Bitcoin Forum

Hi everyone-

I am wanting to buy a starter rig to try begin mining, mostly as a hobby but making a bit of money on the side will be nice as well.  I found a rig that I am interested in buying but the pictures are concerning.  Does it look like the GPU's are too close for comfort in this picture or should it be fine since it's only a 3 GPU rig?  I'd like to get something discreet to put in my office so the 6 GPU rigs are out of the question.  The rig uses 2x 4gb XFX r9 290x and 1x 8gb XFX r9 290x.

Here's a link to the rig
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/8mcAAOSwgKpZuWBG/s-l500.jpg (https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/8mcAAOSwgKpZuWBG/s-l500.jpg)

It looks great but you have to question whether you will make back that asking price with the ethereum you mine. Don't get me wrong, that rig is a monster and will most definitely make you a couple dollars but will you get back your money before the difficulty hikes and mining becomes less profitable?
I'd suggest looking into Monero or other GPU mined coins instead of just jumping straight into ethereum. e.g. ETC which *might* be a better investment than the small amount of ether that you will be able to mine.
At the current difficulty, you'll only be earning ~0.019 ether per day with 90mh/s, which is about $5.

Thanks Ray-

I guess I can just set it to mine ZCash instead then?  And then switch the ZCash difficulty get too high?

I'm not trying to make a fortune here, I just want to get a rig so that I can learn to mine and getting a small rig seems like a good way to learn.  I just don't want to spend over $1k and have the GPUs die in a few weeks because of the heat.

Whichever gives you the best investment, keep in mind, cryptocurrency prices are liable to change in price too, mining a newer coin can also rocket you into a good investment just as well as mining Ethereum or ZCash could. If heat inside the case gets bad just open the side and point a usb fan at it (works for my 560s just fine) Heat and card death should really not be a problem, it's earning your money back that will kick you in the end.

GPUs are really tooooo close.
290x is great GPU, but it's hot and consume much electricity.
As for me, to spend 1k+ for GPU without warranty is too risky.

Yeah, at least 6 months is a must.

3 GPUs are too too close, and r9 290? is this 2016?
the cards are pretty old, so i am pretty sure it's second second hand rig.....are you sure you want to pay 1,000 bucks for such used rig?

and with the similar money you can easily set up your own rig with 3-4 gtx 1060 3gb cards, which are newer, quieter, one third to half power consumption of r9 290....

You are going to have some SERIOUS overheating issues with those GPUs packed in too tight like that.

 R9 290 (and 290x) are still good ETH miners, not so good at ZEC, but they DO eat a lot of power to get to the 30 Mh/sec ETH hashrate ballpark and they need a LOT of airflow to stay semi-cool.

 My triple R9 290 rig has 3 Sapphire reference-type cards like the ones in the pic, and they NEED space between them even with MASSIVE airflow on the case they are in.