Why do miners need to overclock and underclock?

Why do miners need to overclock and underclock?

Why should the frequency be reduced when the market is terrible and overclock when the market is good? Why can the profit of the miner be changed through frequency modulation? Today we will talk about overclocking and underclocking of the miner.

1. What is overclocking and underclocking?

Both overclocking and underclocking are relative to the normal working mode of miners. Overclocking/downclocking essentially optimizes the miner algorithm to change the miner's power consumption and hash rate. It can be understood that the miners can adjust different gears, the low hash rate gear, the normal hash rate gear, and the high hash rate gear respectively correspond to the down-frequency, normal, and over-frequency working modes.
Of course, the prerequisite to achieve overclocking or frequency reduction is to have firmware that supports frequency modulation. The firmware can be understood as the operating system of the miner. The miner can achieve overclocking and frequency reduction by only the operating system that supports frequency modulation.

2. The purpose of overclocking and frequency reduction

The purpose of overclocking and underclocking is to increase the income of miners. The net income of a miner not only depends on the value of the miner’s output but also on the cost of electricity used by the miner. In theory, if increasing the hash rate of miners can bring positive benefits, that is, after increasing the hash rate, the output value is greater than the cost, then overclocking is recommended. Conversely, if reducing the hash rate can bring positive benefits; in other words, after reducing the hash rate, the cost will decrease faster than the output. Therefore, should reduce the frequency, and the limit of the frequency reduction is shut down.
For example, in the current situation, if a certain miner chooses the overclocking mode, the miner's 24-hour output value increases by $0.314, and the resulting electricity cost rises by $0.2355. Under the overclocking mode, the miner's net income increases by $0.0785 per day. Therefore, you can select the overclocking mode.
Conversely, if a certain miner chooses the frequency reduction mode after the currency price drops, the miner's 24-hour output value drops by $0.314, and the resulting electricity cost drops by $0.3925. Therefore, when the overall income is positive, the miner should choose Frequency reduction mode.
Let's take the Antminer S9 as an example:
Assuming that the current coin output per T hash rate per 24 hours is 0.000019 Bitcoin, the Bitcoin price is 706.4364 $/Bitcoin, and the electricity price is 0.0596 $/KWh. Under the three working modes of down-frequency, normal, and over-frequency, The net income of S9 in one day is $0.1005, $0.0031, $-0.0376.

	Frequency reduction mode	Normal mode	Overclocking mode
1T hash rate every 24 hours of coin output	0.000019
Currency price	706.4364
Electricity price	0.0596
Miner hash rate	9.32	13.58	14.12
Miner power consumption	803	1270	1350
Miners produce coins every 24 hours	0.00017708	0.00025802	0.00026828
Electricity cost per 24 hours for miners ($)	1.1497	1.8183	1.9328
Miner's output value per 24 hours ($)	1.2505	1.8227	1.8952
Net income of miners per 24 hours ($)	0.1008	0.0044	-0.0376

▲The above hash rate and corresponding power data are from the measured data of the Lebit mining pool

Under the above circumstances, the Antminer S9 adopts the frequency reduction mode to achieve higher returns.
Assuming other conditions remain unchanged, and the currency price rises to $1255.8870/bitcoin, then the S9 uses the overclocking mode to have the highest net income per day:

	Frequency reduction mode		Normal mode		Overclocking mode
1T hash rate every 24 hours of coin output	0.000019
Currency price	1255.8870
Electricity price	0.0596
Miner hash rate	9.32	13.58		14.12
Miner power consumption	803	1270		1350
Miners produce coins every 24 hours	0.00017708	0.00025802		0.00026828
Electricity cost per 24 hours for miners ($)	1.1497	1.8183		1.9328
Miner's output value per 24 hours ($)	2.2239	3.2404		3.3693
Net income of miners per 24 hours ($)	1.0742	1.4221		1.4365

The frequency modulation firmware of the Antminer S9 supports many adjustable gears. In the figure, one has been selected in the frequency reduction zone and the over-frequency zone. The frequency adjustment of the miner is straightforward. You only need to select the gear on the miner control page. The matching batch tools, batch selection of multiple miners' gears can be realized.

▲Different working gears can be selected on the miner control page
In a particular situation, miners get the most benefits when they reduce the frequency, but they choose not to reduce the frequency or even choose the overclocking mode. This must be because the mining farm has already signed an electricity use agreement with the power plant. If it is not used, it is equivalent to wasting the purchased electricity and can only fill the load.

3. The impact of overclocking and underclocking on miners

The purpose of overclocking/downclocking is to change the miners' income by changing the energy efficiency ratio of the miners. We still use the above Antminer S9 to see the energy efficiency ratio under different working modes:

	Frequency reduction mode	Normal mode	Overclocking mode
Miner hash rate	9.32	13.58	14.12
Miner power consumption	803	1270	1350
Energy efficiency ratio	86.16	93.52	95.61

▲The energy efficiency ratio of Antminer S9 under different working modes
It can be seen that after the miners adjust the frequency, the energy efficiency ratio is not a linear change. The miners' working mode needs to be dynamically adjusted according to market conditions to maximize the profit.
When the market is sluggish, the energy efficiency ratio of miners can be reduced by frequency reduction, which can increase the net income of miners and reduce the price of miners' shutdown currency and increase the safety margin of miners. On the contrary, when the currency price is high, overclocking has increased the electricity costs for miners. Still, revenue increases more than costs, so overclocking can increase revenue and shorten the payback period.
Overclocking mode has potential adverse effects on miners' stable operation and lifespan. Overclocking is equivalent to the miner being overloaded. For example, suppose the miner runs in normal mode. In that case, the hash rate is 5% or higher than the theoretical value, and the hash rate is unstable, the hash board is dropped, the chip is incomplete, the output power of the power supply is insufficient, etc., it is not recommended for miners to use overclocking mode.

4. Matters needing attention for miners overclocking and frequency reduction

The prerequisite for overclocking or frequency reduction is firmware that supports FM, but it does not mean that all FM firmware can be used. It is recommended to download the official firmware from the official website. When upgrading the firmware, you should also find one or two miners to see the firmware stability and profit performance, and network isolation should be done. Once the upgraded firmware poisons the miners, the impact can be kept minimum.

5. Summary

The purpose of frequency modulation for miners is to maximize income, and its essence is to optimize the income of miners by adjusting the energy efficiency ratio of miners.
For miners to realize FM ahead of time, there is tunable firmware, and it is best to use the firmware officially released by the original miner manufacturer. Overclocking has an impact on the lifespan and working stability of the miner. Therefore, when overclocking, in addition to maximizing profit, the miner must also consider the condition of the miner and the temperature of the working environment. Overclocking can only be carried out when all conditions permit.