Is it worth upgrading GTX 580 SOC to R9280X (litecoin & some gaming)

[THE_EGG]

Hi all.
Recently I started to get into Litecoin mining and I've been surprised at how well my gtx 780 does in my main rig with mining (520-550kh/s - which from what I've read is quite good for an Nvidia card). I've been using the newest version of cudaminer to achieve this.

Now I've been thinking that seeing I have my lanbox which rarely gets used and it has my old GTX 580 SOC, I've thought about mining with that instead of stressing out my main rig all the time. Now if mining performance is proportionate to gaming performance, I'm thinking that the 580 SOC will get about 300kh/s at best if I mine with that.


My question is, should I sell my GTX 580 SOC and buy an R9280x for $400AUD (+/- $20) and have that mining instead? I've read that a 280X achieves about 750-780kh/s. I'd probably get around $140-$180AUD selling my 580 SOC and I'm also selling my old GTX 570 which will probably fetch around $110-$125AUD (I won't post the link to my eBay listing because it's not allowed here afaik).

note that retailers in Australia that sell AMD cards have not pushed their prices up like they have in the states - the price of 280Xs here used to be about $440 when they came out. Also my electricity is free.

 

[RCoon]

Could be worth posting here, the guys in there have plenty of expertise:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/bitcoins.140659/

@R-T-B and @james888 seem to know their stuff.

 

[R-T-B]

One excellent point is cudaminer is far easier to get optimal hash rate with than the level of tweaking required with cgminer. I would recommend sticking with the nvidia card if you really do get those numbers and electric cost is not a concern.

EDIT: Wait, we are talking about a 580? Bleh, yeah, upgrade that one.

 

[THE_EGG]

One excellent point is cudaminer is far easier to get optimal hash rate with than the level of tweaking required with cgminer. I would recommend sticking with the nvidia card if you really do get those numbers and electric cost is not a concern.

EDIT: Wait, we are talking about a 580? Bleh, yeah, upgrade that one.

Yup we are talking 580. It was in my main rig but got moved to lanbox duties once I got the 780.

I just tried out mining on the 580 SOC with some overclocks and I get a pitiful 190-200kh/s

I'll now most likely sell the 580 and get an MSI twin frozr 280x or Asus DCII 280x. The 280x I plan to keep running constantly and 780 just a few hours a day (I don't want to blow up my 780). Every bit counts right?

Running the 780 in this pic.

 

[xvi]

That's a lot more than I expected for an nVidia card. I'd check the stats here for a pretty good idea on what numbers you'll see. Check coinwarz for profitability.

 

[R-T-B]

That's a lot more than I expected for an nVidia card. I'd check the stats here for a pretty good idea on what numbers you'll see. Check coinwarz for profitability.

Cudaminer has made NVIDIA cards A LOT more profitable. That said, the same attention to detail has not been extended to Fermi devices as Kepler and newer ones.

The most energy efficient card for mining at the moment is actually the latest Maxwell product, the 750 ti.

 

[Nordic]

If electricity is not a concern go for the most performance per dollar. That would be around a 7970/280x at least here in the USA. My 7970 gets 720 khashes at my clocks at settings for reference. I also prefer dustcoin for checking profitability. Other than that, I can't add anything.

 

[Keullo-e]

I have a GTX470SOC and still it runs games pretty fine, BF4 is the worst enemy of performance, I run it with med-ultra mixed, 1920x1080 no AA.

 

[R-T-B]

As a side note: If you can ever get past the beta queue (currently like 5000 people long), poolwarz.com + cryptsy autotrading is absolutely awesome. Other than that, I can recomend wafflepool. It requires less attention but is less profitable. Middlecoin used to be good but has gone in the shitter lately.

EDIT: Although today, I made nearly nothing on poolwarz due to a bad fork on their casinocoin. May hold judgement on them...

 

[mauriek]

from the performance-watt ratio, the only nvidia cards worth for mining are GTX780 or 780 Ti and a few of GTX 750Ti for dedicated mining rig, sell the 580 and buy 280X.
I have been running 780Ti for mining for about 2 month now, little over 600Khz but will throttle to around 400Khz during my gaming session, the only card that i ever use for mining and gaming at same time without significance lag. and i intend to use it 24/7 until the warranty is over.

 

[THE_EGG]

I should have updated this but I did get an R9 280x DC2 TOP as a replacement and also a bargain 78501GB for $119 AUD (2GB ones sell for about $200 here :O )