Topic: My second ZEC + XMR+ ETH thread builds info links thoughts and photos. - page 103. (Read 147923 times)

Plus you alway can buy a Home Depot gift card with 10-14% discount

 I paid $49 or something like that for a 5-shelf "Muscle Rack" wood-shelf unit from Home Depot a couple months back.
 It's rated to handle MORE load than any wire rack I've seen short of high-end commercial EXPEN$$IVE stuff.

 It's "only" 36" wide not 48" but less $$ on a per-unit basis - should be able to handle 2 6-card rigs per shelf with enough space between the cards for decent cooling.


 I've seen the 4-shelf varients on sale regularly for around $30.

wire racks are for bigger builds  say 3 or 4  maybe 5   six card rigs.

they roll easy   this rack can do  many rigs

 http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-48-in-W-x-72-in-H-x-18-in-D-Decorative-Wire-Chrome-Finish-Commercial-Shelving-Unit-6T60184872C/100655787


wood is cheap for mounting the mobos

http://www.homedepot.com/p/1-in-x-2-in-x-8-ft-Furring-Strip-Board-160954/100009348

89 for the rack  and 5 pieces of wood for 6 bucks  you are at 95 dollars a bag of zip ties for 8 more

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-8-in-Tie-Canister-Assorted-500-Pack-4in-8in-colors-500/203531932 

and it is 103 bucks


then  get a few fans

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lasko-20-in-3-Speed-Box-Fan-3733/100405665

 say 3  for 48 you are at 151  maybe 160 with tax and you can be doing 18  to 30 gpus


this is a common way to do a dense setup   using maybe 5000 watts if you are doing 30 rx 480's.


A lot has to do with scaling your builds to the space/power/cooling/heat   you have .

My house can do 3kwatts in the summer  due to heat issues.

My house can do 6kwatts in the winter due to over  heating  issues. 

I can supply 10 kwatts in my house  as I have 2x 30 amp 240volt  mining circuits.

I have never done 10 kwatts of mining in my house.

 Why not just buy one of the wood-shelf type racks instead of having to use a seperate piece of wood (that adds cost)?

 Home Depot, Menards, and Lowes all sell low-cost ones, usually for the same OR LESS than those wire-rack things.

Ya, definitely Phil. I usually search the free section of craiglist and have been able to acquire all the materials for free, just have to buy the screws. Even if you're unable too, 30$ is pretty sweet deal but the satisfaction of being a man and building something 

that video was pretty good.  and it shows why six card rigs have popularity .

that angle is about 10 bucks in lowes you need two  so 20 bucks  and the wood  screw  is under 8 dollars.

So if you have the right saw to cut the metal it is about 30 bucks to build it.

Here is an open rig case build

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfE_QidD75M

I prefer the wire rack but have built various wood, pvc, and metal frames similar to the one in the video. I did it more for fun when I was bored and drunk on the weekends.

Yes I did but Apple in their infinite wisdom locked down mac minis after the 2012 models.  Mods were no longer practical to do.

I used to buy an i7 quad core 2012 mac mini  in the refurbished section of Apple store for 699 with a government discount of 50 bucks 649.  I will add 16 gb ram and a 500gb ssd with the stock hdd and run as a fusion 1.5 tb drive then add 1  dual external hdd for  backup and sell this to local mixing and recording studios. I could sell it for 1200 make a small profit.  And the artist would save about 500 buying from me.

This dies when the mac mini came out in 2014 with solder ram and pci ssds.

But I still make a recording /mixing  pc  use the Lenovo m700 tiny

I pull the g4400t cpu put it in a mining pc  and sub a 6400t

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-6400T-processor-LGA-1151-CM8066201920000/dp/B01BH4XX74/ref=sr_1_1?

then I pull the 128gb ssd in the pc and sub a 1tb ssd and I add more ram

so the mixer recorder guy ends up with a nice small pc for mixing and recording.

And I get the best possible cpu to mine with if you use a 1151 socket  a g4400t

lenovo runs its labor day sale every year so I new the 6400t psu's I got for the miners would swap into the lenovo's

If I remember you used to modify and upgrade a lot of Mac Gear and sell on ebay before you got into mining back in 2012 am I correct?

  Some Where in the first 44 page thread I explained  why I do 4 card and 2 card builds. Some in cases some on plywood as  I have  5 to 7 gamer friends I will sell rigs to.  I sold about 9 rigs back in the day when btc was mined with  pc's+gpus.
I will sell two card rigs to friends family maybe one or two here.  They will be sold as gamer/miner rigs.

    I also am able to scatter rigs around the house from Oct to April  and space heat my home. I also have 1 two card pc  in the Brooklyn Navy yard at my friends shop it mines 24/7/365 it is quiet and mines in a pc case.  The deal on that is 50 50 split on the coins it earns.



Below is why you build a six card rig  one spot for all the gear with no intention of selling pc's down the road.
Yeah a six card build with risers  on the asrock board is the cheapest way to go.  use the pentium  g 32?? cpu  

 you can do the mobo for 85 the cpu for 45 stick of ram for 40 a cheap ssd for 50 that is 220 and a 1000watt  psu on sale is 100-130 5 risers 50  so 400 for six

cards
use a piece of wood to mount the board and hang the cards from a shelf
add a box fan or 2  and you can have a  lot of gear in one spot

sure one can go cheaper.

but some build them for later resale value as game machines/whatever or to repurpose them or their parts in other builds  after mining.

Interesting thread, but all these setups are insanely inefficient IMHO. Expensive mobos which give you nothing extra for mining...

Here's a golden tip:

- Asrock H97 Anniversary, will run 6 cards easy, $70
- 8gb ram (2x4gb) ddr3 $50
- G1840 CPU Intel Celeron $40
- PSU of your choice to support your cards. I'm running 1KW Corsairs.
- Any 64gb SSD you can buy for $30
- Some risers, unpowered, cheapest 1x to 16x type, standard PCI-E no USB fancy stuff $10


Now use those risers and space your cards as maximum as you can, even thorse 150W cards run hot when sandwiched together.


You're done. Your hash will be higher due to extra spacing, your setup costs are minimum, you have easy access to all your cards due to open construction and plenty of spacing.

If you put it in a case using risers it could fit ok in a full tower but you will not be able to stand the case vertical or the gpus will bend downwards.  IMO building a open air case is the best way to go and your imagination is the only limit on design.  I use pvc and a board in the bottom that I mount the mobo, hdd and psu on.  You can construct it out of wood or a variety of other things but pvc is super cheap and sturdy so I went with that.

Some guys sell metal frame open air case setups for like $150 so I say F that and build one for under 10 bucks.  You will feel good about saving a ton of money and making something with your own hands.

Hey Phil,

Thanks for this thread. I might mine with some GPU at home this winter

Question 1, is worth to pay more for a 470 vs 480 model and what about the 4G vs 8G ram ?

Thanks !

Herb

ahhhh... ok... now it makes sense, thank you!  So basically, if I want to fit my rig into something like an ATX tower, this Mobo would not really be an option as I would imagine the risers would make it impossible for everything to fit?  Maybe this is another sign to opt for an open air design... like built on a platform as someone else posted in this thread previously.  Seems like it's gonna run at least $200-300 more to get into a large chassis for this. Will have to do some more thinking on that part but I think it's time to pull the trigger on those MSI 470's :-)

The smaller slots work perfect for usb power risers, this board would not work to if u want put all the gpus on the board and not have risers.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/172226185366 I use similar ones like these

thanks Rocky, I appreciate your input!  Maybe you can explain something to me about that ASrock MoBo you linked.  That was one that I was originally looking at but it only has 1 PCIe 3.0 slot, correct?  The other 5 appear to be the smaller PCIe 2.0 slots.  Don't those MSI 470's require the longer 3.0 slots?  Not sure what Im missing but doesnt seem that board could handle more than 1 470.

I would recommend the H97 Anniversary..not the H97M! (the one I use is linked below). I linked what I could find on amazon, just 2 days ago I got another h97 anniversary mobo for $84 brand new. They come in waves every week or two at 84$ when they have them instock. They can run 6 cards easily.

https://www.amazon.com/ASRock-H97-Anniversary-Intel-Motherboard/dp/B00N9399TS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473472313&sr=8-1&keywords=h97+anniversary

I have 6 miners with these mobos running 4-6 cards per board. I use a wire rack I got from home depot (listed below). They have various styles to choose from. There is a 20$ version that can hold 4 rigs easily. I used that for months before I bumped up to 6 rigs. For cooling I have a huge fan blowing on low for the bottom four miners and 2 individual computer case fans blowing on the top miners. Its quiet, efficient, cheap and they run smoothly.  

http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-4-Shelf-Steel-Shelving-Unit-in-Ivory-EH-WSTHDUS-004W/205885549

I use gpu powered risers without issue unless you get these ones (linked below). I have never had issues, I always have a few on hand though in case something happens.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.15637399

I use the MSI 470 that you linked. They work great. Good luck!

Hope this helps.

Thanks for posting your 4-card rig details FullZero! that looks like a great setup but not sure I can justify a $160 case AND a $150-$200 MoBo at this point... UNLESS, I am pretty confident I will go to a full 4-GPU setup eventually.

I still need to look deeper into the case options, but wanted to ask a clarifying question about the 2 MoBo's you are using...

Is really the only (main) difference between the 2 that the $60 more expensive Z170 has the 1151 socket (Intel 6th gen & up), while the Z97 has the 5th gen and lower 1150 socket?  Seemed like the only notable difference to me but not 100% sure.

The other question about MoBo's I have is this... these 2 that you ASRocks that you have listed seem pretty high end. The original ASrocks i was looking at were around half the price of these... as listed below:

$77 ASRock H97 Pro4 LGA 1150 Intel 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157511&cm_re=ASRock_H97_Pro4_LGA-_-13-157-511-_-Product

$100 ASRock Z170 Extreme3 LGA 1151 Intel Z170
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157672

I thought I had read that people had built 4/5-GPU rigs with these, but I am a bit confused how this is possible because it looks like they only have 3 of the long PCI slots (called PCI express?), while the 2 MoBo's you listed obviously have 4.  Since it looks to me like at least the 470/480's I've been looking at require the long PCI slots, how is it that people could get 5 GPUs onto one of the MoBo's with only 3 of those long slots?  I'm guessing here but maybe some of the lower end GPU's only require the smaller PCI slots?

Other than the PCI express vs PCI slots, are there any other notable advantages (for mining) of these 2 OC MoBo's vs the 2 cheaper ones I have listed?

Finally, thanks to all of the valuable info in this forum, I believe I have narrowed my GPU choices down to the following 3 RX 470's.  I have opted for the slightly cheaper 4GB versions, since feedback indicates there is no real advantage (at least mining wise) in paying extra for the 8GB versions.

$200 MSI: this one is my current favorite, maybe just because of the look lol. Weird thing is that unless Im crazy, this was $260 a few days ago, dropped to $250 yesterday, but is now $200 at newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137024&ignorebbr=1

$210 Saphire Nitro+:  I was leaning towards this one before the price dropped on the MSI above.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202229&cm_re=radeon_470-_-14-202-229-_-Product

$200 Gigabyte:  currently my 3rd choice, mainly because it does not have any user reviews on NE yet.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125896&cm_re=radeon_470-_-14-125-896-_-Product


Now, aside from asking for recommendations among these 3 (or others I might be missing), I wanted to ask specifically about this "back plate" issue that has been discussed here as causing both space and heat issues.  I am not really sure what this is referring to as I haven't even seen a GPU in front of me for about 4 years.  Do any of the 3 I listed have this?

Thanks again! Hoping to pull the trigger on at least the MoBo & GPUs by tomorrow

Why not just run the XMR miner and the SIA Go miner with the intensity cranked down?