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The limit is pretty much the money and my PSU.

I have a Chieftec 600 watt PSU, of course it will never actually supply that much, it has 4 rails, and all of them supply 58 amps and it says on the sticker 576 watts max.

My rig is
Phenom 955BE - 125 watt TDP, but slightly downclocked and undervolted so it doesn't use up too much juice.
5850 which usually has a max TDP of 151 watts, it's memory is downclocked to 500 and overclocked to 765Mhz outputting 290mhash/s with some tweaks on Phoenix's side.

If we add them together 125+180(if we assume that much is used up by the overclock of the card) and say 20w for other peripherals = 325 watts so that leaves me with room for 230w max for a card.

Now it's you!

In all honesty, just another 5850. Dual GPU cards draw close to 300W. May be hard to find a 5850 these days though.

There is only one store i am going to buy through and it doesnt have any more 5850's sadly.

Also, the 6950 is cheaper for me than it's 5870 counterpart, and according to the wiki it does 314 mhash/s at stock although it uses 200w.

After reviewing some of the 6xxx series specs, it does actually seem that a 6xxx card is the way to go now even though they have lower hashrates. Seems like you answered your own question, happy mining :)

I think in situations like this ebay or craigslist (if it's sealed in box, ofc) might be viable...with craigslist, I don't think I need to tell you to be careful, but desperate times call for desperate measures for the right card on a budget.

Sorry, ebay,newegg,amazong and craiglist are not an option for me as i live in Europe, plus the duty i will pay if i ever order anything outside my country will be much higher than what i will make.

I actually am considering the 5870, as the 6950 seems to have some bugs with drivers which causes freezing. I wouldnt want to take the risk, so it may be a tad bit expensive, but i think i am going to buy the 5870

Hello, i want to start mining, what video card do you suggest?
What is the best?

I've settled with the 5870, just because it gives me a bit of headroom for overclocking.

5970 all the way!

5970s are incredibly hard to source now.

I don't like this thread-jacking...

Why it is the best?

Is "s" another model or it's the same video card?

What do you mean for "thread-jacking"?

getting a 5770 today
my XFX GTX 260 was already near EOL

A single 5970 can work at 800MH/s according to this. (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison)

What value have i to see to identify the best video card for mining?

Watts, price, MHash/s.

"s" is a letter commonly used to denote multiples of a single item.

Are two 5870s better than one 5970?

random question does it make a difference between the gigs for a faster hash rate? for example between Gigabyte GV-R5876P-2GD-B Radeon 5870 Graphics Card - 850 MHz Core - 2 GB GDDR5 SDRAM - PCI Express 2.1 and Gigabyte GV-R5876P-2GD-B Radeon 5870 Graphics Card - 850 MHz Core - 1 GB GDDR5 SDRAM - PCI Express 2.1 is there that much a difference?

Sorry for my newbie question, i have never been a gamer or hardware upgrading addicted so i don't know anything about video cards!
I see the hardware comparison page on the BitCoin wiki and i see that ATI 6990 are the best, is it right?
On some rows i see 6990x2 or 6990x3, what do they mean?

Thank you.

Ok, thank you.

I make this question because i found on some shops the ATI 6990 and in other shops i see the ATI 6990 X2.
Are they the same card?

You couldn't have seen the 6990x2, since it doesn't exist. 6990's are NOT good for mining in terms of euro/MHash or euro/Watt, especially for you, OP. In your situation, I would go for a 5830, you could crossfire it with your 5850 for gaming, and it would be the best value for money you can get. Where are you located, I might be able to help you with prices. I just got 3 5830's in Holland, but there's even better prices in France, Germany/Austria, etc.

In previous posts people told me to buy 5970. Then i asked if two 5870s are better then one 5970. Now you are suggesting to buy the 5830 and use it with the 5850. Then what is the best solution for Mhash/Watt?
I live in Italy...

5830s are the most cost effective, but they are hard to find anymore. The 6870 is the next best, since it is only a little more and can go up to 330 mh/s. Only $160 at Newegg this weekend...

Since you are from europe you might want to look at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-168-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1711

I want the best video card for MHash/Watt and 5970 is ok. I have checked again the comparison table and 5970 should be the best solution.
Am i wrong?

No, you're right. 5970 is best in MHash/s/W. I have straight comparison... 5970 vs. 2x5870 vs. 2x6970 and I definitely prefer 5970. If you can buy it, don't hesitate.

What could be the right price for it? :P

6990s are the best yet at the same time you gottta look at how expensive they are 750ish a piece. The x2 and x3 is relateing to two graphics cards running together or 3

Yes, and a 5850 can work at 425mhash/s if you OC the core from 725 to 1015mhz and up the voltage by about 30%.
Good for mining if you are setting up a one-week operation.

I hope people don't blindly follow the chart but also use their common sense & think what is a safe 24/7 clock frequency.

Why don't you see 6990x4 (only up to 6990x3) while i frequently see 5850x4?

I bought older one for 250 euro.

Where? Was it used?

This keeps being spewed around as if miners are just blindly buying ineffective hardware.

The fact is that the 6990 is a great miner because:

1. It has two GPU's in 1 card
2. If your motherboard has 2 PCI-e slots, you can turn them into 4 gpu's worth of hashing power.
3. If your motherboard has 4 PCI-e slots, you can turn them into 8 gpu's worth of hashing power.

In the case of single core GPU's, you would now have to buy 2 computers with 2 power supplies, processors, motherboards, RAM, casing etc.

So in the end you save space & don't have to buy a second rig to house more cards & you get greater resale value.

Why in the comparison table there are different entries for the same card? What is the difference?
And why some of them are colored with different color?

There is multiple information submitted for the same chips, so they are listed multiple times. It's not multiple listing for the same card.

They need more info, honestly.

Take the Radeon HD 5830, for example.

You can't just list "5830", or even "Sapphire 5830". Sapphire made 3-4 different 5830 cards. Each company that released a 5830 probably made multiple ones as well. Not all cards are made the same. Some are sold overclocked. Some sold at stock speeds overclock more than those sold pre-overclocked. Different cards use different memory. There are lots of differences. Listing JUST the chipset doesn't help.
Some 5830 cards released in 2010 may mostly be reference designs. Maybe bad 5850/5870 chips crippled and sold as 5830s that suck up a lot of power and don't overclock well. Ones released in 2011 have more efficient, non-reference designs. Maybe they are 5850/5870 chips that have simply been sold as 5830 chips because of the demand for 5830 chips, so they run cooler and overclock better.

Chip name, Manufacturer of card, model # (plus revision, if possible), manufacture date, then GPU speed, memory speed, Voltage, Operating System, drivers used, miner used, and command-line switches.
THAT would give you a good idea of what card does what.

Regarding colors of entries ... I have no clue.

Thank you for your explanation.
About manufacturers, how do i choose the best one? I see companies like Asus, Sapphire, Power Color, XFX, EVGA and so on for the same ATI chip. Have i just to buy the cheaper one?

Sure. But with remaining warranty until october 2011.

Only in shortterm view. 5830 is worst in Mhash/s/W. It is crippled 5870, so it has power draw of 5870, but only 2/3 output.

This keeps getting spewed around because its true for most people. For the price of one 6990 without a new system, I can get an entire pc with 3 5850s that have better cooling and 50% higher hash rate. Thats only for the 6990 (580 euros minimum). It doesn't matter how many spare slots you have on your mobo, at 750MH for 580 euros, it simply cannot be justified. At all. Not even by power consumption. If you are considering spending 600 euros on mining equipment, I suggest spending 50 more, and buying 2 mobos, psus, cpus, hdds, and 4 5830s or 3 5850s and get 50% more hash rate at only 50% more power consumption.

Also consider noise. If you put a 6990 in your living room/pc room/bedroom, it becomes uninhabitable. A separate rig can be put into your basement or an unused room. Heat generation can also be a problem. My 2 rigs are in a guest room with full open windows 24/7. 3 5830s and a 6950 mining 24/7 generate around 35C ambient in the room, with outdoor temp around 20C. I don't care because I'm not there, but back when it was in my room it used to be really hot.

Anyone can reply to this?


Thank you.

From personal experience, Sapphire and PowerColor make great cards.  XFX cards aren't the best, as they tend to run hotter and overclock less than others.  I have no experience with ASUS or EVGA cards.

That's semantics, you can't get those cards new & boxed anywhere at reasonable prices anymore, or at all since they are 99% out of stock. The bulk of my rigs contain 5830's and 5850's and I bought those ~9 months ago..
Even then it was a struggle, and I had to settle for a few used ones.

Even eBay is mostly filled with used ones or massively price gouged pieces. Newegg ran out ages ago.
The only realistic purchase option at this time is a 6870 or a 6950/6970 if you go for ordinary cards instead of dual gpu's.

But I do agree that if you run your cluster as a home op, even a single 6990 will make your room uninhabitable.
I'd never do it at home, but I do run 4 at separate location.