Overclocking inside of the miner itself instead of using 3rd party software such as MSI Afterburner, RivaTuner, NVIDIA Inspector, EVGA Precision X and others has many advantages. For this guide we will be covering the settings in T-Rex which will apply to most other miners as well. We will show you how to set up your mining program as well as set up the wallet address and computer name that shows up on the pool.
Why Should I overclock in the Miner:
If you set your overclocks in the miner instead of another software, you don't need to install another piece of software. This will help reduce boot times and allow you to start mining sooner.
Having all the settings makes it easier to transfer overclocks while troubleshooting. Lets say you have a problem with one of your cards, and to figure out the issue you swap around which slot the GPUs are plugged into. Inside of the batch file the miner will keep the overclocks stored per device so you don't have to write down the overclocks or remember what you had them set to. You only have to switch which overclock gets applied to each GPU.
Setting the overclock in the miner will help prevent crashing. Without needing to access another application and apply limits and overclocks this will reduce the chance of the miner randomly crashing. Windows sometimes runs into problems when accessing software and this can cause applications to crash and blue screens to happen.
The most important reason to overclock in the miner is power. Imagine you have enough GPUs plugged in to reach that sweet 80% power limit with undervolts. If MSI, or any other overclocking software, crashes then your power limit gets set back to 100% on every GPU. Now instead of being safe and following the 80% rule you'll probably be past the full capacity of the power supply.
Higher probability of rig recovering if a GPU crashes. If one of your overclock is unstable or under random uncertain conditions one of your GPUs ends up crashing and needs to reset, it can recover while the other GPUs are still mining. Not only does the GPU recover, but the overclock gets re-applied to the card instead of being reset back to factory settings. This helps you avoid the above mentioned power issue.
What Overclock Should I use:
There is plenty of information out there on base overclocks to set, depending on which card you have. However every overclock is going to be slightly different because of the Silicon Lottery. The Silicon Lottery is pure luck and depends on the quality of the components you have in your specific GPU. So some cards might be able to run higher memory clocks than others, some cards might be able to use less power than others. If your just starting with a fresh card it is easier to use a 3rd party software like MSI Afterburner to really dial in your overclock first, before adding it into the miner.
Configuring T-Rex:
Getting Started:
Download / Install your mining software of choice (T-Rex Miner for this guide)
Run the program as Administrator
Write down which GPU is which device listed. For T-Rex the list starts at device 0.
Make sure to allow the software past Windows Defender (or any other anti virus)
Putting in the File Path for T-Rex:
To start mining we will need to direct the batch file for whatever coin you want to mine to the T-Rex application. This can be done by opening the T-Rex file and right clicking on the application, clicking on properties, and under general you will see the location. Copy and past that into the start of the batch file and at the end add: \t-rex.exe.
Configure Wallet Address:
To put in your wallet address, first go to your wallet of choice and copy the address you want to mine to. Next right click on the batch file, for the coin you want to mine, and hit edit. Below is a screen shot showing where to add in your wallet address. (Insert Wallet Address)
Configure your Computer Name:
Inside of the same window, we will change the name of the computer. This will only change the name that shows up on what pool you mine on. This will make it easier for you to remotely trouble shoot your computer if one of them goes offline or stops mining.
(Insert-Computer-Name-Here)
Overclocking in T-Rex:
Setting Core Clock:
In T-Rex there are two different ways to do this. The first option is using --cclock, Example:
--cclock 90. This would add 90MHZ on the core clock for device #0.
You can also use --lock-cclock on 20 series GPUs and 30 series GPUs. This utilizes absolute core clock and can not be used on older cards. Example: --lock-cclock 1250. In the example below I have set the core clock on two GPUs.
Setting Memory Clocks + Memory Tweak:
The memory clock is set by using --mclock. This will add onto the base clock for the memory. Example: --mclock 590. This will add 590mhz onto the base memory clock of the GPU.
Memory tweak can be used with --mt. We advise only using this on older pascal cards that have GDDR5 or GDDR5X memory. Cards that have this memory type are GTX 1080, GTX 1080 TI, Some 1060s and some 1070s. The value can be anywhere from 1-6 and you'll have to experiment to see which tweak gives you the best hashrate.
Setting Power Limit:
This can be set using --pl. This will set the total % of power available for the GPU. Example: --pl 70. This will set the power limit for Device 0 to 70%.
Setting Fan Speed:
In T-Rex you can set the fan speed to run at a constant rate. This would be similar to locking the fan inside of MSI afterburner. To set the fan you would use --fan. Example: --fan 80. This would lock the fan speed to 80% at all time. You can also set a curve by defining a temperature in T-Rex. This would be similar to setting a fan curve in MSI Afterburner. To do this you would use --fan t:55. This would set the target temp of the device 0 at 55 degrees Celsius. T-Rex would automatically set a fan curve to speed up the fans if the temp goes above the set 55 or slow down if the temp goes below the set temp of 55. Lets say you have two GPUs and you want a temp limit on one of the cards and static fan on the other. This can easily be set up just like the other commands by separating them with a comma. Example:
--fan t:55,80. This command would set the first device to have a target temp of 55 and device 1 to a static fan speed of 80%.
Setting Intensity:
This number can be set between 0-25 and controls the GPU workload size. The default value is set at 22. If you have a stable rig with your overclocks then it is recommended to set this up to 24 or 25. If you are setting this on a gaming computer its recommended to stay at the default value, if you increase the value you could see more lag when doing tasks like browsing the internet. To access this use --intensity. Example: --intensity 25. This will max out the workload for device 0.
How to Skip GPUs \ Set The Same OC:
As an example lets say you have a rig with a 1080 as device 0 and a 30 series card. We would want the memory tweak applied to the 1080 but not the 30 series GPU, as it wouldn't be necessary. To do this we would just add in the --mt command in the batch file and we would skip the 30 series GPU by using 0. Example: --mt 3,0. This would apply the memory tweak to device 0 and skip over device 1.
Lets assume all the cards in a rig are the same and we want to apply a basic overclock to all of the cards without entering the same number multiple times. As an example we will just set the core clock of the cards the same. We would use the --cclock command and just enter in the desired overclock once. So if we wanted all 5 GPUs to have the same OC Example: --cclock 100 would apply a +100mhz core clock onto all 5 of the GPUs.
Also check out: Setting up T-Rex Web Interface
