Build me a LTC rig

[Vorksholk]

Personally:
AMD Sempron 145 Sargas (2.8GHz, single core)
AsRock 970 Extreme3 or Asus M5A97 (Newegg currently has a sale on the M5A97: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872)
4GB DDR3 (I like G.Skill, personal preference. Corsair RAM is great too!)
750W EVGA Supernova (Nice modular design, runs well, quiet (cause that's really important xD), comes with a nice warranty, good price, I personally go with Bronze usually)
250GB Western Digital of Seasonic hard drive, just get one for $50 that has 4+ stars. Sometimes 500GB is $3 more, so I go with that one.
MSi Twin Frozr3 7950 (Works good, bios is right, had 14 and only one had a small fan issue)
If you need a case, the Blackhawk works pretty well for me after a few minor modifications, namely flipping the direction of the side panel fan, really easy to do
If you need to install using optical media, get a cheap $15-$25 Samsung SATA optical

Cheers!

[peonminer]

update

so this is what i got so far. tell me if you can find a better price


mobo- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157262 $100

CPU- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888 $38

GPU-  sapphire 7950 - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0098HW1HG/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B0098HW1HG&adid=1W7W8M2XM1A5AMFRJHN8     $310x4

RAM-  16g ripjaw  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231568  $130

PSU- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00607JLWU/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B00607JLWU&adid=1JN8VG129ZC6781AD7MA $255

HD- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009SKB5HA/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B009SKB5HA&adid=1Z8N15NZ79NDYHWT3NY0 $50

all i need is the risers. which should i go with??? 1x? 16x? and powered??

thanks

total so far $1808

No need for 16GB RAM unless you're planning on using it as a gaming machine too. Looking good though. I say go all out and do a crate build out. Make sure to buy a box fan!

[blarg]

Depends on what the board has. If you have 4 16x slots you only need 16x to 16x risers. If it has 1x slots you need 1x to 16x risers for those slots. Get powered just so you save peace of mind of your rig potentially burning out/up/etc.

what is compatible with the sapphire 7950 to a ASRock 970?

[Boxman90]

CPU: AMD X2 cheapest
Mobo: MSI 990FXA-GD65
Ram: 4GB ram
HDD: simple mechanical HDD (no usb stick, will kill performance till you slowly grow mad)
GPU: 4x Sapphire HD7970 (11197-03-40G)
PSU: Seasonic X-1250
4x PCI-e 1x to 16x riser cable
Some iron wire for PCI-e presence mod
Linux.

This is how I built my rigs, they eat 1200W from the socket and provide with 3000kh/s each.

[blarg]

whats the right pci risers for a ASRock 970?

[blarg]

update

so this is what i got so far. tell me if you can find a better price


mobo- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157262 $100

CPU- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888 $38

GPU-  sapphire 7950 - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0098HW1HG/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B0098HW1HG&adid=1W7W8M2XM1A5AMFRJHN8     $310x4

RAM-  16g ripjaw  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231568  $130

PSU- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00607JLWU/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B00607JLWU&adid=1JN8VG129ZC6781AD7MA $255

HD- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009SKB5HA/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B009SKB5HA&adid=1Z8N15NZ79NDYHWT3NY0 $50

all i need is the risers. which should i go with??? 1x? 16x? and powered??

thanks

total so far $1808


should i splurge on better cpu for cpu only mining like yac? (not that i want to mine yac just for future alt coins)

[Hydroponica]

any suggestions on best 7950?

if you can afford 7950, then you should jus go h.a.m, get the 7970s, sapphire twin x oc edition, then a 1500 watt power supply gold certified. you dont need a really powerful cpu, but i'd suggest the 22nm i5 and minimum of 8gb ram, if you use reaper, get 16gb. you may want to use a custom case or crate for your build. to allow the hardware space and additional cooling. pcie risers are a good option, get powered ones. i use a ssd, i dont know if that improves performance.

7950's prove to be more profitable. The extra electricity, plus the extra $100 per card, is not worth the little bit of extra hashing power. Not only that, 7970's are notoriously harder to get the settings right. I have the 3 fan Gigabyte 7950, and I get 620 KH/sec, at stock speeds.

That mobo you picked, that's only got 2X PCIE16 slots, is that enough? I've also read in places too, that 3 GPU's per board is better, for cooling purposes, and, so you don't have to fuck around with powered riser cables.

Also, I read that 8 GB Ram should be plenty

[blarg]

any suggestions on best 7950?

if you can afford 7950, then you should jus go h.a.m, get the 7970s, sapphire twin x oc edition, then a 1500 watt power supply gold certified. you dont need a really powerful cpu, but i'd suggest the 22nm i5 and minimum of 8gb ram, if you use reaper, get 16gb. you may want to use a custom case or crate for your build. to allow the hardware space and additional cooling. pcie risers are a good option, get powered ones. i use a ssd, i dont know if that improves performance.

7950's prove to be more profitable. The extra electricity, plus the extra $100 per card, is not worth the little bit of extra hashing power. Not only that, 7970's are notoriously harder to get the settings right. I have the 3 fan Gigabyte 7950, and I get 620 KH/sec, at stock speeds.

That mobo you picked, that's only got 2X PCIE16 slots, is that enough? I've also read in places too, that 3 GPU's per board is better, for cooling purposes, and, so you don't have to fuck around with powered riser cables.

Also, I read that 8 GB Ram should be plenty

thanks that was helpful

what motherboard you recommend then?

[Hydroponica]

any suggestions on best 7950?

if you can afford 7950, then you should jus go h.a.m, get the 7970s, sapphire twin x oc edition, then a 1500 watt power supply gold certified. you dont need a really powerful cpu, but i'd suggest the 22nm i5 and minimum of 8gb ram, if you use reaper, get 16gb. you may want to use a custom case or crate for your build. to allow the hardware space and additional cooling. pcie risers are a good option, get powered ones. i use a ssd, i dont know if that improves performance.

7950's prove to be more profitable. The extra electricity, plus the extra $100 per card, is not worth the little bit of extra hashing power. Not only that, 7970's are notoriously harder to get the settings right. I have the 3 fan Gigabyte 7950, and I get 620 KH/sec, at stock speeds.

That mobo you picked, that's only got 2X PCIE16 slots, is that enough? I've also read in places too, that 3 GPU's per board is better, for cooling purposes, and, so you don't have to fuck around with powered riser cables.

Also, I read that 8 GB Ram should be plenty

thanks that was helpful

what motherboard you recommend then?

Further research indicated that that board is the best for mining right now, it's the 1X16, and 16X16 powered riser cables, make the difference. 4 GPU's are better. I'm also in the process of designing a rig. I found this website very helpful;

[link] http://www.coinminingrigs.com/ [/link]

[Boxman90]

any suggestions on best 7950?

if you can afford 7950, then you should jus go h.a.m, get the 7970s, sapphire twin x oc edition, then a 1500 watt power supply gold certified. you dont need a really powerful cpu, but i'd suggest the 22nm i5 and minimum of 8gb ram, if you use reaper, get 16gb. you may want to use a custom case or crate for your build. to allow the hardware space and additional cooling. pcie risers are a good option, get powered ones. i use a ssd, i dont know if that improves performance.

7950's prove to be more profitable. The extra electricity, plus the extra $100 per card, is not worth the little bit of extra hashing power. Not only that, 7970's are notoriously harder to get the settings right. I have the 3 fan Gigabyte 7950, and I get 620 KH/sec, at stock speeds.

That mobo you picked, that's only got 2X PCIE16 slots, is that enough? I've also read in places too, that 3 GPU's per board is better, for cooling purposes, and, so you don't have to fuck around with powered riser cables.

Also, I read that 8 GB Ram should be plenty

Can you please back this up with data?

The data I have is that I draw 1243W from the socket with 4x 7970 @ 750kh/s - significantly faster than 7950. With 90% PSU efficiency, this means 1118W at the PSU side --> minus ~160W for processor, motherboard, HDD and peripherals, 958 W for just the cards --> 239W per card. The 160 was based on the fact that the idle system draws 220W, and data suggests the 7970's use 15W per card @ idle.

Now, I hear the 7950's draw about 200W per card (can you confirm?), at 620 KH/s

So, this means:

7950 ---> 620/200 = ~ 3.1 kh/W
7970 ---> 750/239 = ~ 3.14 kh/W

And this makes sense as it's practically the same board, but at higher clocks. So as the output per watt is practically the same (give or take 5% in my assumptions), I see no reason why not to put the top cards in your system :/

[Hydroponica]

any suggestions on best 7950?

if you can afford 7950, then you should jus go h.a.m, get the 7970s, sapphire twin x oc edition, then a 1500 watt power supply gold certified. you dont need a really powerful cpu, but i'd suggest the 22nm i5 and minimum of 8gb ram, if you use reaper, get 16gb. you may want to use a custom case or crate for your build. to allow the hardware space and additional cooling. pcie risers are a good option, get powered ones. i use a ssd, i dont know if that improves performance.

7950's prove to be more profitable. The extra electricity, plus the extra $100 per card, is not worth the little bit of extra hashing power. Not only that, 7970's are notoriously harder to get the settings right. I have the 3 fan Gigabyte 7950, and I get 620 KH/sec, at stock speeds.

That mobo you picked, that's only got 2X PCIE16 slots, is that enough? I've also read in places too, that 3 GPU's per board is better, for cooling purposes, and, so you don't have to fuck around with powered riser cables.

Also, I read that 8 GB Ram should be plenty

Can you please back this up with data?

The data I have is that I draw 1243W from the socket with 4x 7970 @ 750kh/s - significantly faster than 7950. With 90% PSU efficiency, this means 1118W at the PSU side --> minus ~160W for processor, motherboard, HDD and peripherals, 958 W for just the cards --> 239W per card.

Now, I hear the 7950's draw about 200W per card (can you confirm?), at 620 KH/s

So, this means:

7950 ---> 620/200 = ~ 3.1 kh/W
7970 ---> 750/239 = ~ 3.14 kh/W

And this makes sense as it's practically the same board, but at higher clocks. So as the output per watt is practically the same (give or take 5% in my assumptions), I see no reason why not to put the top cards in your system :/

You can undervolt a 7950, still get ~650 KH/Sec, at 40-50W less, bringing it down to ~150W per card.
Also, the initial investment is ~$400 more, for 4 7970's.

[Boxman90]

You can undervolt a 7950, still get ~650 KH/Sec, at 40-50W less, bringing it down to ~150W per card.

As I said can you back this up with data rather than throwing random numbers in the air? How did you get to the values of 40~50W and the 150W per card? Also suddenly 650 kh/s?

Also one can undervolt a 7970 too :/

Also, the initial investment is ~$400 more, for 4 7970's.

To get the same hashing power out of 7950's, you're eventually going to need more motherboards, processors, RAM, etc. Also, even though the investment is greater, the return of investment stays the same period as you have a higher hashing power. The 7970 is 21% faster, and the investment is 25% larger. These numbers are in the same ballpark and therefore I still do not see why one would not buy the most hashing power per motherboard :/

[Hydroponica]

http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoinmining/comments/1ddhie/undervolt_overclock_and_cgminer_settings_for_2x/

There's 1 guy here, who is running 3x7950's, undervolted, and is drawing 730W from the wall, which would encompass the entire rig.

I've seen many posts, on this forum, and others, with problems getting the full hashing power, from a 7970. They are finnicky. From what I can tell, 7950's are the prefered card for mining. But it's all personal preference, and depends on things like, how much $$ you have to spend.

I only have 7950's, so, I can't speak from experience, as to which is actually better, just refering to data I've collected.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=203946.0

Now, some people also say that 7970's have a higher resale value, which is true, up to a point. Once the next gen cards come out, the resale value of all 7xxxx cards plumment. When I tried to sell my 5870, after buying my first 7950, I had a hell of a time.

[NickCoin]

I have 3 Sapphire 7970 OC running stable at 720Kh/s, total rig draw only 750W at the wall!

Was looking into 7950 since everyone is raving about it, but now that I see they only get 630-650Kh/s and drawing 730W, plus someone mentioned horrible vacuum noise level (I live in apartment too without a garage or basement), 7970 seems to be the best bet!

[SolidSnke]

The Milk Crate route with a tiny twist.. just set the cards at a 45 degree angle to help cooling and put a 15$ box fan on the top. Cards stay about 75 C or less.

Also powered with two 750w PS as that is cheaper than one 1200w PS.. using the add2psu.com module.

Also this draws ~1200 watts at the wall, and does ~2.4Mh/s. I can probably improve this some, just have not had the time.

[mnx]

Does it make much sense to build a dedicated GPU rig at this point in time?  I calculated a simple payoff of 5 months (which sounds good) for a rig that I'd build, but with BTC difficulty increasing at 10%/week it looks like it might never pay itself off.

Thoughts?

Also while I am posting, is a 650W gold PS enough to power a rig with 2 7950's?  (my current 7950 appears to draw ~200W).  I think the extra 200W should be enough to power the rest of the PC components...

[SolidSnke]

Does it make much sense to build a dedicated GPU rig at this point in time?  I calculated a simple payoff of 5 months (which sounds good) for a rig that I'd build, but with BTC difficulty increasing at 10%/week it looks like it might never pay itself off.

Thoughts?

Also while I am posting, is a 650W gold PS enough to power a rig with 2 7950's?  (my current 7950 appears to draw ~200W).  I think the extra 200W should be enough to power the rest of the PC components...

7950s atleast in my experience pull about 300W each.. so it would be close with 2 7950s + CPU and HD.. might be ok if you went the linux route and used a USB to boot.

BTW i would not mine BTC, just will never keep up with the FPGs or ASIC miners. Mine LTC/or some other scrypt, then convert it to BTC.

I started with 4 rigs of 2 GPUs in each. Spent $4000 on the whole setup. 1st month made $1700, 2nd month I am working towards a goal of about $1500. So I project the 3rd month I will start making money on this project of mine.

[mnx]

I was using BTC to calculate the worst case scenario.  Of course I will mine whatever is most profitable.  I began mining BTC/altcoins with a 7950 on April 9th and have just reached b/e on my investment.  I don't expect the payoff to be nearly as quick next time...

[esenminer]

Does it make much sense to build a dedicated GPU rig at this point in time?  I calculated a simple payoff of 5 months (which sounds good) for a rig that I'd build, but with BTC difficulty increasing at 10%/week it looks like it might never pay itself off.

Thoughts?

Also while I am posting, is a 650W gold PS enough to power a rig with 2 7950's?  (my current 7950 appears to draw ~200W).  I think the extra 200W should be enough to power the rest of the PC components...

Yes I have 2 rigs exactly like this. 650W + 2 x Sapphire 7950s but no hard drive just USB boot. Powertune at +20 and they are very, stable each rig doing 1250 kh/s for LTC mining. Should be even less power draw for BTC mining.

[esenminer]

The Milk Crate route with a tiny twist.. just set the cards at a 45 degree angle to help cooling and put a 15$ box fan on the top. Cards stay about 75 C or less.

Also powered with two 750w PS as that is cheaper than one 1200w PS.. using the add2psu.com module.

Also this draws ~1200 watts at the wall, and does ~2.4Mh/s. I can probably improve this some, just have not had the time.

this add2psu.com module sounds interesting - i made a mistake of getting 2 psus to power 4 cards in a single rig and eventually split them up into 2 rigs when i couldn't get it to work - i never factored in that each card can draw upto 75W from the mobo  - i'm assuming using 2 psus with this adapter worked out for you. any issues? would you recommend it?