How to keep mining Ethereum on 4GB AMD RX470, 480, 570, 580 GPUs?
Ethereum's DAG file has entered August 2020 with 3.8GB in size making many 4GB GPUs like popular RX470/480 RX570/580/590 drop hashrate, become unstable, or completely fail mining.
The
cannot write buffer for dag
orcannot allocate big buffer for DAG
errors are the most common results of the increased DAG file.
Good news is, we can solve this and keep mining a few more months until November! Kryptex will give you the hints and help needed to prolong Ethereum mining for 4GB GPUs.
4GB AMD DAG size problem solution
You may want to start with our Ethereum and DAG file article to better understand better why it is all happening now. TL;DR: GPUs are unable to load the ever increasing DAG file into memory, thus, resulting with miner failure. Yet, here are the tips to keep GPUs working up until November.
Update Kryptex to the latest version 💎
We've added the Phoenix miner in the latest release, which is better optimized for 4GB GPUs. It allows cards to go as far as ~375 epoch approximated in November.
Update GPU drivers 🏎️
Get the most up-to-date Radeon drivers at AMD's support page. 20.8.1 is the latest version at the time of publication.
Enable compute mode 🧮
Make sure you have AMD's Compute Mode enabled for each GPU after any driver update since that could simply go off
without you knowing that. We created the easy Compute Mode guide to check/set the state.
Optimize PCIe slots positions 🔄
Put the 8GB GPU (if any) in the most-upper PCIe slot on the motherboard and connect a display to that GPU. That will guarantee video output (and VRAM usage) goes through the richest card on memory. Moreover, if your CPU has an integrated video chip, use motherboard's HDMI/DP/etc, to connect a display to a computer. Because video output takes some memory, 4GB GPUs benefit from all that.
Overclock the memory 🔥
In the toughest times, we should squeeze all the juice out of the GPUs: "Go overclocking!" Install MSI Afterburner, increase memory clock and lower the power limit. More details in our "ETH overclocking" article.
Flash BIOS timings 🔧
Phoenix miner has neither rxboost nor straps. To match the hashrate with Claymore, one needs to flash the GPU's BIOS. Aaand, we also have the "BIOS flashing guide" for that too!
Done! Ready to mine again 🚀
These steps will give another couple of months of youth for 4GB GPUs. Since November, those will not be capable of Ethereum mining anymore. No better time for an upgrade!
Choose The Best GPUs for Mining with Kryptex!
Anything unclear?
There are a lot of steps, and some require some skill. Yet, we are here to help! Reach our community at Kryptex's Telegram chat for tips on overclocking, flashing, or GPU choise 👋🏻 💪🏻
Or contact us directly. We will help you with anything 😁
- On Kryptex website;
- On facebook;
- Via telegram direct messages;
- Or send us an email.