Good news for those looking to mine Ethereum using the latest AMD RX Vega 64 graphics cards. Reddit user /u/S1L3N7_D3A7H is reporting that he is now getting 43.5 MH/s from a Vega 64 running at 1000MHz core and 1100MHz memory. His setup is using 130W total card power (as read from HWiNFO) with the power target set at -24%. This result is at least twice more than the RX 480 which pulls 25MH/s at around 160W. Check out his full Imgur gallery here with screenshots of the system.
How about the AMD RX Vega 56?
The redditor also suggests that he can attain a similar result with the RX Vega 56. The GPU speed is lower while the HBM2 memory is set higher. Since that provides a better price-performance for mining. The RX Vega 56 is also lower in price and has slower stock memory speed. However, it is overclockable to get a similar result.
What Does This Mean for AMD Video Card Buyers?
Obviously, this is not great news for those looking to upgrade their graphics cards since miners will be buying them in bulk even before the truck leaves the warehouse. Miners already have been grabbing every single RX 580 and RX 570 for several months now, and that situation is just going to continue after this news.
The only real option would be to either go for one of the AMD bundles which the company set aside to discourage miners from buying every single supply out there. Although, these bundles are somewhat lacking and could use more affordable options. The only bundled FreeSync display for example is a $800 Samsung monitor.
The situation is made even worse with the incoming price increase on NVIDIA cards as well. Those looking to get a good value for a video card, would either have to wait until supplies normalize or have to dig deeper to find great deals.
Thing is that most other reviewers who replicated these results probably never undervolted their Vega 64.
That’s where most of the power saving goes. AMD overvolted Vega (like most other GPU’s) in order to increase yields.
By lowering the voltage on stock clocks, you can radically drop power consumption… by about 70W for Vega 56… not sure how much power saving was acomplished on Vega 64 though.
Apart from that, lowering the core to 1000 MhZ and then undervolting it as low as it will go will drop power consumption massively on Vega.
HBM2 on Vega 64 can be overclocked to 1100 MhZ because it has higher voltage available to it… Vega 56 can only reach about 950 MhZ in comparison on HBM2.
Miners usually undervolt their GPU’s.