Getting Ready for the Zcash (ZEC) Official Launch Tomorrow

27 Oct
2016

zcash-block-reward

Zcash (ZEC) is a new crypto currency project that launches officially tomorrow on 28th of October and there is already huge user interest in it and a lot of hype. Since ZEC coins will be mined and the development of miners and pools is currently moving very fast thanks to the significant interest from users you might want to be ready and up to speed with what is happening. What a lot of people still may not be aware of is the fact that Zcash has implemented a slow-start mechanism for the first 20,000 blocks (or about 34 days), meaning that the block reward will start at 0 coins and gradually move to the 12.5 ZEC reward in the course of the first 20K blocks. It will take a bit more than 2 days for the block reward to reach 1 ZEC and before that with the expected huge amount of hashrate thrown at the network right from the start the initial rewards for miners will most likely be very small. The linear rate of block reward increase effectively creates half as many ZEC in the first 20,000 block period resulting in 125,000 ZEC mined instead of the normally expected 250,000 ZEC for the first month of mining.

zcash-nicehash

Now, regarding mining, there are already a couple of mining pools available (mostly running on testnet) and a number of miners and more work is currently being done on improving miner performance and increasing compatibility. It seems that the NiceHash nheqminer is currently a popular choice, even though it currently supports only CPU mining and CUDA GPU mining with OpenCL support apparently expected shortly. The original miner from NiceHash is hardcoded to support only their mining pools, though since the source code is available other pools have adapter it to work with them as well (you need to get a dedicated version of the miner for that). Have in mind that mining Zcash on NiceHash might be more interesting option for some, but not for other users as you will be getting paid in BTC instead of ZEC… remember that you are essentially selling your mining hashrate and getting paid in BTC and not mining ZEC directly with them. There is also the alternative of purchasing Zcash Cloud Mining Hashrate from Genesis Mining…

nheqminer-nicehash

Here is a list of pools where you can mine Zcash (ZEC) when the mining starts tomorrow October 28th and get paid in ZEC coins, note that besides each pool there is a link for the miner that supports it. Do note that the list of pools is probably not complete, so if you find a missing one please post it in the comments, so that it can be added in the list. Make sure that the pool is already operational and running on the testnet and clearly states what miner is supported in order for people to be able to test it…

– https://zec.suprnova.cc/ – CPU/CUDA miner
– https://www2.coinmine.pl/zec/ – CPU/CUDA miner
– http://coinsforall.io/ – OpenCL/CUDA miner
– http://zcash.flypool.org/ – CPU/CUDA miner
– https://zmine.io/ – CPU miner

Crypto Mining Performance of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

25 Oct
2016

msi-geforce-gtx-1050-ti

A couple of days ago Nvidia has introduced their new lineup of GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti GPUs, entry level for gamers and the successor of the popular GTX 750 Ti and the more recent GTX 950. We got an MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4G OC video card to give it a quick test and see what Nvidia has to offer with their new GPUs in terms of performance in some of the most popular crypto mining algorithms. While the GTX 1050 Ti may not be the most powerful solution for mining, the interesting part here is the lower power consumption per board just like it was back when GTX 750 Ti was released. So while it may not be the best choice for more serious multi-GPU mining operations, it could still be a viable option for a lower power home mining rig with 6x GTX 1050 Ti for example.

msi-1050-ti-gpuz

The GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti are originally intended to be used without external power and have a TDP limit of 75W (because of the PCI-E slot), though we expect that there will be some companies offering more serious models with external PCI-E power. Do note that if you plan on building 6x GTX 1050 Ti GPUs mining rig you will still need to use powered extenders in order to avoid the possibilty of damaging the motherboard as the power draw from these will be significant.

When we consider the fact that the new GPUs are based on 14nm production process (the first GPUs to go down from 16nm to 14nm for Nvidia) and apparently do have some nice headroom for overclocking. We have managed to get +195 MHz on the core and +150 MHz on the video memory with the default voltages and what was limiting us from going further was the power limiter as the card was hitting the TDP and could not boost the operating frequency that much. Still the maximum frequency of the GPU it managed to hit briefly was 1911 MHz, so with higher power limit and with better cooling such operating frequencies might be available for constant boost.

msi-gtx-1050-ti-crypto

Here are the numbers, comparing the performance of GTX 750 Ti, GTX 950 and GTX 1050 Ti using the latest NiceHash Miner software to get the hashrates of various popular GPU mining algorithms at the moment. As you can see there is a really nice improvement in hashrate between GTX 750 Ti and GTX 1050 Ti, maybe with some decent overclock the new GPU could even get to double the performance in some algorithms. Nevertheless the improvement from GTX 750 Ti is good in terms of performance and while there is also decent improvement from what GTX 950 offers, it is not that significant really. The main reason for that is the fact that specifications wise the GTX 950 and GTX 1050 Ti look pretty similar, even though they are based on different architectures it is much like the older one is just a bit slowly clocked and has somewhat higher power usage. Still the GTX 950 is pretty much in between the GTX 750 Ti and GTX 1050 Ti in terms of hashrate in pretty much all algorithms apart from Cryptonight where the weird result is most likely due to the lack of optimizations.

In the end the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is really a good improvement over the GTX 750 Ti in terms of mining performance, you could probably get the a bit higher mining performance from 4x GTX 1050 Ti as with 6x GTX 750 Ti, and the power usage will be lower. You could still build a good mining rig with decent hashrate using 6x GTX 1050 Ti GPUs and do with a 600W power supply just fine. Of course, as already mentioned it might not be the best choice for serious mining operations where GTX 1070 would perform much better in terms of performance, but for home miners it could still be a viable option… just like GTX 750 Ti did when it first came out.

– More on the technical specifications and the differences between the GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti..

Nividia Has Announced the New GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti GPUs

18 Oct
2016

gtx-1050

Nvidia is finally lowering their entry level to the new Pascal line of GPUs with the official announcement of the new GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti series of products that are supposed to bring high performance in a small and affordable package with even lower power usage. These new GPUs are essentially the long awaited successor of the popular GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti series of graphic processors from Nvidia and they do come at a very similar price range. You can see the detailed specifications of both new series of GPUs and the expected end user pricing is set at $109 USD for the GTX 1050 and $139 USD for the GTX 1050 Ti with availability of the new GPUs expected for October 25th, so even though the announcement was today there is a one more week wait time before their availability.

GeForce GTX 1050 TI Specifications
– Graphics Processing Clusters: 2
– Streaming Multiprocessors: 6
– CUDA Cores (single precision): 768
– Texture Units: 48
– ROP Units: 32
– Base Clock: 1290 MHz
– Boost Clock: 1392 MHz
– Memory Clock: 3504 MHz
– Memory Data Rate: 7 Gbps
– L2 Cache Size: 1024K
– Total Video Memory: 4096 MB GDDR5
– Memory Interface: 128-bit
– Total Memory Bandwidth: 112 GB/s
– Texture Rate (Bilinear): 61.9 GigaTexels/sec
– Fabrication Process: 14 nm
– Transistor Count: 3.3 Billion
– Connectors: 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Dual-Link DVI
– Form Factor: Dual Slot
– Power Connectors: None
– Recommended Power Supply: 300 Watts
– Thermal Design Power (TDP): 75 Watts
– Thermal Threshold: 97° C

GeForce GTX 1050 Specifications
– Graphics Processing Clusters: 2
– Streaming Multiprocessors: 5
– CUDA Cores (single precision): 640
– Texture Units: 40
– ROP Units: 32
– Base Clock: 1354 MHz
– Boost Clock: 1455 MHz
– Memory Clock: 3504 MHz
– Memory Data Rate: 7 Gbps
– L2 Cache Size: 1024K
– Total Video Memory: 2048 MB GDDR5
– Memory Interface: 128-bit
– Total Memory Bandwidth: 112 GB/s
– Texture Rate (Bilinear): 54.2 GigaTexels/sec
– Fabrication Process: 14 nm
– Transistor Count: 3.3 Billion
– Connectors: 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Dual-Link DVI
– Form Factor: Dual Slot
– Power Connectors: None
– Recommended Power Supply: 300 Watts
– Thermal Design Power (TDP): 75 Watts
– Thermal Threshold: 97° C

gtx-1050-2

There will be no reference design version of the GTX 1050 and the GTX 1050 Ti, even though Nivida is releasing some images with a GPU that apparently seems to have a reference design cooler similar to the one found in the Founders Edition versions of the higher-end Pascal models. The new GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti will be available from petty much any major partner of Nvidia such as ASUS, EVGA, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Inno3D, MSI, Palit, Zotac and others in single and dual-fan designs. Interestingly enough the official specifications of both GPUs say 75W TDP and no external power connector, though we expect to see some partners actually offering OC models that do come with additional PCI-E power connector available. This is also something that you might want to be looking for if you are going to be building mining rigs with let us say 6x GTX 1050 or GX 1050 Ti GPUs. Since GTX 750 Ti was especially popular for building a lower power six GPU mining rigs when it was introduced one can expect that the GTX 1050 Ti especially might be an interesting choice for such solutions as well when it becomes available. So we are going to be keeping an eye out and hopefully will soon be able to test some of the new GPUs and report on their mining performance…

top