First Mining PC Build Atempt - Mainboard to crappy?

[chriscoin]

Ive got some old component like...


CPU:      Intel Core i7 875K 2.93GHz 4800MT/s S1156 10MB 95W BOX   
Mainboard:   Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 I-P55 S1156 ATX
PSU:   ATX be quiet! Straight Power E7 450W

I would like to go for 2xR9 270x or 1xR9 290x.


The mainboard has only PCI-e 2.0 and someone told me R9 series is pretty unstable and effect bluescreens on those boards.

It has 2xPCI-e 2.0 slots but on of them only runs with 8x (half speed?). Does this even matter?



I would just buy a new PSU, get the Card(s) and would try it. Any thoughts about my chances here?

Chris

[grippy54]

So first off, now is a confusing time to get involved in mining. ASICs are coming online and any investment you make in GPUs is at risk, depending on your strategy. Keep that in mind and don't invest anything you are not willing to lose.

If you are committed to mining, I suggest you start small to reduce risk and stick to ASIC resistant coins like vertcoin (script-n algo).

Your equip seems OK. The speed of the pcie slots doesn't matter. Your MB has 5 pcie slots and will work fine. I would probably go with the 2 x 270's. They hash about 400-450khs and cost about $200. The 290 will do 850khs and will cost about $500, so it looks like the 270s are a better buy for you at this point.

The PSU may be a little small, it looks like you may need about 180w per 270, plus some for the MB and CPU. It may work fine. If you start to have any issues, upgrade it to a gold rated one.

[chriscoin]

Thanks for your post!


Do you think the chances of a successfully new altcoin decreases day by day? So that you gotta stick to already teenager-coins with high difficulty. Otherwise the risk in a complete new altcoin gets higher and higher. (just superficial speculation)


Have checked the R9 series, seems like that 270x is pretty overpriced. Prolly go with a 1x280x, so that I get better opportunities for upgarding midterm wise.

Do I have to worry about which type of 280x I choose?


I want to go for:

3072MB Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X WindForce

(700 Watt be quiet! Pure Power L8 ( in advance for secound 280x))

Chris

[grippy54]

It's hard to tell what values will be. It's mostly speculation right now. I like to look at coinwarz.com and whatmine.com. You can see value, current profitability, total network hash power, and how much is exchanged each day. Those things will help inform your decision.

There are tons of opinions about which cards are better. I suggest you stick with a good brand, like sapphire, gigabyte or msi. Other than that, you can google mining hardware comparison to see a couple lists of what folks have actually done... and poke around here for a couple weeks. You'll learn a lot.