Like a drug addict, I wanted more. Every moment I was awake my mind was on it. My dreams were filled with desire, I wanted what I did not have.

I gave in.

I went to Microcenter and got a couple more GPU! I need that Mh/s BUMP!

Monday I went picked up (2) of the MSI RX 580 8GB OC Armor. I read good things and MSI is a reputable brand. They set me back $300 per card + I bought the 2 year protection plan. I brought them home and had no problems installing the first card into my rig.

Then I added card 2. Radeon recognized it and I thought I was ready to continue mining. I fired up Claymore and was getting 19 Mh/s on the new cards. Fine I thought. After a minute or so my PC crashed.

I started questioning what I had done wrong. I only messed with basic OC in Radeon control panel, I hadn’t touched the BIOS.

I restarted the rig and watched the new cards in Radeon. One of the new cards fans wasn’t spinning faster than 139 RPM. This was causing the card to overheat and when that happened the rig crashed.

I called into tech support at Microcenter and after fiddling around with them we determined the card’s fan motor wasn’t reporting back to the chip properly. I was advised to return it.

BUMMER.

Back to Microcenter last night.

I still didn’t have my fix. I wanted more power. Chris @ Microcenter pointed me towards the PowerColor Red Devil RX 580 8gb. He said they’ve been around a long time and will do well in my rig. So I bought two. They cost $29 higher each than the MSI Armor cards.

When I got home and unboxed the Red Devil’s I was blown away at how massive and heavy these cards were. The MSI Armor cards looked like little baby farts compared to these big red giants.

They installed with ease. Both good cards, Radeon recognized them and I was getting 19 Mh/s out of the box. Not too bad.

Now something I’ve been wanting to do but too scared to do is flash new BIOS onto the cards. After hours of YouTubing and forum reading I downloaded the necessary SW and found .rom’s that were respected in the community and flashed all my cards.

Now all my cards average 29 Mh/s. FUCKING UNREAL. This means faster time to value and I will be adding more cards to the rig on the next paycheck!

My next goal is to learn about “undervolting”.It helps you significantly reduce power consumption. We have very low power costs here in TX but I still haven’t received a utility bill post mining rig activity. I will keep you posted.

Here are some pics of the new cards and a screenshot of the new Claymore results.