GPU Tuning

GPU Mining

Tuning GPU’s

Tuning GPU’s can be a challenging endeavor, you really don’t know what you’re getting into when trying to figure out the best way to tune a card. We are a boots on the ground group of techies that have been involved with technology dating back to the early 80’s. Each card we give advice on how to tune is what we have found to be the best for our rigs and the Algorithm/Coin we are mining.

Numerous Google searches will bring you numerous results, for the same card on the same Algorithm. But what does this all mean? It means understanding factors associated with the correct tuning methods for each card vary with the following:

• Operating Systems (OS): Windows and Linux are the two most popular OS’s for mining. Windows has its advantages, but because of the overhead associated with Windows it is not our recommended OS of choice. We strongly recommend Linux, and if you want an operating system specific to mining we recommend HiveOS, Ubuntu Linux Version. This is our OS of choice and we use it on all of our rigs. We have had a lot of success with HiveOS and the insight this OS gives you for your rigs is really second to none. More can be read on our HiveOS configuration page.
• AMD or NVIDIA: We have found NVIDIA GPU’s are a little more versatile and efficient. Some may argue this case and that is ok, all of our rigs run strictly NVIDIA chipsets and we have not had any issues, we get good hashrates and are overall happy with the performance. We recommend non-LHR GPU’s for mining Cryptocurrency. Here is a good article on Tech Radar about the differences in the cards: https://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/graphics-cards/amd-vs-nvidia-who-makes-the-best-graphics-cards-699480
• Algorithm: Each coin that you decide to mine will have its very own specific tuning for the GPU’s. Some coins are more intensive on Core and other are more intensive on Memory, some coins require tweaking of both Core and Memory. Tuning cards for each Algorithm is a bit tricky and can take you several weeks to completely fine tune and figure out. We are really big fans of Ravencoin and this is the coin that we have been focusing our mining efforts on. As we start mining other coins we will add those Algorithms to this page for reference.
• Mining Software: There are numerous mining softwares that you can use to mine Cryptocurrency. We standardized all of our mining rigs on T-Rex, simply because it is very fast, efficient and is specific to Nvidia Chipsets. It does carry a small fee to use, but it is well worth the support.
• Power: Having clean, noiseless power for high intensity computational data parsing, like in Cryptocurrency Mining, is a very critical. Many people do not understand that typical household current is “Dirty”. Many commercial grade Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) supplies clean the noise out of electricity and also help with voltage sag, voltage surge, or over-voltage. A double conversion UPS will provide consistent, clean, and near perfect power. These can become quite costly and the larger your mining farm, the more amperage is needed which grows the size and cost of the UPS.
• Drivers: Having up to date drivers on the OS can help with GPU performance, we recommend making sure your drivers are up to date to the latest version. A word of caution, since most of the GPU’s that people use are for gaming, updating drivers may actually hinder GPU performance, make sure you know the driver version number you are running and before you update make sure you understand how to revert back to the driver version that was working for you prior to the upgrade.
• Firmware: Can play a big role in GPU performance, but unless you are very familiar with firmware and how it works with your OS drivers we would recommend not to perform upgrades to either the Firmware or the Drivers. A bad upgrade could render the rig useless and would require a complete re-install of the OS.