@empoweoqwj
That played a role, the fact that I could buy hardware with the btc I made (that is, in an easy and direct way). It still is something I had considered for a while and I suspect that newegg and ncix will follow shortly into the trend since Tigerdirect's actions have attracted much attention. Should ncix not follow up then yes, I would buy from tigerdirect. So, it's not the only factor, but it certainly plays a motivational/convenience factor.

Edit:@elchorizo
Yea, when I tested open case I had an 18 inch fan next to it. However, if I do get another rig, an open one, I would probably do as you say and buy a 24 inch fan to go along with it. Seems like I will be buying 2 more 7970s (another advantage is that I've done the tweaking process for them with clock speed n' all that).


So so far on my check list I got this:
2x7970
ASRock H81
Rich Chomiczewski's open case

Need a plan for the power supply / cpu / ram. (I got a usb for the OS so I don't need an hdd)

@elchorizo

Thanks for the advice! Yeah that's true I Need to get a nice open case...
My current case has such good air circulation that there was no temp difference when I had the side opened or closed...(100$ case)
Also, I am keeping at least one 7970 in my current rig for gaming out. I think that getting an open rig with 3x7970 would be a very viable option. Would it be possible to do 7970+2x(R8 280x)? Of course if they're not much more efficient than 7970's I guess I might as well get more of those since I rotate them to put stress equally on my 2 thus far.
What MB would you recommend to go with the open case you linked me to? Along with that what power supply? On my current gaming rig I got a corsair 750tx, it has not let me down so far.. but if I want 3xgpu on this new thing I might want to get something bigger, don't know what wattage I would need for 3x7970.

I forgot to specify things. I am mining scrypt atm. My motherboard can only hold 2 gpus so I need a new one... Because of heat my dual 7970 setup is only going at like 1gh/s (at around 80Celcius.

@jamesc760
Asrock MB you say? With 290x? I've been out of sync with the market for a while but is that really the most efficient in terms of bang per buck? I know I could look it up on the hardware comparison chart but if I am to put multiple gpu on the same MB heat and other factors can come into play (as I learned with my 2x7970) this is why I was wondring what the forums had to say about efficiency in a shellnut.

Hey,

a while back I made a mining rig with 2x7970 (with the dual purpose for gaming)... In its spare time it got about 1.7 btc atm...
Since TigerDirect started taking btc I was thinking of taking the money I made with this hobby to reinvest in the hobby itself.
So, idk if I want to spend all my 1.7 btc on a dedicated mining rig but I am willing to spend the equivalent of at least 1000$.

Bluntly put, what should I get to mine scrypt like a boss in the current gpu market?

Thank you for your time and responses.

Thanks for the input guys.

I completely agree that events(political or whatever would be appropriate for BTC) are quite important in general,more so in the long-run, but I still think it would be worth it to understand the world through the eyes of the "chartist" and in that respect I'd like to know if some of you guys have recommended readings.

And to be frank I am interested in day trading so knowing how to interpret short-term trends in times when there are few events(or they aren't creating the largest impact) would be a great asset.

Thank you for the links, much appreciated. If any of you guys have good news outlets feel free to post em, I will bookmark them and try to read em daily. Same with any TA related articles, I will store them for later reading.

I ain't gonna write my life story on here but to make it short I've always had an interest in market analysis and economics in general but only as a hobby, not as a profession or anything. As a physics major getting a minor in computer science I have little to no background on how to make a forecast of my own (the only thing I have under my belt is intrductory micro/macro economics).

So here I am looking for either someone to be my mentor or at least someone to point me in the right direction to get some good concise knowledge and how to apply it (books are ok but online resources would be great).

Thank you for your time.

Greetings,
well, where to start... I've been at it the whole day(and night) and I am rather annoyed and tired but I hope things get better tomorrow. Here's the story from the start.

So I recently got a 2nd gpu (7970) and added it to my current rig that had a 6970. Originally everything worked fine, so I know my hardware works.
And then I was getting some high temps on my 6970, alone it produced around 66C-70C but when I coupled it with my 7970 to mine both at once my temps naturally rose, my stats were: 6970, 81C-84C and my 7970, 63C-66C.

I should have been happy with that but sadly I went fiddling around, here is what I thought of doing, the way the PCIe slots are on my mobo if I could swap the positions of my 6970 and my 7970 there would be more spacing between the cards and with that their temp would influence each other less and be lower. So I went ahead and did that. Me being all 19 yo and naive I was expecting it to simply work and everything would probably auto detect and etc. but the drivers got all screwed up. I thought to myself, well that makes sense that I would need to re-install the drivers after all, probably...

So I uninstall them and re-install them. My 7970 works fine however my 6970, now in a different slot, is undetected. I tried a few things like scanning for new hardware and so forth but nothing came of it. So I gave up on the idea of swapping them and decided to revert to how things were and try some underclocking to get those temps in a range that I prefer.

Initially, it works, I get my 6970 detected and my 7970 both under device manager and showing up as expected. However.... when I came to reinstall the opencl sdk package from amd I get an error (that I did not get originally) it goes: "Application Install: install package failure!", specifically in the log it is the "AMD APP SDK Samples". Out of curiosity I decided to try mining anyways, my 7970 works but I get errors on my 6970 telling me to check my hardware(not a surprise since it din't install the sdk properly, still remounted my card).

Then I realized that perhaps what I should do is try to install the drivers for my 6970 alone and then do the 7970 later(like when my pc was originally setup), I remove my 7970 and so I proceed to uninstalling the drivers[I uninstalled them in control panel, deleted the reg files, deleted some .dll files in system32 and Syswow64 that remained, cleaned the appdata folder from anything ATI, I TRIED IT ALL http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52502] and reinstalled them... several times (tried SDK v2.4 also and even some earlier versions of catalyst), unfortunately I still get the error when installing the opencl part. Driver are reported as fine though, as in they install without error (it can be noted however that the ccc has fewer options than before i.e.: Overdrive is not available there anymore).

Now here I am trying to get my good old 6970 to work like it used to before I started my ordeal...


Any advice how to get the drivers to work like they used to and opencl or anything to bypass my problems and get my gpus up and mining?
I will edit this post with additional info as needed upon request.

@lrlrlr
Thanks

@Johnny_G
Yea that's basically the plan. LOL

Hmm, I can't wait to runover at my pals place and tear out the wrapping from it, he changed his mind about what he wanted and basically I am rebuying it off him so it's essentially new.

Also I recently decided to buy more thermal paste, found a nice deal, MX-4 20 grams for a little below 20$
With a whole 20 grams I think it should last me some long time, even if I decide to open up some sort of farming later down the road.

If I am going through with this I will most likely take the sides off, some other ppl have recommended that to me and as long as I clean my rig every so often things should work out.

Thanks everyone for the advice and comments,
I will be keeping an eye on this thread for like another hour for details or additional comments, after that I am off to go buy it~

Took me a while to find it but it would be this:

Coolermaster Haf 922 Mid Tower ATX Case Black 5X5.25 5X3.5INT Front Audio USB eSATA No PSU
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=38996

Thoughts, concerns, opinions?

@skleven
Yea you're right overall heat might become a problem.
My 6970 ranges from 60-64 celcius depending on the time of the day, my rig is in close proximity to a window
I wonder if having the case open might be worth it, I mean more dust sure, but when I had my case open I was maybe 3-4 degrees lower (56-59).

In my new scenario this might be the thing that makes or breaks the idea.

@shaunb
Thats the same impression I got from looking around on other forums and pluggin numbers in for on a site, I am paranoid some sort of catastrophic failure will happen. You aren't the only one to have reported things along the lines of "boom".

I should note that my case has 2 fans, one that's like 120mm and another smaller one that I don't recall the size of. Could help cool the PSU a bit but also bears a load on it...?

@Cozzie
Investment wise, I am willing to take it, since it's also a gaming upgrade.
Now I need to figure out where the hell my papers are and what the warranties are for my PSU. LOL

Greetings,

I recently got into the hobby of BTC minning and put my gaming rig to good use while I was busy elsewhere, everything works fine atm. I recently got my hands on a bit of cash and was considering an upgrade, that is getting a second gpu. My problem is that I don't know if the specs of my rig can handle another gpu (not sure about this wattage wise). Here is what I currently have:

CPU: i5 2500k
MB:  Z68X-UD3H-B3
RAM:16GB DDR3
GPU:HD 6970
PSU:Corsair 750W

there's a deal available for me that I can get an 7970 for 360$ basically new condition (also an upgrade from the gaming point of view).

So, should I handle both at once(probably need some underclocking, even so not sure if its possible)? if not should I bother getting a new PSU or save up for a new rig altogether?

Looking for general advice, hurry up if plausible cause the deal may end soon.
If more details are wanted, I can provide on demand.

Thanks for anything that helps.