Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

I'm building a Bitcoin miner and plan to add 3 more graphics cards once I get it up and running. So that's 4 x 7970 GHz Edition cards and I don't think the 1000W PSU I picked out is going to be enough. What say you?

$482.00 Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 – 3GB GDDR5 – (1100MHz, 6000MHz) Ghz Edition GV-R797TO-3GD
$339.00 Intel Core i7 3770K Quad Core CPU
$312.00 Antec 1000W HCP Platinum Series PSU
$207.00 ASUS P8Z77-V Mainboard
$163.00 Fractal Design Define R4 USB3.0 Mid Tower Case Titanium
$107.00 Corsair 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL10 LP Vengeance Unbuffered
$84.00 Intel 330s/60GB/SATA3/R 500MBs,W 450MBs/25nm/3.5"Kit

Total $1,694.00 (plus 3 x $482.00 Radeon HD 7970 in future). No current plans to over clock, but might do I future. My alternative was to put a Corsair 1200W AX-1200i $395... Better to be safe??

Note: Prices are in Australian $.

Kind regards,
QG
P.S: I know I might be a little late with the GPU mining, but I'm not doing this for the money. More for fun and research. Might use the PC for a gaming PC after a year or two.

You  may want to PM the maintainer of the cgminer software ckovalis he had/has a 4x 7970 rig running so should be able to tell you the power needs also seen mention he was thinking of selling it off, he is fellow aussie so you may be able to work out deal with him and save some cash.

My 4x7970 rig had a 1250W OCZ Gold PSU. It uses ~1150 at the wall when maxed out hot fans high overclocked and no real power saving option is in use. Bear in mind it had a couple of hard drives and the case has lots of fans too.

Cheers for the info!! I'm going to get the AX1200i. Rock solid reviews and should do the job.

Someone on another forum also pointed out the ASUS P8Z77-V MB I picked out can't fit 4 7970s on it physically and the Fractal R4 case only has 7 slots. 4 x 7970s will need 8 slots. Silly me!!

Back to the drawing board...
QG.

Do you really need a case? Just buy a test bench if your starting from scratch (also will mean less airflow problems if you go for an open air solutionn:

http://www.highspeedpc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=TopDeckXL

If you do want a box try the coolermaster haf x, its giant and should have enough slots for what you want.

If you're set on using the p8z77 you could try and use a few risers to fit everything in, but that would mean zipties or another method like that for secureing the cards.

try searching for quad SLI or quad xfire motherboards to see if you find any you like:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gigabyte-GA-Z77X-UP7-1-0-motherboard-extended-ATX-LGA1155-Socket-Z77-/380568028024?pt=UK_Computing_LaptopMotherboards_CPUs_CA&hash=item589b9f4378&_uhb=1

There's  lots of them out there and if you need any more help jsut ask in here, theres loads of people to draw info from :)

If my post helped you at all feel free to donate to my BTC address below ;)

So here are my new specs:

$475.00 #Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 - 3GB GDDR5 - (1100MHz, 6000MHz) Ghz Edition GV-R797TO-3GD
$390.00 #Corsair 1200W AX-1200i
$345.00 #Intel Core i7 3770K Quad Core CPU
$288.00 #Asrock Z77 Extreme9 Motherboard
$107.00 #Corsair 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL10 LP Vengeance Unbuffered DIMM Memory with XMP 1.3 for AMD and Intel platforms.
$170.00 #Corsair Obsidian 550D Black Mid-Tower Case
$138.00 #Kingston 120GB HyperX 3K SSD, SandForce2, SATA3, 25nm, TRIM, Bracket
Total: $1,913.00    

I'm quite happy with it and can't wait to order. Unless someone can point out any flaws in it. Apart from the price, $300 too much I think but should get good use out of it.

I have considered the Test Bench type and it's just not for me. I need a box to keep dust off and I'd like it to be neat and tidy. I need something with resell value, or so I can give to my nephews to use as a gaming PC in the future. The Corsair Obsidian 550D case I picked out a simple and slick. Call me old school but the Coolermaster HAF X is a little too gamer/hardcore for me.

The Giabyte UP7 MB is nice but pricey and over sized. E-ATX is too big.

Cheers,
QG

I think that you should go with a lower end cpu, perferably a low power cpu. For a mining rig, you only need 1 core. When/if you decide to pass on the machine, buy a cpu then, it'll be cheaper and probably perform better. Meanwhile you save power (needing a lower wattage ps) and that means saving electrical costs. You also absolutely do not need 16gb ram. I'd bet that 4gb would be more than enough, again saving power.

As an example, an Intel Intel® Celeron® Processor G540 (2M Cache, 2.50 GHz) has a max TDP of 65W and costs about USD 43. Between the savings in cpu and ram, you might be able to afford a second Radeon 7970 now.

Also, don't forget to budget quality fans!

Almost, I saved $300. I wonder how much electricity I'll save over a month...

$475 #Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 – 3GB GDDR5 Ghz Edition
$288 #Asrock Z77 Extreme9 Motherboard
$390 #Corsair 1200W AX-1200i PSU
$46 #Intel CELERON G540/2.50GHz/2CORE,2THREADS/2MB CACHE/LGA1155
$59 #Corsair 8GB (1x8GB) Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz CL9 DIMM
$170 #Corsair Obsidian 550D Black Mid-Tower Case
$138 #Kingston 120GB HyperX 3K SSD

Total: $1,566.00 under budget!! just... Picking up tomorrow.

QG

The max TDPs are not far apart, so I'd say you won't save much.

This is a little off-topic but have you taken into consideration that you might not make that much with that rig after ASIC is "fully" deployed?
Meaning you're spending almost $2000 in a system that will give you about 8 BTC a month with current difficulty, therefore you'll be making about U$S240 gross profit (deduct power consumption) and that profit will be declining as ASIC improves the difficulty, not to mention the fact that BTC can go down in price also and your ROI will be longer than a year, if not more...
You might be better off buying $2000 worth of BTC and hoping they go up.
Just saying...

Did you get it set up, what is your hash rate, I am thinking about doing the same thing.  Hope it is working well.

D

Sounds good

W00T! W00T! IT'S ALIVE!!!

Picked up parts on Friday night. Built PC Saturday. Spent Sunday setting up Ubuntu, drivers and cgMiner. Monday night started mining!!

I'm pulling an avg. of 597.1Mh/s on the single card. Was above 600 initially so I gotta figure out what's going on...

According to OzCoin I've already collected (in about 3 hrs):
Pending Payout (confirmed): 0.00456259 BTC

At this rate it'll take me a month to produce 1 BTC (AUD$33) :) which is a target of mine where I'll re-evaluate my plans on Bitcoins and what to do next.

As I've mentioned:
But the foremost reason I'm getting into Bitcoins/mining is it's revolutionary concept which I felt drawn to. but this is an another subject and I shall not digress

At this point I don't know if I'll get 3 additional 7970 cards to put in. As soon as I started cgMiner, the Fans and Heat started pumping. Which I expected but don't know how long I'll live with it in the same room, especially in summer (garage might be the go). and the $1500 can be better spent on single ASIC miner as deathcode pointed out. I'll see how I go, but the ASIC miners don't sound fun. They just plug and play run...

QG

I agree!!  Buy BTC instead..   

People still want to learn aout the whole mining aspect of bitcoins. If they want to learn the ins and outs at a cost then why should we say otherwise?

Im sure there's still goldminers out there looking for plots, not to mention the newer miners who want to learn so they can try to dethrone the oldguard

My sentiments exactly. I just want to learn about the whole aspects of Bitcoins, in the hope I can put the knowledge into good use later in future.

"dethrone the oldguard"?? Hahah that's a good one..

Just ordered a Steplight power meter and I'll be monitoring my power consumption. It'll be good to work out inexactly how much power I'm consuming at the wall.

QG

So I bought a Steplight Power Meter to monitor the power being drawn from the wall. This result is only with 1 x 7970 card. Haven't bought additional 3 yet, Monday...

I worked out from our last Energy Australia bill that I pay an average rate of 27 cents / kWh.

Data -
Total Time Running:   1728mins
Total Watts Used:       5227W
Average Cost / kWh:   $0.27
Average Hash Rate:    520MHs

Calculator Estimates - from http://blockchained.com/profit/index.php?hashrate=520&cost=1&electricity=0.27&power=181&months=1.0000&decline=0.63&blockcoins=0
At the current Difficulty of 4367876, currently paying 25BTC / Block and current BTC value is at AUD$43.43, the calculator estimate I should get back (excludes capital cost):

After 1 month: AUD$40.94 (or approx. 1BTC)
After 1 week:   AUD$10      (approx. 0.25BTC)

Results so far -
After only 6 days and nights of mining with, several hours of down time (server upgrades and my own mucking around), lets say a week for simplicity, I have:

Pending Payout (confirmed):    0.22547869 BTC (which if sold at current price is AUD$9.79)

According to my calculations it will cost me around $35/month for electricity. Which means I'll probably break even on running cost... I can live with that!!!

Anyone care to check my numbers??

Cheers,
QG

You in the States? Nuke power? We mainly use coal. Australian's have a phobia on Nuclear power. Sad really... 

Roughly 3GHash/sec for a mere $1700AUD? Where do I sign up to buy one of those??

Update on my little adventure so far... If anyone cares to read.

It's HOT HOT HOT. I'm averaging 30 degrees in my room, 25 c outside. I now have dual 7970 hashing an average of 1.09Gh/s. Chewing up 775.8KWh at its peak. Costing me about $5 a day to run ($150/m).

Last 24h Earnings:
0.09250669 BTC = AUD$4.16 (@ $45/BTC)

Yeah, running a little under par.

Downtime is my worst enemy!! Trying my best to keep running cost down and efficiency up. My calculations have been based on 24/7 mining. While that's not expected, I didn't think I'd have so much downtime. Adding a 2nd card took longer than expected (+12hrs). Bitcoin block chain forked (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152030.0) while I was at work. Then Bigpond Cable had maintenance 2 days in a row. All in the same week!

My other problem is HEAT. My cards are running HOT, up to 99 degrees C. I don't think they'll be mining very long at this rate. I'd like to know if anyone else has run them that hot and seen how long they last. I don't really have any reference as to how hot I can run them. There's been no OCing here, stock settings.

Wednesday awaits!! I should be getting 2 more 7970s. More POWER!! :))

QG

hmm i live in Czech Republic and we have here nuclear power, but we pay also about $0,2 .. thats a sad story here.

MINER DOWN!! .. Half down. I have here 2 x 7970 GHz Edition cards sitting here collecting dust and depreciating in value...

Anyone ever experience extreme fluctuation in their hash rates? When I run 3 x 7970s, 2 of my cards fluctuate wildly between <100MH/s to 300MH/s. They will do that for about 2-5mins and then either SICK and DIE or I loose video out put and PC response.

It's stable on 2 cards. I'm on cgminer 2.11.3 with 13.1 AMD Drivers. Ubuntu12.10.

ckolivas suggested "not enough power QG" on IRC which I had suspected too but I after pulling out an old PSU to power the 3rd card, no difference. Same scenario. Hangs or 2 cards will die. I tried different combinations of power supply to each cards and swapped PCI positions. No difference.

Motherboard maybe? AsRock Extreme9 mobo.

I'm on currently only doing 1Gh/s on dual 7970s. :( I want MORE POWER!!

QG

Has anyone created a map or database of power rates? Would be interesting to see where the best place is to locate a farm, if you've got that flexibility.

you should be getting way better hash off those cards. check your flags...check your fan speed. you have it set to auto? if so set to manual at least 80%...open case....the cards can run at 100c but below 80c is much much better. you need more airflow. also...the wild fluctuations are probably your card going in and out of "boost" mode....setting the gpu core and mem speeds manually is preferred. try setting the core at 1050-1100mhz(should hold at stock voltages, if not bump vcore) and the memory to 800mhz(lower mem voltage if you can 1.5v? default should be 1.6v).  you can flag these setting thru cgminer i believe but i use msi afterburner. YMMV.

zif

You need 1200W, otherwise risk burning your mobo.

Yo yo maa,

I've been soo busy making modifications I haven't had a chance to update. My rig has transformed into a 2 storey.. building/box/thing. I have hand crafted an extension to my case (btw, I feel like such a noob buying a case now...) and added 6 PC fans. I might get some pics if anyone's interested a taking a peak.

It has come to my realisation that my Corsair AX1200i may be a little under powered. Nothing bad has happened, yet, but it's debatable whether or not 1200W is enough to power the might of 4 x Gigabyte HD 7970 GHz Edition.

So, I was in #ozcoin and Graet pointed out my cards were over heating in the confined space of my case and is not getting enough air flow. In turn I purchased 4 x 12inch PCIe risers to raise my cards from my case, then encase them in a wind tunnel box thing I built out of MDF. Now my cards are tuned to E:1100Mhz, M:1200Mhz, V:1.256, P:15, I:7 and it gets me 700GH/s on each card, sometimes it gets up to 750. 3.0GH/s BABY!! YEEHAA!!

All this power comes at a cost tho, my Steplight power meter reads ~1305W at the wall and it hit a Max. of 1400W. I'm not too worried, I pick this PSU cause I've seen good results from stress test. Just not sure how long they will last tho.

QG

Take a close look at your electric bill. Some utilities use a tiered approach, so that you pay a lower rate for the first hundred kWh's and more as you consume more. For example, you might pay .16/kWh for tier 1  and .24/kWh for tier 2, and your normal electrical usage puts you into tier 3, which is .30/kWh. Since you are adding demand in tier 3 the rate you should be using is .30/kWh, not the average.

You guys HAVE cheap power, it's just that your government thinks it's green to tax you on energy.  Nothing cheaper than coal.  But yeah, for bitcoin mining, power costs must be considered....

Have you searched static ice for the GPU's? Recently built a dual 7970 rig and the cards were 410 a pop. Also rigged up a dual power supply system to (2x 600w Antec's we had laying around).

He could mine an alternative coin as well and hope it goes up.

Anyone have numbers on the 7970s overclocked mining litecoins? I'm hoping that an 800W PSU will be enough, but it looks like I might need 850W.

Can you give me a name or link or pic of the 12inch risers you are using? I'm looking for some myself, thanks!

Talk to this dude.   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6128.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6128.0)   8)


Great service.

My system is designed for four 7970's & I went with the Lightning-1300 watt PSU.  I'm only running three in it right now, but plan on adding the fourth in the near future.  Haven't had any PSU issues, and don't foresee any in the future.  I'm a definite believer in providing more than adequate power.  An old man once told me:  "those who buy cheap, buy twice."

My ASUS 7950 runs very cool, even when overclocked. They *really* cut down the power consumption on that chipset apparently. I was going to point out about not fitting on that board (I've got the same one and I can only just fit 2 cards in). Be careful not to have them jammed hard against each other.  A few mm of spacing will save you a lot of pain.

I'm 'only' running an 800W power supply and having no problem running two cards (The second one is a 5830 which actually draws more than the 7950). Apart from that I'm running close to what you've got, and it's totally overkill :)

grats on your system, I've also built a 4 x 7970 rig recently and in aus too

mine is built and mining well in BAMT but have done 0 optimisation, that is next though I do love the stability of stock settings :p
got another rig with 2 x 7950's just today and getting SICK on the second card. You have any luck resolving your SICK status? If so was it just changing miner?

Dual 1000 would be my recommendation.

http://imgur.com/a/mRbMZ   <== Pictures

My Steplight power meter currently reads ~1400W

But I'm ok with that... for now.

I was going to try that Cablesaurus but they didn't have 12inch ones. I got mine from http://stores.ebay.com.au/Micro-SATA-Cables they are based in the US but the risers have Flyconn on them (China). Tho, the last time I checked Micro Sata Cables they stoped listing the 12 inch ones. Sold out maybe?

QG

You mentioned that you were running cgminer on Ubuntu.  I'm running a similar setup with 2x7970.  I'm getting slightly lower hash rates, ~600MH/s per card.  Can you tell me what your command line looks like?  And what versions of the driver and OpenCL package you are using?

Thanks,

-Jay

how hot are they running? and how high is your Engine? I had to cool my my cards and lower the clocks to stop them going SICK and DEAD.

http://imgur.com/a/mRbMZ#y6zZ4pi   that's in Win7 tho. but pretty much the same card config. AMD 13.1 drivers.

QG

In spite of 5 fans in the sides of the Antec 900 case, 2 7970s ran like 97c and 89C.  I took off one side and laid the case on it's side, open side upwards.  Temps went down to 60-70s. 

I think it was simply because hot air rises.  Machine is very very happy now.

I use a Corsair AX1200 - works well for my 4x7970s.

In spite of 5 fans in the sides of the Antec 900 case, 2 7970s ran like 97c and 89C.  I took off one side and laid the case on it's side, open side upwards.  Temps went down to 60-70s. 

I think it was simply because hot air rises.  Machine is very very happy now.
[/quote]

This is a simple, great idea - definitely trying it later tonight!

I am in the process of building exactly same rig and 2.8 to 3.0 GH/s is what I expected from four 7970's
How many bitcoins are you making a week? a month?

At 2800 MH/s, you should earn 0.12587176 BTC/day ($14.80) on average (0.00524466 BTC/hr)

I get about 1 BTC every 10 days paid out to me. That won't last tho, as difficulty rises ~10-20% every fortnight.

And if your cards are voltage locked and you can't undervolt them like me, you be paying most of those BTC into electricity. Currently it cost me ~$12.00AUD a day to run this machine. So I'm only really making $2 a day.

You should really be considering ASIC devices. While not as fun, they are more power efficient.

QG