Bitcoin Forum

Hi everyone,

I am building a 6GPUx10rigs for mining ethereum or zcash

mb: Asrock H81 BTC
cpu: Intel i3
ram: 8G

GPU: I am thinking to use SAPPHIRE RX470 8g (samsung memory) 470 price per MH/s is lower than 480

PSU: Enermax EMR1600EGT Enermax MAXREVO 1600W or LEPA G Series G1600-MA 1600W (copy of enermax)
http://www.lepatek.com/eng/product_content/1/1/20/ (http://www.lepatek.com/eng/product_content/1/1/20/)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817494006 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817494006)

Which brand of GPU is better to use? MSI? SAPHIRE? XFX? POWERCOLOR?

The psu's are cheap, about 200 EUR. I am using 2 of these on my 2 rigs (6x380 and 6x470) for two months. They seem working fine.
a lot of miners are using corsair ax1200i. is it so good?

i think it's better to go with the 480 4gb, should be at the same price or at least here i'm finding it at the same price

also i don't think you need at all a 1600w, 1000w is enough just buy a corsair rm or evga 1000/1300(if cheaper some times)

rm 1000i is very cheap can be found at 170-180 euro

You don't need i3 and 8gb of ram. If you are focused on gpu mining you can go with celeron g1820 (ones i use for lga1150 socket) and 4 gb of ram. There is no need to spend extra money since those don't impact mining performance. Anyway based on your questions it doesn't look like you did much research on gpu mining. Maybe is better to make 1 rig first and then if you are able to manage it expand ?

Well usually the MSI brand in gaming is better than the competition but I don't know if it will make any difference in mining altcoins. From what I have seen from people who build rigs they usually are using the Sapphire version, maybe because it is better for mining but I don't really know.

If I would name the brands down for the graphic card section I would name like this.

1.MSI
2.GIGABYTE
3. ASUS
4. XFR
5. SAPPHIRE-NITRO (always almost same)
6. PALIT
7. ZOTAC

For your piece of mind I suggest you do your own research in many GPU-s or PC parts forums like Toms Hardware to find out which brand is best between graphic cards.

Goof luck finding 10X H81 pro BTC if you don't already have it.

rx 480 power draw is 150W, 150 x 6 = 900W + mb +cpu power, so 1000W is at the limit. 1600W i can get at 165 EUR. Less noise from psu

rx 480 power draw is 150W, from 8pin, what from slots?
Look at  http://sapphirenitro.sapphiretech.com/en/480-8.html#specifications  Power Consumption: 225W

I have 2 rigs doing their job for two months. I've bought i3, because of the resell value (easier to sell if I stop mining) + one experienced miner told me, that in some cases hashrate is going down due to slow cpu and low ram, so that is why I use 8GB of ram. Now I see, that this is too much for ethereum at least. I heard, that zec miners with slower cpu's had lower hashrates.

i had the same thing 6 x 150w plus cpu ram mobo and 3 fan and it was holding strong with a rm1000i, which can sustain up to 1050/1100 watt actually

you will be fine trust me

How do you guys pick between the 8gb 470 vs 480 8G vs 4G ?

after picking 470 vs 480 then you have to pick brand..

its almost impossible i been looking for 4 hours, cant decide.

SAPPHIRE RX470 8G has a good, fast samsung vram, which is good for ethereum

480 4g has slower vram, so why 480 4G is better?

yeah but they are not cheap like the 4GB one, like 15-20% more expensive

In my country i can get those for:

470 8G - 266 EUR
480 4G - 233 EUR
480 8G - 286 EUR

So you are saying I can use 6x480 8G with 1000W psu? on stock bios? no undervolt? max load? dual mining?
it's just hard to believe for me. I think it is not good to use PSU on max load. I heard PSU efficiency is going down on max load. It is recomended to use psu at 80% load. is it true?

Uses a dps-2000bb and soon connects several cards

Would be interested to hear why MSI is so high on your list? of my lot the only MSI i have (RX470) just died on me.

first casualty of the new generation :)

My measurements from the wall.
6x 480 8G Nitro - dual mining hits almost 1200W.
With changed BIOS + 890mW - dual mining is less than 1000W

I wish you luck but you really should investigate the long term possibilites of your plan. If you have free or cheap electricity it doesn't matter too much but mining either ETH or ZEC has some serious risks in terms of  returning your investment.

The price of ZEC is already very low and likely to keep dropping because there are so many new miners dumping the coin, and as it block reward gets bigger this will get worse. If the ZEC devs manage to fix the z address function and make the anonymous features of ZEC actually work then its price may increase but who knows?

As the price drops, many of the people who switched from ETH to ZEC will return to ETH and so the difficulty of ETH will therefore go way back up again. That means less reward for your ETH hash rate. Also the ETH devs plan to swap ETH over to proof of stake sometime in the next 6 months, meaning no more ETH mining.

Honestly if I had a large amount of money to invest in crypto currencies I would spend it on just buying ETH - RIGHT NOW while it is cheap. After the hard fork coming in about 3 days and if the hard fork actually works and improves the ETH network back to working efficiantly again I think the ETH price should start to rise again.

Mining is fun but I think it's way too late to start ETH now - and ZEC mining is probably not profitable in the short to medium term, if ever again.

yes you can even do it if the psu absorb constantly 1000w it will not be damaged or something, also they are covered by 7 year warranty by corsair

and efficiency was 91% at that load

Newegg has them in stock finally...just ordered 1 for a future build since they will sell out and get marked up huge by resellers