Bitcoin Forum

Hello Bitcointalk!

After watching countless YouTube videos, hundreds of google searches and browsing the forums I'm getting closer and closer to purchasing my first mining rig. I'm leaning towards NVIDIA cards but could be swayed to AMD as I am still new. I'm currently mining with nicehash with a GTX970 and able to still make profits to keep the rig running. However I want to invest in a bigger standalone rig and venture into using claymore and other custom mining software.

The two major things I am hoping to get out of my rig is:

• Return on Investment
• Resale Value

I'm unsure what NVIDIA cards currently have the best ROI and it appears most agree that the 1080TI family is going to provide the best re-sale value. I'm really not crazy about making profits but want to get into this as a hobby and if profits come with that I am fine. If I lose money thats fine. Just looking for some advice from the community to get me started.

I'd say my ceiling spending is about $3,000 USD; however I'd like to keep it around $2,000 USD.

Thanks ahead of time for any responses!

Return on investment is different for everyone. You can do calculations online, but that's just a calculation of today. No one can say when or how much ROI you can get. Time will tell.
Resell value on the other hand is something different. You can lookup what second hand cards costs now. And that will be your resell value. The thing is, as new generation cards are released your resell value will drop off course.

Buying second hand gear will help with resell value because its cheaper to invest  ;)

This is excellent advice for a first rig.  I would add that once you get everything up and running and if you wish to build  more mining rigs, please please please get a power supply tester.  They are around $10 and will save you so much time when something fails.  Tracking down issues with multiple GPUs crammed in a rig can  be a time-consuming nightmare.  Downtime = lost profit.

ROI is easy to calculate, but changing very fast.

For example I calculate my profit before 2 months for one 1070 card as 45 USD - 20 USD for electricity, but was after month 60 - 20 USD (Bitcoin go up for 30 percent and took other currencies with him).

So you may calculate some "starting" point, and definitely is good to think about revenue, but reality will be different after one month and will variate heavily by tens of percent after several months... Its just my 2c.

You might be able to build a 6x AMD Rx 580 4GB rig for $2000 or a 6x Nvidia GTX 1070 rig for $3000. This would be based on USA sale prices... most other countries in the world will be more expensive.  Based solely on the prices of altcoins today I would find the Rx 580 to be a quicker ROI, but the GTX 1070 is more versatile (which bodes well for the future). AMD also requires more fiddling with to get optimal performance, which may be a negative if you are new to mining... on the other hand a $2k rig is allot cheaper then a $3k rig to start out with.

It is better to think of no resale value. The cards break under intensive use.

Thank you everyone thus far for the replies, I certainly appreciate them. I'm hoping to start building sooner than later but it seems I may have MOBO, PSU, CPU, and ram before I get any cards (not for lack of funds, but supply). Then again it seems a lot are in this boat.


I'm finding it more and more difficult to piece a build with all of the shortages and price gauging. I had found the h110 BTC+ at MSRP this morning and failed to pull the trigger fast enough and watched it turn from in stock to OOS in my cart!

I've seen a lot of builds with 1060's; I think they are great. In regards to sustainability I'm wondering if 1080 Ti's are going to be the best route.

I guess my choices are...

(2) - 1080 Ti's
(4-6) 1060's; 1070's; or 1070 ti's

Anyone able to weigh in on wether these would be reasonable options in regards to sustainability aka future mining opportunities?



I hear you there and I am definitely aware of the risks of no return.

Agree with DannyH here, it really depends. If you pick a good coin to mine you can ROI very quickly. My most recent build (6x NVIDIA 1070) ROIed after 40 days of mining Zencash due to a large spike (+500%).

As for what cards to get, NVIDIA cards are still the king for gaming IMO. Also, I prefer Equihash coins to CryptoNight/Ethash coins, which NVIDIA cards are much better at mining. However, I do have a couple of AMD Vega 56s mining Electroneum.

You can get mining specific motherboards in stock here: https://www.deepinthemines.com/collections/biostar-motherboards - don't forget about risers, an open air frame, in addition to the standard PC components.

I've custom built three higher end gaming computers, rigs are definitely different but I'm excited to get started. I'll have to check this site out. I was hoping to source from New egg as I have a credit card from them that would give me 0% with no huge out of pocket costs.

Electric https://imgur.com/a/kPOaf

Also I'm no electrician and usually just pay my electric with no care or thought. But am I correct to say I'm paying 0.08644 kWh?

as of now - amd, if you are ok with some mumba-umba and other voodoo stuff, would be a best choice - highest ROI from one card like vega (properly tuned) on cryptonight algo, but it is very hard to make rig run stable. usually 2 cards are ok, more - could be problems

in other case - take gtx 1080ti - the models asus strix, zotac amp extreme = if you manage to grab them under $740  the best bang for the buck!
second choice would be gtx 1070ti - plenty of models - try to take them unde $430-450 - then it will be nice

looks like your power costs are around .16 total.  You need to add up the categories.  You have different pricing above 250KW.

I personally like the gtx 1070's, don't think the 1080's are worth the extra money for little more hashrate. I've had issues with AMD cards in the past so I kinda stay away from them but I think they have the best Return on investment.

This isn't an issue due to the fact that all GPUs have 3 year warranty. The real issue is resell value when 10,000,000 GPUs enter the 2nd hand/ebay/Craiglist market when GPU mining isn't profitable anymore.

This is a little depressing, time to re-calculate profits. I'm at a rental property that currently has electric hot water otherwise I think my bill would be only the rig.

Anyone able to comment if the 0.16 is still a reasonable figure it should I look into off-site running?


This will be a exciting day for gamers, and a sad day for miners.

1080 ti`s are best for resale value, rx580 is the fastest roi. two mutually exclusive categories.

I'm starting to see that. I've got my build pretty much planned out for the Mobo, cpu, psu, HDD, and ram. Just need to pull the trigger at this point.

If you're interested in getting a really quick estimation of running costs and profits now, then you can visit https://whattomine.com/
I don't fully recommend basing your future profits on this site as difficulties are changing and prices of coins fluctuate as well. Good luck!

Thanks for the reply! I've been utilizing that site now for a few weeks it has given me some good insights. I'm thinking the 1070 will be a great beginner rig for me. Now just to source all the parts!

I doubt the 1080ti has better resale than say a 1060.

I see your thought process here and I'm thinking the same way what's the best computational per to Watts. But I also want the cards to be able to ROI in the estimated 190 days. I feel the 1070 and 1080 both to and normal edition will continue to mine effectively with increases and difficulty as they are newer cards. I'd be worried about the 1060s hitting ROI or still profitable after this time.

So I guess is the question is what's the better hash to watts. The 1070 or the 2070ti. Price difference is that big right now between the two cards. But I am seeing the 1070 when clocked accordingly can perform the 1070ti, but at what wattage cost is the question.

I still have some research to do! =]

I think when gpu mining slows or dies out, hopefully the person had got ROI and is just looking to make a profit off the sale. Regardless, it seems like there is a lot of options but I'm looking for a rig that can perform and mine consistently for ayleast 6 months. With increasing difficulties I wonder if there 1060 can keep up.

I'm also leaning towards a 6 card system.

nothing beats a bang for the buck rig and i think that isnt possible with the 1080Ti's (they are power hungry and need lots more capital -depends on your budget and risk level. Obviously the larger the capital the greater the risk especially for someone starting out small (think worst case scenario like Crypto mining goes into dark ages - would you like to have a 8000$ debt or a 4000$ debt. And during that time that you resell which do you think ppl will be more hesitant to buy a) a used card for say 250$ or b) a used card for $800?
 
I have used 1060's, 1070's and read about 1080Tis (dont own any yet).
I would make a 1060 rig if I can get my hands on Samsung memory cards again and again. The 1060s are rock solid (they dont mess around and just keep on mining. My 1070s are more of a diva so you need to really decide carefully. Then theres the Pascal RX cards that mine ethash & cryptonight like no ones business but also divas to setup.

I suggest starting out small and building up from there as opposed to jumping in the deep end right away. Just my 0.02$

I posted to hear your 0.02 cents so I appreciate it.

I'm still between the 1070 and the 1070 ti, I've ruled out the 1080's and like you said would rather be out 3k instead of 4.6k or more.

Right on!
I was able to get some good deals locally on some 1070s that I couldn't pass up (helps knowing how various manufacturers vary their warranty terms too (especially if buying used-look for receipts etc). Micron memory is decent and is what I found most common in 1070s up here in Canada.
If eletricity costs are a concern then definitely run some numbers to see if the higher efficiency is worth it.

Good luck (hope you wont need it except for in the pool you mine on  ;)) and have fun!

Hello guys!
I am planning to build a 6 GPU rig. I just need some advice before buying the hardware.
What would you chose from the following GPUs?

1. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 
2. GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1070 Windforce OC 8GB DDR5 256-bit
3. AsusGeForce GTX 1070 STRIX GAMING O8G 8GB DDR5 256-bit
4. GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1070 Windforce OC 8GB DDR5 256-bit
5. ASUS Radeon RX 580 Dual 8GB DDR5 256-bit
6 GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 Mining 6GB DDR5 192-bit


Thank you!

That'll be the next hurtle is what pool to mine! I'm still struggling to find a good source on 1070 vs 1070ti efficiency to wattage.

Not sure if people are secretive or the information is tucked away.