Last updated November, 2017

I want to mine ZenCash, and with my GTX 1060 6GB cards I’m currently getting about 255 sols/s using my optimized Ethereum or Ethash settings that I outlined here

With those settings, I am getting about 508 Sol/s to 510 Sol/s and consuming about 171 watts. According to the ZCash GTX 1060 6GB hashrates for my specific EVGA GTX 1060 6GB SSC card, others were seeing up to 350 Sol/s for each card – so there’s definitely room for improvement!

Overclock Settings	GPU 1 Hashrate (Sol/s)	GPU 2 Hashrate (Sol/s)	Total mining rig power draw (including motherboard/power supply etc)
Stock, no overclock settings	297	305	263 W
Core + 50 MHz	304	308	267 W
Core + 100 MHz	303	314	270 W
Core + 150 MHz	crashed	crashed
Backed off Core + 125 MHz	306	316	268 W
I put the Core clock back to stock and played with the memory overclock to see what sort of max hashrate I could get without crashing.
Memory + 500 MHz	312	310	270 W
Memory + 750 MHz	315	310	275 W
Memory + 1000 MHz	321	317	277 W
The GTX1060 GPUs could take 1000 MHz overclocking without crashing (they could only do 950 MHz on Ethash) so I added in some Core overclock too
Memory + 1000 MHz, Core + 100 MHz	332	325	282 W
Memory + 1000 MHz, Core + 125 MHz	329	337	287 W

At these settings, EWBF is reporting efficiency for both cards of around 2.7 – 2.8 Sol/Watt. Without adjusting the power targets, are cards are running around 73 to 75 degrees which is acceptable, but putting out more heat than our power optimized Ethereum mining rig.

Profitability wise, it is the same as mining Ether (according to WhatToMine).

We are making more mining Zencash, Zcash, or an equihash coin, but after paying more for power, our profit is 1 cent per day less ($1.94 profit instead of $1.95 profit) than Ether and we’re putting out way more heat (10 degrees more per card) that we have to get rid of. In the winter time this might not be too bad, but in the summer it would require another fan. Also, at the higher heat levels the cards may not last as long.

Let’s see if we can adjust the power target in EVGA’s overclock utility to improve those numbers.

We can manually increase the fan speed (rather than leaving it on ‘auto’), and when it’s put up to 70%, the card temperatures were lowered from 72 and 75 degrees down to 62 and 66 degrees, but the power was also increased by 3-4 watts.

Instead of increasing the fan speed, let’s see what happens if we leave it set to ‘auto’ and then lower the temperature target down from the default 83 degrees C.

 

Overclock Settings	GPU 1 Hashrate (Sol/s)	GPU 2 Hashrate (Sol/s)	Total power draw (including motherboard/power supply etc)	Sol/W Total Rig
Memory + 1000 MHz, Core + 125 MHz	329	337	287 W	2.32 Sol/W
Since we found these to be the max overclock settings, they will be left alone and we’ll play with the power target
Power target 80%, temp target 65 degrees	305	302	250 W	2.428 Sol/W
Power target 70%, temp target 65 degrees	298	284	191 W	3.05 Sol/W
Power target 60%, temp target 65 degrees	292	281	185 W	3.02 Sol/W
Power target 50%, temp target 65 degrees	289	277	179 W – crashed after a few minutes
Power target 40%, temp target 65 degrees	249	250	156 W	3.19 Sol/W

With these sorts of numbers, it brings my profit/power usage a little closer to Ethereum, but actually at 100% power draw is where I am the closest with only 1 cent of total profit per day difference.

Something strange is going on and I’m not sure what – when I bump the power target up to 110%, my power usage drops?! I’ll have to go back to the drawing board:

Power target 110%, temp target 65 degrees

296

286

186 W

3.12 Sol/W

After much confusion, I started fresh and adjusted settings. Using the top core speed from the first chart (at the top of this post), I then upped the memory overclock until it crashed, and backed off to +400MHz, and then started playing with the power limit until I had some good efficiency and overall power usage. Here’s where I landed, and it’s been running stable for 6 days:

Power target 60%, temp target 68 degrees

306 Sol/s at 85 Watts

306 Sol/s at 88 Watts

3.5 Sols/W