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+--- Thread: new gpu purchase/explanation (/thread-5115.html)
new gpu purchase/explanation - mattjackson123 - 01-27-2016
looking at getting a new gpu to replace my old p.o.s
currently looking around the price mark of the gtx 960/r9 380.
card i am thinking of getting atm is the 4gb r9 380.
Am looking for any suggestions, as well as a brief explanation of what the important specs are for a gpu when hash cracking
RE: new gpu purchase/explanation - jodler303 - 01-27-2016
for Nvidia cards, make sure they have "maxwell" or better "maxwell 2.0".
for AMD: make sure you don't have to pay for electricity by yourself, they need a lot more electricity. about twice as much.
last year i was shopping for amd cards too, like hd7970 (cheaper) or r9 290x (good choice but very loud fan when compared to nvidia gtx) and hd7990 (faster but many heat problems). AMD was attractive to me as a beginner because they seemed to be cheaper, in the sense of "more bang for the buck", but they aren't in the long term. i wasn't happy with them. meanwhile i have sold all of them and followed epixoip's advice: went the nvidia 970/980 route too, and only reference design cards.
i've got a brand new setup now and all i can say, epixoip was damn right. go nvidia, go reference cards. - that is, if you need a stable system that actually works.
i woudln't go for gtx960 though, minimum 970.
RE: new gpu purchase/explanation - unix-ninja - 01-27-2016
(01-27-2016, 05:27 PM)mattjackson123 Wrote: looking at getting a new gpu to replace my old p.o.s
currently looking around the price mark of the gtx 960/r9 380.
card i am thinking of getting atm is the 4gb r9 380.
Am looking for any suggestions, as well as a brief explanation of what the important specs are for a gpu when hash cracking
Don't bother with AMD if you are serious. the 380 is going to throttle itself hard when you put it under load. At this point, AMD is pretty much garbage for Hashcat.
RE: new gpu purchase/explanation - mattjackson123 - 01-27-2016
cheers for the fast replies, the 970 is really pushing my budget (to begin with). Are there any cheaper/but only slightly worse type deal cards, or would 970 be the way to go (980/titan ect just not possible to buy atm)
RE: new gpu purchase/explanation - jodler303 - 01-27-2016
have a look at the figures, they might help:
if electricity cost is a concern: (i.e. 24/7 use for months, years) NVidia
gtx 960 ... WPA2 at around 42 kH/s, details http://hashcat6.rssing.com/chan-14131099/all_p73.html
gtx 970 ... WPA2 at around 168 kH/s, details https://gist.github.com/joshuaskorich/7678d4fcbf49acb69387
gtx 980 ... WPA2 at around 213 kH/s, details https://gist.github.com/epixoip/abd64f1af800013abb1f ... at around 165W
if electricity cost is not a concern, short time use or you simply want maximum bang for the investment: AMD
hd7970 == r9 280x ... around 160 kH/s for WPA2 ..... (price paid ~170 eur) at around 250 W (afair)
r9 290x ... around WPA2 200 kH/s as far as i remember (price paid ~200 eur) at around 300 W (afair)
hd7990 ... around 320 kH/s for WPA2, i've measured something around 500 W (price paid ~300 eur)
(all prices for second hand purchase)
so AMD cards are offering more bang for the buck (which also attracted me very much in the beginning), but you will pay more for electricity in long term. - so it probably depends on your usecase, how much the card is going to run. ...
RE: new gpu purchase/explanation - mattjackson123 - 01-27-2016
ah thats really helpful to know, final question about the cards, does the brand of the card matter. i.e is an asus gtx 970 4gb better/worse than an EVGA gtx 970 4gb for example. if so, which is the best brand to go with for nvidia cards?
RE: new gpu purchase/explanation - mattjackson123 - 01-27-2016
also in terms of speed/power draw/heat ect is it worthwhile to overclock a gpu?
RE: new gpu purchase/explanation - jodler303 - 01-27-2016
@overclocking: usually not a problem for both AMD and NVIDIA ... you don't need to pay more for a vendor-overclocked card, as you can usually freely adjust the clock speeds with software. the power/heat/performance are scaling accordingly. For example, i've used this with the AMD cards last year to use exactly as much power as my photovoltaic panels were delivering. i simply polled the produced wattage from the solar panels every minute and adjusted the AMD's clock speeds accordingly. depending on how well you can keep cool your card, and as long as it's stable, you can overclock.
@different brands: well, first we have to differentiate between OEM design cards and reference design cards here:
OEM design cards: e.g. http://gzhls.at/p/1186788.jpg - you do not want this. the coolers are AXIAL. typically two or three.
REFERENCE DESIGN cards: e.g. http://gzhls.at/p/1167949.jpg - this is the type you want, the cooler is RADIAL. typically only one. sucking in the air at the rear, and blowing out hot air at the slot bracket.
Do not get mislead by the fact that the reference cards "only" seem to have one fan. that one fan is very effective, usually a lot better than the OEM fans. Especially if you have more than 1 card, you will soon get into troubles with OEM cards. OEM cards will typically cycle the air inside the computer case. it will warm up continuously. - The reference cards are different, they're blowing the hot air outside the case. that's a lot better. You can put multiple cards together just besides each other, too. - something that's typically not possible with OEM cards.
As usual, there are exceptions: For AMD hd7990 even the reference design used AXIAL fans. also, i have indeed experienced one card that was hotter than the other two. even though they were reference cards looking and built exactly the same way, just rebranded by sapphire and asus. i refreshed the thermal gel on the hot card but still there was a difference in temperature (before: 10 hotter, after changing the thermal paste: 5 degrees hotter). i still don't know why, but this seemed to be an exception, normally reference cards are very similar if not even the same, possibly just rebranded.
if you are looking at different OEM cards, there might be bigger differences because every manufacturer has different cooling fans or did other design changes to the card. usually you don't want these OEM cards, though. You really want to stick to the reference design cards. usually they are built exactly the same way, or at least 99% the same way. at least that's my experience so far (epixoip please correct me, if i'm wrong)