 Super - testing in mining cryptocurrency

The updated line of Nvidia Turing video cards with the designation Super, released in early July 2019, is interesting primarily because it lowered the prices of regular RTX video cards. On the technical side, the new items are not of particular interest, since The main innovation is the increased number of Cuda cores compared to previous versions. The SUPER modification most affected the RTX2060 video card, i.e. In addition to the increased number of Cuda cores, the new product received 2Gb more GDDR6 memory and, in addition, a 256-bit memory bus instead of 192 bits. Such global changes should have a positive impact on its efficiency in mining cryptocurrency, bringing RTX2060S closer to the results of RTX2070.

AMD Ryzen R9 3900X and R7 3700X showed a high hashrate on the mining algorithm RandomX (Monero)

AMD central processors have always offered greater performance in the mining of Monero cryptocurrency compared to counterparts from Intel, so after the release of a new generation of Ryzen 3000 CPU series, many miners do not leave the performance issue of these processors in mining using the RandomX algorithm. Because Ryzen generation ZEN 2 processors are already commercially available, so we decided to share with you the mining performance of the top model today from the ZEN 2 processor line - AMD Ryzen R9 3900X (12 cores, 24 threads)

PCI-express risers do not work with AMD Radeon RX5700 and RX5700XT video cards

On July 7, 2019, AMD released several new products at once: Radeon RX5700 graphics cards, Ryzen 3000 series processors and X570 motherboards. After just a few days, an interesting feature emerged in the operation of computers assembled entirely from new components, namely, on such configurations, the RX5700 and RX5700XT video cards do not go into 3D mode when using PCI-express risers. Those. video cards always operate at lower frequencies intended for operation in 2D mode.

Such risers are used primarily by cryptocurrency miners to connect a large number of video cards to a single motherboard, but often they also use risers to more effectively place video cards in computer cases. And it was for such purposes that a computer was assembled for the Hardware Canucks site, which revealed such an unpleasant feature in the operation of AMD Radeon RX5700 graphics cards connected to the motherboard via Riser PCI-express

AMD Radeon RX5700XT - the first real tests in mining cryptocurrency

After the start of sales of new products from AMD - Radeon RX5700XT, the first information on the capabilities of these video cards in mining cryptocurrency began to come. And this is not what many counted on, because All current versions of miners either do not work with this card or give a very low hashrate. At the moment, we managed to launch testing of the Radeon RX5700XT on the miner Phoenix 4.2 and Lolminer 0.8.3 and the test results were much worse than one would expect from video cards of this level. Most miners are primarily interested in the performance of Ethereum's cryptocurrency mining cards on the Ethash algorithm, where AMD cards have traditionally always had a significant advantage from competing Nvidia solutions, so we’ll give the test results for this mining algorithm first.

Geforce RTX Super - mining performance forecast for the updated line of Nvidia video cards

On July 2, 2019, Nvidia announced an updated line of its RTX video cards with the SUPER prefix: RTX2060 Super, RTX2070 Super, RTX2080 Super. The slightly improved performance on the same 12nm process technology does not give rise to drastically new advantages over last year’s RTX cards. The main advantage of the new line is the starting price, which, together with the increased performance, will give miners a shorter payback period when using this equipment in cryptocurrency mining. The novelty will be on sale only in a week on July 9, 2019, so the real tests in the mining of Super RTX video cards from Nvidia are not yet available. In this connection, we will compare the technical characteristics of different models of RTX video cards and try to mathematically try to predict the hashrate of new products on popular mining algorithms.

What to choose for mining cryptocurrency: ASICs or video cards

During the Spring - Summer of 2019, everyone can observe an intensive recovery of the cryptocurrency market, and along with the rising cost of crypto assets, the interest in mining cryptocurrency is growing. Therefore, many novice miners are increasingly beginning to wonder: "Where to start?". If we consider classic POW (Proof-of-Work) mining, then today the main tool for POW mining is video cards and Asic devices, since CPU mining is of little relevance and expedient  only for botnet networks, and FPGA miners are extremely expensive and practically inaccessible to the average customer. Therefore, all who are going to engage in mining cryptocurrency stop on the choice of these two options - Asic or video card. And this choice is not as simple as it may seem at first glance, and will depend on many factors, which we will try to make out below. Also at the end we will consider the payback factor of equipment, which many mistakenly put in the first place in the choice of mining hardware.

Bitmain Antminer S9 SE 16TH and 1280W - the next reissue of the 2016 model

Bitmain does not seem to be embarrassed in front of its customers and Apple has once again put on sale its bestseller 2016 Antminer S9. Bitmain, by analogy with Apple and its tradition of selling outdated products with slightly improved performance, adding the mysterious letters SE to the name (which can be translated as Second Edition or Speed ​​Edition), also introduced a novelty with the SE index. Compared with the original, the Antminer S9 SE received an increased hash rate on the SHA-256 algorithm (16TH instead of 14TH) and at the same time the power consumption turned out to be less (1280W instead of 1375W). Those. energy efficiency increased by 20% (from 96J/TH to 80J/TH). The novelty is still far from energy efficiency of the latest generation Antminer S17 (40J/TH) , but considering the price of 351USD together with the power supply, this will be a rather interesting offer for owners of cheap electricity.