Mining is literally going insane! People are snapping up both GPUs for mining as well as ASIC miners faster than manufacturers can make them. This has led to explosive growth in those markets. It’s also let to a whole art and science behind overclocking these systems to make them perform better. So in this post we’re going to explain how to go about overclocking the RX 580 for mining! Something many of you asked me how to do after my latest mining rig build.

Overclocking the RX 580 for mining is different from other cards such as the likes of the NVIDIA GTX 1060/70/80/ti because with the AMD cards you can still tweak the BIOS.  Doing these BIOS tweaks can give you as much as another 5 MH/s in Ethereum. That’s another 30 MH/s in a six card rig. Seriously, that’s basically a seventh card for free! But it takes some more technical know how.  So let’s get to it.  In this post we will be overclocking the MSI RX 580 ARMOR 8GB card. Get it here.

One thing I would like to point out to people. You don’t have to build an entire mining rig to mine with a GPU. You can use your existing gaming PC to mine, or you can put second GPU in your computer and dedicate it to mining.  Mining takes up very little CPU, so in most cases you’ll never even know its there doing its job.

Overclocking the RX 580 for Mining

So let’s get started on this overclocking adventure!  This assumes you are mining on Windows. You will need Windows installed or you’ll need to install the RX580 in a Windows machine to do the BIOS patching.  However, once that’s done you can run Linux or Simple Mining OS after the fact if you prefer.  Patching the drivers is not required for Simple Mining OS. I would also note, that it most likely voids your GPU’s warranty if you do any of this.  So it’s up to you to make the decision if you’re OK with that possibility.

Obtain an AMD RX 580 Video Card

This may sound like a “no brainer”,  but you’re going to need an AMD video card for this to work.  Specifically an AMD RX 580, but this same set of steps also apply the AMD RX 480 and other other AMD graphics cards. So make sure you have one those cards before beginning.

Install the AMD GPU Drivers

The next step is to install the latest AMD GPU drivers.  Go to the AMD support website and get the driver package specific for your card. In the latest set of drivers, the mining enhancements are included in the main set of drivers.  You’ll just select “compute” from the dropdown box in the configuration screen. Do NOT install ReLive when asked.

Only connect one card at a time when performing the BIOS update. This will save you a lot of frustration.

Download the Overclocking and BIOS Tools

You’re going to need several tools in order to install the BIOS and overclock your GPU. Download them all now, so you won’t be scrambling for them later.

  • The GPU Z software allows you to see your GPU statistics
  • ATI Winflash allows you to download and upload the AMD GPU BIOS files to the card
  • The Polaris Bios Editor allows you to edit the BIOS for mining.
  • The ATI Driver Patcher allows you to patch your AMD drivers in Windows.

Save The Stock BIOS to a File

Before we start overclocking the RX 580 for mining we need to save a copy of the existing BIOS.  Right-click the ATWinflash.exe and choose “Run as Administrator”. ATIWinflash and and click save.  Save a copy of your BIOS as something like GPU1-RX580-stock.rom.

Edit The Stock BIOS File

Using the Polaris BIOS editor, open the file you just saved.  Under the TIMING section, copy the value in 1:1750 to the box 1:2000 so that the values in both boxes are the same (the original value of 1:1750).  Save the file as something similar to GPU1-RX580-modded.rom.

Program the BIOS

Re-open ATIWinflash and select Load Image. Select the modified file you just saved with the Polaris BIOS Editor.  Then click Program. This will take about 1 minute and then ask you to reboot your PC.  Do not reboot yet.

Patch your AMD Drivers

Before you click the reboot button you need to patch your AMD drivers.  Right-click the AMD driver patcher and choose “Run as Administrator”.  Then click yes to patch your drivers.  This adjusts the AMD drivers to work properly with the modded BIOS timings.  Once it completes you may press yes to reboot from the previous step. (If you’re using Simple Mining OS or any version of Linux, patching the drivers is not needed. Skip this step.)

Update the Claymore Settings

Your Claymore batch file and set your settings to look something like this:

setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool YourPool -etha 0 -ewal YourWalletAddr.MinerName -epsw x -mode 1 -fanmin 30 -fanmax 100 -cclock 1130 -mclock 2200 -cvddc 850 -mvddc 850

The most important settings are cclock 1130, clock 2200, cvddc 850, mvddc 850. These overclock and undervolt your cards. This should deliver you a minimum of 29 to 30 MH/s in Claymore.  (In my example below one card is running at 27 MH/s because I am using it as a video display to take this snapshot in Windows 10).