Hey bogglor, how are XFX cards? They are sold super cheap around here but I've read various users not so happy about them. I'm thinking about getting one.
I like them, they run quiet. I have my rig set up in my basement and I was worried it would be loud, but surprisingly it wasn't any louder than sitting next to a desktop computer.
I bought a kill-a-watt to check my wattage, and doing scrypt mining with the two cards as overclocked as I could get them (and still be stable), my rig was running at 390 watts.
When I bought my ASICs, I left the two video cards plugged in, but idle, and my rig ran at around 85-90 watts, so that's around 150 watts each when fully hashing. My electric bill was $20-30 more than normal each month.
At the time, I paid $119 each for the 7850s (actually, one had a rebate of $30 so really it was 89 and 119), I think it was a great investment especially because the 7950s were $400 and I didn't want to spend that much. Built my whole rig for under $600.
EDIT: as a side note, I got my kill-a-watt because of mining, and I'm *SO* glad I did, because it's such a cool 'toy'. I hooked it up to everything in my house to see how much electricity stuff uses. I had an old VHS/DVD player hooked up to my TV that was using about 10w just being idle - I unhooked that because I rarely used it. And also the CD player component hooked up to my stereo system used like 5-6 watts in it's standby state. I removed that too. It's amazing to see how many things you can just unplug and how much wattage you can save.
You know, we've got a few fronts opened on this thread, some of which are not the most positive (and I take my fair share of responsibility for that), and others, that are a bit more positive and a lot more fun, like this mining rig "front", or 'sub-thread' within the thread, that has me thinking again about yet another that we've mentioned a couple of times about concentrating efforts on bringing new "early adopters" on board. I'm thinking that we could do a lot to help newly interested, ordinary people get involved in mining for the first time by helping them out with rig design. Sound like fun?I'm thinking along these lines:
Most ordinary people want a computer:1) they can do other practical things with, i.e., e-mail, scheduling, photo/movie editing, etc.
2) they can also have fun with, i.e., play a game, watch a movie, do video conferencing, etc.
3) that looks like a normal computer
4) for the best value for the money available
That kind of limits the 'high end' design to a two card system, but that would still be a killer way to get started and start acquiring all the necessary skills to advance to more complicated rigs if so desired.
How about we design a couple of options for folks who want all the above options (not all at once, of course ) while mining DGB at the same time?. . . and keep posting your stats . . . maybe we can get a mining baseline put together . . .
Over time I think a ~28.64 to 1 network hashrate to diff ratio has shown itself to be very reliable, for ALL algos. ( diff * 28.64 = network hashrate).