Need help figuring out electrical usage with small mining farm. Costs/Profit

[El Cabron]

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Need help figuring out electrical usage with small mining farm. Costs/Profit
Today at 09:33:19 AM
   
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Hi all, This is going to be one mess of a post as it will reflect what is going on in my head. What I am trying to do is get this worked out so I can have the lowest energy usage. I know some of the parts that I have are not the best but, this is what I have on hand.

GPU
2x 5770     (240w)   (360mhs)
7x 5830     (980w)   (2310mhs)
16x 5850      (2500w)  (5760mhs)
1x 5970     (300w)    (800mhs)

PSU
1x 650w
4x 700w
1x 800w
2x 850w

all bronze 80+ coolmaster


CPU
1x 555
5x 955
2x i3 2120


Motherboard

2x msi p67a-gd80   (3x 16pci 2x 1pci)
4x msi 870a-g46   (2x 16pci 1x 1pci)
1x asus m4a79xtd evo  (2x 16pci 2x 1pci)
1x giabyte ga880ga-ud3h  (2x 16pci 2x 1pci)

i have extender cables for the 1xpci and 6 for the 16 pci



Now, since the price has collapsed and the difficulty does not look like its going down (much) I need to get a better idea on what I have here and see if it is wroth putting all together.  i am okay to wait a year or so if i am at the break even level now.


My electrical cost after tax is 13.7 cents.

Using the data at this site http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=706&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=16 It seems my total wat usage will be around 4000w just for the cards. This is a guess as I will be overclocking the cards core to whatever I can and underclocking the memory to 300mhz.

my total output will be around 9200 mhs/S assuming i get 180 for the 5770, 330 for the 5830, 360 for the 5850 and 800 for the 5970.

I know that I have electrical costs with the mainboards and the cpus and what not. how significant will this be?


If I assume the next difficulty will be 1,300,000 and the price will be $2.5 and I get 9200 mhs/S I will bring in $540 a month. My costs for electric for just the cards will be $548 If I did all of this right.

I am thinking that there will be no way I can mine and break even at this point. I am however hopeful that it will go up in the future.

I assume that I will be able to have the 2x msi p67a-gd80 motherboards have 5 cards each?  (1x 5850 3x 5830 and 1x 5770) and for the second (1x 5850 and 4x5830)

The 1x asus m4a79xtd evo  (2x 16pci 2x 1pci) and 1x giabyte ga880ga-ud3h  (2x 16pci 2x 1pci)  can do 4 each?

And then only use 2 of the 4x msi 870a-g46   (2x 16pci 1x 1pci) with 3 each.

I will have one card left over and two rigs but its the best way to do it right?   What will my added electric costs be if I do it this way?

I also have 8 7200 rpm Samsung f3 1TB HDDs and some big house fans to keep things cool.

Also I know I will have to run Linux on some of these machines, Linuxcoin can be run from a HDD as well or only a USB? Thanks.

I do not live in the USA or a part of the world that has Ebay. Getting all this stuff here took a lot of money, a years wage for me. I am not just going to sell everything back at a loss of 40% with out doing some math.

Sorry for all the questions and thoughts but this is where my head is right now. If anyone can follow any of this all ideas and questions are welcomed. Also my numbers might just be way off cuz I dont really know what I'm doing so please point that out too, haha! Thanks:)

[RobertRibbeck]

Buy a "kiill a watt" meter and measure it
$20

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+kill+a+watt&tag=googhydr-20&index=electronics&hvadid=6352256065&ref=pd_sl_8rhc2rgc2r_b

[malevolent]

Did you include cooling costs and hardware depreciation?

You could reduce the cost of electricity by disabling 3 out of 4 cores on you cpus as well as underclocking and undervolting (not to mention reducing some voltages on the mobo).

P.S. Don't forget about merged mining!

[DeathAndTaxes]

Buy a "kiill a watt" meter and measure it
$20

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+kill+a+watt&tag=googhydr-20&index=electronics&hvadid=6352256065&ref=pd_sl_8rhc2rgc2r_b

+10000000000000000000000000 to this.

You can't even begin to properly estimate profitability without knowing the load at the wall.  Click on the link but the kill-a-watt record your loads and then post back.  Trying to guestimate loads based on parts TDP is futile probably worse than futile because you likely will over/under guess and take it as valid.

If you don't want to wait for Amazon to ship one most Home Improvement stores carry Kill-A-Watt.

[shakaru]

Ok, only way to solve this because each part you have will perform diffrently in combo with others and who knows. So........


Buy a Kill-A-Watt
Goto Home Depot, Frys Electronics, Walmart, ect less that $40 for sure. That a high est on price
Now program it to your kw/h usage
Come back in 24 hours and read the cost

EDIT: Android app didnt update for a good while. my bad on the dupe repose .

[Brunic]

I know that I have electrical costs with the mainboards and the cpus and what not. how significant will this be?

The cost of boards or the CPU depends on which part do you have, and at which voltage. Using the BIOS, you can undervolt and underclock(or literally desactivate) parts of the board/CPU. It's not going to make a huge difference, but it helps.

I will have one card left over and two rigs but its the best way to do it right?   What will my added electric costs be if I do it this way?

Yes, it's the best way to do it. Since you're so tight on the profit margin, I would suggest you to not plug the spare card alone on a board. Since every watt counts in your situation, either you completely full a board, either you don't plug it at all.

I don't want to calculate everything, so I'll just estimate. Let's say that your CPU and board takes 50W, and one card takes 120W. For one card, it is 170W.

So, if your board is fulled(let's say 4 cards), you'll need 530W to run it. B

By card, it takes:
120W +
50W/4 =
132.5W

If your board is full, it takes a lot less electricity to run a card than if it is one card. So, don't plug a card alone, try to full a board.

Also I know I will have to run Linux on some of these machines, Linuxcoin can be run from a HDD as well or only a USB? Thanks.

Sell the HDDs. Buy USB key.

Switching from an HDD to a USB key, you can save around 10 to 20W. Also, HDD cost more than USB key. An USB key takes almost no power, does the exact same job as an HDD, and you can copy/install easily LinuxCoin on them.

I know you don't want to sell, but I would seriously consider selling the HDD to use USB key instead.

Also:

Watt = Ampere * Volts
Kw/h = Consumption of 1000W for 1 hour.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Hmm.  Well that makes it tougher.  Not sure if there is a Kill-A-Watt equivelent.

Another solution albeit more expensive is a clamp meter.

Something like this (they do make cheaper ones but no idea if they are worth the money)
http://www.amazon.com/General-Tools-DAMP60-Rugged-Digital/dp/B0037UXN7M/ref=sr_1_4?s=lamps-light&ie=UTF8&qid=1319377555&sr=1-4

You put the "clamp" around a wire like the power cable for your rig and it records the amps flowing through the wire.  Volts * Amps = Watts.
You can assume 240V but for better accuracy while rig is running you can use the probes to check voltage in a nearby outlet.

[jjiimm_64]

PSU
1x 650w
4x 700w
1x 800w
2x 850w

1.  I agree that a killawatt is the best way to measure actual voltage.

but I would venture an easy / simplistic way to do this job is just add up all the psu's max W.   some will pull less, others will pull more, but you can bet it will be near that number.

[RobertRibbeck]

Estimating is a FOOLS mission - wrong guesses & wrong answers
like assuming
the only real way to tell is measure it
I cant believe you are in a country that is NOT 115V that don't have an alternative to the "kill a watt" meter

you do know about google don't you 

PSU
1x 650w
4x 700w
1x 800w
2x 850w

1.  I agree that a killawatt is the best way to measure actual voltage.

but I would venture an easy / simplistic way to do this job is just add up all the psu's max W.   some will pull less, others will pull more, but you can bet it will be near that number.

[jjiimm_64]

Estimating is a FOOLS mission - wrong guesses & wrong answers
like assuming
the only real way to tell is measure it
I cant believe you are in a country that is NOT 115V that don't have an alternative to the "kill a watt" meter

you do know about google don't you 

PSU
1x 650w
4x 700w
1x 800w
2x 850w

1.  I agree that a killawatt is the best way to measure actual voltage.

but I would venture an easy / simplistic way to do this job is just add up all the psu's max W.   some will pull less, others will pull more, but you can bet it will be near that number.

I have a killawatt.
I also know that a killawatt will measure up to about 1500 watts at a time, so you have to continually bring the rigs offline to measure them. 

if you add up all the psu max capability, you will be overestimating the amount you use for the rigs themselves. add in routers, fans, etc it will be close, which is usually good enough. especially here in the US where power doesn't cost an arm and a leg.  They sure tax the hell out of europeans, ,,,...

[Tronlet]

Difficulty should be below 1.3 mil if it keeps going down at this rate, don't forget that there are drastically lower blocks per hour until the difficulty is adjusted and thus it's a longer wait than 2 weeks.

[deslok]

I cant believe you are in a country that is NOT 115V that don't have an alternative to the "kill a watt" meter

you do know about google don't you  

Why is that so hard to understand? And yes, We know about Google here, you should use it to find out about places that are not 110V. On second thought don't respond to my question I am going to add you to my ignore list.

cablesaurs carries the kill-a-watt you would need his webpage is down for maintance but cablesarus does ship international, accept bitcoins

Kill-A-Watt 160-280V/50Hz/3000W Power Usage Meter
$34.95 or B5.67

* Brand New
* This power meter is very useful for ensuring you're not overloading a circuit, or to determine if you can fit more in a rig
Input Voltage: 160-280V,50Hz Peak Load: 15A
Power Measurement: 1-3000W
Power Consumption: 0.0001-999.9Kwh
Ratio of Operation condition: 100%
Measurement Accuracy: ±1%
Refresh Rate: S≥2