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3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining

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smileydad
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2021/01/04 20:54:50 (permalink)
A friend of mine told me it was easy to set up your computer to do some cryptocurrency mining, and I know that the miners bought a bunch of GPUs in order to make money, so I decided to get in on that action.
 
I'm using NiceHash and installed MSI Afterburner to limit the temperature to 71 C. It seems that the card generally runs at 68 C and the fan at 76%. I was curious if anyone else here is doing it, what their experience is, and if I'm doing right by my setup. (I learned a little after I left it on for a few hours without any constraints and the card ran at 92 C for a while. I know that was a stupid noob thing to do, and I'm thankful for the EVGA engineers that have some good temperature limits, since it seems that the card hasn't had any lasting damage.)
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    ty_ger07
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/01/04 21:13:12 (permalink)
    Overclock the memory as much as you can before it crashes, you get invalid shares, or your mining performance starts dropping due to memory controller error correction; and use the voltage/frequency curve in Afterburner to drop the GPU core voltage way, way down.  Assuming that you are paying for your electricity, you will be way more profitable adjusting your frequency/voltage curve completely flat so that it always runs at min voltage (or very close to it), and then raise the core frequency up as high as you can go before it crashes due to the low voltage.  Look at your Eff/Watt (if using NB miner) or enter your electricity cost in Nicehash miner's settings and enable "display net profit" and see how much you net (if you are using Phoenix miner or something else).  Adjust as necessary until you reach your peak net profit or peak eff/watt.  It will probably take a week of tweaking before you find something you are happy with.  And then, after 2 weeks, you will probably find some other adjustment to make.  At least that is how it worked for me.
     
    The core should be barely breaking a sweat.  If your core is running hot, you are doing it wrong.  If you want to make money, you want to be running at minimum voltage and making a minimum amount of heat.  The memory performance is way more important than the core performance.
     
    This is what my GTX 1080 is mining at:

     
    When I said "set max voltage here", I meant that set max voltage at that point (750 mV).  I wouldn't recommend the same to you since I don't have your card, I was just illustrating how it is done and illustrating what I was talking about above.  You will need to experiment.
     

     
    I'm not sure if this the proper forum section for this discussion.  There used to be a mining forum section, but it is now gone.  This probably belongs in the crunching forum section.  I will ask a mod.
    post edited by ty_ger07 - 2021/01/04 23:23:07

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    Cool GTX
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/01/04 21:29:46 (permalink)
    Moving this discussion to Hardware section of Forums
     
    EVGA does not have a cryptocurrency mining section
     
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    #3
    MasterMiner
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/01/04 22:38:11 (permalink)
    What ty said.

    NiceHash is a greedy beast and will fry your gpu if you let it. Voltage down.... way... way... down

    I used to mine. Now I compute.
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    smileydad
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/01/05 01:17:10 (permalink)
    Thanks, guys! My voltage curve looks like this:

    I think this means I should run at 1100mV, although I don't know how to set the limits for it; the power limit only goes as low as 50%, but I don't know what the maximum is. I also get that you want to overclock the memory, and I'll set that and see how it goes. When I maxed out, it seemed that it makes my system unstable, so I've ratcheted it down some.
     
    You mentioned invalid shares - how would I see these? I get that for memory controller error correction, you'd just see it in your overall profit, and you just need to check for it.
     
    In the meantime, I'll keep playing with it, but I guess you're suggesting that I can keep the power and temp limits as low as possible and just see what happens with the profits I'm getting, and trying to have the memory clock be as high as possible without crashing.
     
     
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    ty_ger07
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/01/05 07:06:47 (permalink)
    When under load you will see a dotted horizontal line appear on the frequency/voltage graph. Where that dotted horizontal line intersects the curve is where the current core boost is operating. What you have in your picture does not show it's current limit, you just clicked a point. You can click any point and nothing will change just by clicking the point. You have to click the point and move the point.

    To set a voltage limit, you have to make the curve flat from that point all the way to right. If the curve is flat, it won't jump up to a higher voltage. If it isn't flat, it can jump up to a higher voltage. In your screenshot, you don't have any voltage limit because you haven't flattened the curve at any point.
     
    For example, I would try something like this for mining:


    Invalid shares: it will say in the mining console windows. What algorithm are you primarily mining? What miner are you primarily using? Look at the name of the miner in the title of the console window. For instance, my NB Miner console window periodically gives an updated summary. Right now it says Accept: 784, Reject: 6, Invalid: 0. Rejects (Stales) happen due to stale shares on the pool and cannot be completely avoided regardless of how fast your internet connection is. Someone else in the pool will sometimes find a solution before you. Invalids are what you never want to happen. An invalid share indicates a mathematical error which indicates a hardware error/instability.
     

    ^^ My video card is power modded, so the wattage measured is not correct, and the eff/watt is not accurate, but it is still useful for the purposes of comparison.  I make changes until the eff/watt is highest, and/or current profitability in Nicehash GUI is highest.

    I am using NB Miner on my PC and one of my laptops due to NB Miner having significantly less stales for some reason compared to Phoenix miner. It seems that the Phoenix miner starts mining higher difficulty stuff (which has a higher payout), but I keep underperforming the pool with Phoenix miner and get lots of stales (around 25% stales) which reduce profit to the point that it is not an effective compromise. My other laptop, on the other hand, must have the right GPU with enough performance and efficiency which slots well into whatever pool Phoenix miner chooses for it, that I get good profitability in Phoenix miner with that laptop, with very few stales (less than 1%).  If I increase my power consumption and performance, I can get Phoenix miner to have less stales on my problematic PC and laptop, due to less underperformance in that pool, but then my profitability power-use-wise tanks.  So, I had to watch things and make these decisions based on what I observed.  You will have to do a lot of playing around and learning. Keep an eye on your profitability above all else.
     
    If you are paying for your electricity (most people are), mining is all about efficiency.  You want to find the best performance at the least amount of power use.  Typically the core will be underclocked and undervolted way, way down.  Every overclocker knows that voltage/power use doesn't scale with performance.  Overclockers overclock for the thrill regardless of efficiency.  To the contrary, you want to find where the GPU is most efficient, and you will find that at the bottom end of the scale.
    post edited by ty_ger07 - 2021/01/05 10:15:17

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    smileydad
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/01/05 11:35:48 (permalink)
    This is great stuff! So I turned back up the power, took a look at my graph and saw that dotted horizontal line. I adjusted the curve to match it (point-by-point; there's probably a better way!). Now I'm playing a bit with the power limit with those curves. Turns out that on my card, 50% power does not yield the best profit, so right now, I'm trying it at 60%. I think I will continue to play with it, but it seems that I can get better profitability with more power, actually. If I understand my math correctly, 60% power is 120W, which means a power cost of $0.3024 per day (.120kW*24hours*$0.105cost per kwh). At 100% power, I get 180W, and that's a power cost of $0.4536 per day. So if I can make another $0.15/day at 100% power vs. 60%, it seems to be worth it. I'll need to track power values vs. profitability, because as you say, you don't need full power necessarily to maximize profit.
     
    On top of that, I should also mess around with the memory clock, as it's definitely stable at +1000Mhz, and my system is unstable at +1500 Mhz, but there might be a good middle point where I can do a bit better.
     
    Regarding the invalid shares, I went ahead and installed Phoenix and then I could see what you mention. Interestingly enough, NiceHash preferred the DaggerHashimoto algorithm using either Excavator or NBMiner, but DaggerHashimoto does not seem to give nice output stats like Phoenix. I'll probably force my rig to use Phoenix while I'm getting profitability info and memory clocking it, as the output makes it easy to see if my card's memory can handle the overclocking.
     
    On a total side note, I also disabled my CPU. I know that they are not very good for mining. NiceHash automatically discovered it and so I was running with it, but really didn't see the value with it, since it's maybe 10% of the GPU's output, and there's no sense in trying to get that dialed in.
     
    A good discussion for sure, and do let me know if I'm still going astray with the turning up my power limit; it's just that it does seem to increase my profitability if it's higher than just 50% (and even more than 60%).
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    dlraro
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/01/20 23:34:58 (permalink)
    where do you guys mine?
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    smileydad
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/01/21 13:29:55 (permalink)
    I'm using NiceHash. The DaggerHashimoto algorithm seems to be the most lucrative one for me. I like that Phoenix gives me stats, but it was only when I ran it via Excavator that I noticed that my memory was running a bit hot with a higher voltage curve. I've also run it with NBMiner, too.
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    choechoe
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/02/11 08:12:50 (permalink)
    Using kryptex i am getting around 53mh/s at 89 power limit in MSI Afterburner with +150 MemOC and +50 Core OC Temps average around 68-72C fan set to 70%
    #10
    Noodle 1
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    Re: 3060 Ti and cryptocurrency mining 2021/02/11 19:30:06 (permalink)
    How good is the new RTX 3000 series for mining compared with previous generations and AMD's offerings?
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