Bitcoin Forum

I know everything in the world has a cheap (often a pile of crap) knock off is the same true for Miners and GPU's? even HDD's for Burst mining???

Yes.  There are plenty of shady websites selling miners.  Buy from known sources.  As for GPU's and HDD's buy name brand from reputable sellers like Newegg and Amazon (not the independent sellers).  Basically, if they are reputable, known and have a good return policy you should be set.  Don't try and save a few bucks by buying something off of Newweg.ri.po.ff.
   

I more meant trying to buy Knockoffs on purpose to beat the crap out of for mining lol

cheap HDD's from china (internal or external)

Hell im sure some company is making knockoff ASIC's lol

That money you save by buying cheap knock-offs will probably come back to haunt you down the road with reliability issues. To win the mining game you need to look for "the best bang for the buck", which isn't necessarily the same thing as "the cheapest you can find". To successfully mine long term you need to buy quality (usually name brand) hardware at an appropriate price point and optimize your rig, its settings, and maximize its up-time. You go too cheap you will be down due to reboots and crashes, and possibly outright component failures.

Now this also doesn't mean you need to buy the top-end of everything, as there is definitely a point of diminishing returns. Stick with good names, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, Evga, Corsair, etc., and you should be ok.

only reason I was asking was because GPU ROI is way down right now, however that does NOT lower the cost of the GPU's lol

and as far as cheapo HDD's thats a little different of a story lol

I'm sure most of the ASICS use low quality chips en masse

There is a youtube guy who tears apart gpus and tells you where they skimp out and the real quality strengths and weaknesses.  He is a voltage modder.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrwObTfqv8u1KO7Fgk-FXHQ is his channel he's quite a freak lol.  Very interesting what he does.

I was checking out some of his vids, looks pretty cool.

maybe the answer is to get regular GPU's and volt mod em lol

The reason GPU prices are not tolerable for GPU mining right now is that we are not the only market that the manufacturers cater. Sure we are a large portion of that market because we tend to buy them in bulk but they are also targeting the modders, gamers and people who look for GPUs at a performance standpoint. I do wish though that in the future, a specialized manufacturer cater to our needs but I cannot see that happening by a long shot.

I believe some Chinese sellers are selling 750tis that are actually rebranded 9000/400 series cards with 1GB of GDDR5. Haven't heard of any more recent bootleg cards though, most are just similar cards with reflashed BIOSes or custom ones to reflect the fake card's name.

Hello Gents -

Sorry to disrupt your thread of knowledge with uniformed squalor.

How important is RAM of the GPU beyond say 8GB...

Ether forks for example...DAG file size, couple GB and any firmware/flashing beyond that wouldn't be too much. Seems like too much more wouldn't be necessary.

Am I off base with that assumption?

There is no need for any memory past 8gb on cards today. ETH will go proof of stake before the DAG gets that big. What you are modifying on a card is memory and processor speeds/timings and voltage to try and get the card to its maximum speed with a minimum of power used. There is a lot to be said for these kinds of mods as you gain both power efficiency and hash rate which in the long run will earn you much more profit.


Also, you dont want to try and find knock off versions of these cards. Your performance suffers greatly even on a true retail card with the wrong brand of memory. You need all the components to be quality if you want the card to last and make you a profit.

ROFL that's how he killed a Vega!

Knock-off GPUs? They do exist, if you have a look at AliExpress or eBay you'll see plenty. They are supposedly using the same chipset which they obtain from the GPU manufacturers (Nvidia/Amd), although, they don't perform anywhere close the real ones. Moreover, they are often modded to show different specifications than they actually have.

wouldn't mind buying a cheap one and testing it see what it hashes at lol

what do you suggest trying??

I used to volt mod.  You need some knowledge on the VRM and voltage controller chip.   But these days is easy with software voltage settings (Back in the day afterburner doesn't do voltage settings.  Voltage is done by hardware mods).  You don't really need crazy solder or pencil volt mod for mining.  You get most profit with lower TDP settings.  

Those type of volt mods is meant for extreme overclocks which avg users here don't do since you can bypass safety limits.   If you want high voltage overclocks head to overclock.net and get some dry ice or LN2 and check out this website. https://kingpincooling.com/collections/extreme-pc-cooling

wanna help m volt mod some GPU's? LOL