beginner making a rig

[totalguy]

hi guys im pretty new to this mining but i want to get a rig built when i can afford things i will buy bits at a time.

the plan is to use my current motherboard processor and ram (because im upgrading my pc and better to use what i got). My motherboard is a gigabyte ga890gx 3udh (i think) it has 2x 16x pci-e slots and 2x 1 pci-e slots.

well the initial plan is to find out about the 7950 and the 280x graphics cards. theres like £50 difference between the cheapest of each one so i want to find out is there a difference where mining is concerned? as in hash rates? also should i be looking for anything specific in these 2 models? i mean theres usually a couple with the same model but there are differences in the hardware spec on any model graphics card really.

so next i need to find out what sort of power supply i should be looking at? and secondly will i be needin converter cables or extensions etc?

i plan to make a frame to hold the 4 cards (connected with extenders) space them out and house the whole rig. i have plenty tools in my garage to fabricate my own stuff so i wont be buying any custom made rig frames. is there anything i should be paying attention to here regarding earthing ? or is there no need ?

I hope to hear from you and thanks in advance

[gsupp]

To find out what other people have gotten in terms of hash rate for a specific card, look at: https://litecoin.info/Mining_hardware_comparison

A lot of times the brand will dictate how well the cooler works. You'll need cards with good coolers for mining. In general, XFX cards have terrible GPU coolers and should be avoided. Small differences between models of the same brand shouldn't matter much.

The power supply you need depends on which card you're going to run and how many of them. The 7950s can eat up 300w each if you overclock and don't/can't undervolt them. You'll probably need riser cables to space the cards apart for cooling: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111254627706

You don't need to worry about grounding/earthing anything. I run rigs in plastic crates all the time.

[totalguy]

To find out what other people have gotten in terms of hash rate for a specific card, look at: https://litecoin.info/Mining_hardware_comparison

A lot of times the brand will dictate how well the cooler works. You'll need cards with good coolers for mining. In general, XFX cards have terrible GPU coolers and should be avoided. Small differences between models of the same brand shouldn't matter much.

The power supply you need depends on which card you're going to run and how many of them. The 7950s can eat up 300w each if you overclock and don't/can't undervolt them. You'll probably need riser cables to space the cards apart for cooling: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111254627706

You don't need to worry about grounding/earthing anything. I run rigs in plastic crates all the time.

thanks for your reply i guess ill need to decide on a make of card and stick with the same ones i think, the 280x's seem most appealing at the moment. so im looking at 1200-1500w then. i may go for a 1200w then if i want to overclock i was thinking of perhaps running a decent 300-400w psu jump start it to supply 1 card then use the other psu for the other 3. thats if thats an acceptable solution?

glad i dont need to worry about grounding or anything that makes things somewhat easier. could i mount motherboards to wood bases? of course ill either need to have the screws loose or use washers/spacers underneath to allow room for the soldering joints and any plates under there if any.

so what im getting from this now is:

motherboard got one
cpu got one
ram got some

graphics cards 4 x 280x's

psu 1200-1500w

small hard drive.

thats another thing i havent thought about is hard drive is there a cheap easy way to put a basic os on something? i assume i probably wont be able to run an os off a memory stick/card?

[badbrains]

If you're running linux you can use a USB key. Or get a ebay laptop hard drive for $10 and run windows 7 64 bit. I find it very stable and quick to setup. If you build more rigs in the future just clone your drive and save lots of install and configuration time.

[gsupp]

thanks for your reply i guess ill need to decide on a make of card and stick with the same ones i think, the 280x's seem most appealing at the moment. so im looking at 1200-1500w then. i may go for a 1200w then if i want to overclock i was thinking of perhaps running a decent 300-400w psu jump start it to supply 1 card then use the other psu for the other 3. thats if thats an acceptable solution?

glad i dont need to worry about grounding or anything that makes things somewhat easier. could i mount motherboards to wood bases? of course ill either need to have the screws loose or use washers/spacers underneath to allow room for the soldering joints and any plates under there if any.

thats another thing i havent thought about is hard drive is there a cheap easy way to put a basic os on something? i assume i probably wont be able to run an os off a memory stick/card?

Yeah, you can use multiple power supplies in one rig, jumpering one to power on automatically. Just don't plug one graphics card into both power supplies.

You can absolutely use wood as a base, in fact people build entire wooden frames for their rigs:

You're probably better off using a small SATA hard drive. I've tried using a USB flash drive as a boot drive, but they tend to corrupt after some time. The quality of the flash drive determines how long until it corrupts, but even quality drives seemed to eventually have a problem. I'm switching my rigs from USB flash drives to hard drives for this reason, I don't want to keep re-flashing drives to keep the rigs running.

[totalguy]

thanks for your reply i guess ill need to decide on a make of card and stick with the same ones i think, the 280x's seem most appealing at the moment. so im looking at 1200-1500w then. i may go for a 1200w then if i want to overclock i was thinking of perhaps running a decent 300-400w psu jump start it to supply 1 card then use the other psu for the other 3. thats if thats an acceptable solution?

glad i dont need to worry about grounding or anything that makes things somewhat easier. could i mount motherboards to wood bases? of course ill either need to have the screws loose or use washers/spacers underneath to allow room for the soldering joints and any plates under there if any.

thats another thing i havent thought about is hard drive is there a cheap easy way to put a basic os on something? i assume i probably wont be able to run an os off a memory stick/card?

Yeah, you can use multiple power supplies in one rig, jumpering one to power on automatically. Just don't plug one graphics card into both power supplies.

You can absolutely use wood as a base, in fact people build entire wooden frames for their rigs: http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/1166/p1030054l.jpg

You're probably better off using a small SATA hard drive. I've tried using a USB flash drive as a boot drive, but they tend to corrupt after some time. The quality of the flash drive determines how long until it corrupts, but even quality drives seemed to eventually have a problem. I'm switching my rigs from USB flash drives to hard drives for this reason, I don't want to keep re-flashing drives to keep the rigs running.

thanks for the advice (and the guy before you)

have you a build log for your rig and/or some measurements? looks pretty good to me

[lilmousemouse]

Nice wood rig! I would love to know the measurements as well!

[p2pstamp]

If I were you I would invest into a bigger miner. Something that can produce at least 200GH otherwise you won't be making any money. Check out my website for more info if you want.

[frankenmint]

If I were you I would invest into a bigger miner. Something that can produce at least 200GH otherwise you won't be making any money. Check out my website for more info if you want.

probably doing this as an investment into altcoin - 200GH btc mining isnt much anymore anyway.