AEON Mining Performance

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funkywizard

mmm.... bandwidth.
Jan 15, 2017
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Seeing this beautiful pile of Xeon E5-2680v2 got me thinking.
What Aeon hash rate can you expect from these CPUs and how much power will a system with two of these draw from the wall?
I guess one stick of RAM per CPU is enough for optimal mining performance?
With 8 cores enabled per cpu, dual e5-2680v2 should do 4000 - 4100 h/s. Need to measure it with a killawatt, but ballpark 220w. +20w and +200 h/s with all cores enabled.
 
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Joel

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Jan 30, 2015
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With 8 cores enabled per cpu, dual e5-2680v2 should do 4000 - 4100 h/s. Need to measure it with a killawatt, but ballpark 220w. +20w and +200 h/s with all cores enabled.
I know you also tested the 2660 but preferred the 2680; could you kindly share your hash and power numbers for the 2660?
 

funkywizard

mmm.... bandwidth.
Jan 15, 2017
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I know you also tested the 2660 but preferred the 2680; could you kindly share your hash and power numbers for the 2660?
I believe it was around 3400 h/s with 8 cores active and 3500 with 10. Don't have the best power figures on hand for these either (need to do more on-site testing) but I think it was in the ballpark of 20w lower than the dual 2680v2. So the 2680v2 is roughly 20% faster for roughly 10% more power. The total system cost is roughly 30% more, but, revenue per watt is better. Also, as "revenue per server" is higher, "revenue per everything else" is higher too -- revenue per rack, revenue per switch, revenue per man-hour, etc. The better revenue per watt makes up some of the 30% price increase, the 20% better performance makes up for most of the rest, and the improved revenue-per-everything-else is what clinches it for me.

But, with cheap enough power (and cheaper man hours, racks, switches, etc), the 2660v2 will hit roi a little sooner. So the two cpus are pretty close to equal overall, but with my priorities, I prefer the 2680v2.
 

alex_stief

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May 31, 2016
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I was wondering...
With dual Xeon 2680v2 nodes, would it be a good idea to throw a few GPUs in the mix?
If I buy a Platinum power supply anyway, it would not cost that much more to have 750-850W. The board has free PCIe slots, and the CPUs could have some idle cores while mining Aeon due to lack of cache which prevents me from using all CPU threads.
So I should be able to throw in 2-3 GPUs and mine some other coin simultaneously without much additional investment apart from the GPUs themselves. Or am I missing something here?
Which GPUs could that be considering pretty high electricity costs and what to mine alongside of Aeon on the CPUs?
 

chilipepperz

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Mar 17, 2016
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I'd mine something else with GPU but sure you could do both kinds of mining. You may lose a CPU mining thread to keep GPUs mining.
 

funkywizard

mmm.... bandwidth.
Jan 15, 2017
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I was wondering...
With dual Xeon 2680v2 nodes, would it be a good idea to throw a few GPUs in the mix?
If I buy a Platinum power supply anyway, it would not cost that much more to have 750-850W. The board has free PCIe slots, and the CPUs could have some idle cores while mining Aeon due to lack of cache which prevents me from using all CPU threads.
So I should be able to throw in 2-3 GPUs and mine some other coin simultaneously without much additional investment apart from the GPUs themselves. Or am I missing something here?
Which GPUs could that be considering pretty high electricity costs and what to mine alongside of Aeon on the CPUs?
If your servers support it, sure.

The cheapest dual E5-2680v2 servers I could find are not appropriate for GPU mining. If yours are, by all means.
 

alex_stief

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May 31, 2016
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Well my nodes would rather be based on normal workstation motherboards, for example ASRock E2PC602. I won't be using dozens of them like you do, so volume or density is not much of an issue.
 

funkywizard

mmm.... bandwidth.
Jan 15, 2017
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Well my nodes would rather be based on normal workstation motherboards, for example ASRock E2PC602. I won't be using dozens of them like you do, so volume or density is not much of an issue.
I'm most concerned with residual hardware value, reusability for other purposes (web hosting), reliability, power use, and cost. Most of these factors lead me to server hardware.

Density is a bonus, but not a focus of mine. I do also like to stick to what I know, which also leans me towards server hardware primarily.

Also on cost, not all the server hardware is expensive. 2U Chassis + 2 nodes (motherboards) + 2x platinum PSUs + rails for $330 shipped or less. Add cpus, ram, and a usb stick, and its just over $1000 for a pair of dual e5-2680v2 miners in 2u. Due to larger 2u heatsinks, 80mm fans, and sharing a psu with 2 nodes, power efficiency is pretty good as well.

Not really sure how I would propose to save money using crappier gear at that price point. Even if I could save a couple bucks, seems like a false economy.

edit: I would say, the above is unlikely to work with GPUs. For my GPU builds, the server grade hardware is quite a bit more expensive. Workstation boards may be a better choice in that scenario.
 
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alex_stief

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I had a similat train of thoughts and came to a different conclusion, at least for the scale I have in mind.
I know very little about "real" server hardware. And never seem to find good deals in my region. Plus noise from server-grade cooling would be an issue where I plan to put the systems.
And in my experience getting rid of a complete ready-to-use workstation is pretty easy at a reasonable price. Or I could even use them myself for a different purpose.
But I guess if I could find similarly priced server nodes as you did I would have to reconsider this.
 

funkywizard

mmm.... bandwidth.
Jan 15, 2017
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I had a similat train of thoughts and came to a different conclusion, at least for the scale I have in mind.
I know very little about "real" server hardware. And never seem to find good deals in my region. Plus noise from server-grade cooling would be an issue where I plan to put the systems.
And in my experience getting rid of a complete ready-to-use workstation is pretty easy at a reasonable price. Or I could even use them myself for a different purpose.
But I guess if I could find similarly priced server nodes as you did I would have to reconsider this.
Makes sense : )

2U nodes are a bit less offensive for sound compared to 1U servers, but not going to lie: it sucks being in the same room with servers either way.
 

Joel

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I could be in the market for an i5 8600k that I’ll take to 5Ghz. Worth it? 12 virtual threads but only 9 megs cache. Or a 5820k at 4.5+ more cache same threads but older core.

Thoughts?
Probably not worth it for aeon. I acquired a gaming rig that I swapped the 1060 for two Vega's.

The i7-7700K gets ~1100h/s, but I haven't tried oc yet. Better off with E5v2.
 

ehorn

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Jun 21, 2012
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Like say a bunch of nodes of 2670v1s?

They are not terrible. But they are hot and power hungry. Youll get 2800 h\s with 2 of these, @220w.

2660v2's give 3500 h\s at 170w. Less Power and heat with all v2's.

It all comes down to your needs/wants.
 
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alex_stief

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May 31, 2016
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I could be in the market for an i5 8600k that I’ll take to 5Ghz. Worth it? 12 virtual threads but only 9 megs cache. Or a 5820k at 4.5+ more cache same threads but older core.

Thoughts?
I5-8600k -> 6 cores, 6 threads
Still enough to make use of the full amount of cache, but when overclocked to 5GHz power efficiency will be terrible. It's a great gaming CPU, but there are far better options for Aeon mining. Starting with the Ryzen 5 1500x (4 cores/8 threads, 16MB L3 cache) or Ryzen 7 1700.
 
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