Hello everybody.
I want to build a relatively powerful Ethereum mining rig, but I'm not sure of the PC specification that I should go for.
I thought asking Facepunch first might be a good idea, instead of only reading about it myself.
Can you guys give some suggestion? Thanks a lot
your pc doesn't matter, it could be a brand new celeron or i9, it will still work. What matters is your ASIC mining GPU's, any AMD card made in the past 4 years will do just fine with mining
I see, so I can just use a normal processor, but an AMD GPU?
If I use AMD GPU, should I like, quadruple SLI it? What models is good for it? Spec modifications to maximize profit?
[QUOTE=hakimhakim;52945268]I see, so I can just use a normal processor, but an AMD GPU?
If I use AMD GPU, should I like, quadruple SLI it? What models is good for it? Spec modifications to maximize profit?[/QUOTE]
Amd has crossfire and no you don't need to set that up for mining.
[QUOTE=rider695;52945272]Amd has crossfire and no you don't need to set that up for mining.[/QUOTE]
So if i Crossfire more AMD gpu in one PC, it would give multifold coin compared to one-gpu PC?
Or is it more profitable to get multiple one-gpu PC?
The correct way to do GPU mining is to get the board with the most PCI-E lanes possible for cheap. Generally anything less than 6 lanes (including 1x) isn't worth using. CPU doesn't matter, get the one with the lowest TDP that is supported by the board and underclock it, semprons and celeries work great for this.
The main thing to remember is to populate all your PCI-E lanes, and to also use risers with external power (most ghetto version is just severing the power pins and soldering a molex in) so that you don't cook your motherboard trying to supply like 500 watts to your cards through it.
You generally don't want to be running your cards at full power either if you're paying for your own electricity bill, you usually get sharply diminishing returns after a point.
[QUOTE=hakimhakim;52945275]So if i Crossfire more AMD gpu in one PC, it would give multifold coin compared to one-gpu PC?
Or is it more profitable to get multiple one-gpu PC?[/QUOTE]
SLI & Crossfire do not apply for GPU mining operations. Just make sure your driver supports the cards, and let them go. Depending on your mining application, you may need to specify in the commandline in which GPU to start up.
You can run your mining app on anything really, PCIE Lane count is irrelevant for GPU mining as well.
[QUOTE=Chubbs;52945285]The correct way to do GPU mining is to get the board with the most PCI-E lanes possible for cheap. Generally anything less than 6 lanes (including 1x) isn't worth using. CPU doesn't matter, get the one with the lowest TDP that is supported by the board and underclock it, semprons and celeries work great for this.
The main thing to remember is to populate all your PCI-E lanes, and to also use risers with external power (most ghetto version is just severing the power pins and soldering a molex in) so that you don't cook your motherboard trying to supply like 500 watts to your cards through it.
You generally don't want to be running your cards at full power either if you're paying for your own electricity bill, you usually get sharply diminishing returns after a point.[/QUOTE]
I see. So I should get motherboard with a lot of PCI-E slots, so I can install more AMD gpu?
How many gpu are we talking about here? 6?
Sorry for the noob questions
[editline]4th December 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Richard Simmons;52945289]SLI & Crossfire do not apply for GPU mining operations. Just make sure your driver supports the cards, and let them go. Depending on your mining application, you may need to specify in the commandline in which GPU to start up.
You can run your mining app on anything really, PCIE Lane count is completely irrelevant for GPU mining as well.[/QUOTE]
So I should get one powerful AMD gpu, instead of like 3, for a PC?
There's no reason to no populate all the slots on your motherboard if you can afford it.
To work out what cards you want to buy you'll want to check the prices of cards, preferably second hand, in your country and the hashrate they provide on the coins you want to mine. Then you can plug that along with some other info like electricity costs into a mining calculator and find out what the most profitable cards for you to mine on are.
Another consideration is having a PSU which can actually power all the cards. If you're paying for your own electricity and it's particularly expensive paying the extra for a more efficient PSU may be worth it.
[QUOTE=hakimhakim;52945291]I see. So I should get motherboard with a lot of PCI-E slots, so I can install more AMD gpu?
How many gpu are we talking about here? 6?
Sorry for the noob questions
[editline]4th December 2017[/editline]
So I should get one powerful AMD gpu, instead of like 3, for a PC?[/QUOTE]
Not at all. What you need to factor is their power requirements, and their estimated hashrate. AMD's with HBM for example do extremely poorly in hashrate, while being up there in power draw + heat.
If you're paying for the bills, the last thing you're going to want to do is go balls deep into this. There is sometime required to get your investment back in the equipment, and also the cost to continue operation for 24/7/365. Not to mention, heat kills so you need to address that too.
There is many guides out there that go about regarding GPU benchmarks on ETH mining
[URL="https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8331/definitive-ethereum-mining-performance-article/"]Such as this one, which covers AMD & NVidia[/URL]
In most cases, buying new may cause problems depending on where you live. Some places will outright double the cost of a GPU (if you buy more than 1) to discourage people from eating them up for mining ops.
[editline]4th December 2017[/editline]
Second thought on my article, apparently claymore ETH mining on VEGA/Fury is now quite decent. Still the power requirements + heat output is to be considered to be a turn off.
[QUOTE=Richard Simmons;52945307]Not at all. What you need to factor is their power requirements, and their estimated hashrate. AMD's with HBM for example do extremely poorly in hashrate, while being up there in power draw + heat.
If you're paying for the bills, the last thing you're going to want to do is go balls deep into this. There is sometime required to get your investment back in the equipment, and also the cost to continue operation for 24/7/365. Not to mention, heat kills so you need to address that too.
There is many guides out there that go about regarding GPU benchmarks on ETH mining
[url=https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8331/definitive-ethereum-mining-performance-article/]Such as this one, which covers AMD & NVidia[/url]
In most cases, buying new may cause problems depending on where you live. Some places will outright double the cost of a GPU (if you buy more than 1) to discourage people from eating them up for mining ops.[/QUOTE]
Heat isn't really an issue for a lot of coins anymore if you have your cards set up properly. There's no point completely thrashing them when you can get 90% of the hashes for 70% of the power.
[QUOTE=Chubbs;52945313]Heat isn't really an issue for a lot of coins anymore if you have your cards set up properly. There's no point completely thrashing them when you can get 90% of the hashes for 70% of the power.[/QUOTE]
I agree. Some people would overclock their GPU just to get that extra 1% hashrate gain though. Also due to heat output, the fans ramp up and they sound like little jets. So people may be inclined to stuff them into a closet or somewhere isolated with the potential of poor airflow.
Most miners normally undervolt/underclock their GPU to conserve power requirements, lower heat, and extend life all at the exchange of a slightly lower hashrate.
So, I should get a Radeon Vega RX 56?
Any other specific model if I want a really good one?
I will buy the PC tomorrow or the day after.
Proofread my plan?
- Get a low power CPU. Get a multiple slots motherboard PCI-E for additional potential to install more AMD GPU. Get two Radeon RX Vega and crossfire them.
Is this correct? Any other addition?
No need for crossfire or SLI.
Take look at hashrate calculators, and check earnings vs power consumption vs purchase price.. Might be more economical to grab a rx 480 or rx 580.
Also, etherium is nowhere near as profitable anymore. I used to get about 7 eur worth per day on my gtx 1070 back in june. I tried a few weeks ago and got about 2-3 eur
[QUOTE=hakimhakim;52945325]So, I should get a Radeon Vega RX 56?
Any other specific model if I want a really good one?
I will buy the PC tomorrow or the day after.
Proofread my plan?
- Get a low power CPU. Get a multiple slots motherboard PCI-E for additional potential to install more AMD GPU. Get two Radeon RX Vega and crossfire them.
Is this correct? Any other addition?[/QUOTE]
How long do you expect an RX Vega to take to pay for itself? How available are they where you live in good condition?
Those are the main considerations when buying cards for mining, especially break even time. The sooner they break even the sooner you will actually start making money.
[QUOTE=Chubbs;52945362]How long do you expect an RX Vega to take to pay for itself? How available are they where you live in good condition?
Those are the main considerations when buying cards for mining, especially break even time. The sooner they break even the sooner you will actually start making money.[/QUOTE]
I'm going in with the mindset of;
- Doesnt matter if I lose the whole rig, or make 0 profit.
- I can probably get one new.
- I want to keep the Ethereum until the price climbs in the later years,.as a long term investment. So in the meantime, the money spent for mining is like side money, disposable income.
- If the trend is viable (not great, but ok/stable/static), I might add a new PC each month.
So I just need to put multiple GPU in those multiple PCI-E slots, and the CPU will divide Ethereum mining process equally between the GPU? Sorry for being noob, I havent had a PC with multiple GPU before, not sure how will I need to set up mining rigs with multiple GPU
For the vast majority of cryptos the CPU controls each GPU individually, each doing it's own independent work. The reason you want to fully populate the motherboards is because it's cheaper to have one board with 6 cards in it than 6 boards with one card each.
If you're simply looking to invest into cryptocurrency then your best bet is going to be straight up buying some and trading with it.
You have a point there.
Thank you everybody. Actually my brother is the one who wanted the coins, I'll let him decide if he prefers to trade or mine.
I'll come back with more questions later. Thanks again.
If there're more advice, please, post here
Guys, I have another question. Try to bear with me here
If I buy a Antminer S9 for bitcoin solo mining, do you think I can make a profit? I took a look at bitcoin profit calculator, and it says I can make 0.0756 Bitcoin per month. Is this true? If not, how much profit I can expect from solo mining?
Hash Rate , 14TH/s Variation of ±5% is expected
Power Consumption 1274W
Electric tariff: 0.12 USD per KW/h ($)
Solo mining Bitcoin with a single ASIC is such a lottery, it's not even funny.
You'd have to join a pool.
Could maybe be worth it if your electricity was free.
[QUOTE=nikomo;52945832]Solo mining Bitcoin with a single ASIC is such a lottery, it's not even funny.
You'd have to join a pool.
Could maybe be worth it if your electricity was free.[/QUOTE]
Bitcoin solo ASIC mining is such a lottery, meaning that theres a possiblity that I cant make money at all due to competition?
How wild is the variation for margin of profit here for a single Antminer S9? My electricity is free for now.
[editline]4th December 2017[/editline]
When I think about it, similar-priced Aetherium miner will profit around the same.amount of money per month compared to Bitcoin.
But, Aetherium had more potential to increase in value in the coming years. Not to mention that Bitcoin mining is too saturated, and Bitcoin price is quite high, thus probably will not climb too much more.
In this aspect, does this mean I'm better of making an Aetherium rig instead of Bitcoin miner?
The S9 probably wouldn't even pay itself off in a year (and at that point the next Antminer would probably be out in time for another difficulty increase - keep in mind the S9 is almost 6 months old). A solid GPU mining rig and something ASIC-resistant like Ethereum is probably best, but just use NiceHash.
For what you're trying to do it sounds like you're better off just investing cash into Ethereum right now. Ethereum difficulty is much, much higher than it was 6 months ago, or even 1 month ago.
You're going for the long-term investment, so buying and mining is a bad idea to me because you won't actually get your coins till later. Put in some money now so you already have the coin at today's rate. That way you can sell for next years rate without having to wait 12 months to get the same amount (or possibly less) coins than you would eventually get.
You earn so much more money just buy investing in the crypto rather than mining it. Let the other chumps spend thousands on machines that won't earn their cost back for years.
I see. I have 2 more question.
1) If I want to buy crypto instead of mining it, what do you think I should buy? Ethereum or Bitcoin? The predictions on bitcoins by some famous people claim bitcoin still in its early bubble, so there's potential. What do you think?
For now, I can allocate ~5000 USD for purchasing coins.
2) If in the occasion of mining Bitcoin, if I have a Antminer S9, does joining a pool stabilize my earning considerably? Approximately, how much can I expect to earn Bitcoin if I my rig join a pool? Is it significantly more profitable than mining solo raw?
[QUOTE=hakimhakim;52946422]I see. I have 2 more question.
1) If I want to buy crypto instead of mining it, what do you think I should buy? Ethereum or Bitcoin? The predictions on bitcoins by some famous people claim bitcoin still in its early bubble, so there's potential. What do you think?
For now, I can allocate ~5000 USD for purchasing coins.
2) If in the occasion of mining Bitcoin, if I have a Antminer S9, does joining a pool stabilize my earning considerably? Approximately, how much can I expect to earn Bitcoin if I my rig join a pool? Is it significantly more profitable than mining solo raw?[/QUOTE]
I invested a hundred bucks each in BTC, ETH, and LTC. Bitcoin is accelerating faster, it’s a significantly higher portion of my current portfolio than the other two. So if you were to go all in on one currency, I’d recommend bitcoin. However I don’t think you can lose either way. I’m at a 130% ROI after just a month.
[QUOTE=hakimhakim;52946422]I see. I have 2 more question.
1) If I want to buy crypto instead of mining it, what do you think I should buy? Ethereum or Bitcoin? The predictions on bitcoins by some famous people claim bitcoin still in its early bubble, so there's potential. What do you think?
For now, I can allocate ~5000 USD for purchasing coins.
2) If in the occasion of mining Bitcoin, if I have a Antminer S9, does joining a pool stabilize my earning considerably? Approximately, how much can I expect to earn Bitcoin if I my rig join a pool? Is it significantly more profitable than mining solo raw?[/QUOTE]
I have one piece of advice.
DO NOT put in anymore money than you are willing to lose. Cryptocoins are in their infancy still, and anything can happen at this point. If there is a vulnerability exposed to any of the block chains the whole thing will likely go to shit and you'll see billions of dollars evaporate. It's extremely volatile when compared to the stock market. There are so many unknowns about a market this new.
I do not say this to scare you, but don't go into this thinking you're guaranteed to make a shit ton of money. That being said spread your money out. Don't put your eggs into one basket. Check out the alt coins. Read what they do. Use the website coincap.io to watch trends and see of you can discern patterns.
I've personally made a few hundred bucks off of 10 dollars just by playing the small markets.
What you should really do is use [url]https://coincap.io/[/url] to monitor prices over a weeks time and watch how the market is working. As for mobile you can download TrexTracker (it's on Android, not sure about iOS).
I see. Thats another thing to watch out. I will not spend more than I can lose.
On another note, do you guys have a suggestion for Bitcoin wallet? I want to use it on smartphone. Is there a simple one, with security, in the way that the wallet is not tied to 3rd party?
[QUOTE=hakimhakim;52947614]I see. Thats another thing to watch out. I will not spend more than I can lose.
On another note, do you guys have a suggestion for Bitcoin wallet? I want to use it on smartphone. Is there a simple one, with security, in the way that the wallet is not tied to 3rd party?[/QUOTE]
I recommend Jaxx ([url]https://jaxx.io/[/url])
Also check out Bittrex for coin exchange ([url]https://bittrex.com/[/url])
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