Efficient rig? For fundraising.

[Da3dalus]

Hey.
So I run a club at my school. We were thinking about making a dedicated mining rig here to mine for some Bitcoins to raise money. What parts would you guys recommend for a low-power rig? We'd like to have a decent hashrate to raise money for the club.
We have some extra cases and hard drives, but I need recommendations on mobo and gpu (or fpga I guess ). and cpu. and power supply.
Money isn't much of an issue since the club has money behind it.

[1715123170]

1715123170

[1715123170]

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[1715123170]

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[rjk]

Hey.
So I run a club at my school. We were thinking about making a dedicated mining rig here to mine for some Bitcoins to raise money. What parts would you guys recommend for a low-power rig? We'd like to have a decent hashrate to raise money for the club.
We have some extra cases and hard drives, but I need recommendations on mobo and gpu (or fpga I guess ). and cpu. and power supply.
Money isn't much of an issue since the club has money behind it.

If all you are worried about is efficiency, get a pocket-sized TP-link router and use it to mine with FPGA devices. Your best bet at this point is probably the Enterpoint quad boards, if you can get in on a pre-order. Otherwise, you could place a custom bulk order for X6500s. If you have a lot of cash to blow, go with the Ztex quads.

[ssateneth]

Your fundraiser probably wont see any return on investment for 2 years if you use fpga. Even using a cheap gpu you wont see roi until like 6 months, and even then it trickles in sloooooooowly.

[rjk]

Your fundraiser probably wont see any return on investment for 2 years if you use fpga. Even using a cheap gpu you wont see roi until like 6 months, and even then it trickles in sloooooooowly.

Yeah I kind of ignored ROI in my suggestions since it sounded like cost wasn't an object but efficiency was vital.

However, if you want to go the GPU route, you could undervolt and underclock some 5970s (used only) or 7970s (new, warranty, etc).

[Littleshop]

Since it is a club, go for donations.  If you don't, you will probably only break even.  Try to get anything you can donated that you do not have, PS, MB, CPU, RAM and especially GPU.  Even if you get a crummy video card donated, as long as it is 5830 or better it should be worth it. 

If you have to pay for all of the parts other then what you have listed, you may not make any money at all, or not within half a year or more.

[Garr255]

What kind of club? If I could get my robotics team to do that that'd be sweet

[Da3dalus]

Since it is a club, go for donations.  If you don't, you will probably only break even.  Try to get anything you can donated that you do not have, PS, MB, CPU, RAM and especially GPU.  Even if you get a crummy video card donated, as long as it is 5830 or better it should be worth it. 

If you have to pay for all of the parts other then what you have listed, you may not make any money at all, or not within half a year or more.

half a year? that's not a problem - I'm gonna be at this school for another three years and by then I'll have found another geek to manage it

What kind of club? If I could get my robotics team to do that that'd be sweet

well, 2 - my robotics team and the Eco Club.

Hey.
So I run a club at my school. We were thinking about making a dedicated mining rig here to mine for some Bitcoins to raise money. What parts would you guys recommend for a low-power rig? We'd like to have a decent hashrate to raise money for the club.
We have some extra cases and hard drives, but I need recommendations on mobo and gpu (or fpga I guess ). and cpu. and power supply.
Money isn't much of an issue since the club has money behind it.

If all you are worried about is efficiency, get a pocket-sized TP-link router and use it to mine with FPGA devices. Your best bet at this point is probably the Enterpoint quad boards, if you can get in on a pre-order. Otherwise, you could place a custom bulk order for X6500s. If you have a lot of cash to blow, go with the Ztex quads.

Which of these is the most profitable?

[rjk]

Which of these is the most profitable?

Here is a quick comparison of various offerings that DiabloD3 whipped up. You may wish to do some research on each device before potentially getting stuck with something you don't want or like for some reason;

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77469.msg887606#msg887606

BFL's mini-rig looks to be the most profitable and efficient of the FPGA options, but hasn't shipped yet. The X6500 is the most efficient, but is a bit expensive per mhash/s so has a longer payback period as well as limited availability. If you get in on the cheap pre-order price, the Enterpoint quads are a good bet, and they should ship within a few weeks, but don't have final software support (yet). The BFL Single is the least efficient outside of GPU mining, but also relatively cheap and fast.

Various ASIC based solutions have not shipped yet, and command a premium because of their novelty and efficiency. Reference Largecoin, and possibly SHAlab.

[Da3dalus]

Which of these is the most profitable?

Here is a quick comparison of various offerings that DiabloD3 whipped up. You may wish to do some research on each device before potentially getting stuck with something you don't want or like for some reason;

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77469.msg887606#msg887606

BFL's mini-rig looks to be the most profitable and efficient of the FPGA options, but hasn't shipped yet. The X6500 is the most efficient, but is a bit expensive per mhash/s so has a longer payback period as well as limited availability. If you get in on the cheap pre-order price, the Enterpoint quads are a good bet, and they should ship within a few weeks, but don't have final software support (yet). The BFL Single is the least efficient outside of GPU mining, but also relatively cheap and fast.

Various ASIC based solutions have not shipped yet, and command a premium because of their novelty and efficiency. Reference Largecoin, and possibly SHAlab.

The BFL single looks like my best bet. Where do I get them, and what setup do they require?

[rjk]

Which of these is the most profitable?

Here is a quick comparison of various offerings that DiabloD3 whipped up. You may wish to do some research on each device before potentially getting stuck with something you don't want or like for some reason;

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77469.msg887606#msg887606

BFL's mini-rig looks to be the most profitable and efficient of the FPGA options, but hasn't shipped yet. The X6500 is the most efficient, but is a bit expensive per mhash/s so has a longer payback period as well as limited availability. If you get in on the cheap pre-order price, the Enterpoint quads are a good bet, and they should ship within a few weeks, but don't have final software support (yet). The BFL Single is the least efficient outside of GPU mining, but also relatively cheap and fast.

Various ASIC based solutions have not shipped yet, and command a premium because of their novelty and efficiency. Reference Largecoin, and possibly SHAlab.

The BFL single looks like my best bet. Where do I get them, and what setup do they require?

You may wish to do some research on each device before potentially getting stuck with something you don't want or like for some reason;

Butterflylabs.com
Each of the options I pointed up has a minimum of one thread on this forum devoted to it and I would recommend that you read them. This is a link to the FPGA sub-forum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=76.0