Vega 64 performance

[funkywizard]

@modder man

See my post #7
after I applied the "soft power" registry file, my 1 vega card dropped 100w.
further 30w power reduction by tweaking my overdrivetool.ini file

Thanks to you and everyone else here in this thread and on reddit. Got my 4-vega rig running on a dual e5-2660v1 (x9drg-qf motherboard) doing 7200-7500h/s at a bit under 900w. (not cpu mining yet).

Power play tables dropped around 2 amps 120v (measured by pdu so rounding errors apply), and reduced temps easily 10c, while boosting performance a couple percent as well.

Vega 64 bios on the vega 56's was also a plus. Can do a stable 1025mhz memory clock without issue on cards that could only muster 950mhz beforehand.

Attached photo: 3 of the 4 cards are Vega 56, 1 is Vega 64. All configured identically in wattman and stak miner. Got 1075mhz working in shorter tests. Didn't try 1100mhz. Had some stability issues, wasn't sure the exact cause of it so just dropped memory to 1025mhz to minimize hassle.

 

[funkywizard]

1000w will be just fine if you undervolt the cards, but I have a feeling you'll suffocate 3 of those 4 cards.

Here's a tip: put some command tape on the cards in these spots on each card (see photo). It pushes the cards a couple millimeters apart from each other to give more room for the fan intake. The "middle cards" still get much hotter than the last card, but it helps. Combine this with the powerplay tables to lower power use and you can get to manageable temperatures.

 

[funkywizard]

My 900w figure is with these supplemental fans attached onto the back of the cards (see photo). The fans are quite power hungry, loud, and annoying. Before the powerplay tables, this was essential to keeping the temperatures in a safe and stable range.

The 900w figure includes the powerplay optimization, but before I downgraded the fans to something more reasonable. External fans attached to 3 of the 4 cards. The 4th card runs cool enough without them, plus, I can't block all the video ports if I want to hook up a monitor.

To each of those 3 cards, I have a pair of 40mm counter rotating fans (roughly 10-15w ea) and a third 40mm fan thats not counter rotating (roughly 6w ea). So 75-100w of fans. After setting up the power play tables I was able to downgrade the fans to just 2 of the 40mm non-counter-rotating fans. So best guess is I went from 75-100w of external fans to around 35w of supplemental fans. Unfortunately I don't have the kill-a-watt numbers after downgrading the fans, but I would assume it's closer to 850w now vs 900w before.

 

[Marsh]

@funkywizard

You are a mad scientist.

 

[Patriot]

Well vega's have the triple screw tails for full ATX mounts... I figured I could make a baffle for them... Something like this.
120mm fan shroud for multi GPU setups by 3dYeti

 

[funkywizard]

@funkywizard

You are a mad scientist.

How did you know?

 

[funkywizard]

Well vega's have the triple screw tails for full ATX mounts... I figured I could make a baffle for them... Something like this.
120mm fan shroud for multi GPU setups by 3dYeti

nice : )

I've done similar, though I do find the 40mm fans attached to the pci bracket to be more effective for blower-fan-model gpus. 40mm fans tend to produce much more static pressure, whereas 120mm fans produce more airflow.

For open-air gpus, it's more of a toss up.

 

[Klee]

I tried two of my mining 1060's below my 1080Ti in my main pc's Phantek case the 1060 in the middle hit 82c and shut down.

If you are planning on keeping the board and gpu's in that rack get some pci-e mining risers, the GPU's WILL run MUCH cooler and you wont use as much power.

 

[Klee]

Oh and I have been checking prices on Rx Vegas............the prices are insane now.

 

[funkywizard]

I tried two of my mining 1060's below my 1080Ti in my main pc's Phantek case the 1060 in the middle hit 82c and shut down.

If you are planning on keeping the board and gpu's in that rack get some pci-e mining risers, the GPU's WILL run MUCH cooler and you wont use as much power.

I've found risers to be very unreliable. And with vega, massively reduces hashrate.

Been getting boards that support 3 or 4 double slot gpus, and just forcing the air through like a hammer through a wall.

 

[funkywizard]

Oh and I have been checking prices on Rx Vegas............the prices are insane now.

Yup, check out the price of monero. Up over $260. Was what, two weeks ago it was $100? Difficulty hasn't increased much, so profitability is way up. No surprise it's hard to get cards now.

 

[Joel]

Yup. Silly me was going to wait for Black Friday deals on Vega. I finally wised up and bought 2 64s on Thanksgiving day, after seeing all the 56s disappear from Newegg's inventory. I would've preferred the 56s (better H/$). I could turn a small profit just reselling them. But I won't.

Also tried putting them back to back and noticed the fan on the blocked one started spooling up before I even put a load on it. Decided to wave off on that idea. I'm thinking now that something like this might be a good candidate for sitting below a Vega:
Sapphire PULSE ITX Radeon RX 570 4GB GDDR5 PCI-E HDMI / DVI-D / DP (UEFI), 100412P4GML - Newegg.com

Mine's in my bedroom so the 40mm fans are a no go for me.

 

[funkywizard]

Yup. Silly me was going to wait for Black Friday deals on Vega. I finally wised up and bought 2 64s on Thanksgiving day, after seeing all the 56s disappear from Newegg's inventory. I would've preferred the 56s (better H/$). I could turn a small profit just reselling them. But I won't.

Also tried putting them back to back and noticed the fan on the blocked one started spooling up before I even put a load on it. Decided to wave off on that idea. I'm thinking now that something like this might be a good candidate for sitting below a Vega:
Sapphire PULSE ITX Radeon RX 570 4GB GDDR5 PCI-E HDMI / DVI-D / DP (UEFI), 100412P4GML - Newegg.com

Mine's in my bedroom so the 40mm fans are a no go for me.

I put together another 4-vega box, and can tell you the 40mm fans are essential in that config. Before putting the 40mm fans on, the "free air card" was putting out noticably more air than the other 3, (all at max fan speed) -- maybe 2-3 times tbe airflow. The 40mms turned that around. The free-air card still runs cooler, but even the slower / lower power 40mm fans made a huge difference.

In terms of watts / hash, it's certainly not helpful to have 12w of fans for each of 3 of the 4 cards. But, it does give me 4 cards on one server without janky risers.

As to the bedroom, I agree. I've been bringing some of my less noisy servers home (water cooled 1080ti's mostly), to free up power in the datacenter / office for these noisier vega's.

If offends my sensibilities to pay $700 for a vega 64 when I could have gotten vega 56's two weeks ago for $480, but such is life. At current prices / difficulties, even $700 is a no brainer.

 

[capn_pineapple]

I wish I had the dosh to get into mining, but the capital expenditure is just way too high.

 

[funkywizard]

I wish I had the dosh to get into mining, but the capital expenditure is just way too high.

Could all disappear tomorrow, so, best not to invest anything you can't risk losing.

On the small side of it, pretty much anyone should be able to upgrade their desktop pc graphics card and use mining to subsidize a gaming upgrade. Seems like a reasonable entry point for people who can't afford to lose much.

 

[vrod]

Would anyone be willing to share their settings for V64’s? I have 6 of these and they are working pretty unpredictable. Sometimes they mine for many hours, sometimes for minutes before crashing. I’ve tried a lot of different settings but are kinda at a loss now.

 

[funkywizard]

Would anyone be willing to share their settings for V64’s? I have 6 of these and they are working pretty unpredictable. Sometimes they mine for many hours, sometimes for minutes before crashing. I’ve tried a lot of different settings but are kinda at a loss now.

reddit vega guide:

Monero and Vega - the definitive guide • r/MoneroMining

Their powerplay tables are a bit aggressive for me. I went with 935mv on all settings (core and ram). That has been pretty stable.

Without powerplay tables you have to choose much higher voltages or the card will be very unhappy. But then it uses more power, gets hotter, and the card becomes unhappy anyway.

I believe intensity 2016 / 1736 as they recommended was fine for me.

Try 1000mhz ram to start if you're having problems. Vega 64 should be able to go higher -- anywhere from 1025 - 1075 seems fine to me, but, 1000 is good if you're having stability issues.

And definitely max out the fan speed.

 

[vrod]

I did use 1100mhz for a while on 3 of the cards and they ran stable on that. I have been through both that guide and Hellae’s guide on reddit so I’m going a little insane here xD

I will try the 935mv option, I’ve only tried up to 925mv. Did you use 935mv on P7 state only or on other different states?

 

[funkywizard]

I did use 1100mhz for a while on 3 of the cards and they ran stable on that. I have been through both that guide and Hellae’s guide on reddit so I’m going a little insane here xD

I will try the 935mv option, I’ve only tried up to 925mv. Did you use 935mv on P7 state only or on other different states?

I did 935mv in wattman in the 3 places it lets you put voltage. Didn't do any registry tweaks (other than installing the powerplay tables). At higher ram speeds you might have better results with 950mv for the memory, but at 1025mhz it shouldn't be necessary to go that high.

 

[vrod]

I did 935mv in wattman in the 3 places it lets you put voltage. Didn't do any registry tweaks (other than installing the powerplay tables). At higher ram speeds you might have better results with 950mv for the memory, but at 1025mhz it shouldn't be necessary to go that high.

The 5 cards have not been running for over 6 hours without issues thanks to your suggestions. They are running with 935 mv on the P7 state and S3 state. HBM is running at 1100MHz and the rig in total are producing about 19.8KH/s (AEON). Consumption is about 970 watts. I will try to tweak the settings a little but thank you a lot for the tip!