Yap that is true if you do not want/need a case!

Hi bitebitebite,


Since the OP is about mining my answer also is about mining and not about trading.
What I mean is that a standard home PC will never make you happy when used for mining. Only dedicated bitcoin rigs will earn you some money.

In the past with ever rising exchange rates trading surely was an easy way to make BC. But I do not like the volatile nature of markets in general. Bitcoin mining is "just" a nerd thing and a gamble for me. With mining there is no need to monitor exchange rates all the time. After the break-even I can go ahead making profit. The mining rigs on Linux run super stable. Setup and forget more or less.
I think the days of the big gold rush in BC are over. It's more of a longterm thing now. If it would be only for the money I would probably invest in something else than bitcoins.

Greetz,
NathanEO

Hi Dargo,

your tweaks seem legit but they are still a bit flawed. Why?
Because you use the wrong mainboard!

With the MSI 890FXA-GD70 you can use THREE graphics cards and you still have one free slot space between the cards.
No need for the Lian Li external cooler.

Additionally with a 800W PSU you can easily manage 3 high-end single GPU VGA cards.
I've got Coolermaster SilentPro Gold 800W running with 3x Ati HD6950.

Also you do not need any special kind of RAM. Just get some standard 2 Gig OEM quality from Kingston, Samsung etc.
4 Gig of RAM is more then you need.

Greetings,
NathanEO

In general for the same price a HD5850 will be much better.
I have 4x 6950 and 3x 5850. Every 5850 runs much cooler (10° Celsius) and overclocks very well.
At least in my case the 5850 is as good as the 6950 for bitcoin mining.

So a 5850 will be 50% better for BC mining then the 6850.

Do you want to use these cards for mining only?
Because for mining purpose there is no need to connect the cards with the crossfire connectors.

For my mining rigs I always went for the high-end cards. Because the base of your rig (mainboard, PSU, RAM, HDD, case) costs money too.
So every 16x PCIe-slot is worth a good amount of money. With high-end cards you can save a slot for future use or get more MHash for less base cost.

Currently I run two dedicated mining rigs 2,5GHash combined.
The miners are located at my office with the luxury of an electricity flatrate.
With the current exchange rate of 15.- USD/Btc it will take several month for me to reach the break-even with my investment into hardware.
If I had to pay for elektricity of the rigs things would be even worse.

All in all I will earn money some day. And the hardware - which makes for an excellent gaming rig - is paid for.

Even if do not count in the time it took to build and setup the rigs bitcoin mining is still some sort of a gamble.
Also the mining rigs need to be actively monitored.

So if you want to start mining only for the money you need to bring patience.
Only dedicated mining rigs are worth the effort. You will never make real money with your home computer and a single graphics card.

Hi skadoosh,

Did you do enough statistic work to proove that Pool A really is better? With the low speed you should get numbers for a good week.
if Pool A really gives you better income in the long run the answer clearly is Pool A.

If you also love to see frequent payouts for your happiness you can consider splitting up your miners.

Greetz,
NathanEO

Dear mods,

I've been running 2 rigs worth 2,5ghash for a good month now.
This forum has been the key in getting everything up an running smoothly.

If it's possible I would like to get whitelisted to request a feature in DiabloMiner. Currently the latest version of DiabloMiner an Slush's Pool are incompatible. A simple command line switch would do the trick.
Since I am a coder myself beyond my 20s you can expect mannered behaviour from me.

Greetings,
NathanEO