Bitcoin Forum

I've been looking around at GPU's to try and mine coins faster. I've been using the card that came in my pc, an Nvidia 9600 GS. Don't laugh, lol. I wanted to get an ATI HD 5830 or 5870 ( 300 Mh/s is better than the 9 Mh/s I have now), but I don't think it will fit in my pc. My computer is an HP Pavillion Elite m9000t. It has a small card in the slot above the PCI- E slot that seems to run the led's on the front of the PC. I could unplug it and do without the HDD light, but even still would the HD 5830 fit? I know it says it is 2.1 x 16 PCI- E.  If not do any of you have any suggestions for something a little better than the 9600 GS that will fit?

Thanks in advance,
Warren

if you haven't bought the card yet - dont!  buy a bASIC from http://www.bitcoinasic.com/ for BTC mining.

I'm trying to stay around $100. It's a little too close to Halfsies Day for me to be plunking down $1k on a rig. I'm more or less piddling with mining. I just want to do a little faster than 9Mh/s.

Your dilemma can be resolved with a simple bit of math.  How much do you pay for electricity?

7 cents/ kwh.

Oh, nice.

Mine on, my friend, mine on!

You can get a used card on ebay, the closer to the block halving and the release of asics, the cheaper they will be, people will be selling them, as the difficulty will be going up and the yield will be as much as your current 9Mh/s.

You can get into a small 27Gh/s that should be delivered in Dec for about 600. http://www.btcfpga.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=59
I'm just pointing out that the ROI on a GPU card will be/is very poor.

Best wishes in your endeavors

Get a 7750, you would not be disappointed.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600286767%20600298541&IsNodeId=1&name=Radeon%20HD%207750 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600286767%20600298541&IsNodeId=1&name=Radeon%20HD%207750)

That just might work. Can anyone clarify for me. What's the difference in PCI-E X16, PCI-E 2.0 X 16, 2.1 X 16, and 3.0 X 16, and are they backwards compatible? I've googled around, but I'm not finding much explanation on the difference. My pc is pci-e X 16. Can I still use the 2.1, 2.0, or 3.0 x 16 cards? I haven't messed with GPU's much as you can tell.

PCI-E bus speeds do not matter for purposes of mining; you will get the same hashrates if the card is an 16x 3.0 compliant slot, or a simple 4x 1.0 slot. However an important matter to take into considering is the rated power of your computer's power supply. The 5830 card you want for example requires 175 watts of power at full load, and needs 2 separate 6-pin power connectors coming off your power supply to function. To compare raw mining speed between cards, without taking into considering power requirements and amount of space inside your case, you need to look primarily at 2 things.

1)  Number of VLIW5 shading processors on the card.
2)  GPU Core clock frequency. Memory(vram) frequency is irrelevant.

A previous post suggested the 7750 at the ~$100 price range. It is an excellent card if you have limitations. It's available in low-profile meaning it will fit inside almost any chassis you put it in, and it's gentle on your power supply, as it only draws about 60watts TDP. However, if power constraints aren't an issue, it's a poor choice. It only has 512 shading cores. The 6770 is a cheaper card, and has 800 shading cores. The math is simple.

edit: It appears that your system comes with a 350watt power supply. Perhaps I should give the previous poster more merit, as a 7750 with its low power draw may actually be the most powerful card your system can handle without changing out the power supply.

yet another edit: More research leads me to conclude the 7750 is indeed the most powerful card your system can handle reliably. Your GeForce 9600 draws 66.1 watts, and the Radeon 7750 draws 62.4 watts. Almost a perfect match.

Best of luck.

LOL, I just sniped a 5830 on ebay for $72. Now I'm hunting a power supply. Thanks guys.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171031&Tpk=coolermaster%20500w

this will do the trick. best of luck.

Shouldn't I need this one for the 2- 6 pin connectors? The one you posted only has 1- 6 pin connector. I don't want to order the wrong thing. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152028 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152028)

Edit: The card I bought comes with cross fire connectors.

Edit 2: What I read on AMD's website requires 500w and 2 - 6 pin pci e connectors. Crossfire won't be used for single card. Is this correct?

crossfire is only used for mulitple GPUs
I use 2 x molex -> 6pin connectors when I run out of 6 pins from the PSU works just fine :)

Graet does the crossfire have any advantages for mining? I'm running 4 5850 without

no advantage to crossfire for mining and a performance disadvantage if using crossfire under linux
mining software sees the gpus and knows nothing of crossfire :)

So, I would need the PSU with 2 connectors. Thanks for clearing that up, or are you saying it will work with 1 connector using an adapter to split? I'm still unsure. I'd prefer the PSU with 2 connectors, but it's a little on the big side for my HP case. I could probably still make it work, but the one another member suggested would fit better even though it's a 1 - 6 pin connector PSU. LOL, this shouldn't be this confusing.

If you have space restrictions in your case, I can suggest an HD 5770.  They are smaller than the 58xx cards.  I have a Sapphire 5770 that does 200 Mh/s.

I already jumped on a 5830 on Ebay. I think the Raidmax will be the way to go. It has 2 connectors and is about the same size as what's in my PC now. I just thought maybe the Cooler Master was a better PSU since it was suggested.

Wow! Newegg is fast, the PSU is already here.

They are quite good with sending you stuff, not so good when you need to send something back.

the 5770/6770s run really hot and die pretty fast mining, mine lasted only 4 months!

I'd rather have the 5830, very overclockable, and stays cool and quiet.

In fact it out guns my 6850 Double D in every way except power usage.

I got the PSU installed no problem, but the GPU ran into some clearance issues with the SATA connections on my MOBO. Angled SATA cables are on the way, but I haven't been able to mine for a few days now  >:( Hopefully, the card will play catch up for me  ;D

I need some help here guys. I got my angled sata cables in today, got the card installed, but when I boot up.... no display at all. I uninstalled all the old NVidia drivers. I even downloaded and installed the latest drivers for the 5830. When I put it back in and booted again.. no display at all, but the fan is spinning. Am I missing something here? Is the card junk? Is the Raidmax 530w PSU not enough? I'm about to go apeshit crazy here.

Newer video cards require separate power cables to be plugged into them.

Check the manual for the card to see what your power cable options are and plug those cables in.

Also check the power requirements for your card.

A quick google search shows that your card uses about 350W which means you have about 200W overhead for all your PC's other components.

Only high-end GPUs require power cables. For Bitcoin mining those are probably what you want, anyway. However, is it still worth using GPUs at all? FPGAs are more power efficient, and ASICs are just around the corner. The only real advantage that I can think of, is that at least you can still use the GPU for games and general computer usage, which cannot be said for FPGAs and ASICs.

The raidmax has 2 6-pin connectors for the PCI-E. That's why I ordered it. I'm thinking the card is a dud.

The Raidmax PSU should work, but it is known to be a bad brand of PSU. I wouldn't trust my hardware running on a raidmax PSU. Coolermaster is about as low as I'll go in terms of overall build quality on PSU's. The 500w model I linked you would've worked; just convert molex connector into another 6-pin PCI-E. It has 2 seperate 18amp 12v rails, either of which a 5830 will happily run off of. Ideally you want Seasonic/Corsair 80+ gold rated PSU's. While it's entirely possible that the 5830 you got is no good, it's also possible that the PSU you received is also no good. PSU's with a single 12V rail are typically preferred, and of higher build quality.

The ebay seller says the card was working in his PC. It seems the raidmax doesn't have enough power. When I turn on the pc, the GPU fan spins, but the HDD doesn't boot. Nothing happens on the display at all, no HDD light flickering, nothing. I got an RMA from Newegg, which is simple BTW, and I've got a Corsair 650w unit picked out. If that doesn't work, the ebay seller is gonna have to take this card back.

I returned the raidmax and got a corsair tx650. Still no boot. WTF? I unplugged everything but the 5830 from the new psu and plugged everything else into the old psu to see if the corsair would run just the gpu, but the pc is not even recognizing the 5830 as being plugged in. I've got an old monitor running from the onboard video to be able to post. Any suggestions? Is the card shit or did I get a bad PSU? I'm stumped. Oh, and FWIW, I did uninstall the nvidia drivers and installed the latest ati drivers.

PC is an hp elite 9000 if that makes any difference.