You just need a regular desktop with the fastest CPU you can afford, water cooled and overclocked. Make sure the
mobo supports OC and everything else can be stock. And of course use the miner in my sig.
Thanks for the assistance. What I am planning to test mining on is
https://z.cash/Right now I think it can be mined only be CPU. They have a testnet and I would like to play around with mining there. Do you think it will switch to GPU mining later once a mainnet is already set up? I have noticed that most of the POW coins started with CPU mining then GPU mining later started. I have also read that the zcash developers want it only to be mined by CPU only. Is that possible?
Do the coins mined on the testnet have any value? Like can they be traded for real coins after launch?
As for the botnets, he means hackers that control large amounts of hacked computers can then use those computers to mine the coin. Since hackers don't pay electric they can mine for free since they stole access to the computers. usually coins that can be mined easily with cpu make it hard for people to mine profitably with their own computers since they are competing against botnets with free electric.
The 8gb ram would make it harder for botnets, users of zombie pcs that have been hacked are much more likely to notice there is something wrong with their computer.
GPU mining usually eventually becomes available for all algorithms even coins designed to be CPU only. some algos like those on minergate for Monero the GPU doesn't have a real big advantage over the CPU in terms of efficiency, watts/hash. So this makes it more of a level playing field and the coin can be mined by both GPU and CPU. So it's possible that even when someone makes software to mine zcash on a GPU that it will won't kill CPU mining, they'll both coexist.
minergate is pretty good, especially if you're new to mining. joblo's miner cpu-mineropt is also great it can mine a ton of different coins. I'd be willing to bet both minergate and cpu-mineropt both have zcash after it's launched.
As for hardware get a regular desktop motherboard and the most expensive CPU you can afford. When picking out a motherboard I'd look for one with extra PCIe slots so if GPU mining becomes available and you want to add graphics cards you have extra slots to add more. If you really are investing in a mining computer just for mining this motherboard is one most people use because it can hold up to 6 GPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157528A great site to pick out parts making sure they are compatible
https://pcpartpicker.com/
