5970? ubuntu?

[schone]

I know this has been beaten to death but i'm a n00b and can use some help.

I'd like to set up my own rig.  At the moment i'm looking to get a 5970... they seem to be the best MHash/sec according to the wiki.  Is this true?  Or are the 6XXX better? (ATI Radeon HD)

Also, I'd be running it on linux as i'm most comfortable with it.  Question is, does it work?

What would be a casual system specs you would recomend if one wanted to run 2 X 5970s? Targeting about 1.2GHash/sec...

Thanks!

Any guidance will be greatly appreciated!

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[grndzero]

Are you talking about building a whole box from scratch or do you have some hardware that you can use?

[schone]

building from scratch.

[JWU42]

Probably not worth it...

Curious for the PSU suggestions for a dual 5970.  Seems you could get by with a good 850 watt like an HX850?

[schone]

why is it not worth it?

Are the statistics about BTC/day that off for the current level of difficulty?

Or are the components that expensive?  Seems to me like it could pay itself off relatively quick.

[dust]

Also, I'd be running it on linux as i'm most comfortable with it.  Question is, does it work?

I can confirm dual 5970s work with Ubuntu 10.10, SDK 2.1 and Catalyst 10.10.  You might want to try newer drivers versions.

Probably not worth it...
Curious for the PSU suggestions for a dual 5970.  Seems you could get by with a good 850 watt like an HX850?

I'm running a Sempron 140 and 2x5970 (stock clocks) off a TX850.  The HX850 would be better as its 80+ Silver vs just 80+ certified for efficiency.

why is it not worth it?

Are the statistics about BTC/day that off for the current level of difficulty?

Or are the components that expensive?  Seems to me like it could pay itself off relatively quick.

Do the math.  At current difficulty hardware will take months to pay off, and keep in mind the difficulty is always rising.

[schone]

How many GHash/sec are you getting with those 2x5970?

Are you generating less than 13.07BTC/day? 

[grndzero]

building from scratch.

Any idea how much you're looking to spend?

2 x 5870's put up better numbers than than 1 x 5970 but use more power since there's 2 cards. 5970's are more than twice as expensive as 5970's, even on ebay. So for those you are looking at a power vs price trade off.

6990's are newer and roughly the same price range as 5970's. Drivers work on Windows and there's mixed success on Linux. There's probably room for performance gains in future drivers.

You have to decide how much you're looking to spend, which cards and how many, find out what power supply will support those, a motherboard with enough slots to support the cards (up to 4 cards, but it's not cheap), etc.

If the box isn't going to do anything other than mining, you can get away with the lowest power and speed CPU for the board you pick, and 1-2G of memory since the CPU and memory aren't used in the mining process, only running the system hosting the cards.

My Ubuntu installation is less than 4G, so you can use a decent size/speed hard drive or small SSD.

[dust]

How many GHash/sec are you getting with those 2x5970?

Are you generating less than 13.07BTC/day? 

Each GPU is around 285Mh/s so 1.14Gh/s total.  Stock clocks, poclbm.  I'm going to upgrade to Phoenix miner.

[[Tycho]]

Curious for the PSU suggestions for a dual 5970.  Seems you could get by with a good 850 watt like an HX850?

850W is recommended, but good 750W one will work too (not recommended). Don't use cheap nameless PSUs, they are usually overrated.

[schone]

building from scratch.

Any idea how much you're looking to spend?

2 x 5870's put up better numbers than than 1 x 5970 but use more power since there's 2 cards. 5970's are more than twice as expensive as 5970's, even on ebay. So for those you are looking at a power vs price trade off.

6990's are newer and roughly the same price range as 5970's. Drivers work on Windows and there's mixed success on Linux. There's probably room for performance gains in future drivers.

You have to decide how much you're looking to spend, which cards and how many, find out what power supply will support those, a motherboard with enough slots to support the cards (up to 4 cards, but it's not cheap), etc.

If the box isn't going to do anything other than mining, you can get away with the lowest power and speed CPU for the board you pick, and 1-2G of memory since the CPU and memory aren't used in the mining process, only running the system hosting the cards.

My Ubuntu installation is less than 4G, so you can use a decent size/speed hard drive or small SSD.

Looking to spend about 1000USD for the 1x5970 installation, but would like to have hardware capable of supporting an extra 5970 and adding that later.

Can I reasonably expect the results shown on http://bitcoinx.com/profit/? about 6.5BTC/day with 1x5970?

[LMGTFY]

Looking to spend about 1000USD for the 1x5970 installation, but would like to have hardware capable of supporting an extra 5970 and adding that later.

Can I reasonably expect the results shown on http://bitcoinx.com/profit/? about 6.5BTC/day with 1x5970?

6.5 BTC sounds about right at the moment. Remember, however, that difficulty changes every two weeks approximately. It almost always increases (it's gone down twice, once fairly recently). As difficulty increases the daily amount of BTC will decrease.

[grndzero]

building from scratch.

Any idea how much you're looking to spend?

2 x 5870's put up better numbers than than 1 x 5970 but use more power since there's 2 cards. 5970's are more than twice as expensive as 5970's, even on ebay. So for those you are looking at a power vs price trade off.

6990's are newer and roughly the same price range as 5970's. Drivers work on Windows and there's mixed success on Linux. There's probably room for performance gains in future drivers.

You have to decide how much you're looking to spend, which cards and how many, find out what power supply will support those, a motherboard with enough slots to support the cards (up to 4 cards, but it's not cheap), etc.

If the box isn't going to do anything other than mining, you can get away with the lowest power and speed CPU for the board you pick, and 1-2G of memory since the CPU and memory aren't used in the mining process, only running the system hosting the cards.

My Ubuntu installation is less than 4G, so you can use a decent size/speed hard drive or small SSD.

Looking to spend about 1000USD for the 1x5970 installation, but would like to have hardware capable of supporting an extra 5970 and adding that later.

Can I reasonably expect the results shown on http://bitcoinx.com/profit/? about 6.5BTC/day with 1x5970?

The 5970 is roughly equivalent to my 2x 5850's and I am getting that on average right now as part of a pool.

[schone]

The 5970 is roughly equivalent to my 2x 5850's and I am getting that on average right now as part of a pool.

Alone (w/o a pool), one wouldn't get the same?

[grndzero]

The 5970 is roughly equivalent to my 2x 5850's and I am getting that on average right now as part of a pool.

Alone (w/o a pool), one wouldn't get the same?

There's no guarantee when you mine alone. Pools help keep the income more toward average.

You might want to look at this site. http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

Right now the 5970 is rated at ~600 Mh/s. I'm sure it can get better with phoenix client.

Edit: Looks like phoenix is getting 347 per core or just under 700 Mh/s.

At 600 Mh/s it would take 7.75 days on average to get 50 BTC on average. But it could take up to 3 weeks.
Even at 700 Mhz it could take 6.5 days on average or 19.5 days if it runs long.

[JWU42]

There is a good deal on the TX950 at newegg.  Not modular but good reviews!

My credit card hates me!

[schone]

The 5970 is roughly equivalent to my 2x 5850's and I am getting that on average right now as part of a pool.

Alone (w/o a pool), one wouldn't get the same?

There's no guarantee when you mine alone. Pools help keep the income more toward average.

You might want to look at this site. http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

Right now the 5970 is rated at ~600 Mh/s. I'm sure it can get better with phoenix client.

Edit: Looks like phoenix is getting 347 per core or just under 700 Mh/s.

At 600 Mh/s it would take 7.75 days on average to get 50 BTC on average. But it could take up to 3 weeks.
Even at 700 Mhz it could take 6.5 days on average or 19.5 days if it runs long.

This is a total noob question but how does one find out how many cores for the 5970?

Also, does it matter if its a 2GB or a 4GB 5970?

How does one join a pool?

[schone]

Also, does it matter if its a 2GB or a 4GB 5970?

It does. 2 GB version eats less electricity and much cheaper.

Does it also produce less MHash/sec? or the same at around 600?

[grndzero]

This is a total noob question but how does one find out how many cores for the 5970?

Also, does it matter if its a 2GB or a 4GB 5970?

How does one join a pool?

There are 2 GPU's (Cores) on the 5970 and 6990. All 5800 and 6800 series have 1 GPU each.

There are quite a few pools, each has their own benefits and drawbacks. The biggest difference between all of them is speed. They vary right now between 200 Mh/s and 15 Mh/s. The bigger the pool, the smaller payment you get, but they are more frequent ... smaller pools don't solve as many blocks but have higher rewards. Once your system is set up you download a client and connect it to a user account set up on a pool website.

The pools are (sorted by current speed high to low) at http://mining.bitcoin.cz, deepbit.net, bitcoinpool.com and btcmine.com.

[schone]

I do not know anybody who actually tried that. But theoretically MHash/sec should be the same. If you have 4GB version it probably would be a good idea to sell it and buy 2x 2GB cards. Twice the bang for the same buck.

I wish they produced 512Kb version of 5970.

P.S. the suitcase coming with some 4GB cards does not increase Mhps either 

Could you tell me if it matters if the PCI-E is x16 or x4?  Does it slow down communications at all?


I'd like to thank you all for replying so quickly to me today! I never got a chance to say thank you.