Posts Tagged ‘Zombie Mode’

Updated “Zombie Mode” for AMD Radeon RX 470/570 and RX 480/580 4GB GPUs for Ethereum Mining

8, Feb 2021

The “Zombie Mode” for mining Ethereum on 4GB AMD Radeon RX 470/480 and RX 570/580 GPUs had them brought back from the dead (hence the name) after the DAG size has reached the capacity of their video memory. Using it you can still not only mine ETH, but still make a nice profit doing so, even with the reduced hashrate you are getting. Even though the 4GB cards can still work their hashrate and profitability will continue to drop down with each new DAG epoch (current DAG is 393), the development of mining software and more specifically the “Zombie Mode” continues. Here comes the latest lolMiner 1.21 for Windows and especially LolMiner 1.22 for Linux that brings significant performance improvements for the “Zombie Mode” for mining Ethereum (ETH), currently doubling the hashrate and extending the mining life of 4GB Radeons for a couple more DAG epochs with higher hashrate. And if this all seems too good to be true, well, it kind of is as there is a catch…

Currently mining ETH with AMD Radeon RX 470/480 or RX 570/580 GPUs with 4GB VRAM should be giving you a hashrate of about 13-14 MHS for Ethash per GPU connected via a x1 PCI-E riser and using a mining software that supports “Zombie Mode” mining. Using the latest LolMiner 1.22 under a Linux especially you can get a significantly improved performance using the “Zombie Mode” on RX 400/500 GPUs for mining ETH… up to double what you are normally getting. It is even easier to try it with the help of Linux-based OSes such as HiveOS and SMOS that have already updated with support for the latest LolMiner. If you are trying HiveOS for a first time you can use the promo code CMB10USDPROMO to register that will give you $10 USD in your account balance.

We already mentioned that there is a catch. In order to get the extra performance gain you must use a high interconnect bandwidth to connect the VGA to the motherboard, so something like at least 4x, x8 or x16 PCI-E extender or the GPU connected directly to the motherboard. The extra performance gain will NOT WORK for video cards that are connected through low-bandwidth x1 PCI-E extenders as is the case in 99% of mining rigs unfortunately, so these will remain running with the same mining performance as with earlier versions of LolMiner using the “Zombie Mode”.

Trying the new LolMiner with MSI Radeon RX 470 VGA with 4GB video memory that is directly connected to the motherboard on a x16 PCI-E slot we got 27.27 MH/s hashrate. The same video card connected with x1 PCI-E riser does just 13.xx MHS, we get about than double the current hashrate and very close to what these 4GB GPUs were capable of delivering before the DAG size moved past 4GB. Do note however that this new performance boost will not continue forever, in fact it is going to be available just a few more DAG epochs and upgrading existing mining rigs with the GPUs connected to high bandwidth slots is another issue just making things much harder. And the extra performance boost will be available for just about a month and a half before you get back to the same level of performance you are currently getting with “Zombie Mode” on x1 PCI-E extenders.

New Zombie Mod Performance:
– DAG Epoch 393: 27 MH/s
– DAG Epoch 400: 21-22 MH/s
– DAG Epoch 405: 14 MH/s

– To Download the latest lolMiner 1.21/1.22 for Windows/Linux with Updated “Zombie Mode”…

How To Still Mine Ethereum With AMD Radeon RX 400/500 Series 4GB GPUs

21, Jan 2021

AMD’s Radeon RX 470/480 and RX 570/58 with 4GB of video memory can still be used to mine Ethereum (ETH), even though the DAG size is already a bit over 4GB which is more than the video memory available on these GPUs. The current Ethereum DAG epoch number is #389 and the size of the DAG file is 4.04 GB and it will continue to grow, however with the current profitability mining ETH makes it worth to continue using these 4GB video cards at least a bit more. They can still be used in the so called “Zombie Mode” with a mining software that supports it in order to continue mining Ethereum for a bit more, even though the hashrate is going to be lower and continue to go down a bit by bit with each new DAG epoch coming.

At the moment an optimized AMD Radeon RX 400/500 series GPU with 4GB video memory should be capable of doing 17-18 MHS for Ethash mining with optimized memory timings and downclocked GPU with about a 100W of power consumption at the wall. So, do not be in a hurry to dismiss these “old” and “obsolete” 4GB video cards yet, they still have some life in them for mining Ethereum, you just need to play a bit more to make them work.

The AMD crypto mining software that supports “Zombie Mode” for AMD Radeon 4GB GPUs includes TeamRedMiner, lolMiner and PhoenixMiner and they are available for both Windows and Linux OS, free with some development fee built-in. You will need to add the following command line parameters for each specific miner to enable the “Zombie Mode” and make mining Ethereum work. Have in mind that the number might need to be changed up/down in order to find what works on your mining hardware. Currently we are using 4074 on our test video cards (Gigabyte RX 580 4GB), but on different cards and with a change in the DAG number you may need to set a different number, so do try what works for you.

– For TeamRedMiner: --eth_4g_max_alloc=4074
– For lolMiner: --4g-alloc-size 4074
– For PhoenixMiner: -daglim 4074

If playing with the miners directly is not your thing you may also try the SimpleMining or HiveOS Linux Mining Operating Systems that make it much easier for management of multiple mining rigs. They do come with support for the three miners we have mentioned and thus Zombie Mode for mining Ethereum (ETH) on 4GB AMD GPUs, so you just need to prepare a USB flash drive with the OS on it, plug it in the mining rig and boot from it. Then you continue from a web-based management windows through your browser setting up and monitoring your GPUs. Both SMOS and HiveOS are free to try with a limited number of mining machines and then you need to pay a small monthly fee for additional mining rigs, to continue using the OS. For HiveOS you can use the promo code CMB10USDPROMO that will give you $10 USD in your account balance to play with.

– For more about Simple Mining (SMOS) Linux Mining OS…
– For more about HiveOS Linux Mining Operating System…


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