New Mining Rig - help me out here

[MrSwordFish]

Hey,

a while back I made a mining rig with 2x7970 (with the dual purpose for gaming)... In its spare time it got about 1.7 btc atm...
Since TigerDirect started taking btc I was thinking of taking the money I made with this hobby to reinvest in the hobby itself.
So, idk if I want to spend all my 1.7 btc on a dedicated mining rig but I am willing to spend the equivalent of at least 1000$.

Bluntly put, what should I get to mine scrypt like a boss in the current gpu market?

Thank you for your time and responses.

[Ty13rDerden]

If you want to mine Bitcoin I would look at Butterflylabs.  The ASIC miners are magnitudes faster than GPUs.

GPU mining is still used for scrypt hashing which is how LTC and several other altcoins are created.

[elchorizo]

Your 7970's are still great for Litecoin mining. You can mine Litecoin and convert the Litecoin to BTC at a pretty good rate. GPU's are (currently) the best way to mine Litecoin so you aren't getting left behind by ASIC's coming out all the time.

You should be able to do about 1.4MH/s mining Litecoin with those 7970's and that is respectable. If you feel like spending some BTC, get one more 7970 and mine with 3.

[jamesc760]

To mine like a "boss," you're going to have to get the Asrock motherboard with gazzillion PCI-E ports and matching AMD R9 290x video cards. Anything less, we can't call you a boss.

[MrSwordFish]

I forgot to specify things. I am mining scrypt atm. My motherboard can only hold 2 gpus so I need a new one... Because of heat my dual 7970 setup is only going at like 1gh/s (at around 80Celcius.

@jamesc760
Asrock MB you say? With 290x? I've been out of sync with the market for a while but is that really the most efficient in terms of bang per buck? I know I could look it up on the hardware comparison chart but if I am to put multiple gpu on the same MB heat and other factors can come into play (as I learned with my 2x7970) this is why I was wondring what the forums had to say about efficiency in a shellnut.

[elchorizo]

If you are going to build a completely new rig then I think R9 280x's are the best bang for buck. However, if you are talking bang for the buck with what you have... you should transfer your equipment to an open rig and get one more 7970 (same model as what you have... or even get 2) and a new mobo... get 4x GPU's going in an open rig and you'll be on your way.

I use these, they are pretty awesome: http://richchomiczewski.wordpress.com/home/trays/

[MrSwordFish]

@elchorizo

Thanks for the advice! Yeah that's true I Need to get a nice open case...
My current case has such good air circulation that there was no temp difference when I had the side opened or closed...(100$ case)
Also, I am keeping at least one 7970 in my current rig for gaming out. I think that getting an open rig with 3x7970 would be a very viable option. Would it be possible to do 7970+2x(R8 280x)? Of course if they're not much more efficient than 7970's I guess I might as well get more of those since I rotate them to put stress equally on my 2 thus far.
What MB would you recommend to go with the open case you linked me to? Along with that what power supply? On my current gaming rig I got a corsair 750tx, it has not let me down so far.. but if I want 3xgpu on this new thing I might want to get something bigger, don't know what wattage I would need for 3x7970.

[elchorizo]

Newegg just put up some good mining mobo's on ebay right now: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASRock-H81-Pro-BTC-LGA-1150-Intel-H81-HDMI-SATA-6Gb-s-USB-3-0-ATX-Intel-Motherbo-/291064280191?pt=Motherboards&hash=item43c4c8747f

The benefit of the open case is that you can use 24" house fans (or any fans) to really cool the cards... in my experience they cool better then even good "computer" fans that are usually 12v, etc...

Personally I would not mix different models in the same right... especially not generational differences. ie, I could never get 6970's and 7950's working in the same right. You might could mix 7950's and 7970's though.

As far as power supplies, I'm the wrong one to ask. I usually go overkill on power supplies... I run 1000+'s in all my rigs even if I'm only running 3 cards.

[empoweoqwj]

Hey,

a while back I made a mining rig with 2x7970 (with the dual purpose for gaming)... In its spare time it got about 1.7 btc atm...
Since TigerDirect started taking btc I was thinking of taking the money I made with this hobby to reinvest in the hobby itself.
So, idk if I want to spend all my 1.7 btc on a dedicated mining rig but I am willing to spend the equivalent of at least 1000$.

Bluntly put, what should I get to mine scrypt like a boss in the current gpu market?

Thank you for your time and responses.

How did TigerDirect sway your decision? You mean you are going to buy the kit from them?

[MrSwordFish]

@empoweoqwj
That played a role, the fact that I could buy hardware with the btc I made (that is, in an easy and direct way). It still is something I had considered for a while and I suspect that newegg and ncix will follow shortly into the trend since Tigerdirect's actions have attracted much attention. Should ncix not follow up then yes, I would buy from tigerdirect. So, it's not the only factor, but it certainly plays a motivational/convenience factor.

Edit:@elchorizo
Yea, when I tested open case I had an 18 inch fan next to it. However, if I do get another rig, an open one, I would probably do as you say and buy a 24 inch fan to go along with it. Seems like I will be buying 2 more 7970s (another advantage is that I've done the tweaking process for them with clock speed n' all that).


So so far on my check list I got this:
2x7970
ASRock H81
Rich Chomiczewski's open case

Need a plan for the power supply / cpu / ram. (I got a usb for the OS so I don't need an hdd)