Mining Hardware help with GTX 1070 set up

[N8sNathan]

I'm looking to turn an old gaming PC into a mining rig  and/or build an additional rig. I plan to start with 2 GTX 1070's but I also thought purchasing more GTX 1060's, 980's, or 970's may be more cost effective. So I'd first like to know which GPU's you think would be most cost effective considering initial cost and electricity costs.

Since I don't plan to mine one specific coin and want a flexible rig I thought a few 1070's would be the best choice.

If I go with the GTX 1070 how many should be used in a single rig and what motherboard should I get? With the PC I already have I can just add 2x GTX 1070's, the mother board has two 2.0 PCI x16 slots and the 650w should be able to handle them (atleast until I get something better).

Here's a few questions I have:

Is it important to get a motherboard with 3.0 PCI 16x slots with a card like the GTX 1070? Will it improve mining performance?
If I was creating a rig from scratch what motherboard, CPU should I get to run 2-4 GTX 070's?
How many 1070's should I put in one rig?
Will runing cards in SLI improve or decrease mining performance?

Thanks guys! Any tips would be appreciated.

PS. I know mining is not profitable so no need to tell me.

[QuintLeo]

A lot of this depends on WHAT you want to mine.

 For most coins, a single-core or at most a dual-core CPU is plenty for up to 6 cards, and PCI 3 is an unneeded luxury.
 For most coins, AMD RX 480 / 470 cards are a much better option than the GTX 1070 - similar performance, similar power usage, half the cost for the cards.

 SLI is a NEGATIVE for mining. PERIOD. Do not use it. Ditto Crossfire if you decided to go AMD instead of NVidia.


 For a pure mining rig, I'd be inclined to go with that Biostar "Racer" 4-slot spaced out for 4 cards board and a low-end G-series CPU and 4 BLOWER-type cards, or with a AMD 990-series board and 3 non-blower cards (one a Gigabyte ITX to avoid cooling issues on the middle card, the other two probably Gigabyte Windforce or EVGA SC/FTW) and whatever the lowest-cost AM3+ Sempron I could find would be.
 I am NOT a fan of risers - have had too many issues with them - but a lot of folks have had good luck with them, and a WORKING riser-based 6 card setup is usually a little more efficient (but doesn't end up saving much if any money up front, just that it spreads the power used by "the system" across more cards at a time).

 AVOID AMD 970 series boards, they don't handle multi-card very well at all due to design limitations in the chipset.


 DEFINITELY go with a good high-quality power supply with plenty of power.


 Probability of achieving ROI is low, unless you can sell off some of the hardware in a few months at a small loss or some new "profitable" coin(s) show up in the meantime.



 Don't go with my "current rigs" as mentioned in other threads, those were never meant as "pure mining" rigs and I am just mining with them to offset SOME of the cost of building them.

[cptfisher]

well what QuintLeo  suggested according to me is not particularly true :

1) Brand : Go for the GREEN They offer LOWER power consumptions , Higher hash rates but of course they tend to cost a premium ( generally a +33 % ). The only advantage of ati , ATM is in the following 3 :

XMR / Cryptonight , XPM , ETHhash dual mining. DO NOTICE the following :

XPM is good only in OLD radeon card (280x - 290x ... newest card have very low double precision fpu so they wont be as good ... in this case better an nvidia)

XMR / Cryptonight is still actually MUCH better on nvidia (750 gtx as there are FREE optimized miner) considering the hashing speed / power consumed (efficency) . If you want to consider the brutal power instead nothing beats r290x atm in xmr...

ETH hash algo is much better on nvidia but if used dual mining then radeon is the way to go.


2) card : 1070 gtx all the way. they offer higher density . maxwell is history pascal is the future......

3) rest of components : personally i dont like the idea of sticking 4 videocards all together so close as the user suggested.. i would personally go fo a motherboard with up to 6 pci express slots (mixed 1x to 16x slots) and use risers to keep the graphic cards isolated....
(asrock anniversary H97 / b85 are still in production). Cpu and ram ... cpu celeron dualcore... ram ... mhh i actually build my rig with 4 gb.... someone can tell you i am a fool... but anyway that is up to you...


4) psu : get good psu (seasonic is a very nice brand the only one i would suggest without anydoubt but it is expensive... anyway for my rig i use as well enermax psus but not all enermax psus are good ... seasonic makes instead excellents psus)
 

[Redrose]

I personally do not like open rigs, even if that's the system I applied for my two first ones. For now, I'll go for closed rigs, with 3 cards. I can explain you why if you want.

[QuintLeo]

ETH hash algo is much better on nvidia but if used dual mining then radeon is the way to go.

 Error.
 ETH runs faster on AMD than anything NVivdia, though NVidia can argue hash/watt especially on the GTX 1070 against even the RX 480/470 (pretty much a tossup there) and the 1070 is fairly close on hashrate vs the top AMD ETH cards - at TWICE THE PRICE per card.
 For pure hash, the R9 290 / R9 390 are still the kings, though the 290x / 390x are pretty much the same if you're willing to put up with their even higher power consumption - the extra cores do NOT help on ETH.
 384 bit wide memory access seems to make up a LOT for the slower memory speed vs. newer stuff.
 

 GTX 1070 DOES seem to be the sweet spot in the current NVidia lineup for almost any sort of mining where NVidia is at all competative.


 I haven't crunched numbers on XMR enough to have a strong opinion there, though I suspect some CPUs might be the sweet spot on hash/watt there.

 No clue about XPM, even as far as what that coin is actually named.


 3 card rigs make sense if you're putting them in cases, from a "ease of keeping all 3 cards COOL" standpoint.


 Seasonic actually isn't all that expensive when you start comparing against other QUALITY gold-rated or better brands.
 They does tend to have a small price premium against EVGA most of the time at the same power-rating and efficiency level, but if you wait for them to go on sale.....

 Enermax for me has been a mixed bag - have one of their Platinum units in my "big rig" that's been working well, but have had too many dead ones on other models.



 BTW - not sure what you mean by "go for the green" since pretty much EVERYTHING any more (except power supplies) uses the same small selection of chipsets, the same or VERY similar UEFI bioses, etc.

[cptfisher]

just one question. what amd card is goin to give you more tha 36 mhses  with 110 w consumption on eth algo?

[Amph]

my build has 1000w and 6 x 1070, asrock h81 pro btc and g1840 plus 8 giga g.skill sniper, normal sandisk ssd 120gb

than an open frame rig

just one question. what amd card is goin to give you more tha 36 mhses  with 110 w consumption on eth algo?

is that on linux? on windows is at best 33, but you need to push the mem pretty hard

[thesmokingman]

ETH hash algo is much better on nvidia but if used dual mining then radeon is the way to go.

 Error.
 ETH runs faster on AMD than anything NVivdia, though NVidia can argue hash/watt especially on the GTX 1070 against even the RX 480/470 (pretty much a tossup there) and the 1070 is fairly close on hashrate vs the top AMD ETH cards - at TWICE THE PRICE per card.
 For pure hash, the R9 290 / R9 390 are still the kings, though the 290x / 390x are pretty much the same if you're willing to put up with their even higher power consumption - the extra cores do NOT help on ETH.
 384 bit wide memory access seems to make up a LOT for the slower memory speed vs. newer stuff.
 

@QuintLeo - Actually you're wrong here as out of the box with no bios mods the 480's can only do a max of 28-29, with the 1070s doing 31-33MHs right out of the box. It's only when you take a chance at bricking your cards can you start to creep past the 1070. So the performance factor of the 470/480 is only there if the user is brave enough to flash their cards.

So out of the box with no modifications the 1070 wins over the 470/480 every time. I'm sure you've seen the threads of bricked 480s both here and on the ethereum forums, so the argument that bricking doesn't happen can't be used here. Likewise, I'm sure if someone edited the BIOS on 1070s I'm sure they would once again edge out the 470/480s hash and power wise.

TL;DR Best out of box performance = 1070 / Best performance using mods = 480 (only because there isn't a modded bios for the 1070)

I have a x6 rig of 480s and a x6 rig of G1 Gaming 1070s

[Raja_MBZ]

Well I'd like to answer your questions based on my own experience:

-No matter if you place your PCI-E x16 3.0 card on PCI-E x16 2.0, PCI-E x8 or even PCI-E x4 (of course the slot design should be same as x16), then that'd NOT affect your mining. Try to get USB risers to have good temperature limit.

-A branded system (such as Dell computer system) would take more electricity than a custom-made computer system.

-You may put as much cards as you like in the rig but make sure that:

~there are enough PCI-E slots on the motherboard.
~power supply is powerful enough to power all the present graphics cards + other parts of the system. It should have enough 6-pin or 8-pin connectors for the GPU.
~there is a bit of gap between the graphics cards so that the temperature doesn't exceed big limits.

-The SLi or CrossFire doesn't improve any hash rate in mining.

[QuintLeo]

just one question. what amd card is goin to give you more tha 36 mhses  with 110 w consumption on eth algo?

 You won't see that out of a 1070 IME with the cards - my 1070s were pulling about 140 watts for 28 Mhs (watt figures from nvidia-smi, running Genoil latest).
 They did NOT pull anywhere near "31-33 Mhs out of the box", more like 25 or a bit over, and they're the high-OC Gigabyte Winforce models (most the 3-fan, last pair the 2-fan).
 More tweeking on mem clock and core clock gets the hashrate up a little more but then they start getting unstable and crash a lot.

 3 rigs, 2 x 1070 in each rig.

 I have no CLUE where your numbers are from, MINE are backed by the reported numbers on ethmine.org
 
 My R9 290s pull a bit over 30 MHs all day long rock solid despite being reference-card designs, but they eat a LOT more power due to older process used.

 5 cards, 3 in my "big rig" one each in a couple smaller rigs sharing with a R9 280x each in the smaller rigs.


 The RX480 is NOT the "top hash" AMD card for ETH, not sure if it even cracks the top 5 - it's just a tossup for the most EFFICIENT ETH miner out of AMD right now.
 R9 390/390x/290/290x are all better for sure on hashrate, and I think I remmeber someone saying they could get the Nano/FuryX up past 30 as well but not SURE on that last part.

[reb0rn21]

For 1070 only the first batch had Samsung ram which can go up to ~33Mhs on ethereum, now its the micron and ~30Mhs is max

Its preferred to use 1x PCI-e so you can put 6 cards with no problems, Asrock B85 anniversary or BTC h81 pro which you find is good for six cards

For Ethereum atm any rx 470 4gb cheap is best but you must do a bios mod to get 26-27Mhs out of it, 8gb version or rx 480 aint worth the price difference

[N8sNathan]

So I purchased 2x Msi GTX 1070 Aero Cards for $409 each and will put them in my old gaming computer. The motherboard has two 2.0 PCi x16 slots so it will be a simple set up that can double as a High powered VR gaming machine.

The power supply is a Antec 650w 80 plus. That will be enough to run the 2 GTX 1070's right?

Some people have said that the GTX 1070 does not offer the best cost to has rate ratio can you tell me which cards would be better? I think i may set up another rig with 3 or 4 GPU's. I don't think I want a rig with more than 4 cards....seems like it gets too complicated and Id rather have 3 higher powered and efficient cards than 6 cheaper cards.

I'll probably start mining Monero or possible ether. Most info online just talks about ETH hash rates but I know ETH is just going to get harder to mine. I want cards that will do will with newer coins set up to only be mined on CPU's/GPUs.

For a seperate rig I was looking at this mother board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128710&ignorebbr=1&cm_re=PPSSSVAGBCDKAF-_-13-128-710-_-Product

However, in the PCi specs section there's a lot of notes like this one "* The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode." so i'm wondering if it would be a good board for mining?

[reb0rn21]

For mining you don`t need fast PCI-e bandwidth at all, so don`t worry even on 1x you will get max hash rate from it, only games due loading textures need faster 16x PCI-e lanes to transfer memory data faster!

Also good 650W PSU should be enough for 2x 1070

[QuintLeo]

So I purchased 2x Msi GTX 1070 Aero Cards for $409 each and will put them in my old gaming computer. The motherboard has two 2.0 PCi x16 slots so it will be a simple set up that can double as a High powered VR gaming machine.

The power supply is a Antec 650w 80 plus. That will be enough to run the 2 GTX 1070's right?

Some people have said that the GTX 1070 does not offer the best cost to has rate ratio can you tell me which cards would be better? I think i may set up another rig with 3 or 4 GPU's. I don't think I want a rig with more than 4 cards....seems like it gets too complicated and Id rather have 3 higher powered and efficient cards than 6 cheaper cards.

I'll probably start mining Monero or possible ether. Most info online just talks about ETH hash rates but I know ETH is just going to get harder to mine. I want cards that will do will with newer coins set up to only be mined on CPU's/GPUs.

For a seperate rig I was looking at this mother board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128710&ignorebbr=1&cm_re=PPSSSVAGBCDKAF-_-13-128-710-_-Product

However, in the PCi specs section there's a lot of notes like this one "* The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode." so i'm wondering if it would be a good board for mining?

 650 should be plenty for a dual GTX1070 rig - mine are all pulling about 550W but that's with a high-end AMD APU and a HD 7750 pumping out MooWrapper work in addition to the pair of GTX 1070 in each.
 I WOULD go with a beefier PS for a triple-1070 based rig, probably a 750 or an 850 to allow for later use of the system on stuff that pushes the power draw on the cards harder.

 If you're looking strictly at Ethereum, the AMD RX 480/470 are a much better option on a hash/$ ratio, but about the same on a hash/watt ratio to a hair worse.
 They're about HALF the cost but can pump out 80-90% of the hash.
 The only reason I went with NVidia on my last 3 rigs is that they were intended long-term (and long-term suddenly became NOW last week) to do other work with the Ethereum mining period as a way to offset some of the cost.

 That Gigabyte board should work OK for up to a 3 card mining machine, if you put a SHORT card (like the new Gigabyte "ITX" 1070) in the slot on the edge of the board to allow the middle board to get enough airflow. You'd need to use a case specifically designed for "8 periperal slots" like the Thermaltake Versa 34 or 35 (among quite a few other choices) to allow space in the CASE for that setup though.

 For mining, PCI-E bandwidth is NOT critical - only time you're pushing the buss at ALL on Ethereum (for example) is when the cards are loading the DAG file, which is a matter of a few SECONDS when the DAG changes (or when you boot up/restart the miner) normally every 5 days or so.

[meeekz]

Did you setup your dual 1070's using sli?

[QuintLeo]

 SLI does NOT help mining.

 No, I did not set it up on any of my 1070 rigs.

 Nor did I set up SLI on my new triple-1070 rig I built up last week (though you can only do SLI on 2 1070s anyway).

[Azateq]

hey,

possible duplicate of my own thread.


but can u give me an advice for my PSU?
enough? buy a larger one? which one if i want to set it up to be able to support 3-4 1070s

1 x G.Skill DIMM 16 GB DDR3-1333 Quad-Kit
1 x Intel Core i5-4570 Hass
1 x ASROCK H67DE3 B3 MAINBOARD SO.1155    
1 x OCZ Agility 3 120GB, 2.5"
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500 GB 8,9 cm
1 x Be quiet BQT L7-540W
1 x 1070 Gainward GTX
1 x MSI 1070 (incoming) GTX (aswell as Adapter for external GPU)
1 x http://cryptomining-blog.com/1153-checking-out-the-pci-express-x1-x16-usb-3-0-extenders/

edit: shit, that thread was old.