Buying a mining rig for scrypt ~1500usd - worth it? see specs

[edgebits]

I have contacted a vendor who is ready to build me a rig for 1500usd.

Here are the specs :

3x 7950's
8gb Ram
1 Intel Celeron mobo/processor combo
1 custom built frame
2 16x-16x pcie risers
1 1x-16x pcie riser
1 4gb Thumbdrive
uses BAMT0.5c and installed with all software ready to mine.

Planning to use it for scrypt. Pulls 1900kh/s @870w

I would like to know if this is a good/reasonable deal??? I am a n00b in progress in this field and would appreciate some advice of miners out there.

Thank you

[wildbud]

Why not up it to 2k and you could run 5 7950's

[edgebits]

Would it be as simple as buying two more cards at 250 each and putting them in?

[DigitalDoom]

Why not up it to 2k and you could run 5 7950's

Where are you getting 7950s for $250?

I will buy 2 more for that price. The cheapest I've seen them is $300+ ($289 @ mail-in rebate).

Not so sure that buying a GPU rig is a great idea for mining Bitcoin (I assume that's what you plan to mine since this is BTC forum. With Avalon now selling ASIC chips it's likely you'll never even make enough to pay for the equipment. I would expect that BTC mining is going to become more difficult than imaginable soon after ASIC building is open sourced.

Still good for scrypt mining though...for now, anyway.

EDIT:

BTW...@ OP,

Personally, I think that's too much to pay. It's about $1000-$1200 worth of equipment, so you would basically be paying someone $300-$500 to simply put it all together. Not to mention that it's probably a used rig from someone who now owns an ASIC...that you'll be competing against when mining. Definitely not worth it for used equipment.

I would love to make $300-$500 per rig building mining machines. Hell...half that much per rig would satisfy me! But then, I love building computers so it would be like getting paid for working at my hobby. Hmmmm....come to think of it.......

[wildbud]

Would it be as simple as buying two more cards at 250 each and putting them in?

They would be about $300 each but with the correct set up the entire thing should come out to around 2k. Dont build a rig with GPU's for Bitcoins but instead run it for litecoins.

[edgebits]

also, any premonitions as to when there will be a ASIC equivalent for scrypt?

[DigitalDoom]

also, any premonitions as to when there will be a ASIC equivalent for scrypt?

Who knows? It's only a matter of time though I would say.

I read something the other day by someone working on FPGA miner for scrypt. Once that's been accomplished it won't likely be much longer before someone figures out how to teach ASIC chips to hash scrypt.

[edgebits]

also, any premonitions as to when there will be a ASIC equivalent for scrypt?

Who knows? It's only a matter of time though I would say.

I read something the other day by someone working on FPGA miner for scrypt. Once that's been accomplished it won't likely be much longer before someone figures out how to teach ASIC chips to hash scrypt.

Thanks!

hmm now i'm pondering if I should just wait a bit longer 

they are probably going to be hella expensive though, and highly in demand, and late.....

[DigitalDoom]

also, any premonitions as to when there will be a ASIC equivalent for scrypt?

Who knows? It's only a matter of time though I would say.

I read something the other day by someone working on FPGA miner for scrypt. Once that's been accomplished it won't likely be much longer before someone figures out how to teach ASIC chips to hash scrypt.

Thanks!

hmm now i'm pondering if I should just wait a bit longer 

they are probably going to be hella expensive though, and highly in demand, and late.....

I don't really know what to tell you on that. It's ultimately your decision whether to wait or not. If mining scrypt, I would personally go ahead and get a GPU miner now if you have the cash in hand. Like I said, who knows how long it will be before FPGA and ASICs are made to mine scrypt...could be months...could be years.

You really can't go wrong buying a GPU miner, providing you don't overpay. Even if faster mining tech is created, you can always sell top-end GPUs for gaming...or keep them for gaming. Good G-Cards keep value fairly well. Plus, with 3X 7950s you may mine enough coins to buy FPGA when they are finally made available.

I also didn't mean to steer you away from buying the rig in question. If you don't have the skills or the time to build your own rig then it may be your only option to pay someone to build one for you. I just don't see it as a good idea to pay someone else $100s to do what I could do myself....but not everyone has the skills or time available to build their own computers. If they did, Dell wouldn't be who they are today. 

[edgebits]

Why not up it to 2k and you could run 5 7950's

Where are you getting 7950s for $250?

I will buy 2 more for that price. The cheapest I've seen them is $300+ ($289 @ mail-in rebate).

Not so sure that buying a GPU rig is a great idea for mining Bitcoin (I assume that's what you plan to mine since this is BTC forum. With Avalon now selling ASIC chips it's likely you'll never even make enough to pay for the equipment. I would expect that BTC mining is going to become more difficult than imaginable soon after ASIC building is open sourced.

Still good for scrypt mining though...for now, anyway.

EDIT:

BTW...@ OP,

Personally, I think that's too much to pay. It's about $1000-$1200 worth of equipment, so you would basically be paying someone $300-$500 to simply put it all together. Not to mention that it's probably a used rig from someone who now owns an ASIC...that you'll be competing against when mining. Definitely not worth it for used equipment.

I would love to make $300-$500 per rig building mining machines. Hell...half that much per rig would satisfy me! But then, I love building computers so it would be like getting paid for working at my hobby. Hmmmm....come to think of it.......

What are the best ways of verifying if the parts are used? What should I look for?

[edgebits]

Thank you DigitalDoom for all your advice, it's all good.

I think he might be charging a premium because it is energy-efficient and he makes it the most friendly-user as possible. Everything is installed for all scrypt coins and ready to go.

[DigitalDoom]

Why not up it to 2k and you could run 5 7950's

Where are you getting 7950s for $250?

I will buy 2 more for that price. The cheapest I've seen them is $300+ ($289 @ mail-in rebate).

Not so sure that buying a GPU rig is a great idea for mining Bitcoin (I assume that's what you plan to mine since this is BTC forum. With Avalon now selling ASIC chips it's likely you'll never even make enough to pay for the equipment. I would expect that BTC mining is going to become more difficult than imaginable soon after ASIC building is open sourced.

Still good for scrypt mining though...for now, anyway.

EDIT:

BTW...@ OP,

Personally, I think that's too much to pay. It's about $1000-$1200 worth of equipment, so you would basically be paying someone $300-$500 to simply put it all together. Not to mention that it's probably a used rig from someone who now owns an ASIC...that you'll be competing against when mining. Definitely not worth it for used equipment.

I would love to make $300-$500 per rig building mining machines. Hell...half that much per rig would satisfy me! But then, I love building computers so it would be like getting paid for working at my hobby. Hmmmm....come to think of it.......

What are the best ways of verifying if the parts are used? What should I look for?

Well...first of, just ask. I know that I wouldn't try to sell a used computer as new and wouldn't bother lying about it figuring that the buyer will know when he gets it anyway, it just wouldn't be worth the negative feedback or nick in my reputation.

If you're not able to inspect the equipment beforehand, I really don't know of any method to investigate whether it's used or not. If you are able to inspect the equipment before buying, it shouldn't be too difficult to tell if it's used or new just by eyeball inspection. Look for dust in tiny crevices and on fan blades....I think it would be near impossible to clean all of the dust off of a machine that's been used for mining for any length of time....should be easy to tell new from used if you have prior inspection available.

[edgebits]

He told me it was new when we first spoke about it, I would not consider buying a used mining rig.

He seems very legit and knowledgeable. Also we are making the transaction via paypal on ebay for security.

I think its safe

[DigitalDoom]

Thank you DigitalDoom for all your advice, it's all good.

I think he might be charging a premium because it is energy-efficient and he makes it the most friendly-user as possible. Everything is installed for all scrypt coins and ready to go.

Ya...$1500 isn't a huge overcharge really when considering time invested installing and setting up. Like I said, that's all stuff that I enjoy doing anyway, so for me personally it's not worth paying for labor and setup. You have to consider how much the labor is worth for you. Keep in mind that everything together would probably cost around $1000-$1200 (probably closer to $1200) if you bought the components separately and new. The rest is what he/she is charging for setup and labor costs....not really a huge charge I suppose, for the time involved.

If you find out somehow that it is used, I would suggest doing a little more looking around. You could probably advertise in this forum and find someone willing to build you a similar rig for the cost. Just be careful about payment....find an escrow somewhere to be sure you don't get taken for $1500  

[DigitalDoom]

He told me it was new when we first spoke about it, I would not consider buying a used mining rig.

He seems very legit and knowledgeable. Also we are making the transaction via paypal on ebay for security.

I think its safe

If you're using Paypal then you are safe! Paypal highly favors and protects buyers. If you're using eBay then he's not going to lie about the condition. Ebayers entire business is dependent on getting positive feedback...it's too detrimental for an eBay business to lie about new or used products.

One last warning that I would like to offer is to consider that mining cryptocurrency is not a get rich quick venture. Lots of people jumping in thinking they will be millionaires within weeks/months and it just doesn't work that way. I don't know how much mining you've done so far (if any), but it's probably the least profitable cryptocurrency based activity. Sure, the early adopters who jumped in back in 2011 or earlier have profited well, but at this late in the game, it's just too competitive.

If you go in with that understanding and with the knowledge that you may never even make a return on your mining equipment investment...you'll be a step ahead of most newbie miners getting in now. Of course there's always a chance that value could skyrocket into the millions and we all get really rich, but you need to be planning to make a long term investment and not a "I'm gonna be rich next month" investment.  

Take care and good luck!


ADDED:

BTW...with 3X 7950s, I think you could reasonably expect to get a hashrate of about 1500kh/s-1800kh/s. Take that and do the math for how much you will profit (or not). it's going to take a good while before you even get enough to pay for the rig itself...barring some crazy skyrocketing of crypto value. I'm too lazy to figure it for you right now, but I would say it will be several months before your starting to see any profit at all. However, if you're like me, you aren't looking at profiting so much as doing all you can to support a new currency and economy.

[sdczen]

I have contacted a vendor who is ready to build me a rig for 1500usd.

Here are the specs :

3x 7950's
8gb Ram
1 Intel Celeron mobo/processor combo
1 custom built frame
2 16x-16x pcie risers
1 1x-16x pcie riser
1 4gb Thumbdrive
uses BAMT0.5c and installed with all software ready to mine.

Planning to use it for scrypt. Pulls 1900kh/s @870w

I would like to know if this is a good/reasonable deal??? I am a n00b in progress in this field and would appreciate some advice of miners out there.

Thank you

Seems like a decent deal to me.  If you don't want to build something yourself, don't be afraid to pay someone else who has the expertise.

$900.00   3x 7950's
$60.00     8gb Ram
$100-150 1 Intel Celeron mobo/processor combo
$50-100   1 custom built frame
$20         2 16x-16x pcie risers
$10         1 1x-16x pcie riser
$7.00      1 4gb Thumbdrive
$125.00   Power supply

$1,372 For cost of parts (on the upper end).  That leaves $128.00 for labor & setup.  I charge more than that to build scrypt miners.  Not to mention the profit lost on trying to build the machine yourself.  Most likely it would pay the difference in a weeks worth of mining.  In mining, time is money.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Why 8GB of ram?  You do know when people say LTC is memory hard them mean like 128KB of L1 cache right.

[JohnsonX]

Why 8GB of ram?  You do know when people say LTC is memory hard them mean like 128KB of L1 cache right.

maybe he wants to play some games on that too, plus RAM is cheap?

[edgebits]

I have contacted a vendor who is ready to build me a rig for 1500usd.

Here are the specs :

3x 7950's
8gb Ram
1 Intel Celeron mobo/processor combo
1 custom built frame
2 16x-16x pcie risers
1 1x-16x pcie riser
1 4gb Thumbdrive
uses BAMT0.5c and installed with all software ready to mine.

Planning to use it for scrypt. Pulls 1900kh/s @870w

I would like to know if this is a good/reasonable deal??? I am a n00b in progress in this field and would appreciate some advice of miners out there.

Thank you

Seems like a decent deal to me.  If you don't want to build something yourself, don't be afraid to pay someone else who has the expertise.

$900.00   3x 7950's
$60.00     8gb Ram
$100-150 1 Intel Celeron mobo/processor combo
$50-100   1 custom built frame
$20         2 16x-16x pcie risers
$10         1 1x-16x pcie riser
$7.00      1 4gb Thumbdrive
$125.00   Power supply

$1,372 For cost of parts (on the upper end).  That leaves $128.00 for labor & setup.  I charge more than that to build scrypt miners.  Not to mention the profit lost on trying to build the machine yourself.  Most likely it would pay the difference in a weeks worth of mining.  In mining, time is money.

There ya go, these are the numbers I wanted to see

Thank you very much kind sir

[middlemarkal]

you do not talk about the powersupply in your quote. 

IT's important and you need at least a 1000W high quality to be safe. 3 * 250W + 100W + margin