Affordable motherboard for GPU mining?

[mickiya]

I wouldn't recommend the 7990, they are good for gaming but they can not run 24/7 .... and after 2-3 weeks of mining they get burn  

Why do you say that?

I have a 7990, running stock at under 70 degree.

Should I be concerned?

Thanks!

Depends on how long you've been running and what kind of quality your PSU is. Depends on what you are mining but things like Ethereum are heavily Memory dependant and not core dependent. You shouldn't lose any hashrate by lowering your core clocks and keeping your mem clocks the same or a little higher. may save you on power usage and lifespan on the card as well.

As always keep your cards COOL. Big fans are a great to help this in open air rigs.

For Ethereum mining, it is OK to keep the memory frequency at 1250 or 1500 MHz, and set the core frequency below 1000MHz.

[Abiky]

Some MSI motherboards have 7 PCIE slots, like G41, G45, GD55 or GD65.  I bought the MSI Z77A GD55 for $160 two years ago. I sold it for $180 a few weeks ago. They are in demand.

Great! I have a look into them and check which one would be suitable to start mining according to my budget. About the ideal power supply for the GPUs, how do I know how many watts PSU do I need for lets say 6 or 7 GPUs? I just want to know since I don't want to waste money on a bigger watt power supply, when I could have bought one that meets the wattage requirements for the GPUs.  

Need context to qualify a response, as in: what card(s) you'll be building your rig out on.

I would be using AMD cards for my mining rig to mine Ether. I think that with 6 AMD Radeon R9 GPU cards,  I will mine a lot of Ether but that would depend on current mining difficulty. For starting, I will just buy 3 GPUs and see how well it goes for me. Then I would buy more as needed. 

[Bazelak]

Some MSI motherboards have 7 PCIE slots, like G41, G45, GD55 or GD65.  I bought the MSI Z77A GD55 for $160 two years ago. I sold it for $180 a few weeks ago. They are in demand.

Great! I have a look into them and check which one would be suitable to start mining according to my budget. About the ideal power supply for the GPUs, how do I know how many watts PSU do I need for lets say 6 or 7 GPUs? I just want to know since I don't want to waste money on a bigger watt power supply, when I could have bought one that meets the wattage requirements for the GPUs.  

Need context to qualify a response, as in: what card(s) you'll be building your rig out on.

I would be using AMD cards for my mining rig to mine Ether. I think that with 6 AMD Radeon R9 GPU cards,  I will mine a lot of Ether but that would depend on current mining difficulty. For starting, I will just buy 3 GPUs and see how well it goes for me. Then I would buy more as needed. 

7970 cars are the best to mine. It is cheaper than 280x and has the same structure. You can have ROI if the Ethereum price is kept at 0.005 btc.

[Abiky]

Some MSI motherboards have 7 PCIE slots, like G41, G45, GD55 or GD65.  I bought the MSI Z77A GD55 for $160 two years ago. I sold it for $180 a few weeks ago. They are in demand.

Great! I have a look into them and check which one would be suitable to start mining according to my budget. About the ideal power supply for the GPUs, how do I know how many watts PSU do I need for lets say 6 or 7 GPUs? I just want to know since I don't want to waste money on a bigger watt power supply, when I could have bought one that meets the wattage requirements for the GPUs.  

Need context to qualify a response, as in: what card(s) you'll be building your rig out on.

I would be using AMD cards for my mining rig to mine Ether. I think that with 6 AMD Radeon R9 GPU cards,  I will mine a lot of Ether but that would depend on current mining difficulty. For starting, I will just buy 3 GPUs and see how well it goes for me. Then I would buy more as needed. 

7970 cars are the best to mine. It is cheaper than 280x and has the same structure. You can have ROI if the Ethereum price is kept at 0.005 btc.

I hope ETH price remains stable so that I could ROI fast. Thanks for recommending me this type of GPU to mine. It is indeed cheaper than 280x ones and if it performs the task well, then it would definitely be a keeper for my future mining rigs. 

[Bazelak]

Some MSI motherboards have 7 PCIE slots, like G41, G45, GD55 or GD65.  I bought the MSI Z77A GD55 for $160 two years ago. I sold it for $180 a few weeks ago. They are in demand.

Great! I have a look into them and check which one would be suitable to start mining according to my budget. About the ideal power supply for the GPUs, how do I know how many watts PSU do I need for lets say 6 or 7 GPUs? I just want to know since I don't want to waste money on a bigger watt power supply, when I could have bought one that meets the wattage requirements for the GPUs.  

Need context to qualify a response, as in: what card(s) you'll be building your rig out on.

I would be using AMD cards for my mining rig to mine Ether. I think that with 6 AMD Radeon R9 GPU cards,  I will mine a lot of Ether but that would depend on current mining difficulty. For starting, I will just buy 3 GPUs and see how well it goes for me. Then I would buy more as needed. 

7970 cars are the best to mine. It is cheaper than 280x and has the same structure. You can have ROI if the Ethereum price is kept at 0.005 btc.

I hope ETH price remains stable so that I could ROI fast. Thanks for recommending me this type of GPU to mine. It is indeed cheaper than 280x ones and if it performs the task well, then it would definitely be a keeper for my future mining rigs. 

The problem with Ethereum mining is that it will last no more than 10 months. It will become PoS after some time.

[Abiky]

Some MSI motherboards have 7 PCIE slots, like G41, G45, GD55 or GD65.  I bought the MSI Z77A GD55 for $160 two years ago. I sold it for $180 a few weeks ago. They are in demand.

Great! I have a look into them and check which one would be suitable to start mining according to my budget. About the ideal power supply for the GPUs, how do I know how many watts PSU do I need for lets say 6 or 7 GPUs? I just want to know since I don't want to waste money on a bigger watt power supply, when I could have bought one that meets the wattage requirements for the GPUs.  

Need context to qualify a response, as in: what card(s) you'll be building your rig out on.

I would be using AMD cards for my mining rig to mine Ether. I think that with 6 AMD Radeon R9 GPU cards,  I will mine a lot of Ether but that would depend on current mining difficulty. For starting, I will just buy 3 GPUs and see how well it goes for me. Then I would buy more as needed. 

7970 cars are the best to mine. It is cheaper than 280x and has the same structure. You can have ROI if the Ethereum price is kept at 0.005 btc.

I hope ETH price remains stable so that I could ROI fast. Thanks for recommending me this type of GPU to mine. It is indeed cheaper than 280x ones and if it performs the task well, then it would definitely be a keeper for my future mining rigs. 

The problem with Ethereum mining is that it will last no more than 10 months. It will become PoS after some time.

I have heard about Ethereum becoming PoS but didn't thought it was going to be in the next 10 months. I guess that I haven't read much about Ethereum's phases yet. One thing I know for sure is that Homestead release is very near. I'd better start building my GPU rig to begin with ETH mining. Later, I will buy some ETH mining hashrate from Genesis Mining and see if I could get ROI as well. 

[Akarabzie]

Some MSI motherboards have 7 PCIE slots, like G41, G45, GD55 or GD65.  I bought the MSI Z77A GD55 for $160 two years ago. I sold it for $180 a few weeks ago. They are in demand.

Great! I have a look into them and check which one would be suitable to start mining according to my budget. About the ideal power supply for the GPUs, how do I know how many watts PSU do I need for lets say 6 or 7 GPUs? I just want to know since I don't want to waste money on a bigger watt power supply, when I could have bought one that meets the wattage requirements for the GPUs.  

Need context to qualify a response, as in: what card(s) you'll be building your rig out on.

I would be using AMD cards for my mining rig to mine Ether. I think that with 6 AMD Radeon R9 GPU cards,  I will mine a lot of Ether but that would depend on current mining difficulty. For starting, I will just buy 3 GPUs and see how well it goes for me. Then I would buy more as needed. 

7970 cars are the best to mine. It is cheaper than 280x and has the same structure. You can have ROI if the Ethereum price is kept at 0.005 btc.

I hope ETH price remains stable so that I could ROI fast. Thanks for recommending me this type of GPU to mine. It is indeed cheaper than 280x ones and if it performs the task well, then it would definitely be a keeper for my future mining rigs. 

The problem with Ethereum mining is that it will last no more than 10 months. It will become PoS after some time.

You can ROI on an ethereum rig in 3.5 months right now if you don't go out and buy all new parts. My rig just cost me $900 and will ROI in 110 days. Even less if the price stays like it is now(it will correct itself soon i'm sure). I'm hashing at around 80 MH/s at 950 Watts thats with an underclocked 7990 and two 7950s on an old ass AMD athlon 2 processor+ motherboard I had left over.

Building a second rig almost the same and will have roughly 6 months of profit. Even if PoS comes when they say it will I will have already made $750 in profit per rig. And I can sell those cards on ebay to make back more.

Mining Ethereum may only last 10 months but it's still very much worth it and may provide you the extra cash you need to buy the next gen 16nm ASICs or something else...

[Abiky]

You can ROI on an ethereum rig in 3.5 months right now if you don't go out and buy all new parts. My rig just cost me $900 and will ROI in 110 days. Even less if the price stays like it is now(it will correct itself soon i'm sure). I'm hashing at around 80 MH/s at 950 Watts thats with an underclocked 7990 and two 7950s on an old ass AMD athlon 2 processor+ motherboard I had left over.

Building a second rig almost the same and will have roughly 6 months of profit. Even if PoS comes when they say it will I will have already made $750 in profit per rig. And I can sell those cards on ebay to make back more.

Mining Ethereum may only last 10 months but it's still very much worth it and may provide you the extra cash you need to buy the next gen 16nm ASICs or something else...

Great! Thanks for sharing your experiences mining Ethereum. It certainly looks like a fun task (besides the profit) and will be building my very first ETH mining rig soon. I could also try buying ETH at cheap prices and wait for the price to go back up to profit. That could also work, but I think that it is more risky than mining itself. Since I don't have to worry about electricity costs (for now, until the chance is over) I will definitely make more profit with ETH mining. Also, I wouldn't mind investing in Genesis Mining ETH mining hashrate. 

[Technicrate]

You can ROI on an ethereum rig in 3.5 months right now if you don't go out and buy all new parts. My rig just cost me $900 and will ROI in 110 days. Even less if the price stays like it is now(it will correct itself soon i'm sure). I'm hashing at around 80 MH/s at 950 Watts thats with an underclocked 7990 and two 7950s on an old ass AMD athlon 2 processor+ motherboard I had left over.

Building a second rig almost the same and will have roughly 6 months of profit. Even if PoS comes when they say it will I will have already made $750 in profit per rig. And I can sell those cards on ebay to make back more.

Mining Ethereum may only last 10 months but it's still very much worth it and may provide you the extra cash you need to buy the next gen 16nm ASICs or something else...

Great! Thanks for sharing your experiences mining Ethereum. It certainly looks like a fun task (besides the profit) and will be building my very first ETH mining rig soon. I could also try buying ETH at cheap prices and wait for the price to go back up to profit. That could also work, but I think that it is more risky than mining itself. Since I don't have to worry about electricity costs (for now, until the chance is over) I will definitely make more profit with ETH mining. Also, I wouldn't mind investing in Genesis Mining ETH mining hashrate. 

7990 is the best. It is more efficient that 7970 as it removes some duplicated circuit.

The Genesis mining is too expensive. It is price for 1 year mining contact, but you may only mine for 9 months as Eth will change PoW to PoS.

[Flodemaga]

Some MSI motherboards have 7 PCIE slots, like G41, G45, GD55 or GD65.  I bought the MSI Z77A GD55 for $160 two years ago. I sold it for $180 a few weeks ago. They are in demand.

Great! I have a look into them and check which one would be suitable to start mining according to my budget. About the ideal power supply for the GPUs, how do I know how many watts PSU do I need for lets say 6 or 7 GPUs? I just want to know since I don't want to waste money on a bigger watt power supply, when I could have bought one that meets the wattage requirements for the GPUs.  

Need context to qualify a response, as in: what card(s) you'll be building your rig out on.

I would be using AMD cards for my mining rig to mine Ether. I think that with 6 AMD Radeon R9 GPU cards,  I will mine a lot of Ether but that would depend on current mining difficulty. For starting, I will just buy 3 GPUs and see how well it goes for me. Then I would buy more as needed. 

7970 cars are the best to mine. It is cheaper than 280x and has the same structure. You can have ROI if the Ethereum price is kept at 0.005 btc.

I hope ETH price remains stable so that I could ROI fast. Thanks for recommending me this type of GPU to mine. It is indeed cheaper than 280x ones and if it performs the task well, then it would definitely be a keeper for my future mining rigs. 

The problem with Ethereum mining is that it will last no more than 10 months. It will become PoS after some time.

I have heard about Ethereum becoming PoS but didn't thought it was going to be in the next 10 months. I guess that I haven't read much about Ethereum's phases yet. One thing I know for sure is that Homestead release is very near. I'd better start building my GPU rig to begin with ETH mining. Later, I will buy some ETH mining hashrate from Genesis Mining and see if I could get ROI as well. 

https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/08/04/ethereum-protocol-update-1/

Posted by Stephan Tual on August 4th, 2015.

Difficulty adjustment scheme

A lot of you have been wondering how we would implement a switch from PoW to PoS in time for Serenity. This will be handled by the newly introduced difficulty adjustment scheme, which elegantly guarantees a hard-fork point in the next 16 months.

It works as follow: starting from block 200,000 (very roughly 17 days from now), the difficulty will undergo an exponential increase which will only become noticeable in about a year. At that point (just around the release of the Serenity milestone), we’ll see a significant increase in difficulty which will start pushing the block resolution time upwards.

So, a year on, the network will continue to be useful for roughly 3-4 months, but eventually will reach an ‘Ice Age’ of sorts: the difficulty will simply be too high for anyone to find a block. This will allow us to introduce PoS, perhaps via Casper, if it proves itself.

[Pamadar]

So the GPU mining can last at most 10 months. I wish it can last longer and distribute the Etherum more evenly.

[fricircled]

So the GPU mining can last at most 10 months. I wish it can last longer and distribute the Etherum more evenly.

If the PoS is not ready by then, it will extend the PoW mining. I think PoW mining gives more value to the coin.

[Bazelak]

So the GPU mining can last at most 10 months. I wish it can last longer and distribute the Etherum more evenly.

If the PoS is not ready by then, it will extend the PoW mining. I think PoW mining gives more value to the coin.

PoW costs a lot of money, that money underpins the value of the coin it mines with. I hope PoW can last longer.

[Abiky]

So the GPU mining can last at most 10 months. I wish it can last longer and distribute the Etherum more evenly.

If the PoS is not ready by then, it will extend the PoW mining. I think PoW mining gives more value to the coin.

PoW costs a lot of money, that money underpins the value of the coin it mines with. I hope PoW can last longer.

I'm right with you mate, otherwise I would have wasted my time buying GPUs to not be able to reach ROI. As long as the PoW phase extends, I will be able to get more ETH and hopefully ROI before the exciting journey of PoS comes in. And I think that once we will get to Homestead, it will be a great sign for the price too. 

I am also giving a look at ETH cloud mining, since it looks very promising. Genesis mining might be a better shot at this for the moment. 

[mickiya]

So the GPU mining can last at most 10 months. I wish it can last longer and distribute the Etherum more evenly.

If the PoS is not ready by then, it will extend the PoW mining. I think PoW mining gives more value to the coin.

PoW costs a lot of money, that money underpins the value of the coin it mines with. I hope PoW can last longer.

I'm right with you mate, otherwise I would have wasted my time buying GPUs to not be able to reach ROI. As long as the PoW phase extends, I will be able to get more ETH and hopefully ROI before the exciting journey of PoS comes in. And I think that once we will get to Homestead, it will be a great sign for the price too. 

I am also giving a look at ETH cloud mining, since it looks very promising. Genesis mining might be a better shot at this for the moment. 

The genesis mining is a no go. It is too expensive. The price is $4400 per 100 MH/s. You can build much cheaper rigs.

[Bazelak]

You want to look at two motherboards and probably those two only:
ASRock H61 Pro BTC and ASRock H81 Pro BTC.
The main difference between them is the CPU socket.

These motherboards can easily handle 6 cards but you'll need PCI-E risers. I'd highly recommend only using powered USB risers and avoiding ribbon risers at all costs.

If you want a motherboard in which you can put cards without risers you're going to have to reach deep into your pocket and even then you'll probably run into thermal throttling with some beefier cards if they are that close together.

Feel free to ask anything about mining here on in pm.

I use the H61 motherboard. It is very reliable. It will recognise 6 GPU easily. If you have the dual GPU cards, it can support 8 GPU.

[asradoni]

You want to look at two motherboards and probably those two only:
ASRock H61 Pro BTC and ASRock H81 Pro BTC.
The main difference between them is the CPU socket.

These motherboards can easily handle 6 cards but you'll need PCI-E risers. I'd highly recommend only using powered USB risers and avoiding ribbon risers at all costs.

If you want a motherboard in which you can put cards without risers you're going to have to reach deep into your pocket and even then you'll probably run into thermal throttling with some beefier cards if they are that close together.

Feel free to ask anything about mining here on in pm.

I use the H61 motherboard. It is very reliable. It will recognise 6 GPU easily. If you have the dual GPU cards, it can support 8 GPU.

H61 is good. Asrock has H97 now.

[Technicrate]

You want to look at two motherboards and probably those two only:
ASRock H61 Pro BTC and ASRock H81 Pro BTC.
The main difference between them is the CPU socket.

These motherboards can easily handle 6 cards but you'll need PCI-E risers. I'd highly recommend only using powered USB risers and avoiding ribbon risers at all costs.

If you want a motherboard in which you can put cards without risers you're going to have to reach deep into your pocket and even then you'll probably run into thermal throttling with some beefier cards if they are that close together.

Feel free to ask anything about mining here on in pm.

I use the H61 motherboard. It is very reliable. It will recognise 6 GPU easily. If you have the dual GPU cards, it can support 8 GPU.

H61 is good. Asrock has H97 now.

This is from http://cryptomining-blog.com/page/4/

Intel Socket 1151 ASRock Motherboards
5 cards:
– ASRock B150A-X1
– ASRock B150 Pro4D3
– ASRock B150 Pro43.1
– ASRock H170A-X1
– ASRock H170 Pro4
– ASRock H170 Pro4D3
– ASRock H170 Pro4S
4 cards:
– ASRock B150 Combo
– ASRock B150M Pro4S
– ASRock B150M Pro4
– ASRock Q170M vPro
– ASRock H170 Combo
– ASRock H170M Pro4S
– ASRock H170M Pro4

Intel Socket 1150 ASRock Motherboards
6 cards:
– ASRock H81 Pro BTC
– ASRock H81 Pro-G
– ASRock B85 Anniversary
– ASRock H97 Anniversary
4 cards:
– ASRock H81M BTC
– ASRock H81M-G
– ASRock B85M BTC
– ASRock B85 Pro4
– ASRock H87 Pro4

Intel Socket 1155 ASRock Motherboards
6 cards:
– ASRock H61 Pro BTC
– ASRock H61 Pro
– ASRock H61DEL
4 cards:
– ASRock H67DE3
– ASRock P67 Pro
– ASRock P67 Pro3 SE
– ASRock P75 Pro3

[Flodemaga]

Of that list, the H61 pro BTC is a solid MB.

[Abiky]

This is from http://cryptomining-blog.com/page/4/

Intel Socket 1151 ASRock Motherboards
5 cards:
– ASRock B150A-X1
– ASRock B150 Pro4D3
– ASRock B150 Pro43.1
– ASRock H170A-X1
– ASRock H170 Pro4
– ASRock H170 Pro4D3
– ASRock H170 Pro4S
4 cards:
– ASRock B150 Combo
– ASRock B150M Pro4S
– ASRock B150M Pro4
– ASRock Q170M vPro
– ASRock H170 Combo
– ASRock H170M Pro4S
– ASRock H170M Pro4

Intel Socket 1150 ASRock Motherboards
6 cards:
– ASRock H81 Pro BTC
– ASRock H81 Pro-G
– ASRock B85 Anniversary
– ASRock H97 Anniversary
4 cards:
– ASRock H81M BTC
– ASRock H81M-G
– ASRock B85M BTC
– ASRock B85 Pro4
– ASRock H87 Pro4

Intel Socket 1155 ASRock Motherboards
6 cards:
– ASRock H61 Pro BTC
– ASRock H61 Pro
– ASRock H61DEL
4 cards:
– ASRock H67DE3
– ASRock P67 Pro
– ASRock P67 Pro3 SE
– ASRock P75 Pro3

Hey thanks for this list mate! I was looking for a reference of the best (and affordable) motherboards for GPU mining. Luckily, I already ordered one (H61 Pro BTC) and am planning to get another one to expand my GPU mining setup. It is very cool to mine and watch your profits grow with GPUs like Radeon. I am going to be mining ETH for this.