ASUS P104-100 Mining GPU Review – Mining on Steroids 40+ Mh/s
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In my latest review, I’ve mentioned that the GeForce GTX 1060 is probably the best GPU for mining because of its great price/performance and performance/power consumption ratios.
Well, today I am about to present to you something even better. Meet the P104-100 (MINING-P104-4GB). I’ve finally managed to get my hands on some of those and man, this thing is impressive. Let’s start with the basic specs and then move on the mining benchmarks. As usual, I’ve tested it with different algos as well as clocks.
Unboxing
ASUS P104-100 Specs
GPU | GP104-100-A1 (GP104 family) |
Architecture | Pascal |
Process Size | 16 nm |
Memory | 4096 MB GDDR5X 256 bit |
Bandwidth | 320.3 GB/s |
GPU Clock | 1607 MHz stock, 1733 MHz boost |
Memory Clock | 1251 MHz / 10008 MHz effective |
Power Connectors | 8pin*1 |
TGP | 180W-225W |
Card size | TBD |
P104 vs. P106
The P104 is not yet another P106. While both are considered mining GPUs, there are some differences between the two:
- Display ports. The P106 comes with no display ports whatsoever, while the P104 comes with two, though those are hidden behind a metallic plate in the ASUS version.
- Memory optimization. Unlike the P106, the P104 features some optimizations that that allow is to perform better on memory-intensive algos.
Power Consumption and Cooling
The ASUS P104-100 cooling system is similar to the GTX 1070 Strix one. If you open it you can see the same fan design with bushing bearings. You would expect a mining GPU to have ball bearings instead since those are way more durable however ASUS opted for the cheapest design.
The warranty of the card is 3 months, which is not enough time for bushings to wear off. I don’t like the way ASUS made cheap fans and provided the card with a short warranty period to avoid complaints. While this does not necessarily mean that the fans will die in 4 months, I am quite sure they will become noisy quite soon. I recommend you getting an ASUS P104-100 only if you have a dedicated noise-isolated room/office.
Another con I’ve noticed is that the memory chips are not in direct contact with the coolers. This decreases the overclock potential of the GPU, which is quite disappointing since the memory chips are especially designed for mining and have very flexible clocks.
Power-consumption wise, the card is quite good and it pulls around 150W from the wall even after being overclocked.
The card offers a lot of room for undervolting. Usually, you undervolt to decrease power consumption. In the case of this card though, you got to undervolt to prevent it from overheating. Dragging the power limit down to 70% is a good start.
Hashrate and Profitability
So far, I’ve only mentioned the cons of the card at the point you are probably wondering why the hell I am so excited about it. While I do wish I had a Gigabyte P104 instead, I am okay with the ones I’ve got because of the hashrate.
The card is great for Ethereum – the manufacturer didn’t lie that they’ve optimized the memory for mining that coin. It can also mine zCash and Nexus with the same efficiency as a GTX 1070. Ethereum-wise, I’ve managed to push it up to 41 MH/s, which is about 20% more than a GTX-1080 Ti can do and about 30% more than a GTX-1070 (31 MH/s).
Here are the results of my tests with different coins and algos:
Recommended Hardware for 6x GTX 1080 Ti Mining Rig
- Motherboard: ASRock H81 PRO BTC, GIGABYTE GA-H110-D3A, Biostar TB250-BTC PRO
- CPU: Intel Celeron G1840 for ASRock H81 PRO BTC, Intel Celeron G3900 for Gigabyte H110-D3A & Biostar TB250-BTC PRO
- RAM: Kingston HyperX FURY 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 for ASRock H81 PRO BTC, Kingston Technology HyperX FURY 2400MHz DDR4 for Gigabyte H110-D3A & Biostar TB250-BTC PRO
- SSD: ADATA SU700 120GB
- PSU: 2x 750w EVGA SuperNOVA 750w GQ, 80+ GOLD
- Dual PSU Adapter: Add2PSU Multiple Power Supply Adapter
- USB Risers: USB Riser VER 008 PCI-E 16x to 1x 60cm USB 3.0 Extension Cable
- Power Button: 2 Pin SW PC Power Cable on/off Push Button ATX Computer Switch Wire 45cm
- Energy Meter: TP-Link HS110 Smart Plug w/ Energy Monitoring
- Frame: https://1stminingrig.com/product/aluminum-mining-rig-open-air-frame/
Ethash Algorithm
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Ethereum Classic (ETC)
- Ubiq (UBQ)
- Expanse (EXP)
- Soilcoin (SOIL)
- Musicoin (MUSIC)
- etc..
Equihash Algorithm
- ZCash (ZEC)
- Zclassic (ZCL)
- Komodo (KMD)
- Hush (HUSH)
- Zencash (ZEN)
- etc..
CryptoNight Algorithm
- Monero (XMR)
- ByteCoin (BCN)
- Sumokoin (SUMO)
- Karbowanec (KRB)
- DigitalNote (XDN)
- etc..
Nvidia Asus P104-100 4GB Mining Performance
System power draw is 50W
Later edit: I found that Power Limit 70% is the optimal! So no matter what you mine, set that to 70% and you will have the best hashrate/power draw.
Ethereum Only
Ethash Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ubiq (UBQ), Expanse (EXP), Soilcoin (SOIL), Pirl (PIRL), Ellaism (ELLA), Metaverse (ETP) etc..
Hashrate 40.5 MH/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65
- Power Draw 110w
Ethereum Dual Mining Decred and Siacoin
Ethereum 35.6 Mh/s – Decred 356 Mh/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65
- Power Draw 110w
- -dcri 30
- power limit 85% hashrate will change to 37.5 Mh/s ETH and 375 Mh/s DCR for 150w
Ethereum 32.7 MH/s – Siacoin 327 Mh/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65
- Power Draw 110w
- -dcri 30
- power limit 85% hashrate will change to 39.5 Mh/s ETH and 395 Mh/s Siacoin for 150w
Ethereum Dual Mining LBRY Credits and Pascalcoin
Ethereum 36.7 Mh/s – LBRY 34.7 Mh/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65
- Power Draw 115w
- -dcri 30
- power limit 85% hashrate will change to 39.2 Mh/s ETH and 37.6 Mh/s LBRY for 150w
Ethereum 30.9 MH/s – Pascal 309 Mh/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65
- Power Draw 110w
- -dcri 30
- power limit 85% hashrate will change to 37.9 Mh/s ETH and 379.7 Mh/s PASC for 150w
Ethereum Dual Mining Verge (Blake2s) and Smartcash (kecckak)
Ethereum 36.5 Mh/s – verge 364 Mh/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65
- Power Draw 115w
- -dcri 30
- power limit 85% hashrate will change to 40 Mh/s ETH and 404 Mh/s Verge for 150w
Ethereum 24.4 MH/s – Smartcash 244 Mh/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65
- Power Draw 110w
- -dcri 30
- power limit 85% hashrate will change to 29.4 Mh/s ETH and 294.7 Mh/s SMART for 150w
Ethereum Dual Mining Pascal Lite
Ethereum 30.5 MH/s – Pascal Lite 305 Mh/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65
- Power Draw 110w
- -dcri 30
- power limit 85% hashrate will change to 37.8 Mh/s ETH and 378.3 Mh/s PASC for 150w
ZCash (Equihash) Mining Performance
Asus P104-100 4GB ZCash Mining Hashrate Performance & Power Consumption
Equihash algorithm: Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Zencash (ZEN), Zclassic (ZCL), Hush (HUSH), Komodo (KMD)
EWBF’s CUDA Zcash Miner
Download and extract EWBF’s CUDA Zcash miner: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1707546.0
Hashrate 450 Sol/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65
- Power Draw 110w
Bminer
Download and extract Bminer: https://www.bminer.me/releases/
Hashrate 480 – 500 Sol/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 70 / 85
- Power Draw 150w
Bitcoin Gold Mining Performance
Asus P104-100 4GB Bitcoin Gold Mining Hashrate Performance & Power Consumption
Equihash algorithm: Zencash (ZEN), Zclassic (ZCL), Hush (HUSH), Komodo (KMD)
Download and extract EWBF Cuda Miner 0.3.4b BTG: https://github.com/poolgold/ewbf-miner-btg-edition/releases
Hashrate 430 – 450 Sol/s
- Clocks +125/+850
- Power Limit 65 / 70
- Power Draw 150w
Nicehash Mining Performance
Asus P104-100 4GB Nicehash Mining Hashrate Performance & Bitcoin Profitability
Buy P104-100 Mining Video Cards
In Conclusion
For me, the main challenge with this card was to squeeze the most hashrate from it without making it boil. If you are overclocking an ASUS P104-100 you want to keep a constant eye on the temperatures.
Anyway, do I recommend you buying a set of those cards? Definitely, yes. The demand on those cards is high for a reason. While the ASUS version of the P104-100 could indeed use some improvement, I am still pretty happy with it and will buy more as soon as I have the chance to. I am also getting some Gigabyte mining cards soon, so stay tuned!
Summary
Pros:
-
- Great Ethereum hashrate
- Low power draw and unmatched Megahash/Watt ratio
-
- Can actually be used for gaming too since it features display ports and can perform about 4% better than a GTX 1070.
Cons:
- Availability. I’ve ordered 30 of those but ended up receiving only 6 after a long wait
- Gaming card fan design – could use better bearings since it is meant to work 24/7 under full load
- Cooling system – memory chips need better cooling