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Topic: Thinking about building a mining rig. Also need to find a good pool to join. (Read 1398 times)

legendary
Activity: 3822
Merit: 2703
Evil beware: We have waffles!
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?
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.
newbie
Activity: 5
Merit: 0
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.

Smiley
full member
Activity: 227
Merit: 100
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.
newbie
Activity: 42
Merit: 0
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?

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 Smiley 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.
member
Activity: 83
Merit: 10
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.
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
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?
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