Introduction and questions

[Korn16ftl3]

Hello Bitcoiners,
First i would like to say that Im not here specifically for Bitcoin mining or even Bitcoin investing, Im an aspiring hobbyist pentester. From my readings for brute forcing passwords and Bitcoin mining both require a decent video card (GPU) and the actual RAM contained on the video card is little to no relevance. In the future I might Consider picking up Bitcoins because I am also a PC gamer, how ever I would probably not run a dedicated machine just for bitcoins. It seems all the requirements for my 2 main hobbies and potential third (bitcoins) fit the same prerequisites, which is what brings me to this forum.

What my research and readings as far as pentesting has come to conclude is that ATI is the video card of choice, some thing like a Radeon 6990 that has 2 physical GPU's uses one PCI-E and a high shader count is ideal for both bitcoining and pentesting and well is obviously a really good card to have for PC games.

My questions at this point in this post have to do mostly with the hardware at my disposal for the time being which is the following, im new and can not post links at this point in time but will post the specifications to the best of my ability

Motherboard:

Code:

ECS A960M-M2
CPU	º Supports AMD AM3+ FX™/Phenom™ II/Athlon™ II/Sempron™ 100 Series
º Support 125W AM3+ FX™/ Phenom™ II X6 processors
º High-performance HyperTransport 3.0 CPU Interface
º Note: This board supports CPU up to 125W TDP ; you can refer to AMD website to check your CPU.
CHIPSET	º AMD® 760G & AMD® SB710
º North Bridge: AMD® 760G
º South Bridge: AMD® SB710
[i][b]GRAPHICS	º On chip (AMD® 760G-based with ATI™ Radeon HD3000 graphics)
º Integrated DirectX 10 graphics processor
º Share Memory: Maximum up to 512MB[/b][/i]
MEMORY	º Dual-channel DDR3 memory architecture
º 2 x 240-pin DDR3 DIMM socket support up to 16 GB*
º Supports Dual-DDR3 1333 / 1066 with AM3 CPU
º Supports Dual-DDR3 up to 1866 with AM3+ CPU
º *(Due to the DRAM maximum size is 4GB at present, the memory maximum size we have tested is 8GB) 
º *(Due to AMD CPU spec limitation, please refer to Memory QVL for more information)
Due to the operating system limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® 32-bit OS.
For Windows® 64-bit OS with 64-bit CPU, there is no such limitation
EXPANSION SLOT	º 1 x PCI Express x16 Gen2.0 slot
º 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
º 2 x PCI slots
STORAGE	º Support by AMD® SB710
    • RAID0, RAID1, RAID10 configuration
    • 6 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s devices
AUDIO	º VIA® VT1705 6-channel audio CODEC
º Compliant with HD audio specification
LAN	º Realtek 8111E Gigabit LAN Fast Ethernet Controller
º Realtek 8105E 10/100 Lan(Optional)
REAR PANEL I/O	º 1 x PS/2 keyboard & PS/2 mouse connectors
º 1 x HDMI Port(Optional)
º 1 x DVI connector(optional)
º 1 x D-sub(VGA)
º 1 x Serial port (COM1)
º 1 x RJ45 LAN connector
º 1 x Audio port (Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in)
º 4 x USB 2.0 Ports
INTERNAL I/O CONNECTORS & HEADERS	º 1 x 24-pin ATX Power Supply connector
º 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power Connector
º 1 x 4-pin CPU_FAN connector
º 1 x 3-pin SYS_FAN connector
º 1 x IDE connector
º 1 x Speaker header
º 1 x Front panel switch/LED header
º 1 x Front panel audio header
º 1 x SPDIF out header
º 1 x Clear CMOS header
º 1 x CD in header
º 1 x Parallel Header
º 6 x Serial ATA 3Gb/s connectors
º 1 x Chassis intrusion header
º 2 x USB 2.0 headers support additional 4 USB 2.0 Ports
SYSTEM BIOS	º AMI BIOS with 8Mb SPI Flash ROM
º Supports Plug and Play, STR (S3) / STD (S4) , Hardware monitor, Multi Boot
º Audio, LAN, can be disabled in BIOS
º F11 hot key for boot up devices option
º Support over-clocking
º Supports eJIFFY
º Supports eBLU
º Supports eDLU
º Support eOC
º Supports ECS M.I.B III Utility
    • CPU voltage adjustable
    • Memory voltage adjustable
    • NB Chipset Voltage Adjustable
    • SB Chipset Voltage Adjustable
    • HT Voltage Adjustable
    • External Clock Adjustable
    • Multiple Frequency Adjustable by CPU
FORM FACTOR	º Micro-ATX Size, 244mm*210mm

RAM:
2X 2GB DDR3 1600

CPU:
AMD FX 4300 Quad Core 3.80 Ghz

Spare PCI-e Video Card Laying Around:

Code:

nVidia GeForce 7300 LE PCI-E 64MB

Manufacturer:	nVidia
Series:	GeForce 7
GPU:	G72
Release Date:	2006-03-22
Interface:	PCI-E x16
Core Clock:	450 MHz
Memory Clock:	350 MHz (700 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth:	5.6 GB/sec
Shader Operations:	1800 MOperations/sec
Pixel Fill Rate:	900 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate:	1800 MTexels/sec
Vertex Operations:	337.5 MVertices/sec
Framebuffer:	0,64,128,256,512 MB
Memory Type:	DDR2
Memory Bus Type:	32x2 (64 bit)
DirectX Compliance:	9.0c
OpenGL Compliance:	2.0
PS/VS Version:	3.0/3.0
Process:	90 nm
Fragment Pipelines:	4
Vertex Pipelines:	3
Texture Units:	4
Raster Operators	2

GPU Details:
Manufacturer:	nVidia
Series:	GeForce 7
Maximum Framebuffer:	 MB
Interface:	PCI-E x16
Supported Memory Types:	DDR, GDDR3, DDR2
Memory Bus Type:	32x2 (64 bit)
DirectX Compliance:	9.0c
OpenGL Compliance:	2.0
PS Version:	3.0
VS Version:	3.0
Fragment Pipelines:	4
Texture Units:	4
Raster Operators	2
Vertex Pipelines:	3
Manufacturing Details
Transistors:	112 million
Process:	90 nm

Am I better off using the nVIDIA card rather than the onboard ATI chipset for my motherboard to try to pentest or do any cryptography with at this point?

Is it some how Possible to simply use wither the onboard video or video card output to connect my monitor to and use the other GPU for hashing?

Just to simply plug in the nVIDIA card and still use the onboard HDMI for my TV and the nVIDIA GPU for hashing would be nice, accept the fact that ATI Video cards are preferred for these types of operations.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

In the future i have contemplated purchasing a Radeon R9 270X 4GB  with the following specifications:

Code:

Model
Brand
GIGABYTE
Model
GV-R927XOC-4GD

Interface
Interface
PCI Express 3.0

Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer
AMD
GPU
Radeon R9 270X
Core Clock
1050MHz
Boost Clock
1100MHz
Stream Processors
1280 Stream Processors

Memory
Effective Memory Clock
5500MHz
Memory Size
4GB
Memory Interface
256-bit
Memory Type
GDDR5

Ports
HDMI
1 x HDMI
DisplayPort
1 x DisplayPort
DVI
1 x DVI-I
1 x DVI-D

General
Cooler
WINDFORCE 3X
HDCP Ready
Yes

Would this be a suitable card for hashing as well as gaming?

[DannyHamilton]

Your research is outdated.

About a year ago, companies started coming out with application specific hardware for mining.  These Application Specific Integrated Chips (ASIC) are custom designed to accomplish bitcoin mining and nothing else.  They are far faster and more efficient at their intended task than any GPU.  Because the bitcoin network self-adjusts in difficulty to prevent blocks from being solved too fast, the number of hashes necessary on average to earn 0.00000001 BTC (the smallest possible unit of bitcoin) has significantly increased.

This means you now need to run a GPU for a longer period of time to generate the same amount of bitcoins.  As such, the electricity used to power the video card generally ends up being more expensive than the value of the bitcoins that are generated.  I'm not sure about the specific attributes of the video cards you have on hand, but unless you have a top-of-the-line ATI card, you'll have to leave the video card generating hashes for months just to cash out a penny or two.

[jumpmanjay]

Mining scrypt-based altcoins (litecoin, feathercoin, dogecoin, etc) are still worth mining ATM.

[Korn16ftl3]

Your research is outdated.

A lot of what i have read on using the GPU for password cracking and mining came from:
http://blog.erratasec.com/2011/06/password-cracking-mining-and-gpus.html?m=1
and some of what i learned for password cracking was here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wireless-security-hack,2981-8.html

but most of the major relations between my pentesting mining and games came from the first site

Mining scrypt-based altcoins (litecoin, feathercoin, dogecoin, etc) are still worth mining ATM.

This sounds interesting, im assuming this uses the same type of hardware as well? all GPU based?

A lot of this reminds me of folding at home for some reason accept it seems to pay if done properly where as folding does not.

[imamanandyou]

You need top ATI GPU cards to be profitable mining Scrypt coins and exchange to Bitcoin or USD, your onboard ATI or nVidia will be not profitable. The lowest I would use is 5830

[DannyHamilton]

Your research is outdated.

A lot of what i have read on using the GPU for password cracking and mining came from:
http://blog.erratasec.com/2011/06/password-cracking-mining-and-gpus.html?m=1
- snip -

That blog post seems to completely ignore the existence of ASIC for bitcoin mining.

Note that, while GPU are quickly becoming obsolete for Bitcoin mining, there are hundreds of alternative crypto-currencies that have been created by individuals who feel that they missed out on the chance to get rich quick with Bitcoin.  Most of these "alt-coins" barely have a community supporting them and will die off pretty quickly once the initial "investors" cash out and abandon them.  A few (especially those that offer something significantly different) might find a niche market and stick around for a while.  If you can keep an eye on the market and avoid wasting time mining worthless trash, a mining hobby might be able to generate some profit using GPU to mine something other than bitcoins.