Need Help with Mining Rig

[redmist]

1. Correct. Although, if you're concerned with cost - i wonder how you came to choose 5970s - 6 of them will run you around $2k alone on Ebay, used. They're excellent cards, and probably the top hashrate out there, but they use more power, and have an increased base cost. Hope you figured this into your equations.
2. Yes, it doesn't matter. You're not being paid on your mining hash rate, you're being paid on the value of the estimated amount of shares you will get from that hash rate.

1. I originally was going to use 5970's, but I realized they were a bit too pricey and way too hard to get hold of. So I figured I got more hash rate for how much I'm paying for 5850's
2. Ok great!!
3. Final thing, if I were to mine litecoin if Bitcoin gets to difficult, would I need to change my rig at all?

[vdragon]

3. Litecoin is similar mining wise, only you need more power since it utilises memory of graphics card

[Rawted]

No physical change needed, just add in scrypt support to cgminer, or using a diff miner like reaper. all config changes. Honestly, my suggestion would be that you only plan to go with ltc mining. reason being is you obviously havent ordered the parts yet, takes time to ship, assemble, load software, etc. If you purchase today, it will be a min of probably about a week before you're setup (due to company shipping, etc). LTC difficulty will have adjusted 4 times by then. LTC has gone from $0.07 to $0.43 in a week. Get on board now. Also, it's much more profitable to mine ltc and convert to btc than it is to mine btc nowadays. You just cant compete with the big boys.

I would strongly suggest going with LTC from the start.

[redmist]

No physical change needed, just add in scrypt support to cgminer, or using a diff miner like reaper. all config changes. Honestly, my suggestion would be that you only plan to go with ltc mining. reason being is you obviously havent ordered the parts yet, takes time to ship, assemble, load software, etc. If you purchase today, it will be a min of probably about a week before you're setup (due to company shipping, etc). LTC difficulty will have adjusted 4 times by then. LTC has gone from $0.07 to $0.43 in a week. Get on board now. Also, it's much more profitable to mine ltc and convert to btc than it is to mine btc nowadays. You just cant compete with the big boys.

I would strongly suggest going with LTC from the start.

Great thanks for the advice! I did a few calculations and it seems converting LTC to BTC would be much better.

[redmist]

I've found a good deal where I can get my 6 cards, however there are like 3 different types of 5850. Sapphire, gigabyte and powercooler. I'm gonna go for the powercooler, but do you know if there's any difference between these 3? In terms of hash rate?

[vdragon]

Can you tell the exact model of Gigabyte? Gigabyte tend to have best cooling

[redmist]

Can you tell the exact model of Gigabyte? Gigabyte tend to have best cooling

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125318
Thats the gigabyte version.
Does anyone know if there's a difference in hash rate?

[Rawted]

Can you tell the exact model of Gigabyte? Gigabyte tend to have best cooling

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125318
Thats the gigabyte version.
Does anyone know if there's a difference in hash rate?

Nah, you should be fine, and end up relatively close. The only issue would be the cooling, like vdragon stated above. Are they all the same 1gb model? I believe some of the later 5850s made by sapphire and gigabyte had 2gb models as well.

[redmist]

Can you tell the exact model of Gigabyte? Gigabyte tend to have best cooling

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125318
Thats the gigabyte version.
Does anyone know if there's a difference in hash rate?

Nah, you should be fine, and end up relatively close. The only issue would be the cooling, like vdragon stated above. Are they all the same 1gb model? I believe some of the later 5850s made by sapphire and gigabyte had 2gb models as well.

Oh okay. Well I wanted to buy 6 of these ones: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PowerColor-Radeon-HD-5850-1GB-DX11-HDMI-DVI-DP-AX5850-1GBD5-PPDH-Graphics-Card-/271161596988?_trksid=p5197.m185&_trkparms=algo%3DSIC.NPJS%26itu%3DI%252BUA%26otn%3D3%26pmod%3D281069556233%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D6176140186530127789&_qi=RTM1319883

So am I right in thinking that the card I'm thinking of buying^^^^, is still around 400mhash as stated on the Bitcoin Wiki Comparison page? Or is it only the 2GB ones that are that rate?
If that one is 400mhash, I'll go ahead and buy those cards tomorrow!!!

[Rawted]

you can get 400mhs with a properly tuned setup on a 5850, absolutely. I have my 5830s hitting an average of 330mhs on some pools (and they typically show as max 260 on all info online).

[vdragon]

With this cooling on Powercolor, you might aim a little lower. If you can get the gigabyte, go for it.

[redmist]

With this cooling on Powercolor, you might aim a little lower. If you can get the gigabyte, go for it.

Really?
Well the rig is going to be in my freezing cold garage. And when it comes to summer, we have a lot of fans that we can just point at it to cool it down.
Thepickingpair, what do you think about that? Powercolor not as powerful??

[redmist]

you can get 400mhs with a properly tuned setup on a 5850, absolutely. I have my 5830s hitting an average of 330mhs on some pools (and they typically show as max 260 on all info online).

On the mining comparison I think there was a max of about 450, so if I fiddle around with it, I could definitely get it to 400mhs
Just wondering, but what do you think the value of litecoin will be in the Summer?

[Rawted]

you can get 400mhs with a properly tuned setup on a 5850, absolutely. I have my 5830s hitting an average of 330mhs on some pools (and they typically show as max 260 on all info online).

On the mining comparison I think there was a max of about 450, so if I fiddle around with it, I could definitely get it to 400mhs
Just wondering, but what do you think the value of litecoin will be in the Summer?

No one knows, any answer would be speculation. I would say that if you follow the charts from BTC's early days (2011), you would see some strong similarities. There's a possibility it reaches a perfect 25% parity with BTC, and there's the possibility that the previous high of $0.60 was the highest we will see. All speculation.

[FreedomCoin]

i think the price will shoot up when BTC diff changes and ASIC goes mainstream. IMO

[Rawted]

i think the price will shoot up when BTC diff changes and ASIC goes mainstream. IMO

I absolutely agree. The price will go up on the sheer amount of gpu farms switching over alone.

[crazyates]

i think the price will shoot up when BTC diff changes and ASIC goes mainstream. IMO

I absolutely agree. The price will go up on the sheer amount of gpu farms switching over alone.

It has been determined that price drives difficulty, not the other way around.

Obv ASICs will skyrocket the difficulty, but the point stands that a high difficulty will not force a high price.

[FreedomCoin]

I've found a good deal where I can get my 6 cards, however there are like 3 different types of 5850. Sapphire, gigabyte and powercooler. I'm gonna go for the powercooler, but do you know if there's any difference between these 3? In terms of hash rate?

if that 6 slot board falls though i have a Foxconn Bloodrage X58 i can part with.. its 4x pci 2.0 socket t 1366. Wasnt sure what proc you are running.

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/ProductDetail.aspx?T=motherboard&U=en-us0000430

[redmist]

Thanks for the offer, but I think I'm just gonna go for 2 fairly cheap 3 slot boards. And apart from anything else, my cpu is AMD, so I don't think this would work.
Thanks though  

[vdragon]

It wouldnt