Cheapest rig you can buy

[btceic]

For all of the new folks, I have put together a decent mining rig, for ~$500.00, cheap enough for those that want to get their feet wet in mining, with enough MH/s or KH/s to make a difference.

Suggestions and Comments are welcomed.

For those that suggest you to not buy a GPU rig, please note that for some folks, spending $1000's of dollars on an FPGA or 2BTC+ for an ASIC USB is completely out of their reach.

As far as I am concerned, the more diverse group that we have in mining and in the community at large the better we will all be in the long run.

PCPartPicker part list

CPU:  AMD Athlon II X2 260 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($58.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard:  Zotac GF6100-F-E Micro ATX  AM3 Motherboard ~$45.00
Memory:  Crucial 1GB (1 x 1GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($8.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory:  Crucial 1GB (1 x 1GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($8.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage:  Samsung Spinpoint M Series 160GB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ~$40.00
Video Card:  Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card  ($224.99 @ Newegg)
Wireless Network Adapter:  Rosewill RNX-G300LX 802.11b/g PCI Wi-Fi Adapter  ($12.99 @ Newegg)
Case:  Apex PC-389-C ATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply:  Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply  ($44.98 @ Outlet PC)


Edit: missing prices for HDD and MB, When I put this together about a week ago, the parts did have prices but are now out of stock.

[1715018289]

1715018289

[snowcrashed]

Nice scouting though I think you forgot to include the price of the motherboard.  Also it should probably be made clear that putting together a rig like this, a ROI is very unlikely - something like this is almost strictly for fun.

[BitAddict]

With your rig you get 400MH/s with 0,15kW for $400, that's nearly 3btc today + you forgot the price of the motherboard and HDD.

With the mini ASIC USB you get 360MH/s with nearly no power comsumption... for just 2,2btc (all included with group buy)

I think you should check your maths again.

[btceic]

Nice scouting though I think you forgot to include the price of the motherboard.  Also it should probably be made clear that putting together a rig like this, a ROI is very unlikely - something like this is almost strictly for fun.

Good catch, I didn't see that, I pulled the list from their BBCode button.

I will redo with correct pricing.

[btceic]

With your rig you get 400MH/s with 0,15kW for $400, that's nearly 3btc today + you forgot the price of the motherboard and HDD.

With the mini ASIC USB you get 360MH/s with nearly no power comsumption... for just 2,2btc (all included with group buy)

I think you should check your maths again.

You are correct but users that are just starting out do not have 2.2 BTC, but they do have cash, credit card, debit card, etc and can go to their local mega-mart and buy the pieces themselves right now and get started immediately.

[Sk1llS]

With the mini ASIC USB you get 360MH/s with nearly no power comsumption... for just 2,2btc (all included with group buy)

True the ROI will be around the same time, but at least you can resell the PC Components if it all goes to shit.

With the USB ASIC Miner @ 2BTC it serves no other purpose other than mining.

[btceic]

With the mini ASIC USB you get 360MH/s with nearly no power comsumption... for just 2,2btc (all included with group buy)

True the ROI will be around the same time, but at least you can resell the PC Components if it all goes to shit.

With the USB ASIC Miner @ 2BTC it serves no other purpose other than mining.

At 2.2BTC the 300MH/s is not worth it, I was hoping for around .3 to .5, I would have jumped all over that, but at 2.2BTC each, not worth it to me.

[BitAddict]

With the mini ASIC USB you get 360MH/s with nearly no power comsumption... for just 2,2btc (all included with group buy)

True the ROI will be around the same time, but at least you can resell the PC Components if it all goes to shit.

With the USB ASIC Miner @ 2BTC it serves no other purpose other than mining.

It's true. But if you add motherboard plus hdd, rig will be nearly $500. After one year maybe you can sell all this for $250, maybe less? So, in total you're spending $250 plus ~$200 yearly electricity, 12 x 111kw @ $0,15 kw.
Total $450.

With the ASIC USB you're spending ~$300 today, but electricity is nearly 0, less than $0,5/month @ $0,15kw.
Plus, due to low consume you could use it more time before it comes worthless. When all the ASICs arrives all the GPUs will be worthless, because they're more inefficient.

[btceic]

With the mini ASIC USB you get 360MH/s with nearly no power comsumption... for just 2,2btc (all included with group buy)

True the ROI will be around the same time, but at least you can resell the PC Components if it all goes to shit.

With the USB ASIC Miner @ 2BTC it serves no other purpose other than mining.

It's true. But if you add motherboard plus hdd, rig will be nearly $500. After one year maybe you can sell all this for $250, maybe less? So, in total you're spending $250 plus ~$200 yearly electricity, 12 x 111kw @ $0,15 kw.
Total $450.

With the ASIC USB you're spending ~$300 today, but electricity is nearly 0, less than $0,5/month @ $0,15kw.
Plus, due to low consume you could use it more time before it comes worthless. When all the ASICs arrives all the GPUs will be worthless, because they're more inefficient.

That last part is not entirely true, you can still mine alt-coins with it

[ajg007]

Where can i buy ASIC USB please?

[BitAddict]

With the mini ASIC USB you get 360MH/s with nearly no power comsumption... for just 2,2btc (all included with group buy)

True the ROI will be around the same time, but at least you can resell the PC Components if it all goes to shit.

With the USB ASIC Miner @ 2BTC it serves no other purpose other than mining.

It's true. But if you add motherboard plus hdd, rig will be nearly $500. After one year maybe you can sell all this for $250, maybe less? So, in total you're spending $250 plus ~$200 yearly electricity, 12 x 111kw @ $0,15 kw.
Total $450.

With the ASIC USB you're spending ~$300 today, but electricity is nearly 0, less than $0,5/month @ $0,15kw.
Plus, due to low consume you could use it more time before it comes worthless. When all the ASICs arrives all the GPUs will be worthless, because they're more inefficient.

That last part is not entirely true, you can still mine alt-coins with it

It will be nearly the same, because all the GPUs will move to alt coins, so you will get low profit.

Where can i buy ASIC USB please?

You can search for ASIC USB group buy.

[costapete]

How many GPU are possible on this " cheapest" rig mobo?

[btceic]

How many GPU are possible on this " cheapest" rig mobo?

With rises you might be able to do 2, but that is a question for others to really answer, 3 if you can use the on oard ethernet and forego the wireless nic card

[greaterninja]

I see 3 big issues with this build.

1.  gpu   -  the 7870 sapphire ghz edition has 1280 stream processors; for $225-$250 you can get a radeon 7870 xt (tahiti with 1538) stream processors.
When it comes to  7870 pitcarin vs a 7870 tahiti le; the 7870 tahiti le will do 100-150 more megahash/second for the same or even less power consumption.

I recommend power color 7870xt or sapphire 7870 xt.   ROI on a 7870xt doing 500+ mh/s at $130/btc is 80-93 days.   This is one of the best ROI on a video card you can find.

2.  power supply -  430 or even 500watt power supply is not enough to run 2 cards;   I recommend a 520watt or higher power supply.


3. motherboard -  your motherboard has 1 x pcie  16x slot:   there are several for that price that have 2-3 pcie slots (with extenders of course).


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131885R

or even

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138378  $39.99

or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138374  $54.99

[rabbitweasel]

If you really want to keep it cheap, you're better off getting a mediocre system off of craigslist for $75 assuming it has a PCI-Ex16 slot. Then it's just a good PSU and pick of graphics card.

[ScaryHash]

I had my old Phenom 9850 (2.5 ghz quadcore) lying around from an upgrade. Been sitting around for most of a year.

Add a $58 ASRock A785GM-LE motherboard from Newegg.

Add 2 sticks of 667 DDR2 just lying around left over from the old days.

CPU cooler for $12 and some thermal paste..

$29 Power supply (460 W)

Keyboard and mouse from 2nd hand computer store ($10). The motherboard has PS/2 ports and USB ports.

Leftover case from a friend.

Spare hard drive from my mother in law's dead computer, and IDE cd-rom, and crappy flat screen monitor (she bought a lap top).

7850 on Ebay for $105.

Voila ! $214 dollah. Also used for light websurfing and stuff. Plugged right into my router, no issues.

one PCI-E slot, but what the hell.