Need Hardware Suggestions (MB and PSU)

[Dalkore]

Hello Community,

I am looking to building a 7970 (3) system to do some testing.   I would like a recommendation on the best motherboard and power supply unit for the money?    It have been looking to Asus and MSI motherboards so if someone has an exact model that will work best for a 3 card setup, that would be great, also include a suggestion if their is a board that works for this and would have an additional slot for 4th card.   I like to show on Newegg, Amazon and Tigerdirect is possible.

As for a power supply unit, I am not sure what to do.  I am in a special power situation but at the same time I want something efficient so I can get the most out of my available power.   I will be underclocking the memory and voltage so you can take that into account.   


Thank you so much in advance for the advice,
Dalkore

[Dargo]

If you are on a budget, this is a pretty good deal from amazon. It's a 1000w PSU (though it says 950) - that should be plenty if you are going to undervolt the cards. It's about 89% efficient - almost good enough for a gold rating. It's not modular, though, so keep that in mind.

http://www.amazon.com/PC-Power-Cooling-Performance-compatible/dp/B003U29C40/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337370078&sr=8-1

For a mobo, I would consider this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157262

Good Luck!

[Dalkore]

If you are on a budget, this is a pretty good deal from amazon. It's a 1000w PSU (though it says 950) - that should be plenty if you are going to undervolt the cards. It's about 89% efficient - almost good enough for a gold rating. It's not modular, though, so keep that in mind.

http://www.amazon.com/PC-Power-Cooling-Performance-compatible/dp/B003U29C40/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337370078&sr=8-1

For a mobo, I would consider this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157262

Good Luck!

Thank you, I am going to try both recommendations.     I will post my results to give back so people can get some wisdom from it.

[Dargo]

No problem, I'm sure you will be happy with those choices. $210 after rebate for a high quality 80+ silver 1000w psu + good mobo that can take up to 5 GPUs with risers (and 6 with a pci to pcie adapter)? That's hard to beat. I have the PSU myself and it is awesome. And the lack of modularity hardly matters in my open air rig. 

[Dalkore]

No problem, I'm sure you will be happy with those choices. $210 after rebate for a high quality 80+ silver 1000w psu + good mobo that can take up to 5 GPUs with risers (and 6 with a pci to pcie adapter)? That's hard to beat. I have the PSU myself and it is awesome. And the lack of modularity hardly matters in my open air rig. 

Would I need a 2nd PSU for a 5 card setup?  Do you have a preferred riser & adapter brand you go with?   I have read about people getting cheap ones and they don't work.

   

[likuidxd]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151110&Tpk=seasonic%201050

I'm more than impressed with this PSU. It is also extremely reasonably priced

[Dalkore]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151110&Tpk=seasonic%201050

I'm more than impressed with this PSU. It is also extremely reasonably priced

That was going to be my original choice.   80 Gold

[DeathAndTaxes]

A +1 on SeaSonic.    But watch out it is hard to go back once you have gone with the best.

[Dalkore]

A +1 on SeaSonic.    But watch out it is hard to go back once you have gone with the best.

Those are the brands I love.  I do love me a Cooler Master case.

[likuidxd]

A +1 on SeaSonic.    But watch out it is hard to go back once you have gone with the best.

Those are the brands I love.  I do love me a Cooler Master case.

You'll never go back to Cooler Master after you've had a taste of Silverstone

[rjk]

A +1 on SeaSonic.    But watch out it is hard to go back once you have gone with the best.

Those are the brands I love.  I do love me a Cooler Master case.

You'll never go back to Cooler Master after you've had a taste of Silverstone

Aha, and once you try Lian Li, you'll ditch both Silverstone and Cooler Master like bad habits.

[Dargo]

No problem, I'm sure you will be happy with those choices. $210 after rebate for a high quality 80+ silver 1000w psu + good mobo that can take up to 5 GPUs with risers (and 6 with a pci to pcie adapter)? That's hard to beat. I have the PSU myself and it is awesome. And the lack of modularity hardly matters in my open air rig. 

Would I need a 2nd PSU for a 5 card setup?  Do you have a preferred riser & adapter brand you go with?   I have read about people getting cheap ones and they don't work.

   

For 5 7970s? Definitely, unless you undervolt them a lot. According to this

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57410.0

you can undervolt them down to 130 watts. So that would be 650 for five plus whatever your mobo/cpu take. That's doable, but it's pushing the PSU more than some are comfortable with. You could get two of the PC Power and Cooling units for $220 and expand to your heart's content, lol. As far as risers go, the cheap ones are very badly made, but if you are only getting the x1 it doesn't matter too much. Even though Cabelsaurus is expensive, they are really good quality, and their x1s are only $6 or so. Frankly, if I were building a rig right now after my experience, I probably would just pay up and get the Cabelsaurus. In my experience, you have to buy two of the cheap ones to get one workable one between the two, but maybe I've been unlucky. I ordered a x16 from amazon (BestDealUSA was the seller) - it was cheap, but quality seemed a bit better than what I got on Ebay. For the pci to pcie adapter, go with Monoprice:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10304&cs_id=1030406&p_id=7001&seq=1&format=2

Works fine and you don't have to wait a week and a half for it arrive like the ones from China. It works without a molex powered riser, but probably not too safe. Cablesaurus has the powered risers - again, expensive, but very good quality. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

You can run the SeaSonic @ 90%+ load 24/7.  I know from experience.  70% to 75% load is nothing.  It won't even blink.

No reason to mess with dual PSU unless you are building a system which pull 1200W+

[jjiimm_64]

You can run the SeaSonic @ 90%+ load 24/7.  I know from experience.  70% to 75% load is nothing.  It won't even blink.

No reason to mess with dual PSU unless you are building a system which pull 1200W+

cant agree more...  SS all the way:)

[Dalkore]

No problem, I'm sure you will be happy with those choices. $210 after rebate for a high quality 80+ silver 1000w psu + good mobo that can take up to 5 GPUs with risers (and 6 with a pci to pcie adapter)? That's hard to beat. I have the PSU myself and it is awesome. And the lack of modularity hardly matters in my open air rig. 

Would I need a 2nd PSU for a 5 card setup?  Do you have a preferred riser & adapter brand you go with?   I have read about people getting cheap ones and they don't work.

   

For 5 7970s? Definitely, unless you undervolt them a lot. According to this

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57410.0

First off, thank for the advice.  I have been building systems long enough to know little things sometimes make all the difference.


Question:  What post on here or somewhere has a good guide on how to under volt your card, hopefully the 7970.  I will be using windows 7 32bit and SDK 2.6.   I have read about using Catalyst or MSI afterburner to undervolt?   Some people talk about just editing the CGminer config file.   I would like to understand the purpose of undervolting beyond power savings (unless that is it) and what the correlation between the GPU Clock, GPU Mem Clock and the voltage is.  Someone mentioned getting a card down to 130 watts each, how do I figure this math out?    As Ludacris said, I want to know "how low can you go"?   

Dal

[Dargo]

Question:  What post on here or somewhere has a good guide on how to under volt your card, hopefully the 7970.  I will be using windows 7 32bit and SDK 2.6.   I have read about using Catalyst or MSI afterburner to undervolt?   Some people talk about just editing the CGminer config file.   I would like to understand the purpose of undervolting beyond power savings (unless that is it) and what the correlation between the GPU Clock, GPU Mem Clock and the voltage is.  Someone mentioned getting a card down to 130 watts each, how do I figure this math out?    As Ludacris said, I want to know "how low can you go"?   

In the the thread I mentioned above, the OP is using MSI Afterburner with overclocking mode 2 (and nothing fancy like bios flashing). The main advantage of undervolting is efficiency in terms of Mhs/watt, but you also get the benefit that the cards run cool and quiet. Power consumption goes up exponentially as you increase voltage, but hash rate does not, so you get a big gain in efficiency by undervolting. Mining is very light on memory, so you can also increase efficiency by lowering the memory clock without throttling the hash rate. How low you can go is partly a matter of experimentation - some cards undervolt (and underclock memory) better than others. My Sapphire 5850s are perfectly happy all the way down to 150 memory, but I have an XFX 5850 that freezes below 425 or so. But this doesn't mean that all Sapphires underclock better than all XFXs. 7970s are very efficient, but there will be variation depending on manufacturer and model. The XFX Black Edition, for example, will be more efficient than the standard edition. Basically, when you undervolt, you are still trying to clock the core as high as you can at the given voltage, so cards that overclock better at stock voltage will generally also overclock better at lower voltage and be a bit more efficient. GPUs are also more efficient at lower temps. In the thread I mentioned above the OP reports getting down to 109w per card (@550 mh/s) with water cooling.     

[Dalkore]

Question:  What post on here or somewhere has a good guide on how to under volt your card, hopefully the 7970.  I will be using windows 7 32bit and SDK 2.6.   I have read about using Catalyst or MSI afterburner to undervolt?   Some people talk about just editing the CGminer config file.   I would like to understand the purpose of undervolting beyond power savings (unless that is it) and what the correlation between the GPU Clock, GPU Mem Clock and the voltage is.  Someone mentioned getting a card down to 130 watts each, how do I figure this math out?    As Ludacris said, I want to know "how low can you go"?   

In the the thread I mentioned above, the OP is using MSI Afterburner with overclocking mode 2 (and nothing fancy like bios flashing). The main advantage of undervolting is efficiency in terms of Mhs/watt, but you also get the benefit that the cards run cool and quiet. Power consumption goes up exponentially as you increase voltage, but hash rate does not, so you get a big gain in efficiency by undervolting. Mining is very light on memory, so you can also increase efficiency by lowering the memory clock without throttling the hash rate. How low you can go is partly a matter of experimentation - some cards undervolt (and underclock memory) better than others. My Sapphire 5850s are perfectly happy all the way down to 150 memory, but I have an XFX 5850 that freezes below 425 or so. But this doesn't mean that all Sapphires underclock better than all XFXs. 7970s are very efficient, but there will be variation depending on manufacturer and model. The XFX Black Edition, for example, will be more efficient than the standard edition. Basically, when you undervolt, you are still trying to clock the core as high as you can at the given voltage, so cards that overclock better at stock voltage will generally also overclock better at lower voltage and be a bit more efficient. GPUs are also more efficient at lower temps. In the thread I mentioned above the OP reports getting down to 109w per card (@550 mh/s) with water cooling.     

What about the Sapphire 7970?   I went with those because the fans looked better than other models in the same price range. 

[Dargo]

what about the Sapphire 7970?   I went with those because the fans looked better than other models in the same price range. 

That's a good choice. Traditionally Sapphire has been one of the best, if not the best, brand for mining. For the 5800 series, at least, Sapphire is my go-to brand, and I'm wary of anything else. And I'm not aware of any reason to think different for the 7970s. I noticed that the user reviews for the Diamond 7970 are very good, which is a bit surprising b/c Diamond is usually considered one of the crappier brands. But the XFX 7970 (especially the black edition) is a good choice, and one that a lot of miners seem to be going with. Another advantage of the Sapphires you went with is they don't have the blower-style fans, so they will quieter. But on the other hand they will be harder to keep cool in a case since they will exhaust more hot air into the case. But IMO if you are serious about mining, you should go with open air DIY case, and for that your choice will be quiet and will probably cool better as well. If you don't want to build your own open air case, I think there are still people selling good ones on the forum. They may be more than you'd like to pay, but I think it is just a waste to go with a traditional case, unless you are in a situation where you absolutely need to keep things neat and covered up. And it will be very difficult to get more than 3 cards in a traditional case while keeping everything cool. I got a traditional case for my first build, and that was the biggest regret I had - that case now sits in a corner collecting dust.

[Dalkore]

what about the Sapphire 7970?   I went with those because the fans looked better than other models in the same price range. 

That's a good choice. Traditionally Sapphire has been one of the best, if not the best, brand for mining. For the 5800 series, at least, Sapphire is my go-to brand, and I'm wary of anything else. And I'm not aware of any reason to think different for the 7970s. I noticed that the user reviews for the Diamond 7970 are very good, which is a bit surprising b/c Diamond is usually considered one of the crappier brands. But the XFX 7970 (especially the black edition) is a good choice, and one that a lot of miners seem to be going with. Another advantage of the Sapphires you went with is they don't have the blower-style fans, so they will quieter. But on the other hand they will be harder to keep cool in a case since they will exhaust more hot air into the case. But IMO if you are serious about mining, you should go with open air DIY case, and for that your choice will be quiet and will probably cool better as well. If you don't want to build your own open air case, I think there are still people selling good ones on the forum. They may be more than you'd like to pay, but I think it is just a waste to go with a traditional case, unless you are in a situation where you absolutely need to keep things neat and covered up. And it will be very difficult to get more than 3 cards in a traditional case while keeping everything cool. I got a traditional case for my first build, and that was the biggest regret I had - that case now sits in a corner collecting dust.

Sweet.   I thought it looked good, but I didn't think about the blower style, I might of gone the other way if I did it again.   

Case:  Have you seen this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353001 

Any thoughts on using those?

[Dargo]

what about the Sapphire 7970?   I went with those because the fans looked better than other models in the same price range. 

That's a good choice. Traditionally Sapphire has been one of the best, if not the best, brand for mining. For the 5800 series, at least, Sapphire is my go-to brand, and I'm wary of anything else. And I'm not aware of any reason to think different for the 7970s. I noticed that the user reviews for the Diamond 7970 are very good, which is a bit surprising b/c Diamond is usually considered one of the crappier brands. But the XFX 7970 (especially the black edition) is a good choice, and one that a lot of miners seem to be going with. Another advantage of the Sapphires you went with is they don't have the blower-style fans, so they will quieter. But on the other hand they will be harder to keep cool in a case since they will exhaust more hot air into the case. But IMO if you are serious about mining, you should go with open air DIY case, and for that your choice will be quiet and will probably cool better as well. If you don't want to build your own open air case, I think there are still people selling good ones on the forum. They may be more than you'd like to pay, but I think it is just a waste to go with a traditional case, unless you are in a situation where you absolutely need to keep things neat and covered up. And it will be very difficult to get more than 3 cards in a traditional case while keeping everything cool. I got a traditional case for my first build, and that was the biggest regret I had - that case now sits in a corner collecting dust.

Sweet.   I thought it looked good, but I didn't think about the blower style, I might of gone the other way if I did it again.   

Case:  Have you seen this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353001 

Any thoughts on using those?

That a good price for a test bench, but it doesn't leave you with any way  to raise the GPUs above the mobo for use with risers. Personally, I would go with something much cheaper like this

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=25815.msg375543#msg375543

at least until you have time to build your own or find someone who can sell/build one for you. Ugly, but effective, and makes it very easy to switch cards around if you need to. One thing you would want to add to that "design" is some stiff wire or clips running between the cards to keep them from toppling against each other. Also get some mobo standoffs so the mobo rests up off the ground. With those additions, this is actually a very workable setup. Yeah, I know, it seems crazy after you've got all this other sweet hardware to have it resting on such a ghetto framework, but it works fine, and is a good solution until you can find something more permanent. Keep in mind that your initial experimentation with your system may influence your ideas for what kind of open air case you really want, so there's no harm in going with something cheap and flexible initially. Mining is definitely one of those things where you experiment and learn as you go along, and it is wise not to invest too much money in things you think you need before you have even mined your first share. The case I spent $80 sitting in the corner is a testament to that. Initially I thought it was too "ugly" to have my hardware resting on some ghetto rack, but then I discovered that it was much uglier seeing my cards overheat in the case, lol.