best entry level setup

[bonker]

Without all the "ASICs make gpu mining irrelevant " jabber what is the best entry level mining setup a noob  can buy? Were talking single mobo with a few pcie slots and a few 5770s i guess. I mean what's the best rig you  an build for under $100 (£60 real money)?

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[crazyates]

Under $100? You're not going to get much for that price, so I'd say maybe a used 5850?

[davecoin]

It will be difficult to find everything you need for under $100.  A cheap setup would be:

AM3 motherboard
AMD Sempron Processor
1GB ram
PSU
thumb drive for OS
GPU

Do you have any parts already?

[ryantc]

100?? is it a typo

assume you already have all parts davecoin mentioned, $100 budget maybe you can start with 5830?

[mjester93]

I purchased my 5770 for $50+ shipping, so that might help you out some.

[superfastkyle]

biostar 870 with 2 16x slots 2 1x slots or MSI 970 with 2 16x slots 2 1x slots
two 1x to 16x ext cables
amd 130/140/145 sempron
cheapest 1g or 2g ram stick you can buy
up to 4 radeon 5770, 5830, 5850
rosewill 650w, corsair 650w power supply
2gb flash drive with bamt installed

thats the cheapest system I can make your still talking about $600 for that with 4 5850 cards
which will make you about $5 a day mining btc at current rates after 10c/hr power
I'm not getting into whether thats a worthwhile investment at this point. Just telling you what will work well at the cheapest price point
People have been saying gpu's were a bad investment since about last june and have been wrong so far.

[bonker]

biostar 870 with 2 16x slots 2 1x slots or MSI 970 with 2 16x slots 2 1x slots
two 1x to 16x ext cables
amd 130/140/145 sempron
cheapest 1g or 2g ram stick you can buy
up to 4 radeon 5770, 5830, 5850
rosewill 650w, corsair 650w power supply
2gb flash drive with bamt installed

thats the cheapest system I can make your still talking about $600 for that with 4 5850 cards
which will make you about $5 a day mining btc at current rates after 10c/hr power
I'm not getting into whether thats a worthwhile investment at this point. Just telling you what will work well at the cheapest price point
People have been saying gpu's were a bad investment since about last june and have been wrong so far.

^^^
What a great answer! Thanks buddy!

I was just asking out of curiosity, but I realised after reading this, that I can use the PCIe x1 slot on my own rig to stuff another video card in! DOH!

[Gator-hex]

Ati 5830's are the quickest $/Hash ROI in my experience. You can pick them up as cheap as 5770's but they run cooler,quieter,faster.

[meebs]

biostar 870 with 2 16x slots 2 1x slots or MSI 970 with 2 16x slots 2 1x slots
two 1x to 16x ext cables
amd 130/140/145 sempron
cheapest 1g or 2g ram stick you can buy
up to 4 radeon 5770, 5830, 5850
rosewill 650w, corsair 650w power supply
2gb flash drive with bamt installed

thats the cheapest system I can make your still talking about $600 for that with 4 5850 cards
which will make you about $5 a day mining btc at current rates after 10c/hr power
I'm not getting into whether thats a worthwhile investment at this point. Just telling you what will work well at the cheapest price point
People have been saying gpu's were a bad investment since about last june and have been wrong so far.

I'd recommend 4gb and then running windows 7 (DONT buy a license key!)

I've been able to run my 2 secondary rigs just fine since october with never activating. Every 60 days I reset the activation timer by going to the command prompt and using "slmgr rearm" command (do this as admin).

windows is SO easy to use compared to linux..  that and I was never able to get bamt to boot up properly, so I went that route...

it's just another option.

[superfastkyle]

BAMT is much easier to control remotely then any windows box. Does linux have a learning curve yes, but even if you would rather have a remote desktop instead of command line that option is there as well. Now setting up the config files is a little confusing your first time but BAMT is so much more reliable in my opinion that if you don't think you can set it up have somebody else do it for you. I'm sure others would easily help you for a small fee. They can probably get you mining in about 4/5 lines you can copy and paste into a terminal to get started

biostar 870 with 2 16x slots 2 1x slots or MSI 970 with 2 16x slots 2 1x slots
two 1x to 16x ext cables
amd 130/140/145 sempron
cheapest 1g or 2g ram stick you can buy
up to 4 radeon 5770, 5830, 5850
rosewill 650w, corsair 650w power supply
2gb flash drive with bamt installed

thats the cheapest system I can make your still talking about $600 for that with 4 5850 cards
which will make you about $5 a day mining btc at current rates after 10c/hr power
I'm not getting into whether thats a worthwhile investment at this point. Just telling you what will work well at the cheapest price point
People have been saying gpu's were a bad investment since about last june and have been wrong so far.

I'd recommend 4gb and then running windows 7 (DONT buy a license key!)

I've been able to run my 2 secondary rigs just fine since october with never activating. Every 60 days I reset the activation timer by going to the command prompt and using "slmgr rearm" command (do this as admin).

windows is SO easy to use compared to linux..  that and I was never able to get bamt to boot up properly, so I went that route...

it's just another option.