Hi there !
A couple of friends and I finally decided to jump in the ETH wagon. We know we're a little bit late to the party, but this is what we have been telling ourselves since the beginning of the year so well... at some point you have to act !
So here we are, trying to figure out how to start all this. After spending quite some time on the internet, we're starting to have an idea about where to start but we still have about one billion questions, so I hope you guys will be able to answer few of them !
1. Living in Europe (on both sides of the Channel, the UK and France), we're facing a shortage of RX 470/480/570/580 just like anyone else. Here are what we found (I'll convert the prices in USD so that everyone can have a rough idea of how much it costs).
- HD 7970 3GB for approximately $110 each (reference card)
- RX 570 4GB for $240 each (MSI ARMOR OC)
- RX 560 4GB for $130 (even the 4GB ones are hard to find nowadays)
Now there is one important parameter to take into account : we do not have to pay for our electricity bil, which instantly makes the HD 7970 a relevant card.
What we struggled to find for these cards is their ACTUAL hashrate. We know it can change a lot, depending on the type of memory you end up with. However we really struggled to find some relevant Hashrate information for the HD 7870. All we could find are old message board posts from 2015/2016 which say that the HD 7970 hashrate is anywhere between 15 and 24... Any information on that would be much appreciated!
Regarding the RX 560. While initially it was deemed as not worthy, with the 570/580 shortage it seems like more and more people are buying them. if I'm not mistaken you can get a hashrate of about 14.5mh/s (see here
https://youtu.be/GZsAQziUgdA?t=258 it's in russian but the only thing that matters is the number on the screen !). What's your take on those cards ?
We believe (but we could be wrong !), give the current price, the best option would be to get as many RX 570s as we can for $240 and then... well then we don't know. We don't have enough information on the HD 7870 so we tend to believe that the RX 560 is not a "bad buy", considering we roughly get half the hashrate of a RX 570 for about half the price !
According to you guys, what would be the best buy (bear in mind once again, we do not pay for the electricity cost).
2. Considering we're mainly looking to mine ETH (maybe Zcash later on), what would be the best OS between Windows 7, Windows 10 and Ubuntu/Linux and why ?
3. How do you chose your pool ? I know you have to check out the pay out system, but other than that, how do you check what is the most efficient pool for you (i.e. the one where you get the highest hashrate)? Is there any other way than simply testing them yourself, one by one ?
4. We may start our first rig with different graphic cards plugged onto the same motherboard (old and new hardware mixed, like hd 7870, rx 480, rx 570 etc...). Is it going to be an issue or as long as each card has its own driver, it doesn't make any difference ?
5. That's an important one. Why do you need to change the BIOS of each card ? By changing the BIOS I mean why would you change the frequencies in the BIOS instead of using MSI afterburner or any other OC software ? What's the difference ?
I guess that's it for now, we sincerely appreciate your help ! Thanks !
edit : 7970 (not 7870!)