Bitcoin Forum

So lets say I want to build a new minningrig,what would be the best GPUs money can buy?

R270, R280, HD 7950

Radeon R9 270/270x.

avoid gigabyte brand, Ive had about a 30% vrm failure rate on them, totally kills the card. No other brands have done this to me.

Some also report that fans often fail on MSI cards, while I've never encountered this. You just didn't have luck.

What is the difference between MSI and Gigabyte Cards? I thought These are Radeon brand?

So whats the difference between R270, R280, HD 7950 and Radeon R9 270/270x. These are all Radeon brand right?

What about:

 Radeon R9 290 graphic card
4 GB GDDR5
PCI Express 3.0 x16
2 x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort
Brand: XFX

Is this any good?

Or this one:

SAPPHIRE AMD Radeon HD 7990 D5 6GB GDDR5 950MHz Engine GRAPHIC-Card

Yes this is all from AMD.
Just look at their prices and you will know. Obviously each GPU has its own place in the market, providing performance at a certain price point.
The 7950 is reaching its EOL (End of life) and I wouldn't buy these.
The full names of R270 and R280 are 'AMD Radeon R9 270/280'.

R9 270 and R9 270x (slight difference) are the most Watt/performance efficient.

ok thanks, what do you think about: SAPPHIRE AMD Radeon HD 7990 D5 6GB GDDR5 950MHz Engine GRAPHIC-Card
Lets say a minning rig with 3 of These babies?

NEVER EVER XFX!
NEVER EVER XFX!
NEVER EVER XFX!

A lot of the mining comunity says to stay away from them and so do I 3 out of 4 cards from the (7950) died withing 2 months (stock 100% fan) and they were LOUD, HOT etc, and only 550-560K/hash.

The 270 is the BEST Hash/$ BUT needs a bigger investment as it requires more risers and more PSUs and it also uses more power over all.

I just built a rig with 4 270s (4 of those or 2 280xs) The 270s net me 1.8M/hash while the 280Xs would only net me about 1.2-1.4M/hash
I spent £820 on 1.8M/hash for the 270s BUT for the 280Xs I would have spent about £770 for 1.2-4 M/hash (so set up is more expensive but not much)

I got the gigabyte 270s as they have 2 6 pins which allow for HUGE OCs (all the sliders to the end of after burner and further after unlocking OC limit) and they hash at 450+ avg all day long. The cards each came with a battlefield 4 game and I can sell them on eBay for £20 each(in the next week) that will lower the cost per card down to £110 each which isn't bad for 450+K/hash.

So my favorite cards at the moment are MSI (4 280Xs in another rig before I learnt about the 270s) and they have been going about 2-3 months no problem and the gigabytes have been with a giant OC for about 3 days stable, no faults.

1 last thing, the 290x might be a powerful card BUT the hash/$ is SHITE compared to the benefits of 2 280xs or even 4 270s (for the same cost of 1 290x)


EDIT-7990s are really expensive, but they do offer a great hash rate (but again the 270s offer better hash/$) and also the 7990 are EOL too so they are fading out, they RUN HOT and LOUD and DRAW A LOOOOOOTTTTTTT OF POWR

Fuck my ass, I am going for 3 of These:


Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 290X

ok that answer al my questions, thanks. So you would go for the 4x 270s or 2x 280xs? Brand=MSI?
Please translate this for noob minners like myself: I got the gigabyte 270s as they have 2 6 pins which allow for HUGE OCs (all the sliders to the end of after burner and further after unlocking OC limit)

you also wrote: more risers and more PSUs  - what is that?
so if I go for the 270x - what brand should I take: Gigabyte, Asus or Sapphire?

Oh sure, the 2 6 pins allow for more power to flow to a card so the card can access more power when it needs to (which it does when you OC it) and with 1 6 pin the card might be unstable as it doesn't have enough power going to it but the gigabyte does as it has 75W more power to hand as it requires.

Yes, I would go for MSI on the 280X as it is cheapest and gets 650K/hash with a mild OC and I=18 (don't know about other makes for 280X but gigabyte, MSI and sapphire toxic is recommended for the 280X)

For 270s again I only have experience with gigabyte, but I have heard that gig cards get good OCs (which they do) and I think they are the only 270s with 2 6 pins and the only one which can get to 450K/hash without breaking a sweat (Again not 100% sure if others can or not) but that is IMHO.

Gigabyte=270 (NON X)
MSI/TOXIC/GIG=280X

Risers are what you put in the 1X and 16X to extend them off of the motherboard which allows for the air to flow better so they won't be touching (look on ebay for PCI powered risers) also they have to be powered if you don't have a mobo for mining (I.E BTC pro gigabyte)

The gig 270x require more PSUs as they have 2 6pins (if you just want 3 or 4 one PSU would do (1250W+) but I went for 2 X 750W EVGA supanova as that worked out cheaper than buying one big one, but they can only support 3 cards on each (even if they have more power they can ouput) as they are limited by the PCI outputs from them

Any more help just ask.

Are you planning to mine bitcoin with this rig? Or are you going to mine alts? Mining bitcoin with a GPU rig is a total waste, as ASICs are significantly faster.

Ok thanks guys, I plan on minning alts like doge, moon and kitteh etc. I still don't understand what the hell is a "OC" and "PSU"???
So lets say I buy 4X 280x GIG or MSI or Sapphire (doesnt really matter - right). So what do I still Need to get the rig running? My husband is a chemist and he can organise liquid Nitrogen. So I plan on cooling with that.

A lot depends on what your wanting.   How much are you wanting to spend?  Is there a certain amount of hashing or watts you want?

And some just flat depends on what is in stock on GPU's.  They are still out on a lot of models at many places. (and yes there is ofcourse always ebay but for RMA i like to have from a store)

Liquid nitrogen... is a little overboard on cooling unless you live on the sun.

For your current hash rates with the 270's, how much power are you drawing? This is a huge concern for me right now.

I don't know off the top of my head as I don't have a power metter, but the 270s draw about 225W each, then the mobo, CPU, HDD, RAM etc etc adds up to be about 100W (below 1500W for 4)

OC=Overclock
PSU=Power Supply Unit

280X is the best solution, if you can get 280X tri-x for normal price, it is even better. Used HD 7950 may be even better deal, if the price is low.

Wrong. They draw in around 150W (the 270x), and you can handle 4 at 850W.
No the 280x are not better than the 270x or 270. This is just plain wrong.

It's a trade off between PCI-E slots and total Hash power.

I'll take your word that 270x's run 450khs.
Assume 4 PCI-e Slots on the Mobo
So 4x 450khs = 1.8MHs

7950's run 550-625khs normally.
4x 550-610khs = 2.2-2.4MHs (I personally run at 2.2mhs)

My Club Queen 280x runs at 710khs(1030/1500mhz)
4x 710khs = 2.8MHs

So you need to decide. Do you want MAX KHS per motherboard/PSU setup? or cheapest?

I might build a 270x 4 card rig to supplement my current power. It's just getting hard to find 7950's or 280x's that aren't going for serious cash.

I didn't know for sure, I did know it was 150 for the other brands cards (MSI sapphire etc) but the gigabyte can have MORE than that if it needs it because it has 2 6 pins, 6 pins are both 75 W and the MB PCI is 75 W so the gigabyte ones can take that if needed. And when working anything out for power I work out the WORST CASE scenario (like GPU/CPU running flat out taking in their MAX).


If you reread what I said from the beginging, I have been promoting the 270, over the 270X and every other R9 series card, I haven't once said that 280s are better (only if you want it in a more compact rig, but then you would get 290X, but for the value it isn't worth it)

:D

The 270 and 270x are almost identical.
The 270x can give you up to 500 kh/s if you know what you're doing.