Anyways, I think focusing on the riserless mobos is better strategy moving forward. Save money on unreliable risers, better heat control and lessen OS compatibility issues.
I love the sound of eliminating risers if possible. Just the time saved troubleshooting the rig if it's acting up would be pretty valuable, even without the additional cost savings. I hope that somebody makes one with ample enough spacing to run a full 6-8 higher wattage GPUs, such as GTX 1080 Ti, Rx Vega etc.
i don't get what citronick is saying about "better heat control" but risers are imoprtant to make space between hot gpus, the closer they are together the hotter they get..
quality risers are good, most of my risers from late 2013 are still going strong.
The non-powered ribbon style risers do work nicely especially if they are well made. However, with newer GPUs requiring more power, the newer risers that have voltage control, better capacitors and 6-pin power (v6c/v7c?) is the gold standard for riser based rigs. Avoid the molex powered risers or any of the v1 to v5 risers.
Better heat control can be achieved more efficiently with riser less mobo builds, using in conjunction with powerful "Scythe" fans placed back and/or front of the cards depending on reference/blower GPU or otherwise. If done properly, you could get 1080tis with paper thin spacing at beast mode and still attain acceptable temps.
Currently, I use a "vertical GPUs on S hook design" for the RX ETH farm and also using zip-ties for the newer builds on TB250s and H110s....
I will try and get some pictures to show my experiments in the warehouse..... but my group members is kind off anal about showing pictures of the farm.... but will take some discreet shots.
that cooling solution might be enough for the place/country you are mining it but other countries/places that tend to be hotter than yours, that setup might not be good enough for them..
he lives in a tropical country with high temps and high humidity.
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regarding "Scythe" fans or any solution like that....that's basically blowing the heat in tight spaces between gpus, heating the room and then exhausting the heat from the room to outside..that is... GPUs--->small fans---> room exhaust (3 step cooling)
for me it is better to make wide space between cards (no need for "Scythe" fans or any solution like that), the room heats up and then you exhaust the heat from the room, this way it is more simple and less energy/fans/effort used....that is.. GPUs-->room exhaust (2 step cooling)
that "small fans" solutions for me is just a remedy to certain areas/situations in my mining room where temps tend to become hotter (places where it is getting crowded and cards get uncomfortably hotter)...
i totally agree with your setup if risers are pain in the ass for you and the country/place you are mining is advantageously cool enough.
just think of it..you underclock/run a GPU in its most efficient power tune/bios mod to become power efficient overall and save power(hashes per watt)...and then you add a 6w fan as an additional power consumption.
yeah 6 gpus saving 15 watts each and spend 6 watts back net 84 watts.
Riser free vs lots of risers.
I am a riser free guy in principal but I do use risers.
What I have found is heavy clocks burn risers and don't burn mobo's
I have burned more risers then mobos.
I am at the point all my gear is paid and I have:
spare mobos.
Spare ram.
spare psus.
spare hdds
spare ssd
spare usb's
mostly because I pushed in the 1080 ti mining which removes needs for slots and or risers.
3 card 1080 ti rigs riser free = 7 or 8 card 1060 riser rigs.
a single 6w fan cannot blow air in between 6 gpus, ideally you need 5, that's 6w x5 = 30w
usually what burns in risers (from my experience) are the molex to sata adaptors or when direct molex connections are loose
why not 7 or 8 card 1080 ti riser rigs?
i get it that you have spares and using them is reasonable but using riser, uses less power and space than using cpu/ram/processor/board/ssd-hdd-usb.
i got spares too, using them as combination of riser-free and riser GPUs.....but my main setup in my mining room is riser GPUs utilizing all pcie sockets.
Well I do use risers but I have places to run pc's for free power.
In my case this means a 50-50 split of coins.
I have 3 office locations with friends that have the following restrictions.
Gear must be quiet.
Gear must be in a case.
Gear must be about 1000 watts per location.
here is one setup 3 pc's 6 1080 ti's
fully paid for . and the coins in the btc addy are ½ his and ½ mine.
So while 6-7 dollars a day sound small my costs are zero.
My friends costs are zero.
and the coins grow.
that addy is a stand alone trezor.
and will just grow.
Do you notice the trezor being very slow or anything when you use it to send a bunch of micro BTC payments / located them? I was under the impression it was a mistake to mine to a hardware wallet but maybe that's a misconception ?
/// also have my Antminer D3 review video up if anyones curious
https://youtu.be/Wg1H1YOSW4E