Topic: A question about mining rig (need experienced advice please) (Read 941 times)

Theoretically you can pull 80% of a Gold PSUs continuous wattage rating, more or less forever - 'forever' is required when mining.  So you've got a 680 watt PSU as far as mining is concerned.  Unless the Corsair is Silver, which means 70-75% is your practical limit.  slarow86 is right though - Corsairs really aren't top of the line.  I never mined with less quality than a Cooler Master - and I did that (mined) from Q1 2011 through August of last year.

Those 7950s of yours max out at a bit over 200 watts each, if you clock them.  So at the least, you need 1200 watts just for the cards (but don't forget the rest of your system).  slarow86 is also right about running that kind of juice through your motherboard.  Go to the Mining forum - you want two PSUs, with the second cross-connected on one rail and running just two or three of the cards off the motherboard bus.  There's good instructions to be found on the forum.

Don't worry about the riser cables (n.b., get cables, not hard risers - the cables give you a lot more latitude when positioning your GPUs).  If they work for five minutes, they'll work forever.  I imagine bitcoinstore has good ones - it's one of Roger Ver's sites and I bought some from him on a different site of his a couple years ago.

In general, it sounds like you have some more in-depth research to do.  Mining forum.  Folks are generally helpful there.

I have to say please tell me this isn't a serious question???

If so, I apologize

- 850W PS is far from the best on the market (go for at least a 1250+W)
- Running 5 GPU's on 1 PS risks frying your MB/PS/GPU's

So no it is not recommended, 3 GPU's per 1 PS is considered "safe" for the hardware, and seeing how old those cards are now you would be using way more power than say a newer GPU.

I have a corsair TX 850 PSU. It's supposed to be one of the best on the market, my question is - can it take 5x 7950's mining scrypt?

Also, I need to buy five GPU risers but I can only find some cheap looking Chinese ones on amazon, what brand do you guys recommend?

Thank you!