Topic: GTX 1060 Ethereum rig (Read 253 times)

The general trend for overclocking potential appears to be Samsung > Micron > Hynix. However, the silicon lottery will still make things vary chip-to-chip, so once you have your specific units, it'll be up to you to mess around and find optimal settings on your own.

The top three factors for selecting different card variations on the same GPU+memory size are: Price/availability, cooling design, and power connectors. (Card manufacturer and factory clocks are minor considerations.) In general, for an open-air configuration, I'd avoid blower-style cards unless they are the only model available or if others are significantly more expensive. Cards that require more power connectors can be a pain to deal with, although for *most* 1060s, the only difference should be 8-pin vs. 6-pin power. (And a 1060, even overclocked, shouldn't constantly push an 8-pin power connector to 100% of the 150W spec.)

For PSUs, buy a PSU done by a reputable OEM, such as Seasonic, FSP, or Super Flower. HEC, CWT, Sirfa/Sirtec are *meh*, and I personally wouldn't rely on their PSUs for heavy loads 24/7. Branding is less important than the underlying OEM.
After that, look at the total power rating and the number of connectors. Most 850W PSUs are going to be a pain to scrounge up enough connectors for 6x 1060s, and you'd be cutting it a bit close in terms of overall power, even after changing power/clock settings.

For system RAM, 4GB is fine. DDR4 vs. DDR3 isn't a big deal for mining; it just has to match your motherboard choice.

If you can get a Pentium processor for a similar price, I'd go for that instead of a Celeron. Some mining software makes greater use of the CPU than others. However, a Celeron *should* suffice in most cases.

How do I check what type of RAM the graphic card is?

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

 It is true that only Samsung and Micron RAM allow a good overclock?

from what Ive seen and done it might be true only Samsung and Micron RAM allows good over clocking , can't really say because all my NV cards are either Samsung or Micron RAM . i just happen to buy them that way an had no idea when i bought them . SO I'm not sure . Samsung does seem to overclock better then Micron if that helps any .

Wich GTX 1060 brand should I choose ?

any brand seems ok, all NV 1000 series cards are built well unlike AMD Cards . an I'm a AMD fan.

What kind of power supply do you recommend? 850w is ok?

Yea that fine but a 1200 watter might be better for later on ....

Ram? 4 gb should be ok... DDR 4?

The 1060 only comes with 2 sizes in ram

3 gb and 6gb

Id go with the 6gb because this year some time if what i saw is right the 1060 3gb won't be able to mine ETH anymore but will still be able to mine anything else due to the size of the Dag file out sizing a 4 gb card .

 IF all you plan to mine is ETH ...

570/580 are great for ETH, but they admittedly a major pain in the ass to set up. AMD has been getting progressively harder and harder to mine with. I have 6870s and 7970s that were so easy to mine BTC and scrypt with, and then monero. I was able to mine ETH but only with some fuss on R9 380s and 390s. RX 470s needed bios mod and lots of tweaking on each card, and the 570/580 are even pickier.

If you're willing to put in the time tweaking then go AMD. If you want to set it and forget it buy the 1060s and buy ETH with the equihash coin you mine.

Gtx 1060's do 'ok' for ethereum, but are better at equihash coins. Electricity consumption also tends to be lower so that's a plus.

Would also suggest getting Gtx 1060 6GB versions as you might struggle with the 3GB version being if you're mining ethereum due to the 'DAG' size increases.

The other advice on this forum in terms of CPU choice etc should also help. There is also an ethereum mining sub reddit on reddit that has a good guide you can check out.

Thank all you guys, at this point I'll wait for the RX 570/580...

I just built a 6x GTX 1060 rig so I can give you some hard/relevant numbers. The power draw for the mobo, including that supplied via the PCIe-x16 connectors (ie - the card edge connectors on the GPUs) is 300W; this is "at the wall," so the power supply efficiency is a factor. The actual power drawn by the GPUs via their 6-pin PCIe power connectors is 60W each, for a total of 360W; at the wall this comes out to 400W, as I am using a 90% efficient server PSU. So a total of 700W, give or take.

This rig is mining Equihash at a consistent 1830 Sols/s using dstm 0.5.7 with +120 to +150MHz on the core clock (depending on the card, since I didn't get 6 identical models), and +250 to +300MHz on the mem clock.

I haven't tried any other algos yet because this rig is supposed to be my money-maker, not my playground, but I already benchmarked some of the 1060s individually and Ethash comes in at 21.9 MH/s and Neoscrypt at 650 kH/s (per card for both). One of these days I'll try Lyra2v2, but the one coin I mine with this algo - VTC - has been a serial disappointment.

PSU better get more 850 W. you can choose 1000W or 1200 W or split 2x750 W.

if you want, can choose Asrock pro btc. has 6xGpu slot.

Yep, nVidia is not much for ETH mining ... check https://whattomine.com/ to find coins suitable for your GPUs

I'll also recommend you to purchase powered risers for your muti GPUs rig.

GTX 1060 - not best card for ETH mining,only if u have Samsung memory, will be better to mine Zcash.
- How to check memory? Download GPU-Z app for Windows.
- 4gb - it's enough
- Buy G1840 celeron ( the cheapiest cpu)
-  How to choose motherboard? Find correct soket for cpu  and 6 pci slots. Brand - doesn't matter.

Finally I decided to build my Ethereum rig with 6 Gtx 1060 (6gb version). I would have some questions:

-How do I check what type of RAM the graphic card is? It is true that only Samsung and Micron RAM allow a good overclock? Wich GTX 1060 brand should I choose?

-What kind of power supply do you recommend? 850w is ok?

-Ram? 4 gb should be ok... DDR 4?

-Motherboard and cpu: A normal Celeron would be ok, right?. Wich one exactly? I obviously also need to find a motherboard that supports that type of cpu. ASRock maybe is a good choice. Wich model should I choose?

Thank you!