Starting New GPU Rig

[Brain916]

So I know most say mining isn’t “profitable”, however I am doing his as a hobby and eventually a passive income.

I have decided to go with the 1080 TI however I am confused on which model. There is the Black Edition, SC2 abs FTW. As for the mining part, which is best? I believe SC2 and FTW is only a $10 difference but almost $50-$60 compared to the Black Edition.

To start, I was going to buy 2 -3 GPU and eventually going to 6. Should I also just get the 2000 Watt Gold or Platinum PSU for 3 and a second for the other 3?

I see most say that the CPU doesn’t matter and I should just pick up a Celeron. However it seems that’s due to ROI. Would a better CPU effect mining or is it just not essential?

Last Question. I also decided to go with an SSD instead of HDD. Is there a place to buy a SD card with Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit already installed?

Thanks for your time.

[Khaisar]

Hey there, I decided to try mining myself because I found it interesting. Mining wasn't profitable roughly a year ago, but today in January 2018, there is some good returns to be made. Here is my layout of how I am making some fun learning money. I will answer your question after my little explanation. I consider my build an investment and I live alone bearing all expenses myself on near minimum wage. With some money I saved up over several months I have purchased the following;

GTX 1080 Ti    x 4
GTX 1060 3gb x 1
Asus ROG Strix Z270F
Intel Celeron G4400
8gb Corsair Veng. DDR4 Ram
256g SSD
2x 1200w PSU's (Calculators said under full load my mining rig would take 1800w power, but with 3 1080 ti's it never tops 750w)

I already own a gaming PC with an i7-7700k and a GTX 1060 3g SC, as well as a very old PC with an i5-2300 and a GTX 750 ti. I tried mining on my gaming PC and found myself making $5ish CAD a day and got excited even more after reading about the history of Bitcoin and its massive growth. I am still a full on newbie mining on Nicehash, but these are my numbers (All in CAD)

Purchased 1080 ti's for $1039.99 each, 3 I bought for mining (One gifted for gaming, I only paid half) setting me back almost $4100 after taxes.
I then purchased a GTX 960 for cheap from a friend, $60.
The rest of the computer for mining cost me $1000 because I spent $350 extra for another PSU and $280 on an expensive motherboard.

So with all my new parts here put together, this is what I had running in total with even my old computer running.

GTX 1080 ti = $12.75 on average per card, per day. Some days they've made $14.75 a day, sometimes $11.
GTX 1060 3gb = $4.00-$5.10 per card per day.

1080 Ti x 4    = $51/day
1060 3gb x 2 = $8.50/day
960 x 1         = $2.15/day
750 Ti x1      = $1.05/day

Total: Close to $63/day, especially over that with my i7-7700k making a couple bucks a day. Depending on the day this can go up or down $5 or so a day, these numbers are for a fairly decent day. Now I understand you may not have old computers and spare GPU's to mine with, so this is probably what you need to hear. With my initial investment of around $5100 CAD ($4080 USD) I pull $51 CAD a day ($1530/month) or $41 USD (1225/month). This means I have an ROI of 3.5 months before the rig is paid off and i'm left with high amounts of profit (Seems probable) and cards with very high resale value if I ever wish to pull out.

If you read my math, thanks. If you just want a 1080 ti recommendation, here it is.

Just about ALL 1080 ti's are sold out worldwide. The only places i've found some that are slightly overpriced are on the amazon page of Japan. Everywhere else runs around $1500 per. This is part of the reason I am about to say this. Buy any cheap 1080 ti you can find. Period. Hashrates and cooling can differ from card to card but not enough to justify paying more (Except MAYBE a water block card). I personally own 4x Asus ROG Strix cards which run very cool when at 80% power with +110 core and +500 mem clock. Just find the cheapest 1080 ti card you can get when stores start getting them back in stock. I suggest you move quickly when buying them as they sold out because of us miners finding out they are getting really popular + profitable.

Your CPU won't matter at all, as long as it can run the mining software. A Celeron is more than capable.

An SSD is a wise choice as while tuning you will have plenty of restarts and booting in 7 seconds instead of 27 seconds will save lots of headache. You will not need to purchase Win10 to run your mining rigs, you can run Windows 10 for free by not activating it. I considered getting Windows 10 Pro for the remote connection feature, but I found the Chrome Remote Desktop application to be much easier to use as there is a phone app that is very responsive and I can check on all my computers while at work or on the go.

I have sloppy writing, but I hope I was able to help you.

[Brain916]

Dude! That was very well put together. I posted this on a few sites and yours by far is the most helpful. As for the 1089 TI, there is a local Fry’s electronics that has them for retail. I believe it’s about $750 for the lowest price then about $850 for the highest.

For the PSU I should get 2 1200W with a splitter? This will eventually power 6 GPU TI’s. Also a Gold or above right?

One last note and what seems to be tricky is the risers. Is there a good brand that won’t be faulty? Also I don’t get the whole no sata stuff. It looks like it’s just plug and play but what I read there is converters?

[Khaisar]

For the power supplies try to get platinum grade. I got 2x 1200 PSU's with a splitter and its very comfortable for 6 1080 ti's.
This is a list of what i've bought and all of it seems to work for me. Just note these are in CAD prices and possibly Canadian vendors, but i'm sure they are sold in the US too.

Risers:
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B074P34647/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Splitter:
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B072JM7KVD/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Power switch (Since it probably won't be in a case)
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01LMZZFWO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Power Supply
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00K7L0YL2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And if you want to check your wattage, it's really nice to have this
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00L6P2L0A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


As for the risers, the reason people say don't use SATA is because SATA is meant for supporting up to 60-75w for hard drives, not for powering large GPU's such as the 1080 ti. The Risers I have are powered by a 6-pin connector, so I just plug them in directly with a 6-pin. The power supply I use has 12x 2x6+4 pins so I use 6 to power the risers and 6 to power the cards. You get double the cables since you have two power supplies. The Quality of the risers are something to be concerned about, but the only thing making them faulty are the soldering jobs on them as they can be really out of whack. Mainly just look at reviews on Amazon and get the most reputable one.

I have to say you are pretty lucky to have 1080 ti's in stock at retail price. You could actually make a lot of money just reselling them online. When choosing cards for mining I actually try to stay away from blower style cards because they are very loud and get very hot. While I do believe they are designed to run hotter than other cards, it can worsen the effect as you have 6 cards blowing hot air at the rest of the GPU's . You can read reviews to find which 1080 ti you think will suit you the best. Water clock cards can mine full stress and never top 50c, but with the right configurations any normal 3-fan card can stay below 65c. I personally prefer 3 fan cards, but any card that can keep cool is a solid winner leaving price to be the deciding factor. If the difference is only $10, or $20 a card, just get what looks cooler. It's better to have a rig that looks really cool and covered in lights than to have bland cards that look pretty boring, just makes you feel a little happier every time you see it.

If you have any other questions just ask.

[havocboy]

What crypto do you mining?

[Khaisar]

Mostly equihash, but that's just because I use Nicehash to set it and forget it. Once I learn more about Crypto in general I will probably mine whatever coin I think will shoot up and play the market from there. However as of right now I am just mining whatever is most profitable and being paid in bitcoin. Even though bitcoin is dropping, my profits aren't dropping much as it seems the difficulty is lowering as well. We will see how this works out.

[Brain916]

Once again, thank you so much for the help. Isn’t two 1600 Watt PSU Platinum be wellover what I need? Or could I use 2 1200 Watt Platinum editions? Sorry for asking so many questions

[MrN1ce9uy]

Mostly equihash, but that's just because I use Nicehash to set it and forget it. Once I learn more about Crypto in general I will probably mine whatever coin I think will shoot up and play the market from there. However as of right now I am just mining whatever is most profitable and being paid in bitcoin. Even though bitcoin is dropping, my profits aren't dropping much as it seems the difficulty is lowering as well. We will see how this works out.

I've been mining with 2x 1080 Ti SC2 for a month now on Niceheash and they get average $7-$8/day each. Not sure how you've got your's setup. What's your power limit and clock speeds? What model 1080 Ti? $12/day seems unreal. Was that your average for a single card?

[Khaisar]

Please note that i stated my earnings are from Nicehash and are in CAD. 8USD sounds about right today, thats what mine seem to be averaging. I have mine set to 85% percent power with +100 core and +450 mem. Im still looking to tweak these.

[Khaisar]

Once again, thank you so much for the help. Isn’t two 1600 Watt PSU Platinum be wellover what I need? Or could I use 2 1200 Watt Platinum editions? Sorry for asking so many questions

2x 1200w PSU's will be more than enough juice to power them. My cards consume 250w (4 1080 ti's) of which three and the rest of the PC are running off a single 1200w platinum PSU. When i get more 1080 ti's I will fill them up on my 2nd PSU.

[jace808]

Hey there, I decided to try mining myself because I found it interesting. Mining wasn't profitable roughly a year ago, but today in January 2018, there is some good returns to be made. Here is my layout of how I am making some fun learning money. I will answer your question after my little explanation. I consider my build an investment and I live alone bearing all expenses myself on near minimum wage. With some money I saved up over several months I have purchased the following;

...


An SSD is a wise choice as while tuning you will have plenty of restarts and booting in 7 seconds instead of 27 seconds will save lots of headache. You will not need to purchase Win10 to run your mining rigs, you can run Windows 10 for free by not activating it. I considered getting Windows 10 Pro for the remote connection feature, but I found the Chrome Remote Desktop application to be much easier to use as there is a phone app that is very responsive and I can check on all my computers while at work or on the go.

I have sloppy writing, but I hope I was able to help you.

ty for this.