Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

So, I am trying to build a GPU mining rig.
I want to incooperate 3x 1060 6gb, 1x 1080 (and potentially more 1080s, 1070tis and/or 3x RX580s, this will mostly depend when they actually ship).

As the recommended mainboards are literally everywhere sold out. First, I cannot figure out which actually relatively normal priced mainboard is available for my needs as a beginner?

2.) I  also just cannot figure out or find a decently priced PSU or website that lists those which PSU I will actually need and how much the cards eventually consume? In this case at least the 3 1060s, 1x 1080 and let us assume rather 2 more RX580s OR two more 1070/1080?

Here, I am even thinking if it makes sense to buy one 1200W PSU if the ones with 850W etc. are just cheaper? What are the recommendations in those regards. I already check if they are platinium or gold certified.

3.) Are there are also any recommendations?

I am also only having a 15y old PC around with a Pentium 4, but the pci slots are the old ones (I did not kept up to date within the last years in regard to that, so I am still confused which PCI slots I need to use for graphic cards like the 1060 etc. when I am looking for other mainboards(that are not recommended anywhere)?)

I also would like to get the rig started as it could take some decent time until I get the "better" / recommended mainboards, the better PSU's etc. as I am not willing / it may make no sense to buy them overpriced at this point to me.

Are there any highly recommended websites with actual recommendations in regard to my questions? Please also consider that I need to order within Europe and usually I prefer Amazon.

Moreover, I am also confused in regard what is the difference between the digital and non-digital PSU's for example from Crosair or the HX and AX series from EVGA?
What seriously makes sense in terms of investment for a rather short-term investment of 1-2 years as those PSU differ so much in price....

Btw, Why is it also worse to use two PSU with for example two 750W (much cheaper) than one 1500W PSU? I still don't get that and also don't find a guide to figure that out.

4.) Which risers are actually recommended? What do I need to pay attention when I am ordering some? I always want to keep my costs low, but I don't even know what I need to pay attention to in detail when it comes to raisers?

Thx

Advice highly appreciated!!

Because of the waiting times for GPU's and MOBOs you'll probably get a quicker return if you invest your money straight into purchasing your cryptocurrency of choice than searching, comparing, buying, waiting for deliveries (could be months), building, programming and mining.

I've done both ways and can easily say that I wish I invested all the money I had in rigs directly.

Don't get me wrong, I have made some great money mining, but I have made way more just investing directly.

Just my two cents.

But if you are going to mine, I recommend Amazon and Scan as good retailers.

You want a retailer that can give you an up to date stock level. I have used other websites in the past that say they have a certain GPU "in stock" and then a week later you have to ring them up and they say "sorry, it should be here next week" then a week later they say the same thing.

All the best.

A lot of basic questions here OP.. a lot of which have been asked many times and answered many times on this forum. You will run into a lot of issues when building a rig (normal) but by searching for these answers yourself you'll find the answers to other issues you are going to run into later on. You'll save time and money by doing more research instead of getting fed the answers you just asked. That's my advice.

I can answer a few of your questions.

Video cards today use PCI-Express connections. The 15 year old computer probably only has PCI slots so it won't work.

For the PSUs there are a couple of things. The more expensive power supplies are more efficient, they should have a rating of 80 Plus White, Bronze, Gold, Platinum, Titanium. With white being the least efficient. You can read about the different ratings here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus

Some other things that comes with nicer PSUs are quieter fans and they are modular; meaning you only plug in the wires you need instead of having all the wires hardwired to the PSU.

Hi there. I'm sure there are more experienced people here, but here's a few things I learned first with Asics, then building my first rig and scopeing out the parts for the second one. For the power supplies, I like the Titanium ones the most. I know they're expensive, but they save 2-4% on the electric bill. You want to use no more then 80% of their capacity for the best efficiency, so I'd go with either The Corsair 1500i, or new 1600i (They have the most VGA ports) or you could go with the EVGA 1600w t2, it's a fine power supply also. Watch every day at multiple websites and you should be able to get one of those for $400, but they will sell out quick. The great thing is, you can turn around and sell them on Ebay used for $500, and both brands have a 10 year warranty, so they should serve you through a few builds. For the video cards, my only suggestions are that cards that can be powered by one VGA cable are easier to deal with, and the brands to look for are EVGA, Asus, MSI, and Zotac. For risers, the ones that have 3 power inputs are the ones to look for, because you will want to power some with the 6 pin, and others with the Molex (don't use the Sata connector) Also get the ribbon cable riser cable for the big VGA port on the motherboard, this ones like a bonus because you don't have to power a riser. For suppliers, Amazon as you mentioned, Newegg (They accept payment in BTC), or Ebay (Great for finding that 5th and 6th card for your rig that matches the first four) Keep your mind open on buying parts though, you never know who may have a great deal. I've seen Titanium power supplies at great prices from Bestbuy, OfficeMax, and others as well. Hope this was helpful, and good luck to you!

Yeah, the issue is with reading through different posts, usually they only cover a tiny fraction of my actual questions as I tried to read throguh blogs, posts etc. It is extremely time consuming, unfortunately. I assembled PCs years back, but have not done that quiet some time, so I am lil bit out of touch and never really was into using different PSU's etc. and wireing several cards was not really necessary, but this has another purpose now.

I already put some money in different coins, but with the recent heavy fluctuations, I would be happy to just have a more solid thing running aside as one is having at least the graphic cards and the equipment at the end of the day. That is why I tend to start mining in addition as day trading or even intermediate trading is very time-consuming and quite stressful in my opinion.

Yeah, I figured out that it actually seem to not have PCI express slots but just regular ones.

So, in early march, I would potentially have in total 3x 1060, 1x 1080, 3x 1070 delivered as I got if confirmed today. Is there a website where I can easily calculate the max /min and/or average power consumption?

Is a 1200 Watt from EVGA or Corsair a good choice or are the better more cost-efficient ones available that I also may want to look at?

Someone having one or some mainboards in mind that would fulfill my desires for the rig with the 7 (potentially 6 cards if 7 not possible)?

I also read that the more recent mainboards such as those require much less to none BIOS modifications as they are set up differently. Obviously, I am also looking for something that needs less optimization, particulary if I am just starting...

I looked into those mainboards, though hardly any available:

https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B072NDFT1D/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (though sold out at the moment)

https://www.amazon.it/gp/offer-listing/B075D7R8DL/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new (expensive for 230 Euros)

https://www.amazon.it/Asrock-H81-PRO-BTC-R2-0/dp/B01M5FQZYE/ref=sr_1_16?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1519151251&sr=1-16&keywords=bitcoin (this one could be delivered for about 120 Euros, but I read that it is not user-friendly for beginners)


The issue I truly have with this 400 USD power supplies is really when they actually pay off unless you sell them later on in addition. As an example, when I use 1200Watt/hour continously 24/7, I would use 864, 000 Watt = 864 kWh a month, a 5% higher efficiency would be about 43kWh safed and with a price of 0.2 Euro per kWh, I would literally safe 8.6 Euro each month. If they cost me 200 Euro more than a cheaper one, the RIO for the better PSU would nearly 2 years....which feels to me a very long time in crypto-terms. Opinions? Obviously, I could make calculations for every PSU, but I am asking for opinions that would help me to make a decision faster.

In regard to the Corsair PSU's, I pre-ordered the one without software control/monitoring (the HX model) and the digital one from the HXi series that is able to do that. Is that a feature that I actually need for mining the software/control monitoring?

@thanks for the short explanation about the modular issue, now I get the difference between modular and non-modular

Thanks, guys!

My take on the power supplies is that 2 years down the road a used server psu will have little value, where a premium titanium unit will. And over those 2 years, it may not totally pay for itself, but it will offset the price difference between the two, and at the end of the day you end up with something you are able to resell. I look at it like a store of value. Kinda like a nice GPU in that sense, and if you DID end up using it for the whole 10 years of the warranty period, then you will of saved money on electric. Also, when your electric costs are lower (titanium psu's, 220v circuits, eventually some grid tie solar panels, etc) Then the profitability of your GPUs, or ASICS, is insulated from becoming unprofitable for longer, saving you money down the road. Also, I had a cheap-o 1200w power supply that damaged a miner, and I thought the miner just died, so I hooked it up to another one, and fried that one too. After that I vowed to never skimp in the power supply department. Alot of this may just come down to personal preference, but thats just my 2 satoshis.

I see your point. In the short-term (they should get delivered in the next 7 to 21 days), I can choose now between the following and consider those best money for value (as the ones above 1200Watt are currently not even having a delivery date at all). I can switch when I get those delivered which I am sure will take 2 to 3 months.

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00S8HY0BW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (Digital Corsair HXi 1200W for 220 Euros)
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B06VSPMPCC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1 (non-Digital Corsair 1000W RMX series (Gold) for 155 Euro pre-ordered) or an EVGA Gold standard for the same price with 1000W?

Just noticed that the suggested EVGA 1600W T2 Titanium might be also available from amazon UK within 1-3 weeks of estimated delivery time for roughly 400 Euros...

 
I believe the 1200W seems to me the best deal? Opinions? I am unsure about the 1600W one for now as the same one would be available in about 2 months for 360 Euros. If one is interested, amazon.de currently takes pre-orders for this one for that price which seems to me a good deal.


Btw, is it worth to pay 50 Euros more for a 1070ti (Gigabyte GeForce® GTX 1070 Ti Gaming 8G, three fans) versus the 1070 (gigabyte windforce, two fans)?

Yeah, I just researched this yesterday. The Corsair Ax1200i is the better deal down the road. It's more efficient, folks say the power delivery is more precise, if you were to want to tune in power levels the software has more options, and here's the dealmaker for me:The AX has 8 VGA ports, while the HX only has 6. When your trying to figure out where to plug in the last couple risers you'll be really happy you have those. It looks like the 1070 is more profitable then the 1070i, but I'm not really the person to give more advice on those two specific brand models. A handy tool even if you don't mine there is the Nicehash profitability calculator. Instead of getting caught up too much on exact numbers (Unless your going to mine there), I like to use it just to compare profitability between different cards. (ie: hey this one uses less power and makes an extra 20 cents a day!)

Yeah, true, unfortunately it is nearly also 150 Euro more expensive than the HXi. However, wouldn't the EVGA 1600W T2 for just 40 Euros more not the better choice?

The EVGA has a little more power, but only has 9 VGA ports vs 10 vga/cpu ports, (that the ax1500i has) and more importantly, the sata/perf section of the Corsair supplies 180w (should do 2 or 3 risers depending on voltage) but the EVGA only has 120w in that section (even 2 risers could be pushing it if you have anything else hooked up in there or if the cards are higher powered)

Definetly better then any 1200 though. You never want to use more then 85% of the rated power or the efficiency starts swirling down the drain.

Which one you mean is definitively better?

The EVGA 1600w T2. I don't think there are any power supplys in the 1200-1400 range (By EVGA or Corsair) that reach the Titanium rating. There are some other ones (Thermaltake comes to mind) but if you read the reviews, you'll forget them as even an option.

oh, ok.

btw, ansy recommendation from someone in regard to the mainboards?

-TB250-BTC PRO (12xGPU)
-Asrock H110 Pro BTC+ (13xGPU)
-Asus Prime Z270-A (normally 7 x GPU)
-Asrock H81 PRO BTC R2.0 LGA 1150 (6 x GPU)