Wednesday, August 16th 2017
AMD Releases Beta Driver Specifically Geared for Blockchain Compute
Paraphrasing our own VSG, "So, this happened". AMD has gone out and done it: they've released a Beta driver specifically geared towards blockchain-based workloads, which should improve the company's GPU performance in generating money for miners. The driver is compatible with close to the entirety of AMD's GCN lineup - all the way from hot-from-the-foundry Vega to AMD's HD 7900 series. As AMD puts it, this is a driver solely purposed towards blockchain workloads - no gaming or graphics workloads (read, what graphics cards were originally meant to do) are officially supported in this release.
Apparently, AMD took it upon themselves to release this driver due to AMD's well documented DAG performance decrease for Ethereum mining hashrates. Specifically, according to Legit Reviews, the Radeon RX 480 went from an expected 14.8 MH/s at DAG #199 (down from 24.6 MH/s at DAG #130) to a prospective 24.8 MH/s DAG #199 performance according to Claymore's benchmark script. Performance improvements from the non-blockchain-geared driver release seem to stand at around 10-15%, which isn't too shabby from a single, Beta driver release.
This move from AMD could open up a proverbial can of worms, however, in the sense that it may start to look like AMD's focus isn't on gaming anymore. This makes sense - the only focus of any company is to make money - so the fact that AMD is tapping the mining market with increased, more predictable performance and longevity isn't strange. This is especially true if one considers Vega's current positioning against NVIDIA's parts, if current pricing trends remain. This move from the company, while sensible from an economic perspective - a graphics card sold is a graphics card sold, period - may bring the company some pushback from gamers, who simply want to be able to purchase AMD's graphics cards for their historically-intended purpose - gaming. That is already hard to do - nigh impossible - at MSRP prices for AMD's most recent architectures. And Vega seems to be going down the same road.
You can download AMD's blockchain-geared driver here.
Sources:
Legit Reviews, Hot Hardware
Apparently, AMD took it upon themselves to release this driver due to AMD's well documented DAG performance decrease for Ethereum mining hashrates. Specifically, according to Legit Reviews, the Radeon RX 480 went from an expected 14.8 MH/s at DAG #199 (down from 24.6 MH/s at DAG #130) to a prospective 24.8 MH/s DAG #199 performance according to Claymore's benchmark script. Performance improvements from the non-blockchain-geared driver release seem to stand at around 10-15%, which isn't too shabby from a single, Beta driver release.
You can download AMD's blockchain-geared driver here.
76 Comments on AMD Releases Beta Driver Specifically Geared for Blockchain Compute
What I'm saying is that it's the same thing all the time.
Again, Polaris was priced roughly the same as 1060, and deserved all the money they asked for, not more, not less, that was just the right price.
Some of the best highlights:
"You're an AMD fanboy!" Erm, no, I have GTX 980 and Intel CPU. It doesn't matter, you're an AMD fanboy!
Ok, so I've decided to buy GTX 1080Ti instead of RX Vega in the end. "Omg, that doesn't change anything, you're still AMD fanboy."
Gotta appreciate the hilarity when you posted "I might buy RX vega no matter what" in the recent past and people just skip the "might" part and get all butthurt when in the end you don't do that. "Might" doesn't mean "I will no matter what" lol. Also, it totally screws up your AMD fanboy narrative you keep on pushing on me no matter what I do and when everything goes against it, you just dismiss it with "it doens't matter" and keep on spweing out same nonsense that doesn't make any sense on any level.
It may seem like I'm all emotionally involved in this, but reading your idiocy like this actually makes my day better. It brings a smile on my face knowing there are actually people this silly out there.
The only AMD CPU I currently own is a Phenom II x3 (Those were great right?), but yet I am an AMD fanboy because I keep pointing out Skylake-X has lower IPC than Zen and the 7700K is only 5-10% better at gaming in 1080p than Ryzen lol.
What i did just in case anyone has issues mining with win7 x64 was to fully install Relive 17.7.2, and after it was fully working i got the "Leaked Dag Fix Beta Drivers" that was posted several days before, and force those "Leaked" drivers through device manager over 17.7.2, then applied the AtikMDag Patch 1.4.5 provided by the same guy who leaked the Beta Beta Drivers and it is working fine, my Hashrate went from 24.4 Mh/s all the way back to 27.3 Mh/s.
Very weird too, because "Released" Beta version is 22.19.659.0 while previously "Leaked" version have 22.19.659.1 signature.
AMD must be hating on Win7 x64... i have a feeling they will abandon Win7 Drivers completely very soon.
And to be fair I was a happy proponent for vega and had it been released a year ago I would have purchased it. You know back when I was shopping for a gpu. It was delayed so long nvidia will have a coubter option available that is probably called the 2060 and it will use all of 120w, before the year is over
He hasn't acted that crazy, and frankly someone isn't a fanboy simply for pointing out the BS Intel and Nvidia pull. Their has been a lot of BS lately, and there is no requirement to criticize everyone just to appear "fair and balanced" (Although there is plenty of stuff to complain about AMD).
I will also back him up that you continue to spout complete nonsense with the confidence of a child dictator. First you attack him for buying a GPU he wants, and then you attack me for (correctly) stating how well Vega mines.
Oh and how well does vega mine everything you have posted has been a crock of it. In fact the only number you have posted is at double the wattage and a mere 5mh/s faster than a 480 with a substantially worse ROI.
If RX480 is your AMD GPU atm, then it is the pack in the link below saying "AMD Minimal Setup".
support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+7+-+64
If you were referring to the driver that fixes the dag epoch bug, then sorry. I thought you were talking about the normal driver, not the special one for eth ereum mining.