Good setup. You can even get away with a much weaker CPU such as the Sempron 140. One unknown in that setup for me is the power supply. Is that a good brand? The power supply has to be able to stand up to massive load 24/7 at stable and low temps.
Those are all brand new 5870 cards?
Also you can get away with a much smaller hd or even perhaps a cheap 16 to 32 gb SSD. Hard drives don't consume a super large amount of power but still if you can shave off a few watts why not. If you intend to use linux you can even get away with using only 1 gb of RAM.
The idea is to minimize power consumption and cost yet maximize hashing power, which is 100% dependent on the number and type of video cards you're using.
Yes you're right, the power supply is a bit unknown at the moment. It's not a famous brand, i just picked up one with enough W, because previous one i was looking for was only 950W. I'm considering 100-150W of safety margin, but i'll probably choose another brand.
All the setup is brand new btw, and Yes i will be using Linux, probably Ubuntu or a lighter version such as Gentu.
that's a tremendous case, and probably my next miner box. the silverstone is nice, too.
i would suggest that you not entirely rely on the stock cooling abilities of either, however - plan a few extra bucks for a couple of fan upgrades. the ones in that case are hooked up directly to a molex power connector: which means they're maxed out at whatever (very slow) speeds they run at - probably 600rpm for side and intake, and 800ish for top and rear.
for $20 you can get a nice 200mm fan that's adjustable (look for a 2 or 3 speed - they're infinitely adjustable through their range) - a little more for a 230. and you will definitely want something like this:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0342847that's the most useful gadget i have on my big miner. getting a couple more...
I'm almost forced to buy such a good case because the weather in this city is hot and humid, especially in summer. I don't want to see my house catch on fire suddenly.
So where do you think those extra fans should be headed towards the case?
you can probably get away with using a cheaper motherboard. Just get one with enough pcie slots (width doesn't matter, even 1x will work), and use extenders to convert any non 16x slots to 16x slots for your cards.
I could get a cheaper one, but i'm planning to extend the setup with more cards, so i'm forced to choose a mobo with enough slots. Or do you think it should be better to extend in another way, buying multiple computers?
Thanks for your replies.
