5870s and 5850s are gone. ATI stopped making them a long time ago, and I doubt board makers stockpile previous generation chips. Unless you can point me to a $190 58570 available to buy today I'd say the real price is $324 for the few still around at outrageous prices and ebay.
5830s are still available at $130 shipped (for now) because those cards are terrible for anything other than bitcoin mining and up to now manufacturers have had trouble selling those boards at any price.
It may be possible to use 5770/6770 if they get cheap enough (read: under $80). There is no need to buy $140 gamer boards, plenty of boards exist with 3-6 pcie slots which cost significantly less. I won't do your research for you but I will give you a hint: socket 775. Also, PCIe extenders and PCI to PCIe adapters can be sourced from China much cheaper than you can get them at e.g. cablesaurus (about 70% cheaper).
Hard drives are not needed. One ~1GB USB stick is needed for one machine (or if your router if it has a USB slot and can handle custom firmware), the rest can run completely diskless.
Topic: If I were to setup a mining rig right now, what would be the best setup? (Read 1600 times)
July 13, 2011, 01:41:22 PM
July 13, 2011, 08:39:44 AM
While it's true that GPU prices are an important factor, it doesn't matter how great of a deal you get if you can't get the card to produce good results. What are the hash rates on your other 5830s? I've found that the 5830's are about the best cards that are presently available which provide the most "bang for your buck". For example, if you can press them above 300Mh/s, which is a reasonable rate for that card, you're already getting over 2Mhash per dollar spent on the 5830 card as long as you paid under $150 for it! A quick search on Newegg shows a Sapphire 5830 for $129.99, which is well within these parameters. Not a bad ROI at all!
The post before mine mentions a 5870 card for $189, which would be a good deal as well, however I can't seem to find a brand new 5870 listed for sale anywhere on the web, let alone for a price anywhere close to that. The Radeon 58xx cards seem to be harder and harder to come by anymore. It wouldn't surprise me to see the Sapphire 5830 from Newegg disappear soon as well. At $130, it's not a bad deal at all, but again it all depends on what hash rates you can get from your cards. Good luck!
The post before mine mentions a 5870 card for $189, which would be a good deal as well, however I can't seem to find a brand new 5870 listed for sale anywhere on the web, let alone for a price anywhere close to that. The Radeon 58xx cards seem to be harder and harder to come by anymore. It wouldn't surprise me to see the Sapphire 5830 from Newegg disappear soon as well. At $130, it's not a bad deal at all, but again it all depends on what hash rates you can get from your cards. Good luck!
The problem is your thinking about only the card. The card alone can get over 2 megahash but when you add the cost of an entire server the best you can expect to see is around 1.58 megahash per dollar.
I'm getting around 440MH/s out of mine. I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a chart comparing MH/s, cost, and power consumption and the 5870 is THE card to get for MH/s vs. Power used.
If you add up the costs for a server (bare minimum)cpu- $30
ram- $10
psu- $150
mobo- $140 (if you know cheeper then this with 4 pci express then let me know)
hd- $15
PCIe x16 Extender Cable $12*4
5870 $190x4
= $1,153
(440x4)/1153=1.53 megahash per dollar(full server cost)
with 5830
5830 $110x4
= $833
(330x4)/833=1.58
So as long as you go the absolute cheapest route 5830 rig at 110 is better but not much so. If you add a case or more to the cost at all the 5870 at 190 will probably overcome the 5830.
This is the very important part if you invest more money into the server then this the gaps between the ratios get even larger.
I recognize that these cards are not for sale at the moment and the 5830 at 130 is probably the best deal at the moment. That doesn't mean you should buy it. If I am going to invest in more hardware its going to most definitely be a better card then the 5830 at 130.
July 13, 2011, 12:31:07 AM
While it's true that GPU prices are an important factor, it doesn't matter how great of a deal you get if you can't get the card to produce good results. What are the hash rates on your other 5830s? I've found that the 5830's are about the best cards that are presently available which provide the most "bang for your buck". For example, if you can press them above 300Mh/s, which is a reasonable rate for that card, you're already getting over 2Mhash per dollar spent on the 5830 card as long as you paid under $150 for it! A quick search on Newegg shows a Sapphire 5830 for $129.99, which is well within these parameters. Not a bad ROI at all!
The post before mine mentions a 5870 card for $189, which would be a good deal as well, however I can't seem to find a brand new 5870 listed for sale anywhere on the web, let alone for a price anywhere close to that. The Radeon 58xx cards seem to be harder and harder to come by anymore. It wouldn't surprise me to see the Sapphire 5830 from Newegg disappear soon as well. At $130, it's not a bad deal at all, but again it all depends on what hash rates you can get from your cards. Good luck!
The post before mine mentions a 5870 card for $189, which would be a good deal as well, however I can't seem to find a brand new 5870 listed for sale anywhere on the web, let alone for a price anywhere close to that. The Radeon 58xx cards seem to be harder and harder to come by anymore. It wouldn't surprise me to see the Sapphire 5830 from Newegg disappear soon as well. At $130, it's not a bad deal at all, but again it all depends on what hash rates you can get from your cards. Good luck!
July 10, 2011, 09:16:27 PM
Keep in mind the price of a gpu is everything. I've seen deals like the 5870 at 189 that destroy the 5830 at 130. If you can get a hold of the $110 5830 that's your best bet. Also keep in mind megahash per dollar may be better for a specific card but it diminishes the more you add to the server(like including the cost of a case). Don't buy a server unless you can get at least 1.5 mega hash per dollar spent towards the server because you'll just be wasting money.
July 10, 2011, 08:18:17 PM
It all depends on your local market GPU prices, but in general: 5850, 5870, 5970 and 6990 are good, but then again it depends how much you can buy them for.
July 09, 2011, 09:27:37 PM
Sounds like you're on the right track there -- whichever cards you can get most economically, a motherboard to fit them into, a beefy power supply, and as little for everything else as you can get away with.
I personally would not and am not constructing new rigs right now because I don't believe it to be profitable. I would recommend running the numbers again.
I personally would not and am not constructing new rigs right now because I don't believe it to be profitable. I would recommend running the numbers again.
July 09, 2011, 09:21:38 PM
I was thinking about having the same parts like my other mining rigs, 4-5 5830s. I just wanted to hear you guy's opinion...
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