Topic: Thinking about building a mining rig. Also need to find a good pool to join. (Read 1395 times)

sigh...
Read https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-mining-intro-rules-of-this-subforum-read-before-posting-2415854 points 2 & 3
Also learn the difference between Bitcoin and all the other coins aka altcoins.

For future readers:

1) Custom is always better and cheaper
2) Updated as 2018, you can find many bitcoin mining tools.
I did a simple Google search and this is what it came up: https://cryptoorders.com/articles/best-cryptocurrency-mining-pools-2018/
I don't want to recommend you one, it is up to you which one to choose.

Novack,

I recommend a 4slot AMD motherboard with a budget AMD Athlon II CPU, 2GB of DDR3 memory and 4 ATI Radeon 5830 graphics cards, if you get an 800W or better power supply you will have a nice mining rig that can easily do 1Ghash.

I recomend you join a nice pool like BitClockers they have lots of how to guides and a very friendly and helpful community that can help you get started.

1.
The only problem with a refurb OEM box is that is very unlikely to have multiple PCI-E x16 slots, and it will cost more OOP than a custom rig, unless you find a real steal.

Although, OTOH, it's hard to argue with ripping the guts out of an EOL'd business desktop and getting one of Cablesaurus' PCI-e extenders and firing up a 6990 (Should you be lucky enough to acquire one presently) and a decent 750w PSU. Do the numbers carefully though, if you're willing to go HDD-less and get a persistently bootable Linux flavor to run, you may be able to go cheaper that you could with a refurb. Also, you should consider, Cost vs Value on the time investment to make a fully custom rig vs just gutting an OEM box. Not sure how much time you got on your hands but I spent easily 20 hours getting my first persistent boot Linux miner up and harvesting.. An OEM box running M$ could be gutted, racked, installed and mining in an hour.

TL;DR: There are good args for going either way. Depends almost entirely on if you have more time than money.

OEM refurb: less time, more money.
Custom: Less money, more time.

2.
For someone brand new to mining, I recommend Slush's pool. You will see ฿ trickling in almost immediately. The smaller, no-fee startups are better for when you have lots of hashwidth to diversify your mining with, or are generating enough ฿ that paying the fee becomes an actual drag on your mining.  I cannot recommend Deepbit at this time because its already too big for anyone to feel comfortable with.

1. Custom build. It's always cheaper and you can specifically pick your parts for mining.
2. I like BTC-Guild personally.
3. An AMD sempron only uses 45W and is much more powerful than an Atom.

So about a day into bitcoin. Im thinking about building a rig just for mining. I have a few questions.

1. Should I do a custom built rig? Buy a cheap computer and upgrade video card and power supply? or Buy a refub machine and upgrade video card and power supply?
2. What is a good pool to join?

If I go custom built, (I want to save the most power I can) can I use an Intel atom system that has PCIe x16 and use a decent video card?