Finalising 4000kh/s+ Builds

[gooseta]

The sapphire vapor cards seem to be the best for hashing... Agree/disagree?

I don't like 7950s for two reasons. 1) because you have to run them at intensity 20, they draw more electricity than 7970s. 2)because of high intensity, I found them to be less stable and not as efficient as popular consensus claims.  Moreover, I had the standard Sapphire 7950s (the ones advertised on coinchoose), and those fans are as loud as a industrial vacuum cleaner.  So, if you don't have a basement or garage, or just some separate space for your rig, then it can get really annoying.  I have twelve 7970s, both Gigabyte and Sapphire Vapor-X.  The Vapor-X are awesome and seem to be most stable.  That's not to say the Giga's are bad.  It's just that the Vapor-X gpus have worked pretty much flawlessly.  The Giga's have had a couple hiccups along the way, but nothing serious.  But the Giga's were $400 usd from Amazon and I'm a prime member and I get 764kh on them.  The Vapor-X were $450 and I also get 764kh on them.  A quad rig pulls 1300 watts, without touching voltage. 

-Merc

I was originally thinking of 7970s, but they draw more power : fact. A 5x7970 rig would require more than 1475w like my 5x 7950 build

I forgot to mention resale value of 7970s are much better.  This is going to come into play when next gen models hit the market later this year (supposedly).

Yes but 5x 7950 is £1600 and makes 2800-3000kh/s. 4x 7970 is £1600 and makes 2600 kh/s and draws more power

[gooseta]

The sapphire vapor cards seem to be the best for hashing... Agree/disagree?

I don't like 7950s for two reasons. 1) because you have to run them at intensity 20, they draw more electricity than 7970s. 2)because of high intensity, I found them to be less stable and not as efficient as popular consensus claims.  Moreover, I had the standard Sapphire 7950s (the ones advertised on coinchoose), and those fans are as loud as a industrial vacuum cleaner.  So, if you don't have a basement or garage, or just some separate space for your rig, then it can get really annoying.  I have twelve 7970s, both Gigabyte and Sapphire Vapor-X.  The Vapor-X are awesome and seem to be most stable.  That's not to say the Giga's are bad.  It's just that the Vapor-X gpus have worked pretty much flawlessly.  The Giga's have had a couple hiccups along the way, but nothing serious.  But the Giga's were $400 usd from Amazon and I'm a prime member and I get 764kh on them.  The Vapor-X were $450 and I also get 764kh on them.  A quad rig pulls 1300 watts, without touching voltage. 

-Merc

I was originally thinking of 7970s, but they draw more power : fact. A 5x7970 rig would require more than 1475w like my 5x 7950 build

I forgot to mention resale value of 7970s are much better.  This is going to come into play when next gen models hit the market later this year (supposedly).

Yes but I won't be selling the cards for many years...

[PoolMinor]

Why is it difficult to mine with? Also what am3/ am3+ board would you recommend for use with risers?

Sorry, I don't have a recommendation other than to NOT use the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3, I am only a hobbyist miner with 2 7870XT's on an ASUS M4A78T-E.

Good Luck!

-PoolMinor

[zackclark70]

4 7950 vapour x cards draw under 900w from the wall  use 1050mhz core 1250mhz ram 1.050v and you will get 630kh-640kh per card

[broken_pixel]

990FXA-UD5 board you might find for 100.00 USD and supports 5 gpus without having to short out the pcie slots.

As for the GPUs I would suggest either MSI R7950s REV 1.0 8pin 6pin (not hardware locked) or Gigalock cards flashed to F43 BIOS or you will be stuck with a hardware locked voltage of 1.250v. 

4,000KH/s is not going to get you many LTC these days, you would be better off mining DGC and other ALT coins.

This site is helpful for determining what coins to mine.
http://www.coinwarz.com/

[gooseta]

990FXA-UD5 board you might find for 100.00 USD and supports 5 gpus without having to short out the pcie slots.

As for the GPUs I would suggest either MSI R7950s REV 1.0 8pin 6pin (not hardware locked) or Gigalock cards flashed to F43 BIOS or you will be stuck with a hardware locked voltage of 1.250v. 

4,000KH/s is not going to get you many LTC these days, you would be better off mining DGC and other ALT coins.

This site is helpful for determining what coins to mine.
http://www.coinwarz.com/

How many kh ash/s do your msi cards get and how much do they draw from the wall

[Duffer1]

I'd invest a bit in the CPUs as well (the more cores the better).  If you're building a mining ring you might as well get the best CPUs you can as well so you can swap over to any new coin that catches your eye and not worry about if it's better to mine said coin with cpu or gpu.

You could also cpu mine primecoin VERY efficiently while mining your LTCs.

[gooseta]

I'd invest a bit in the CPUs as well (the more cores the better).  If you're building a mining ring you might as well get the best CPUs you can as well so you can swap over to any new coin that catches your eye and not worry about if it's better to mine said coin with cpu or gpu.

You could also cpu mine primecoin VERY efficiently while mining your LTCs.

I'd rather invest in Gpus than CPUs, how profitable is prime coin

[Duffer1]

I'd invest a bit in the CPUs as well (the more cores the better).  If you're building a mining ring you might as well get the best CPUs you can as well so you can swap over to any new coin that catches your eye and not worry about if it's better to mine said coin with cpu or gpu.

You could also cpu mine primecoin VERY efficiently while mining your LTCs.

I'd rather invest in Gpus than CPUs, how profitable is prime coin

It's not profitable (unless price/demand goes up), but LTC is in that same boat right now too.  Right now an alt coin mining rig would really just be a way to crank out some hashes on promising new alt coins.  It likely won't be profitable as a pure LTC rig unless their value goes up.  

If LTC is all you want then buying $4k worth of LTC might be the better way to go.  (look at it this way:  for $4k you could buy 1,333 coins, or you can spend 300 days mining 1,333 coins (don't forget cost of electricity)).  It would take 10 months or so at current $ values (+ difficulty) to break even on your proposed rig (not including electricity, it adds up FAST for GPU rigs).

[gooseta]

I'd invest a bit in the CPUs as well (the more cores the better).  If you're building a mining ring you might as well get the best CPUs you can as well so you can swap over to any new coin that catches your eye and not worry about if it's better to mine said coin with cpu or gpu.

You could also cpu mine primecoin VERY efficiently while mining your LTCs.

I'd rather invest in Gpus than CPUs, how profitable is prime coin

It's not profitable (unless price/demand goes up), but LTC is in that same boat right now too.  Right now an alt coin mining rig would really just be a way to crank out some hashes on promising new alt coins.  It likely won't be profitable as a pure LTC rig unless their value goes up.  

If LTC is all you want then buying $4k worth of LTC might be the better way to go.  (look at it this way:  for $4k you could buy 1,333 coins, or you can spend 300 days mining 1,333 coins (don't forget cost of electricity)).  It would take 10 months or so at current $ values (+ difficulty) to break even on your proposed rig (not including electricity, it adds up FAST for GPU rigs).

Yeah, I didn't mention it but I am not attached to ltc. I'm looking into fastcoin and other alts. Even some small ones which I can exchange for ltc btc. It is for fun and my goal is to make £750, I don't need to break even, and I can use the 7950s in many builds to come.

Edit : the twin frozr and vaporx cards are around £260 and the gigabyte cards are £240, so I can save £100 w/ gigabyte cards, is it worth it?

[gooseta]

Also I'm buying a custom case from http://richchomiczewski.wordpress.com/ here on bitcointalk.

[Lauda]

I'd invest a bit in the CPUs as well (the more cores the better).  If you're building a mining ring you might as well get the best CPUs you can as well so you can swap over to any new coin that catches your eye and not worry about if it's better to mine said coin with cpu or gpu.

You could also cpu mine primecoin VERY efficiently while mining your LTCs.

I'd rather invest in Gpus than CPUs, how profitable is prime coin

If you had jumped early on with a few i5 or i7, would have earned triple-quad digits in the first few days
Builds are okay imo 

[gooseta]

I'd invest a bit in the CPUs as well (the more cores the better).  If you're building a mining ring you might as well get the best CPUs you can as well so you can swap over to any new coin that catches your eye and not worry about if it's better to mine said coin with cpu or gpu.

You could also cpu mine primecoin VERY efficiently while mining your LTCs.

I'd rather invest in Gpus than CPUs, how profitable is prime coin

If you had jumped early on with a few i5 or i7, would have earned triple-quad digits in the first few days
Builds are okay imo 

Thanks. Can anyone offer input regarding Gigabyte WF vs Sapphire VX 7950s