Starting a ZEC mining farm: Maximum ROI strategy.

Persinon

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Quote from: arielbit on March 28, 2017, 07:23:17 PM

saw a review in youtube about zotac 1080 mini, although it only uses one 8pin pcie (i assumed it uses less power and less heat...maybe), but temps turned me off about 20c difference to galax 1080 HOF...

i think i'm going for zotac 1080 amp extreme, saw some second hand gear that's pretty new ~ $100 less than brand new...i'm not building a 50-100 gpu farm, the price difference with 1070s isn't gonna hurt me, besides gddr5x and extra cuda cores might bring advantages in the future..

..like when people are buying rx 470/480 with 4gb and now they are upgrading again to 8gb, or the time when people are not buying fury series GPU due to its HBM not having advantage for ETH mining.......the cards i will be buying will stay with me for a long time like my 280X's which ROI'd many times..so I'll get the better one..

I heard the GDDR5X is bad for mining.

arielbit

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Quote from: QuintLeo on March 28, 2017, 08:13:42 PM

GTX 980ti is viable on some coins - but keep in mind that it's generation-old Maxwell technology, so the power usage is quite a bit higher for similar performance *in most usage* to a current GTX 1070.

Lowest cost GTX 1070s from NewEgg are commonly $379 (Gigabyte ITX shortie version is regular priced at that, and there are usually 2-4 more of varied make/model "full size" GTX 1070 on sale at any given time at that price point) while the Zotac "mini" is at $539 right now. I do still see a few "lagging price" 1070 in the $530+ range, but I suspect those will all eventually drop except for the ones with a water-cooler setup.

Per PCI-E specs, a single 8 pin connector is good for 150 watts + 75 watts can be drawn from the bus power connection.
The GTX 1080 is normally rated at 180 watts TDP (which is the same for the Zotac, and was the original spec on the Founders Edition) - I suspect the Zotac is going to be heat-limited to a degree on overclocking due to the small size HS/fan setup as much as by the max power that can be drawn.

they will go down in price for sure(all cards do)...as always, i do not know when, but i like to own them now and mine Cheesy

these price differences are somehow negligible to me, its like mining or buying coins.. and when the time you are about to sell the price increases or decreases- the wins or losses we can take..its the nature of the world we live in, specially in the cryptosphere...i'm buying the model with the best cooler(also better clocked) zotac amp extreme 1080.

my mining room is getting crowded, so i need the most sol/s per card, lets say i'm paying a little bit more for space.

QuintLeo

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GTX 980ti is viable on some coins - but keep in mind that it's generation-old Maxwell technology, so the power usage is quite a bit higher for similar performance *in most usage* to a current GTX 1070.

Lowest cost GTX 1070s from NewEgg are commonly $379 (Gigabyte ITX shortie version is regular priced at that, and there are usually 2-4 more of varied make/model "full size" GTX 1070 on sale at any given time at that price point) while the Zotac "mini" is at $539 right now. I do still see a few "lagging price" 1070 in the $530+ range, but I suspect those will all eventually drop except for the ones with a water-cooler setup.

Per PCI-E specs, a single 8 pin connector is good for 150 watts + 75 watts can be drawn from the bus power connection.
The GTX 1080 is normally rated at 180 watts TDP (which is the same for the Zotac, and was the original spec on the Founders Edition) - I suspect the Zotac is going to be heat-limited to a degree on overclocking due to the small size HS/fan setup as much as by the max power that can be drawn.

arielbit

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Quote from: arielbit on March 28, 2017, 02:27:37 AM

Quote from: QuintLeo on March 28, 2017, 01:17:05 AM

Quote from: arielbit on March 27, 2017, 07:27:22 PM

Quote from: aikklond on March 27, 2017, 01:51:25 PM

Is it true that ZEC needs more than 4gb Vram?

my 280x has 3gb vram

@ Amph

take a look at zotac 1080 mini, it only has 1x 8pin pcie, TDP is lower among other 1080s and priced almost the same as 1070s...might perform better than 1070s for ZEC.. having gddr5x compared to 1070s might be a plus too...I am considering it as a 1070 budget wise.

The Zotac 1080 "mini" is priced at a significant PREMIUM to current pricing on a lot of other 1080 models - and is NOWHERE NEAR 1070 pricing for most 1070 cards.
It's also not all THAT small - 9" long appx. vs 10-11 for most other 1080s.

For a TRUE mini card, the Gigabyte "ITX" 1070 7" appx long is still the go-to option IMO - at $150 less than the Zotac IIRC as of this morning when I was checking prices on NewEgg.

GDDRx5 seems to be a small minus for ZEC mining, though the extra cores on the 1080 do seem to help some on ZEC vs the 1070.

thanks for the info..

(brand new)..
the cheapest 1070 here is $440, some are about the same price or more expensive then zotac 1080 mini ($510), ranges from $ 496 to $ 558 , most expensive 1070 here is EVGA GTX 1070 FTW ACX 3.0.

how about the 980 ti..are they still good? specially compared to rx 480?

saw a review in youtube about zotac 1080 mini, although it only uses one 8pin pcie (i assumed it uses less power and less heat...maybe), but temps turned me off about 20c difference to galax 1080 HOF...

i think i'm going for zotac 1080 amp extreme, saw some second hand gear that's pretty new ~ $100 less than brand new...i'm not building a 50-100 gpu farm, the price difference with 1070s isn't gonna hurt me, besides gddr5x and extra cuda cores might bring advantages in the future..

..like when people are buying rx 470/480 with 4gb and now they are upgrading again to 8gb, or the time when people are not buying fury series GPU due to its HBM not having advantage for ETH mining.......the cards i will be buying will stay with me for a long time like my 280X's which ROI'd many times..so I'll get the better one..

arielbit

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Quote from: QuintLeo on March 28, 2017, 01:17:05 AM

Quote from: arielbit on March 27, 2017, 07:27:22 PM

Quote from: aikklond on March 27, 2017, 01:51:25 PM

Is it true that ZEC needs more than 4gb Vram?

my 280x has 3gb vram

@ Amph

take a look at zotac 1080 mini, it only has 1x 8pin pcie, TDP is lower among other 1080s and priced almost the same as 1070s...might perform better than 1070s for ZEC.. having gddr5x compared to 1070s might be a plus too...I am considering it as a 1070 budget wise.

The Zotac 1080 "mini" is priced at a significant PREMIUM to current pricing on a lot of other 1080 models - and is NOWHERE NEAR 1070 pricing for most 1070 cards.
It's also not all THAT small - 9" long appx. vs 10-11 for most other 1080s.

For a TRUE mini card, the Gigabyte "ITX" 1070 7" appx long is still the go-to option IMO - at $150 less than the Zotac IIRC as of this morning when I was checking prices on NewEgg.

GDDRx5 seems to be a small minus for ZEC mining, though the extra cores on the 1080 do seem to help some on ZEC vs the 1070.

thanks for the info..

(brand new)..
the cheapest 1070 here is $440, some are about the same price or more expensive then zotac 1080 mini ($510), ranges from $ 496 to $ 558 , most expensive 1070 here is EVGA GTX 1070 FTW ACX 3.0.

how about the 980 ti..are they still good? specially compared to rx 480?

Zedpust

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Quote from: Faboo005 on March 27, 2017, 08:02:27 AM

Not really. Even with electricity at 10p/KW I loose only about 1/3rd the income. It's still highly viable.

If the ZEC price drops to 0.02, like it did in the last few months, there will be much less profit to be made.

Amph

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Quote from: QuintLeo on March 28, 2017, 01:12:05 AM

Quote from: arielbit on March 24, 2017, 01:53:33 AM

if ROI (profit is also made) is achieved and you are about to reach the maximum electrical limit (with allowance) try adding the top of the line GPUs who have a very high hashrate and very efficient..one by one in the process upgrading your gear.

mining area (space) and efficiency --> put this into the equation

my mining area is already getting filled and my electrical Amperage is about to reach my target, that's why I'm looking at 1080 ti (waiting for aftermarket coolers by different brands). also waiting for vega release..

1080 ti aren't good at mining most coin. IMO stick with the 1070, or wait for the RX 5xx and VEGA.

ZEC is running FINE on some of my HD 7750 AMD cards that have 1 GB RAM.
It's ETH that needs at least a 3GB card to work now (and probably ETC fairly soon).

I don't see 2 rigs of 1070 achieving $2k/month right now (even if they are 6card rigs).
I've GOT 12 1070 cards mining at the moment, and even watching for most profitable coin they're only pulling in $1100-$1200 total - and the "hold" option I can't do as I need the money to pay bills, even when it has been a bonus to income (right now it's not a short-term additional income option, as the big rise in ETH/ZEC/XMR/DASH/etc has stalled out).

On the plus side, the 1070 also eats about HALF the power of my R9 290 cards while hashing even ETH at almost identical rate (the 290 is a beast on ETH), and its got some options for long-term profitability that do not exist for the R9 290 (or any other AMD card currently available).

It might be worth looking at the 1080, but it's profitability on almost anything is going to be about the same as the 1070 while the cost is still noticeably higher.
Depends on what you plan to do with the rig(s) and/or card(s) once the current surge in profitable GPU mining winds down.

you didn't search well for good coins, but i was making 0.03 per rig a day few days ago, mainly new coin + some old coins like nexus that now is dead because diff is very high

i can tell you finally what it was giving me 0.06+ with two rig, since those coins are dead already, they were pascallite and nexus + honeycoin

0.06 with two rig is 1.8 btc a month, that is almost 2k....

QuintLeo

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Quote from: arielbit on March 27, 2017, 07:27:22 PM

Quote from: aikklond on March 27, 2017, 01:51:25 PM

Is it true that ZEC needs more than 4gb Vram?

my 280x has 3gb vram

@ Amph

take a look at zotac 1080 mini, it only has 1x 8pin pcie, TDP is lower among other 1080s and priced almost the same as 1070s...might perform better than 1070s for ZEC.. having gddr5x compared to 1070s might be a plus too...I am considering it as a 1070 budget wise.

The Zotac 1080 "mini" is priced at a significant PREMIUM to current pricing on a lot of other 1080 models - and is NOWHERE NEAR 1070 pricing for most 1070 cards.
It's also not all THAT small - 9" long appx. vs 10-11 for most other 1080s.

For a TRUE mini card, the Gigabyte "ITX" 1070 7" appx long is still the go-to option IMO - at $150 less than the Zotac IIRC as of this morning when I was checking prices on NewEgg.

GDDRx5 seems to be a small minus for ZEC mining, though the extra cores on the 1080 do seem to help some on ZEC vs the 1070.

QuintLeo

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Activity: 1498

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Quote from: arielbit on March 24, 2017, 01:53:33 AM

if ROI (profit is also made) is achieved and you are about to reach the maximum electrical limit (with allowance) try adding the top of the line GPUs who have a very high hashrate and very efficient..one by one in the process upgrading your gear.

mining area (space) and efficiency --> put this into the equation

my mining area is already getting filled and my electrical Amperage is about to reach my target, that's why I'm looking at 1080 ti (waiting for aftermarket coolers by different brands). also waiting for vega release..

1080 ti aren't good at mining most coin. IMO stick with the 1070, or wait for the RX 5xx and VEGA.

ZEC is running FINE on some of my HD 7750 AMD cards that have 1 GB RAM.
It's ETH that needs at least a 3GB card to work now (and probably ETC fairly soon).

I don't see 2 rigs of 1070 achieving $2k/month right now (even if they are 6card rigs).
I've GOT 12 1070 cards mining at the moment, and even watching for most profitable coin they're only pulling in $1100-$1200 total - and the "hold" option I can't do as I need the money to pay bills, even when it has been a bonus to income (right now it's not a short-term additional income option, as the big rise in ETH/ZEC/XMR/DASH/etc has stalled out).

On the plus side, the 1070 also eats about HALF the power of my R9 290 cards while hashing even ETH at almost identical rate (the 290 is a beast on ETH), and its got some options for long-term profitability that do not exist for the R9 290 (or any other AMD card currently available).

It might be worth looking at the 1080, but it's profitability on almost anything is going to be about the same as the 1070 while the cost is still noticeably higher.
Depends on what you plan to do with the rig(s) and/or card(s) once the current surge in profitable GPU mining winds down.

arielbit

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Quote from: aikklond on March 27, 2017, 01:51:25 PM

Is it true that ZEC needs more than 4gb Vram?

my 280x has 3gb vram

@ Amph

take a look at zotac 1080 mini, it only has 1x 8pin pcie, TDP is lower among other 1080s and priced almost the same as 1070s...might perform better than 1070s for ZEC.. having gddr5x compared to 1070s might be a plus too...I am considering it as a 1070 budget wise.

aikklond

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Is it true that ZEC needs more than 4gb Vram?

Maticul

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Quote from: Amph on March 27, 2017, 07:29:19 AM

your strategy is only possible because of zero electricity, otherwise you would earn much less per month, because the consumption for all those old amd are very high and kill half if not more, of the profit

currently you can make $2k per month(this require accurate selection of the coin you mine, private trading, some times holding etc...) with 2 rig of 1070, so i have your same ROI but i also pay electricity....

So the 1070 is very very efficient.

arielbit

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Quote from: Amph on March 27, 2017, 07:29:19 AM

your strategy is only possible because of zero electricity, otherwise you would earn much less per month, because the consumption for all those old amd are very high and kill half if not more, of the profit

currently you can make $2k per month(this require accurate selection of the coin you mine, private trading, some times holding etc...) with 2 rig of 1070, so i have your same ROI but i also pay electricity....

your constant shilling of 1070s is making me want to buy some of that LOL.. with the release of 1080 ti, enthusiast gamers are selling for an upgrade and an enthusiast miner (me) is enticed by the price from these second hand gear.

OP's zero electricity is his leverage to jump start his mining venture...getting the highest possible hashrate for the cheapest hardware he can get, after ROI and beyond the free 3kw, he can start with the efficiency strategy..imagine him buying 1070s one at a time from profit, and long term he might sell those old cards and upgrade to much newer and efficient gear.

Faboo005

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Not really. Even with electricity at 10p/KW I loose only about 1/3rd the income. It's still highly viable.

Amph

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your strategy is only possible because of zero electricity, otherwise you would earn much less per month, because the consumption for all those old amd are very high and kill half if not more, of the profit

currently you can make $2k per month(this require accurate selection of the coin you mine, private trading, some times holding etc...) with 2 rig of 1070, so i have your same ROI but i also pay electricity....

Faboo005

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Yeah I find the second PSU thing works totally fine without any supporting hardware or anything like that. Just short the green and black wires to switch it on, and use it to power additional cards. I don't really understand why people are saying that doesnt work or is bad. I've been running systems like that for months with no damage to PSUs or hardware.

arielbit

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Quote from: Ambros on March 24, 2017, 12:19:38 PM

You are very lucky (because of the energy) and your strategy is good!
Also consider that right now we are all getting almost double that the reward that we got for the last 6 months, ROI can be a little bit longer than expected if this bubble explodes

Quote from: arielbit on March 24, 2017, 08:08:36 AM

less efficient/older/cheaper...up to 3kw of free electricity, the target is cheapest gear to achieve maximum hashrate..after ROI, and going above 3kw, use the most efficient GPU/ PC components because the electricity is not free beyond 3kw, if it is profitable in the long run he can add more rigs and start to phase out the old and less efficient gear and upgrade to the most efficient one by one.

......

BTW i've never used an add2psu since 2013, i just always make sure that the second PSU only powers the extra GPU (it''s riser included)...

OT: You noticed any problem or instability un multi-PSU rigs? I would love to build a couple myself but with I do not wanna buy any extra component.

no instability issues for me (no 2nd PSU related issues)....one problem though, well you might forget that the second PSU is running when troubleshooting/tinkering, you need to turn off all power in a rig for safety purposes..there are instances for me that i forgot that the 2nd PSU still running and it didn't matter, everything is still fine.

just reiterating this......the second PSU only powers the added GPUs and its risers, no extra component just a jumper wire to turn the PSU on, no mandatory fans attached or any 12v or 5v devices (if you need to fan something you can tap to its 12v).

Ambros

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You are very lucky (because of the energy) and your strategy is good!
Also consider that right now we are all getting almost double that the reward that we got for the last 6 months, ROI can be a little bit longer than expected if this bubble explodes

Quote from: arielbit on March 24, 2017, 08:08:36 AM

less efficient/older/cheaper...up to 3kw of free electricity, the target is cheapest gear to achieve maximum hashrate..after ROI, and going above 3kw, use the most efficient GPU/ PC components because the electricity is not free beyond 3kw, if it is profitable in the long run he can add more rigs and start to phase out the old and less efficient gear and upgrade to the most efficient one by one.

......

BTW i've never used an add2psu since 2013, i just always make sure that the second PSU only powers the extra GPU (it''s riser included)...

OT: You noticed any problem or instability un multi-PSU rigs? I would love to build a couple myself but with I do not wanna buy any extra component.

ermolex

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nice article!
quite inspiring!

arielbit

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Quote from: PovertyByte on March 24, 2017, 04:52:48 AM

Quote from: arielbit on March 24, 2017, 01:53:33 AM

if ROI (profit is also made) is achieved and you are about to reach the maximum electrical limit (with allowance) try adding the top of the line GPUs who have a very high hashrate and very efficient..one by one in the process upgrading your gear.

mining area (space) and efficiency --> put this into the equation

my mining area is already getting filled and my electrical Amperage is about to reach my target, that's why I'm looking at 1080 ti (waiting for aftermarket coolers by different brands). also waiting for vega release..

I was starting to think the same thing since the goal of the thread is maximum ROI. The question is what is OP's current budget to start off at on this setup. It may either be better to start off with the older GPU's and than to start of with less efficiency GPU's

less efficient/older/cheaper...up to 3kw of free electricity, the target is cheapest gear to achieve maximum hashrate..after ROI, and going above 3kw, use the most efficient GPU/ PC components because the electricity is not free beyond 3kw, if it is profitable in the long run he can add more rigs and start to phase out the old and less efficient gear and upgrade to the most efficient one by one.

......

BTW i've never used an add2psu since 2013, i just always make sure that the second PSU only powers the extra GPU (it''s riser included)...

Topic: Starting a ZEC mining farm: Maximum ROI strategy. (Read 3856 times)