Pictures of your mining rigs!

[malevolent]

Teh-Real-Link... very neat.. and nice.. but are you using these PCs for anythings aside from mining? If the answer is no you could have saved a ton of money with:

1) buying second hand hardware
2) using linux (if you are inexperienced with non-windows systems, BAMT is the best way to go for mining - you can start mining within less than a quarter of an hour at most)
3) cheap 1, max. 2 core low-end cpu with a box cooler
4) no case or improvised one (can cost $0-10).
5) less ram (2 GB for win7 64-bit, 1 GB for other OS'es)
6) LCDs, keyboards, hdds (you can use a 4 GB memory stick) etc.
7) cheaper motherboards (but not cheapest, best if there is at least ATX 24-pin connector and EPS12V 8-pin) - something with 1-2 PCI-E x16 slots and 3-4 PCI-E x1 slots + extenders = saved $$$ and lower temperatures.

[The-Real-Link]

  Ah gotcha.  Thanks for the suggestions.  Again guess I'm just used to complete systems, I'm afraid.

  The extra hardware (not counting the palty discount on RAM and not factoring in HDD) for all the monitors, CPUs, KB/mice, and CPU coolers only amounts to about $420 over the baseline as-low-as-you-can-go-on-Newegg prices - at this rate, the price of one 5970.  Well, again, as low as *I* wanted to go on prices.  Now, aside from the fact that at the moment, the only system that has a UD7 that could take a 3rd 5970 in it, I was debating on having to swap the LEPA G900 for one of the 1,200w units (looking at about 700w load for the system and 2 cards already so a third would put that wattage very close to, if not over, the limit).  

  Now CPU-wise ok I might be $120 over from getting cheapo single cores.  When I bought an X3 and saw that the two cards pegged it to 100%, I wasn't sure if it was just a bug compared to the CPU being powerful enough to keep the cards fed.  I think now it is rather the former and if a single core is really good enough to mine with then that's good to know.  But why spend 66% of the cost of a quad CPU on something that would suck for pretty much every other task except mining?  Can't BOINC on a single, nor render or anything for any decent efficiency.  Maybe my thought is just flawed but then again I thought I was building pretty "cheap" compared to previous systems I've had.  This thread still has shown me that no, you can go cheaper (much cheaper) .  Oh well, live and learn.

  Again these were originally intended to run at home where I could barely keep temps at decent levels (IMO, mid-70s and below) with two cards, let alone 3.  Now that they're in a cooler location I could probably spend a bit of time to swap things out if I had to.  I have all 5970s working away at the moment though so until I can do more builds or get more cards, I might be losing 200MH due to temps overall at the moment (ideal VS current setup).

[malevolent]

  Now CPU-wise ok I might be $120 over from getting cheapo single cores.  When I bought an X3 and saw that the two cards pegged it to 100%, I wasn't sure if it was just a bug compared to the CPU being powerful enough to keep the cards fed.  I think now it is rather the former and if a single core is really good enough to mine with then that's good to know. 

CPU usage bug depends from cards, drivers and system you're using, if you are using linux you will probably be able to avoid this bug but if windows is a must then in the task manager you can change cpu affinity for your miner and make it run only on one core so CPU usage falls to 50% (assuming no other cpu resource consuming apps are not running in the background).
On 12.1 drivers with 2.6 sdk I noticed lower hashrates when miner was using 100% of core0 on Q9300 @ 1.8GHz. Only when I let it use all 4 cores would it return back to 'normal' speed.
No such issue on previous drivers (11.5, 2.3 sdk)

[The-Real-Link]

  Now CPU-wise ok I might be $120 over from getting cheapo single cores.  When I bought an X3 and saw that the two cards pegged it to 100%, I wasn't sure if it was just a bug compared to the CPU being powerful enough to keep the cards fed.  I think now it is rather the former and if a single core is really good enough to mine with then that's good to know.  

CPU usage bug depends from cards, drivers and system you're using, if you are using linux you will probably be able to avoid this bug but if windows is a must then in the task manager you can change cpu affinity for your miner and make it run only on one core so CPU usage falls to 50% (assuming no other cpu resource consuming apps are not running in the background).
On 12.1 drivers with 2.6 sdk I noticed lower hashrates when miner was using 100% of core0 on Q9300 @ 1.8GHz. Only when I let it use all 4 cores would it return back to 'normal' speed.
No such issue on previous drivers (11.5, 2.3 sdk)

Ahh, thanks.  Right now I have affinity turned off for all cards on all systems and none are using the CPU at all.  I don't think it's actively affecting my hashrates though - I'm right in line where I'm pretty sure I should be.  I mean, sure I could experiment and see if it improves things for sure but I'm not seeing anything detrimental at the moment (just 100% utliization).

Edit, oh global affinity via task manager, not GUIminer?  Got it.  Will try that.

[DeathAndTaxes]

 Ah gotcha.  Thanks for the suggestions.  Again guess I'm just used to complete systems, I'm afraid.

  The extra hardware (not counting the palty discount on RAM and not factoring in HDD) for all the monitors, CPUs, KB/mice, and CPU coolers only amounts to about $420 over the baseline as-low-as-you-can-go-on-Newegg prices - at this rate, the price of one 5970.  Well, again, as low as *I* wanted to go on prices.  Now, aside from the fact that at the moment, the only system that has a UD7 that could take a 3rd 5970 in it, I was debating on having to swap the LEPA G900 for one of the 1,200w units (looking at about 700w load for the system and 2 cards already so a third would put that wattage very close to, if not over, the limit).  

  Now CPU-wise ok I might be $120 over from getting cheapo single cores.  When I bought an X3 and saw that the two cards pegged it to 100%, I wasn't sure if it was just a bug compared to the CPU being powerful enough to keep the cards fed.  I think now it is rather the former and if a single core is really good enough to mine with then that's good to know.  But why spend 66% of the cost of a quad CPU on something that would suck for pretty much every other task except mining?  Can't BOINC on a single, nor render or anything for any decent efficiency.  Maybe my thought is just flawed but then again I thought I was building pretty "cheap" compared to previous systems I've had.  This thread still has shown me that no, you can go cheaper (much cheaper) .  Oh well, live and learn.

  Again these were originally intended to run at home where I could barely keep temps at decent levels (IMO, mid-70s and below) with two cards, let alone 3.  Now that they're in a cooler location I could probably spend a bit of time to swap things out if I had to.  I have all 5970s working away at the moment though so until I can do more builds or get more cards, I might be losing 200MH due to temps overall at the moment (ideal VS current setup).

Well you learned stuff so that is always a good thing.

Buying a more powerful CPU "just in case" is not good economic sense.  I can see the desire to have cased rigs and going w/ dual 5970s is a good choice in that respect.


BTW the goal isn't "cheap".  My 2.2 GH/s rigs have a $260 PSU.  Hardly "cheap".  It is efficient.
As in what combination of equipment gives me the optimal MH/W, MH/$ and uptime.

[The-Real-Link]

Ok experimented with affinity.  Oddly enough it does not change the hashrate of AMD cards.  It did however, drop my Nvidia's from 130MH or so to 6MH when I set affinity to one core.  No idea why.

Not skimping on the PSU for sure as you said.  No you're right that cheapest is not the best.  I feel I've just been as efficient for MH/$ that I could be.  Of course I could be more efficient as well.  Thanks.

[Qu4k3r]

Ok experimented with affinity.  Oddly enough it does not change the hashrate of AMD cards.  It did however, drop my Nvidia's from 130MH or so to 6MH when I set affinity to one core.  No idea why.

Not skimping on the PSU for sure as you said.  No you're right that cheapest is not the best.  I feel I've just been as efficient for MH/$ that I could be.  Of course I could be more efficient as well.  Thanks.

Are you using cudaminer with your 580?

I have a 570 mining with cudaminer (GUIminer) at 125 MH/s downclocked to 732 MHz. It's an OCd version @ 810 MHz (stock clock) reaches 140 MH/s.

[The-Real-Link]

Ok experimented with affinity.  Oddly enough it does not change the hashrate of AMD cards.  It did however, drop my Nvidia's from 130MH or so to 6MH when I set affinity to one core.  No idea why.

Not skimping on the PSU for sure as you said.  No you're right that cheapest is not the best.  I feel I've just been as efficient for MH/$ that I could be.  Of course I could be more efficient as well.  Thanks.

Are you using cudaminer with your 580?

I have a 570 mining with cudaminer (GUIminer) at 125 MH/s downclocked to 732 MHz. It's an OCd version @ 810 MHz (stock clock) reaches 140 MH/s.

The directory shows:  guiminer\miners\puddinpop\rpcminer-cuda.exe so I presume that's what you mean, yeah.  Currently this second at 132 MH/sec @ 825 core.

[Qu4k3r]

I have to played with flags to find a good balance between hashrate and desktop lag.

my flags are: -aggression=4 -gpugrid=480 -gputhreads=960

You can set aggresion higher, I think default is 6.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_Hardware_Comparison

[The-Real-Link]

I have to played with flags to find a good balance between hashrate and desktop lag.

my flags are: -aggression=4 -gpugrid=480 -gputhreads=960

You can set aggresion higher, I think default is 6.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_Hardware_Comparison

Is this for Nvidia cards only or for AMD?

[malevolent]

Ok experimented with affinity.  Oddly enough it does not change the hashrate of AMD cards.  It did however, drop my Nvidia's from 130MH or so to 6MH when I set affinity to one core.  No idea why.

nVidia cards are more CPU-heavy

[Qu4k3r]

I have to played with flags to find a good balance between hashrate and desktop lag.

my flags are: -aggression=4 -gpugrid=480 -gputhreads=960

You can set aggresion higher, I think default is 6.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_Hardware_Comparison

Is this for Nvidia cards only or for AMD?

Those flags are for cuda (nvidia only).

In that chart you can see flags for all cards.

[The-Real-Link]

I have to played with flags to find a good balance between hashrate and desktop lag.

my flags are: -aggression=4 -gpugrid=480 -gputhreads=960

You can set aggresion higher, I think default is 6.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_Hardware_Comparison

Is this for Nvidia cards only or for AMD?

Those flags are for cuda (nvidia only).

In that chart you can see flags for all cards.

There's one for 2x GTX 580s so messed with that.  Originally used an old thread suggesting a 580 profile and it had worked just fine giving me ~130-140MH/sec.

Original was:  -gpu=0 (used -gpu=1 for my other 580 to make it work) poclbm VECTORS
New is: -gpu=0 -gpugrid=128 -gputhreads=1024
Now up to ~155MH/sec.  Cool

[malevolent]

Are you gonna use those 580's for mining only and 24/7?
it is a waste of electricity, you would do better selling them and buying hd 58xx or 5970

[The-Real-Link]

No the 580s are for gaming, folding, video work and daily use.

[BTC guy]

Nice thread. Was cool checking out all the rigs.     

[BinaryMage]

No the 580s are for gaming, folding, video work and daily use.

Nonetheless, I doubt mining is even profitable, for the electricity cost of leaving them on.

[The-Real-Link]

No the 580s are for gaming, folding, video work and daily use.

Nonetheless, I doubt mining is even profitable, for the electricity cost of leaving them on.

Hmm.

One 580 is giving me atm, 150MH/sec
Let's say 300w draw for card.  That's 7.2 KWH/day or 216 KWH per month x $0.10 here or $21.60 a month.
If one 5970 generates roughly BTC 0.48 a day for ~720MH/sec, let's just divide by 5, so that'd be roughly BTC 0.096 a day x 30 days (keeping it simple here) = BTC 2.88 per month.  2.88 x (we'll say $5) = $14.40  

...  

DARN IT.  
To be honest I'd sell the card and go AMD if their drivers weren't garbage worked ok.  Suppose I could wait for Kepler or sell it for another 5970 or perhaps 7990 if I wait.

[bulanula]

No the 580s are for gaming, folding, video work and daily use.

Nonetheless, I doubt mining is even profitable, for the electricity cost of leaving them on.

Hmm.

One 580 is giving me atm, 150MH/sec
Let's say 300w draw for card.  That's 7.2 KWH/day or 216 KWH per month x $0.10 here or $21.60 a month.
If one 5970 generates roughly BTC 0.48 a day for ~720MH/sec, let's just divide by 5, so that'd be roughly BTC 0.096 a day x 30 days (keeping it simple here) = BTC 2.88 per month.  2.88 x (we'll say $5) = $14.40  

...  

DARN IT.  
To be honest I'd sell the card and go AMD if their drivers weren't garbage worked ok.  Suppose I could wait for Kepler or sell it for another 5970 or perhaps 7990 if I wait.

Wait for Kepler if I was in your position. I have a feeling they are going to rock this time for mining with the GTX780 having 2304 shaders !

Imagine what the GTX790 will do with 2304 SP * 2 = 4608 shader processors ! I think if their arch did not suck at integer performance then it will surely beat that 7990.

And you are 100% right, AMD drivers always will and always have sucked really hard. I hate AMD with a passion for that fact alone. Nvidia is not that much better and they still have shitty drivers ( but much better than AMD ), pity the GTX580 sucks compared to a 5870 but I think Kepler will change that

[BinaryMage]

Wait for Kepler if I was in your position. I have a feeling they are going to rock this time for mining with the GTX780 having 2304 shaders !

Imagine what the GTX790 will do with 2304 SP * 2 = 4608 shader processors ! I think if their arch did not suck at integer performance then it will surely beat that 7990.

And you are 100% right, AMD drivers always will and always have sucked really hard. I hate AMD with a passion for that fact alone. Nvidia is not that much better and they still have shitty drivers ( but much better than AMD ), pity the GTX580 sucks compared to a 5870 but I think Kepler will change that

Both require end-user expertise to work properly. I'm not sure that qualifies them as "sucking", more like "not user-friendly". Nonetheless, I still miss the days of 3DFX.