Topic: Does this Rig look Good? (Read 2049 times)

Do u plan to use windows or Linux. 1050 is a bit overkill. 750 Gold is what i am running with 3x7970 (Linux).

I hope you don't expect the hardware to pay for itself anytime soon.

If you go with commodity hardware (GPU/CPUs) instead of fpgas and asic you should make it useful for other purposes too. E.g. setup a fileserver at home or run a VPN client on that machine....

Then your choices for memory and cpu should reflect that.

Never save on the PSU. It'll bite you sooner or later. Most PSUs are most efficient if they run on 70%-80% power drain.

I like all the things everyone has said, but I wouldn't go with a smaller PSU even if you're not planning on expanding. It may cost a bit more, but I tried to run my rig on PSU that was too small (rig used about 90% of the PUS total wattage) and after a few days of mining away in a hot room caused the PSU to fail. Now I try to run my system wattage at 60-70% of the PSU capacity to keep the load in the most efficient part of the curve (most PSU's have a bell curve for their efficiency), and the psu's stay cooler. Then if you ever want to overclock the cards, or build a BAD ASS gaming rig, you'll have plenty of overhead.

While there are more tools with Windows, BAMT isnt a bad choice if you are running it dedicated and thats it.  I run one system BAMT, and can tweak all I want.  The only draw back I have is that I had gotten used to using Teamviewer to check on my miners and do things.  I gave that up obviously, but really, BAMT does exactly what I want it to do, it boots, starts mining, and runs, and I dont have to touch it.  Power goes out, thats fine, as soon as its restored, my mobo kicks back on, boots right back into BAMT, and off it goes.

I do however still have one machine running with Windows just because I dont want to touch it.  Running fine, no need to meddle at the moment.

Get some $50 three-year-old Sempron system with Windows XP off Craigslist. Plug in 1000W power supply and PCIe 1x->16x extender cables and start mining.

BFL aren't the only ones working on ASIC's, there is Block Erupter as well. Can't blame you for disbelieving BFL, I don't think they can hit their stated numbers either.
However any ASIC based products will have a major impact, since even early results are showing their 130nm design could do 1Gh/s for 10w and apparently they can just stack them. These are really cheap as well (<$1 a chip), their are other parts of course and other costs, so I have to be honest, it's the way forward. But I totally understand wanting to be able to sell up easily if it doesn't work out. Their is no other use for the ASIC outside of bitcoin really, but at their price it's hard to argue, since they'll probably be under $100.

Your rig's full of soon to be obselete gpu's, better off getting a Rasberry Pi and ordering some asics instead because I doubt you'll pay off your system before asics hit (might still make a profit if you can get a good resale price on your gpu's but I wouldn't risk it).

CPU/RAM are unimportant for mining. You can make due with a single core CPU with 1 or 2GB of RAM. I would just go with Ubuntu or BAMT on a 4GB usb drive, as well.

Thanks for the recommendations. I am well informed on ASIC and FPGA. Lets just say, I don't think BFL will meet specs or ship date. Even if so thats the reason for going with 7790 cards . At least I can sell and not lose everything.  Thanks

If you only want to run 3 GPU's, you can get away with a cheaper board. I'm sure you can get cheaper options from ebay.

Motherboard: ASUS M5A78L-M LX PLUS AM3+ AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard 3 PCI-E slots for 60 bucks

Power Supply: I won't fight you against the Seasonic. Many people seem to have their own preferred brand. TBH, if you're mining, make sure it's at least 80PLUS Silver. Try to go for 80PLUS Gold though. Also single rail is a big plus, it means less figuring out load balancing. Your power supply choice meets both of those. I do not believe your system will consume much more than 600 watts with stock volts on the video cards though. I have 4 5870's undervolted and they draw 550 watts on 83% efficient power supply. Anyways, if you don't think you will expand, look into getting a lower capacity power supply, maybe 750 if it saves some money. Also, if you think you'll run out of PCI-E power cables, I find these are amazing. Athena Power Model CABLE-EPCIE1628 16" PCI Express 6-Pin to Dual 8(6+2) Pin Linear Extension Power Converter It splits a 6-pin PCI-E power connector into 2 x 6+2 power connectors.

RAM: You can get away with 2 or 1GB of budget RAM. Dedicated mining on Win7 with 1GB of ram will work fine.

CPU: Overkill. Get a Sempron 130/140/145, save yourself some money and electricity.

HDD: Windows 7 will not install onto a USB flash drive (at least in my experience). You will only need about 15GB to be "safe". You can also look into finding a SATA to SDHC card adapter and install your OS onto an SDHC card. It will save you electricity.
Adapter and 16GB SDHC card $19 for both

Ram is a really unimportant area for a dedicated Rig, 8Gb is overkill, 4 or even 2 will do.
I would go with Linux based OS and an USB flash drive, really no point wasting money on Windows, also Linux is generally more stable.
For a dedicated Rig you could save some money and energy by going for a sempron.
The PSU is definitely a good make, but you could find one with enough cables for all those GPU's, but a slightly smaller wattage. If not it will do just fine.
Good choice in GPU's, they overclock/undervolt well and they will be far easier to resell later down the line.
Good motherboard, should handle it all okay.


I hope you get very cheap electricity since with the difficulty rising, block halving and more FPGA's and ASIC on the horizon, GPU's for brand new dedicated Rigs are not well advised. Sure you can always resell them if needs be, but your energy efficiency and ROI could be a problem later down the line. If Electricity is not an issue and you can get all that at a good price then by all means.

Pretty sure you can find a cheaper board, you didn't put in a CPU so choose a single or dual core Celeron, 2 GB RAM is more than enough, and run it all on a flash drive with Linux. Whether you need a 1050 power supply depends on if you are going to overclock. My 7970 wasn't a very efficient overclocker so my sweet spot was 1000 core volt (from 1112) and 1050 core clock (from 925) consuming about 165 watts. 3x that + 30 from remaining system means you can find a bigger board and another 7970 (or two), or consider a smaller PSU for only 3 GPU's to save some money.

Fist time putting together a dedicated mining rig. I dont want to here about asic or fpga.

ASRock 970 EXTREME4

(3) Radeon HD 7970

SeaSonic 1050

8GB GSkill

AMD Phenom II X4

Corsair 16GB USB Flash Drive or 500GB SATA Drive (I wanted to run BAMT but it seems Win 7 has more tools)

Over spending in any area?

All suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 
If need be, I am willing to spend BTC to get the best setup.