Mining on Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080. Overclocking

The manufacturer has taken the RTX3000 video cards to a whole new level of performance.

Looking ahead, we can say that, if you do not take into account the restrictions on cryptocurrency mining applied by Nvidia, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3090 video cards are leading in the video card market in terms of performance. However, given the price difference and essentially the same power, the 3080 Ti is more attractive than the 3090.

To understand the difference between models with and without the Ti prefix, it is best to compare their capabilities based on basic parameters.

Overclocking the RTX 3080 in Rave OS

Choosing a walker;
Vocker tuning;
Go to Tunning and set the values. There is one feature - in the Memory field, enter a value multiplied by 2;
We save the parameters and test.

Overclocking the RTX 3080 Ti

As for overclocking the RTX 3080 Ti, at standard values this video card shows almost the same results as the 3080 when overclocked. In August, we managed to crack NVIDIA’s protection against mining by almost 70%, but due to insufficient testing data, it is still difficult to draw a conclusion on the feasibility of overclocking.

Reduced consumption 3080

It is recommended to lower the card voltage through MSI Afterburner. Card overclockers from Overclockers.ru report that they were able to reduce consumption by 50 W and make the card cooler without compromising performance. It is noted that the following settings were used:

The base core frequency was reduced by 291 MHz
The core voltage was set to 800 mV

At the moment, the topic of cooling and downvolting of the 3080 is in its infancy - miners are conducting various tests and finding out the optimal level of parameters for the card. The card's overall power limit rests at 180, below which it begins to drop in hashrate to 60 MH/s.

Selecting the power limit via MSI showed that at 75 percent of the nominal PowerLimit, the card is capable of maintaining a performance of 95 MH/s with a memory overclock of +1000.

Comparison of nvidia rtx 3080 with rtx 2080 and gtx 1080ti

Video card	Ethash hashrate	Power consumption	Energy efficiency	Efficiency*
Gigabyte RTX 3080	85/ Mh/s	225w	0.37 /mh/s watt	0.077 Mh/s per dollar invested
Gigabyte RTX 2080	41.1 Mh/s	105w	0.391 mh/s watt	0.034 Mh/s per dollar invested
Gigabyte GTX 1080 Ti	40 Mh/s (pill)	165w	0.242 mh/s watt	0.04 Mh/s per dollar invested

(*) Values are based on the best prices I can find so far. The GPU market is notoriously volatile, so these numbers should be used as a guide only.

So far, the Gigabyte 3080 does not offer the best power efficiency even with a 30% reduction in power consumption. Another thing to keep in mind is that while powerful power supplies are expensive, it may be more cost effective to put together a setup that produces less but also consumes less and therefore doesn't require a huge power supply to operate.

But, if power efficiency isn't that much of a concern for you, then the 3080 does offer much better hashrate for every dollar invested.

RTX 3080, RTX 2080 and GTX 1080Ti Specifications

RTX 3080	RTX 2080	GTX 1080Ti
Memory	1‎0 GB GDDR6X	8 GB GDDR6	11 GB GDDR5X
Memory Interface Width	3‎20-bit	256-bit	3‎52-bit
Memory Bandwidth	7‎60 GB/s	448 GB/s	484 GB/s
CUDA kernels	8704	2944	3584
Core frequency	1‎800 MHz	1‎830 MHz	1582 MHz
Price ($)	1100	1250	1000

Memory overheating

I was so happy that my TUF was so cold and quiet. During mining, the temperature was about 54 degrees, but then there were damn articles about memory overheating, and in them there was a link to the tool that was used to measure it - hwinfo.

I tried it on. Where this rig is located (now I call computers rigs) it’s cool, but the memory is really hot - 100-102 degrees in mining mode, although in games it’s about 80. Such things.

Of course, this is the internal temperature in the chip, and they say that at 110 degrees throttling will begin and will not burn out quickly, but a three-digit temperature is not good .

I played with the settings, directed the fan to the backplate (which didn’t help much).

The tower is usually closed. I removed the cover for a photo.

And I came to the following conclusions:

The problem is that the fan speed depends on the temperature of the chip , which is only 50% loaded during mining. But the memory subsystem works at 100%+, only no one cares about the temperature of the memory chips and the memory overheats. I think that manufacturers can fix this problem in firmware by adding memory temperature to the criteria for selecting fan speed. By setting the fan to 75% by hand, I lowered the memory temperature by 7-8 degrees to 94 degrees.
The problem only affects miners, since in games the GPU and memory load is balanced and the fans cope. Miners push the memory frequency to the limit, and with it the heat dissipation. At 3080 I set the memory to +900 megahertz. I reduced it to +800 just in case, losing about 1 percent of my profit.
The problem also exists in older generations of 10 and 20 series cards, but it is not yet clear how to monitor the memory temperature.
Not everything is so good with “after mining” cards. This mining is not so gentle. Despite the low GPU temperatures, the memory may be fried.

Relevance of purchasing RTX3080 and RTX 3080Ti for mining

The main criterion of relevance is time, i.e. How long will it take for the equipment to pay for itself and make a profit? As of 09/21/2021, the RTX3080 generates a profit of approximately $4.04 per day, including electricity costs at a price of $0.1 per kilowatt. The average cost of a video card is 200,000 rubles ($2,750). Taking into account the data, we calculate the payback period, it turns out to be approximately 1 year 10 months. Conclusion: in about 2 years, the RTX3080 will generate a profit of approximately $120 per month. As for the RTX3080ti, with an income of $5.74 and a cost of about 220,000 rubles or $2,990 - in about 1.5 years the profit will be about $170 monthly.

Finally

It's difficult to make a definitive opinion on the RTX 3080 at this point. It's a new card, so it's likely that we haven't yet unlocked its full mining potential. But, clearly, this graphics card does seem like a better investment than previous models, but only because of how inflated the prices of the 1080 and 2080 are currently.

A little history

I recently made a homemade case because I was going to change the video card, but as it turned out, buying a video card is not so easy...

Desperate to get 3080 for the recommended seven hundred on the official website on the day of release, I waited for the cards from local dealers. They appeared, but the price was the same wild one that we laughed at when we saw advertisements for outbids on ebay - $1400 . Well, okay, I think - I’ll wait for the Radeon , they promise even better! AMD processors were available on release day in a store near the house. But the same nonsense happened with radeons as with nVidia cards. There was no chance to buy at the recommended price.

I convinced myself that there was nothing to play anyway, bought an old 1080ti Strix second-hand and calmed down for a few days. But you understand - I still want 3080!

After reading a bunch of articles, I see that only miners get the cards, so a solution has been found: do it yourself...

Equipment

The video card comes in a dark package with an image of the card itself on the front side, as well as the “Asus” and “Nvidia” logos.

The back of the box shows the technical specifications of the card, as well as its cooling system benefits.

The package consists of:

Box
Video card
Quick Start Guide
Thank you note
Scorecard
Reliability certificate

In general, this is standard equipment for Asus. However, for such a large card, I would like to see an additional bracket (which is available from many other vendors).

Hashrate in mining

Next you will see the test results of the GeForce RTX 3080 in NiceHash mining. RTX 3080 tested at 95-102MH/s

on the algorithm.

The card reaches about 102 MH/s, with maximum memory overclock (1400).

Power	Consumption	hashrate (sink)	hashrate (overclocking)
100%	320 W	~81.2 MH/s	~102 MH/s*
90%	~290W	~81.3 MH/s	~89.5 MH/s
80%	~255W	~80.9 MH/s	~88.4 MH/s
70%	~225W	~80.7 MH/s	~87.8 MH/s
65%	~210W	~79.8 MH/s	~86.0 MH/s
60%	~193W	~60.2 MH/s	~61.3 MH/s

* 1400 from memory - overclocking

For comparison, the series offers around 50-54 MH/s in ETH mining, which is also comparable to the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti at around 54 MH/s.

Hashrate in mining using the Ethash algorithm:

Below are hashrate predictions for other cards:

Of course, these are approximate calculations, but knowing officially about all the characteristics of the cards, we can say that these figures are similar to the truth, because calculating the hashrate is not so difficult if you know the exact specifications of the card.

Below in the screenshot is the hashrate of video cards (3090, 3080, 3070, 3060) using various algorithms:
RTX 30 series hashrate in mining

Name	Price	Wednesday	min	Max	Ethash Mh/s
RTX 3060	$500	115	90	140	42
RTX 3070	$680	135	90	180	55
RTX 3080	$899	165	110	220	90
RTX 3090	$1,499	230	110	350	111

Memory and power consumption

The video card is equipped with 10 gigabytes of GDDR6X. Available from Micron.

Card consumption is from 210 to 320 Watt, depending on the miner and overclocking. The card is equipped with 1×12 Pin power connectors.

For a farm of 6 Nvidia RTX 3080 - Founders Edition video cards and the connected power system (motherboard, SSD, processor) you will need 2 power supplies of 1100 Watt each!

You can find out how to power the farm with 2 power supplies on our website.

Also on our website you can choose an excellent block for mining: in the corresponding section there are detailed articles about different power supplies: their configuration, efficiency, drawdowns, ripple, analysis and much more.

How to increase 3080 hashrate: GPU overclocking for more efficient mining

The Nvidia 3080 hashrate can be much higher than stated. It is better to overclock the GPU for mining using MSI Afterburner. The utility interface is very simple. To overclock a video card, you will need two sliders:

Core Clock – core overclocking, increases the core frequency;
Memory Clock – memory overclocking, increases the memory frequency.

You need to change the frequency values little by little. Then test stability. If all is well, then you can increase the frequency further. If the video card starts to fail or the drivers crash, then simply reduce the frequency and that’s it. There will be no harm.

Optimized Nvidia 3080 mining settings

TDP: 71% / 230 W
GPU: 300 MHz
VRAM: +1000 MHz
Cooler: 100%
ETH hashrate: 97 MH/s

To overclock the NVIDIA 3080 for mining ether or other coins using the DaggerHashimoto algorithm, you need to increase the memory frequency, and, on the contrary, lower the core to save energy. it does not affect production speed.

Optimal overclocking parameters:

Core Clock: Do not change
Memory Clock: +1500 MHz
Power Limit: 76%
Temp. Limit: 70°

Thermal images

All thermal images were taken under maximum load for a general overview and understanding of the cooling system with a slight overclocking of the core and memory.

By installing a thermal chamber on top, we get the following indicators:

The GPU temperature does not exceed 60 degrees - this is an excellent indicator for a card with such consumption.

By installing the thermal chamber on the side (on the cooler side), we get the following indicators:

GPU temperature ~ 46 degrees. Memory temperature ~ 43 degrees. These are excellent indicators.

Tests in MSI Afterburner show +- similar results, the GPU stays at ~60 (62) degrees:

Conclusion

Nvidia's RTX 3080 is simply an amazing graphics card. That's a huge leap over the RTX 2080, and it's cheaper at $689 compared to the RTX 2080's $779 launch price. This is certainly the type of performance boost we wanted to see from Turing, and we think many Pascal owners will indeed be upgrading their graphics cards beyond the 20 series.

Is Big Navi worth the wait? If the rumors about limited supplies of the RTX 3080 are true, many who won't be able to buy the Ampere at launch may have to wait.

However, we don't know anything about Big Navi yet, so those determined to get the best deal may want to wait. Right now, all we can say is that RDNA2 will need to respond strongly to this launch, as Nvidia just set the bar - and they set it high.

Cooling system

As for the graphics card itself, the TUF Gaming makes a positive first impression thanks to its all- aluminum casing .

Of course, the design of this card is not what we typically see on other AIB cards, and while the card looks very different from the Founders Edition, it feels very solid in the hand and has an overall premium feel.

This is a definite plus for the TUF, considering that most of its competitors use plastic casings.

Let's move on to the external cooling system. TUF has 3 massive fans - the ASUS Axial-tech design that debuted with the RTX 20 series cards.

ASUS claims to have improved the external cooling system as the new coolers are quieter and capable of delivering increased airflow compared to the previous generation of "Axial-tech" fans.

Additionally, the center fan now spins in the opposite direction compared to the external fans, something we've seen on a number of Gigabyte graphics cards over the past couple of years.

Like all the cards we've tested, the RTX 3080 TUF Gaming is also a big card. Its dimensions are 299.9 x 126.9 x 51.7 mm .

On the front side of the card you can see the presence of a BIOS switch. Asus typically uses it in higher-end cards like the ROG Strix. By default, the card uses " Performance BIOS" , but users can also switch to " Quiet BIOS ".

As for the back panel, it is a full-size backplate, also made of aluminum. ASUS added two cutouts at the end of the card to allow air to flow directly through the heatsink, and also made a cutout where the GPU would be.

Also note that there are thermal pads attached to the back of the PCB, which can be seen by disconnecting the backplate!

Internal cooling system

Let's move on to analyzing the video card itself. Let's start, as usual, with the radiator grille.

The TUF's cooling system is quite simple. The developers use 2 radiator grilles, which are connected by copper heat pipes.

6x6mm copper heat pipes are used

. The GPU contacts its own special plate, and there is an additional plate for the VRM.

Once the primary heatsink has been removed from the PCB, we are greeted by a secondary heatsink that sits on top of the memory, which also includes a single heatpipe .

We see this as a direct response to some of the memory cooling issues we've previously criticized ASUS for, so it's good to see the company taking direct steps to improve the situation.

Having disconnected the last heatsink, we see a clean printed circuit board.

ASUS uses a 20-stage power delivery solution split into a 16+4 configuration. ASUS uses Vishay SiC641A power stages rated at 55A DC, 70A peak 10ms, and 100A peak 10us.

ASUS uses Vishay Siliconix SiC641 DrMOS components in this VRM solution.

The memory is powered via a 4-phase circuit controlled by the uP9512S controller.

GDDR6X memory chips are manufactured by Micron and have the model number " D8BGW ", which decodes as " MT61K256M32JE-19:T ". They are designed to operate at a frequency of 1188 MHz (effective frequency GDDR6X - 19 Gbps).

The NVIDIA GA102 GPU is the company's second Ampere and the first designed for GeForce gamers. It is produced by Samsung using an 8-nanometer process technology, has 28 billion transistors and a die size of 628 mm?.

Internal structure (characteristics)

Nvidia says the new RTX 3080 is twice as fast as the RTX 2080 thanks to its 28 billion transistors, 8,704 CUDA cores, and 10GB of new GDDR6X memory. How fast is this graphics card really?

We've already done it. Be sure to read it to understand what’s new in the 30th line and how much more powerful is it really?

In short, here are the main changes:

The core count has been increased significantly across the board, with the RTX 3090 boasting a whopping 10,496 CUDA cores and the RTX 3080 boasting 8,704.
Memory has also been upgraded to the new GDDR6X (but not for the 3070 )
Thanks to the move to Samsung's 8nm node, the RTX 3080 GPU also packs an impressive 28 billion transistors.
TGP - the power consumption of the entire card - is now up to 320 W for the RTX 3080, which is 28% more than the last generation flagship, the RTX 2080 Ti.
New technologies have appeared

And we’ll put the most interesting thing in a separate paragraph:

Clock Speed has been reduced slightly compared to the 20 Series, with the RTX 3080 having a Boost Clock of 1710 MHz (the 3080 ASUS TUF Gaming OC has a Boost Clock of 1785 MHz), compared to the 1815 MHz Clock Speed of the RTX 2080 Super.

How much can you earn

Knowing that this video card works well on the algorithm (Coin) and knowing its hashrate, you can calculate the payback of this video card, how much it will bring per day, month, year.

To calculate, enter the hashrate of this video card in the “Hashing Power” column, in our case it is 81.2 Mh/s

in stock or
89 Mh/s
in overclocking

“ Pool Fees ” is the pool commission, you don’t have to enter it if you don’t know. The average commission for all pools is 1%.

Next, in the “ Power Usage ” column, you need to enter the power consumption of the video card (farm). In our case it is 300 . We enter this number in this column.

“ Power Cost ” is the price for your electricity (“per socket”). Enter the value in cents. For example, our electricity costs an average of 3 rubles – that’s $0.05. Enter this or another number of yours.

That's all! Click on the “ Calculate ” button and find out how much you will receive from 1 video card per day, week, month, year!

You can find out about the profits of other coins on the website.