Title: Newb help with hardware selection 3 x 7950 Post by: mpj76a on April 11, 2013, 02:26:39 AM Hello,
Started mining with the laptop to figure out some basics and now I want more speed. I was thinking about the following: Case - Cooler Master LAN Box GPU's - 3 x 7950 Power - Cooler Master 1200W gold Motherboard - Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 I didn't include memory or CPU, but they're decent (8GB, AMD 8 core of some sort). I'm pretty sure I could have gone lower on the CPU and memory but I'm just keeping it flexible for other stuff. After reading a few posts I think the power source might be overkill. If so, what should I get instead? I see that the motherboard supports 2 x PCIe 2.0 x 16 slots (dual @x16/x16 speed) and 2 x PCIe 2.0 x 16 slots (x4 speed). Shouldn't the motherboard have 3 x PCIe 2.0 x 16 (x16 speed)? If so, can you recommend one? The above was recommended by the sales guy based on the fact that I want to run the 3 x 7950's. They are specifically XFX Radeon HD 7950 Double D Video Card - 3072MB, GDDR5, PCI Express 3.0 (x16). Is this good? Thanks again! edited to add (x16 speed) clarification Title: Re: Newb help with hardware selection 3 x 7950 Post by: mandroid on April 11, 2013, 02:50:25 AM I am building a rig tomorrow (parts ordered) that will have 3x 7950s. I suggest reading through this thread as another newbie got a lot of help from a forum member: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171081.0
The most important note is that the LAN BOX cannot fit three cards without modifying the case. The thread also contains good info about selecting a motherboard, cpu, etc that will cheaply yet successfully house the three cards. All up my rig is going to cost me AUD$1800 (roughly USD$1900). As a last note, I think that PSU is overkill for system + 3 x 7950, you need around 800W (200 per card, 200 for system worst case scenario). Here is my rig as the order stands now. Order Details 1 D-Link DWA-125 Wireless Lan 150 USB Adapter 1 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM 1 Kingston 8G(2x4G) DDR3 1600MHz CL9 HyperX 3 Gigabyte ATI HD7950 3GB GDDR5 2 BitFenix 200mm Spectre PRO Series Fan Black, High Pressure/CFM Desig 1 Western Digital 500GB 64M IntelliPower SATA3 Caviar Green WD5000AZRX 1 CoolerMaster RC-922XM-KKN2 HAF Black USB3.0 1 Corsair HX850v2 850W ATX Power Supply, 80 PLUS GOLD 1 ASRock 970_EXTREME4.AM3+ AMD970 4*DDR3 SATA3 USB3.0 3*PCIEx16 RAID 1 AMD FX-4130 4-Core 3.8GHz Socket AM3+ 125W BE PI Title: Re: Newb help with hardware selection 3 x 7950 Post by: mandroid on April 11, 2013, 02:53:10 AM Two more notes I picked up from the thread I linked:
-the CPU literally only has to be the cheapest to fit your motherboard, it is NOT needed. -RAM for BTC mining requires 2GB, for LTC mining 8GB (worst case) -cooling is VERY important, make sure the version of the 7950s you are selecting have HEAPS of cooling (the gigabyte model I selected has three fans) and get some big, high-rate, NON-silent fans into the case Title: Re: Newb help with hardware selection 3 x 7950 Post by: Timzim103 on April 11, 2013, 02:57:09 AM For three 7950s, I'd say 800w isn't overkill. I measured 675~ on my rig. It has only two 7950s at -i 9. Perhaps get a kill-a-watt to monitor this...
Title: Re: Newb help with hardware selection 3 x 7950 Post by: mpj76a on April 11, 2013, 02:59:36 AM Thanks for the answers so far. Was I right about the the fact that my proposed card doesn't support the third GPU? I'm new to these specs, but I read it as two good, the third not so good.
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