Bitcoin Forum

Hi guys, I am new on mining thread, tried to look for similar posts but didn’t fond any.

So here is my dilemma. I would like to try my hand at mining, bu don’t have thousands to spend. I am looking to find a solution that will get me started for cheap (€300).

 I have old desktop with quad core 3ghz amd phenom 2 cpu and 6gb ram and would want to buy AMD radeon rx580 8gb (pci express) graphics for mining.

The question is, will the old desktop slow my mining performance down? Does internet speed affect mining too (i have 40mb/s intenet where i live)? Is it even worth these days, to mine with one graphic card? Not trying to get rich here 😬 just want a bit extra here and there. Thanks guys

Just a little bit effect on overall performance, but not really on the mining process.


Internet connection especially latency will affect your share to the mining pool (if you were doing pooled mining) with your current internet speed, I'm sure you were on the save zone.


Today, I'm still mining with GPUs.

go for it.

Your cpu does not affect your Mining performance,check your power supply, make sure its enough to run AMD radeon rx580 8gb smoothly,If not you need to buy new power supply,atleast 600W psu  is safebet. Radeon rx580 8gb is best suitable for mining Cryptonight algorithems eg:Monero,Intense coin,Stellite coin.Profit differ for different coins So choose coin from which you can make some good profit.

It should be fine for mining requirements. But you'll be facing the issues when you have a plan to put more GPUs if your motherboard not supported it.


Your internet speed doesn't matter for mining performance and it's more than enough, the most important is the consistent internet speed as well as connection.
(i assume you are not doing solo mining)


You're starting with one card today, and maybe you'll have had a lot of GPUs on your mining rig at the end  ;D

On Ethereum (ethash) one RX580 card will generate approx 1 dollar per day based on present exchange rates. It is easy to calculate how long it might take to get your money back...

I am mining eth with old computers to save on components,not using conventional hard drives fail I recommend SSD. even with memories dd2 4 gb and old processors and works with windows 7 64 bit. the only consideration is that it should be double core because in the eagerness to lower a few additional watts I placed a single core and there was a noticeable decrease in performance.

If your CPU is not supported with multi GPU's you can only mine with 1 GPU and for performance, I think it won't affect the performance when mining, just make sure that you check your PSU first how much wattage your PSU limit so that you can run the miner without any issue. 

If you are planning to mod your rx580 you can follow this guide https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1954245.0 and if you are planning to multiple cards I think there is a good driver to mine with multiple cards I think you can run 4 GPU's using riser extender with 4 usb socket.

If your motherboard has legacy bios instead of uefi bios then it doesn't support Radeon RX-5xx series. Your solution will be in that case to buy a used RX470/480 or buy a new Nvidia 1060 3gb/6gb.

Thanks for the suggestion regarding power supply, i would have definitely not checked that 👍

Thank you everyone for your input it is much appreciated, i learned a lot. Need to keep eye on my power supply and check that my bios is not legacy. Points I would have never checked. You guys are the best, Thanks again

Wow, thanks for that link, that is awesome resource. It will save me so much time 👍.

What would you suggest power supply wattage should be? Would you agree with 600w that were suggested above?

You'll be needing at least 500W power supply for a single RX580 graphics card (185W) as the specs suggests.
But based on the requirement, any good quality 400W PSU can provide enough juice to power your whole system.
Since you're only using a single GPU, the wattage shouldn't be your first priority but the quality, be cautious on picking a new PSU.

Hey, thanks for your reply. Jut one quick question. Actually two. What do you mean when you say quality should be my main priority (something like that the power supply is stable?)? Can you refer good and reliable power supply brand? Maybe from your own experience. Thanks 🙏

I want to share some of my experiences with the brand of PSU that I use and so far so good.

Personally, I choose PSU at least have a "gold" rating and for the gold rating upwards it is better although ultimately it depends on maintenance.

those of brands I used: Corsair, Evga

Just in point!
I think this is a main question always when you want to mine  in home..

Old system that you have will not harm to mining speed. The only thing is that it consumes more electricity and if you have too old CPU, you cannot mine Monero or something similair.

Hi guys. Thanks for your hint about the electricity price. I live in Austria, so the electricity is not the cheapest around here. I something like 8 cents per KWh. Probably should calculate my profit first before investing $600 into GPU and PSU. Not planning to mine BTC though as it will surely become mainstream again with the next bullrun...

Electricity is depends on current rating so CPU does not matter. They have old CPU it is waste of time because GPU mining is current trending platform. But power consumption is too high so believe to mine choose the country and check the electricity cost because some countries are high cost so it support in few countries only other countries are not a worthy investment.

CPU matters. Because old CPUs consumes a lot and this electricity goes in heat. Also old computers have bad powersupply with bad efficiency. It will cost a lot in vain. New CPUs take less energy and can be used to mine Monero bringing money. If you have modern CPU it will mine for you. Not a lot of money but something.

Also you have to calculate your profit on Nicehash calculator or on Whattomine. I don't recommend you to buy old computers and hardware not only for bad efficiency but also because of the lack of reliability. It is only choice if you like to repair and wish to gain some experience.

That is exactly what I try to do. To pretty much get my feet wet utilizing my (very) old desktop, only to upgrade GPU and power supply. So pretty much try it for as cheap as it gets. Thanks for the mentioned resources will definitely check them out.

Stability? maybe yes, but it's quite hard to tell unless you can get a free sample to test.
But the brand is the best criteria on how to find a good powersupply.

Personally, my not-for-mining rig which has a single comparable GPU and mostly operating 24/7 uses 450W Evga PSU.
Based on your build, this should be sufficient and cheap as well: EVGA 450 B1 (https://www.evga.com/products/Specs/PSU.aspx?pn=ae83bfa8-2aa6-4a58-8544-f25e5d309485) except if you're not planning to upgrade in the future.
For a tight budget, that's a good pick.

But do not expect any profit from a single GPU rig, you can start mining JFF & experience.
You can use the rig for something else anyways.

"Today, I'm still mining with GPUs."

Same.

If you want to save a bit of money, it is also possible to just get a PicoPSU powering all your components besides the GPU (and even an entire PC if your computer's low wattage). Here's an example listing from eBay. (https://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-PC-ATX-Power-Supply-For-Car-ATOM-HTPC-mini-ITX-Pico-PSU-unit-In-12V-Out-180W/263064720123)

By buying a PicoPSU, you can buy a straight server PSU with a breakout board with just 6-pin connectors and you can save compared to a larger ATX PSU that's more expensive and probably going to have more capacity than you'll ever for powering just board components (if you're going for a server+ATX setup). They save space and are real neat gadgets to have even besides that- I have a tiny HTPC build in my house that I power with a PicoPSU, and as a result of that I didn't have to get a special smaller and more expensive form factor PSU just to fit the case I had on hand.

This is perfect exactly this kind of advice I was hoping for- something from own experience that you could suggest as reliable. I checked on amazon, my local version is .de they don’t have the 450w version of B1, but have 500W one. That cost just a bit over €50. Thanks a lot for this suggestion. It saves me a lot of money (at leat for me it is lot of money). 👍
For beginning I will try to mine coins of projects with strong community support that are in the beginning stages with hope that price will rise in future. Might be able to get a bit more out of that card like this (if I am lucky) 😅

Great suggestion, I never heard of PicoPSU, will research  this further, it looks to be very interesting solution and also cheap one.  I learned something new today thanks to your suggestion. That’s why I love this community, for people with wealth of experience and the will to share it with others. Thank you 👍

In such a case I’d recommend you to buy good power supply with at least Gold certificate (better Platinum or Titanium) and GeForce GTX1060 6 Gb or Radeon RX570/580. They are almost universal GPUs.

I don't want to discourage you, but with only one GPU almost everything that you earn will go to the electricity bill. Believe me, I know because I'm using my desktop to mine when I'm not playing games on it. With the current prices my "profit" is around 10 USD per month.