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Other => Beginners & Help => Topic started by: Projects on February 23, 2012, 07:46:16 PM



Title: PC for Mining
Post by: Projects on February 23, 2012, 07:46:16 PM
Where can i buy a prebuilt pc for mining?
I am not able to build one myself, any reccomendations?


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: ForceField on February 23, 2012, 08:06:39 PM
Would be helpful if you specified your budget range.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: Projects on February 23, 2012, 08:30:08 PM
about 1k usd


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: nmat on February 23, 2012, 08:54:25 PM
about 1k usd

How much do you pay for electricity? Are you looking for power efficiency or reduced upfront costs? The wiki has some suggestions, but you probably would need to build it yourself.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: CA Coins on February 23, 2012, 08:56:40 PM
New or used?  If used is ok, then scour the forum for a used rig.
Is there a reason why you can't build a PC yourself?  If you can't build one yourself due to technical knowledge, you are going to have a hard time running a mining rig.  It is not really plug and mine.
Also, if you're doing this for profit, then you need to consider your power cost.  Nowadays, with GPUs, you might lose money mining if your power cost is high.  In that case, you might go with FPGAs if you really want to mine.  They are pre-built, plug and play, low power cost, but very high equipment costs.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: Projects on February 23, 2012, 09:44:22 PM
not really able to build one - never tried but wouldnt like to experiment with 1000 usd would rather buy one pre built and then learn how to use it
i appreciate they are not as easy as plug and mine but i am fairly intelligent so i am sure i would figure it out
electricity cost is irrelevant electricity is included in my rent


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: nmat on February 23, 2012, 10:58:59 PM
not really able to build one - never tried but wouldnt like to experiment with 1000 usd would rather buy one pre built and then learn how to use it
i appreciate they are not as easy as plug and mine but i am fairly intelligent so i am sure i would figure it out
electricity cost is irrelevant electricity is included in my rent

Take a look at the marketplace section. Maybe there are people selling.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: CA Coins on February 24, 2012, 12:42:29 AM
I remember there was a website selling pre-built rigs.  I can't seem to find it on google anymore but I did find one site:
http://www.bitcoin-rigs.com/

There was also a post of someone with a pre-built rig:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=54066.0

Lastly, someone is selling a bunch of rigs, but he may not want to sell individual boxes and they might be out of your price range with 3 6990s:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64548.msg762608#msg762608

Not endorsing any of them but check it out and good luck!


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: shakaru on February 24, 2012, 02:27:02 AM
If you live near LA or dont mind having a pc shipped to you, I build and selling mining rigs. Everything from alluminum racking, 4u server mounts, h20 cooled rigs, I build it.

Contact me so we can have a discussion in real time what your needs are and I can give you a few estimates and stats. If you have skype, I can be reached at Andrew_Nollan


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: diabinc141 on February 24, 2012, 04:49:31 AM
If you are fairly knowledgeable you should really build one yourself. You can find tutorials on youtube on how to put together a computer and if you need help with components you can either look through the forums for similar budget rigs or I could help you put together a part list. I enjoy computers so I'd be happy to give you any advice. Also I'm new here to the forum so I'm trying to establish myself on here. Right now I have a pretty small mining rig at about 1 GHash but I'm looking to expand in the near future. PM me if you have any questions.  :)


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: Vanderbleek on February 24, 2012, 06:08:46 AM
I'd recommend, as a "backbone" for a GPU rig:

MSI GD-70 AM3 Motherboard
Athlon CPU
2GB DDR3
1200W Seasonic PSU
Flash drive to run the OS off of.

Beyond that, all you need is the cards -- 6870s are pretty affordable now, get ~300Mhash, and would have factory warranties. You could easily put for of them in that setup, and it would be just about USD $1200 to do so (before rebates). So about $1/mhash for all new equipment. Obviously if you could get some used 58xx cards, you'd be able to bump that number up.

It really isn't too difficult to put together a computer -- these days things can usually connect one way, and they're color coded to boot. Otherwise you'd have to have someone like Shakaru throw the rig together for you.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: Halvor on February 24, 2012, 03:09:16 PM
I'm posting in this thread although my question is on a different, much, lower level than you guys are talking at.

I have access to a community PC which is configured with a 2GHz P4 CPU and 1GB of RAM (running ubuntu). Is it possible to do mining from such a meager platform? Obviously the background process would have to be limited so that other users could use the PC for browsing and writing stuff at the same time.

Or is this a definite non-starter?


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: portron on February 24, 2012, 03:14:18 PM
I'm posting in this thread although my question is on a different, much, lower level than you guys are talking at.

I have access to a community PC which is configured with a 2GHz P4 CPU and 1GB of RAM (running ubuntu). Is it possible to do mining from such a meager platform? Obviously the background process would have to be limited so that other users could use the PC for browsing and writing stuff at the same time.

Or is this a definite non-starter?

If you plan on mining bitcoins on a P4 CPU forget it... if it has a PCI-E slot, and you put a GPU in there, maybe... but I have a feeling it'd most likely have an AGP slot...


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: Halvor on February 24, 2012, 04:04:45 PM
I'm posting in this thread although my question is on a different, much, lower level than you guys are talking at.

I have access to a community PC which is configured with a 2GHz P4 CPU and 1GB of RAM (running ubuntu). Is it possible to do mining from such a meager platform? Obviously the background process would have to be limited so that other users could use the PC for browsing and writing stuff at the same time.

Or is this a definite non-starter?

If you plan on mining bitcoins on a P4 CPU forget it... if it has a PCI-E slot, and you put a GPU in there, maybe... but I have a feeling it'd most likely have an AGP slot...

Ah well...  :-\


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: drewtaz on February 24, 2012, 06:02:15 PM
I'm posting in this thread although my question is on a different, much, lower level than you guys are talking at.

I have access to a community PC which is configured with a 2GHz P4 CPU and 1GB of RAM (running ubuntu). Is it possible to do mining from such a meager platform? Obviously the background process would have to be limited so that other users could use the PC for browsing and writing stuff at the same time.

Or is this a definite non-starter?
You could mine CPU based currency like LiteCoins. 


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: CA Coins on February 24, 2012, 06:08:17 PM
The P4 CPU can handle the mining part, but it has AGP for video.  You can get a PCI to PCI-E converter for the GPU, but I am not sure those are worth the money.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: neo_rage on February 24, 2012, 06:42:58 PM
If you want a mining PC, not open rig, you really can take it from parts. It's simple.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: Mushoz on February 24, 2012, 06:48:00 PM
If you were consistently able to put two pieces of lego together when you were a kid, you should have no trouble building your own rig.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: DeathAndTaxes on February 24, 2012, 06:52:15 PM
If you don't want to build your own rig then buy an FPGA.  They are pretty much plug and play.  A laptop or low end casual user system is more than enough to run them.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: neo_rage on February 24, 2012, 10:59:56 PM
+1 to fpga, simply, low-power, silent.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: Kluge on February 25, 2012, 12:55:28 AM
If you are fairly knowledgeable you should really build one yourself. You can find tutorials on youtube on how to put together a computer and if you need help with components you can either look through the forums for similar budget rigs or I could help you put together a part list. I enjoy computers so I'd be happy to give you any advice. Also I'm new here to the forum so I'm trying to establish myself on here. Right now I have a pretty small mining rig at about 1 GHash but I'm looking to expand in the near future. PM me if you have any questions.  :)
Know OP doesn't really want this answer, but I agree. Assembling a PC is simpler than assembling most furniture. Once you look at the motherboard and the parts with the cables they came with, it's fairly self-explanatory to figure out where everything goes. PCB's fairly flexible, and now almost everyone's stopped using a bunch of long pins on hardware, there's very little risk of messing something up. You don't even have to go through the trouble of trying to stuff all the cables in a metal box if you don't want - usually get better airflow with it outside a box.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: CA Coins on February 25, 2012, 06:14:09 AM
I echo the rec to build one yourself.  We can show you what to get, the hardest part IMHO.  Then it is merely following some instructions.  It's almost like assembling an IKEA furniture.  Just remember to ground yourself.

Not sure about the FPGA though since he has "free" electricity. 


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: lakeluke on February 25, 2012, 12:16:08 PM
The following, as mentioned before has pre-built rigs: http://www.bitcoin-rigs.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=2

but the prices make the rigs unaffordable. if you plan to stay mining, it's best you spend a few weeks gathering Rig info, and try and acquire the parts your self.


Title: Re: PC for Mining
Post by: aqrulesms on February 26, 2012, 02:30:57 AM
Building one yourself is easily the best.

What is limiting you from building one on your own? Typically pre-built PCs have an overhead cost and are quite a big deal more expensive than just building your own PC. I can take this from experience. EX. Dell, HP, etc.

This way, you can ensure you'll get the most profit possible in any case.