For my first mining rig, I dropped close to 1700 dollars, but you can actually get closer to the same performance that I get for much cheaper, and it will pay for itself very quickly. Here’s how.
3x Graphics Cards - $600
None of the cards I linked are in stock? Try this out. Its automatically updated with in stock cards.
In stock 270, good brand too:
ASUS R9270-DC2OC-2GD5 Graphics Cards
My original cards for this build is out of stock, and 270s are starting to move upwards in price, if the price for 270s goes towards 250 dollars, you are better off getting a 270x for a little more, like these:
Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 4GB GDDR5 DVI-I/DVI-D/HDMI/DP Dual-X with Boost and OC version PCI-Express Graphics Card 11217-04-20G
Out of stock, last I checked:
3x Gigabyte R9 270 GDDR5-2GB 2xDVI/HDMI/DP OC Graphics Card (GV-R927OC-2GD) - People report 450 kHs with these.
(XFX 270 925MHz Boost 2GB DDR5 DP HDMI 2XDVI Graphics Card were out of stock, last I checked)
These are the core of the machine and are what gives you all your doge. Running three of these, you can hit around 1200-1350kH/s or more in mining speed. This is quite a bit for the price, and likely to be the best bargain for your money.
Or you can go for a 270x, they are more expensive but you will generally get more Dogecoins out of them:
ASUS R9270X-DC2T-2GD5 Graphics Cards R9270X-DC2T-2GD5
CPU - $38
AMD Sempron 145 Processor
Processing speed of the CPU makes no difference for mining. We just need something that can run the operating system. Plus this CPU is actually good because it uses less power.
Motherboard - $89
ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
This motherboard is a good choice for being cheap and able to handle the 3 graphics cards (Up to 4 actually). But you will need powered extenders.
Power Supply - $149 or $189
SeaSonic Platinum SS-860XP2 Power Supply
This is a really high quality power supply. The main benefit this has over other power supplies that are a little cheaper, is that the energy efficiency is much better than what others recommend (Being Platinum Rated). This will mean your electricity is much cheaper, and over the long run it will pay for itself. So you can pay an extra 40 bucks for this or go with a slightly cheaper one like this $149. Just make sure it is at least gold rated or you will be really wasting more electricity than necessary.
Hard Drive - $45
32 GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive
Just big enough for the OS. Since we are just using it for mining this will be fine. You can also get away with using a fast USB drive if you want to boot Linux off of it.
Riser Cables for Graphics Cards -- $45 Total
The motherboard has 2 PCI-Express x16 and 2 1x slots. So you can go with 2 PCIE “1x-16″ risers and 1 PCIE “16x-16x” Riser or vice versa. I went with 1- x16 riser and 2 x 1 to 16 riser to reduce power usage through the motherboard. It is important for the 1x to 16x ones are powered, so that your motherboard isn’t overloaded. Risers are also necessary to help disperse heat.
1x Micro SATA Cables -- PCI-E Express 16X Riser Card with Flexible Cable - $15
2x Qody PCI-E Extension Cable: 1X to 16X (powered) - $30
Ram -- $44
Kingston Hyper X Blu 4 GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 Desktop Memory (KHX1600C9D3B1/4G)
All we need is 4gigs or so of ram. RAM has no impact on mining, we just need enough to run the OS. You might be able to pick up a stick for slightly cheaper, but this one is good and more consistently in stock. Plus free shipping with Amazon Prime.
Case $~14
Milk Crate Case
Most miners go with a simple milk crate to hold their components. I use 2 of them, 1 to hold my power supply and hard drive, and another stacked on top with the motherboard, graphics cards and other components. Mine are 13inches x 16inches x 10inches(Height) and I wouldn’t getting any that are much smaller. You can probably find these cheaper at an office max or a home depot than on amazon.
You will also need to line your crates, so that your motherboard can lay flat, I use Plastic Canvas. Its sturdy but has holes and helps with ventilation. Others options include using Plastic Standoffs instead of the canvas. Just make sure whatever you get doesn’t generate static electricity, as this can be very bad for your computer.
You will also need:
Some Zip Ties to help secure things in place.
Something to hold your graphics cards up. You might have to get creative here. I simply used stuff I had lying around the house. (A Wooden Square Rod with Grooves). You want something at least 20ish inches (50 cm) long, and sturdy enough to hold 3 cards. If it bows downward at all, its a no go. If it can release a static charge easily, its a no go. Something like this or this.
Some people may opt to screw their cards in. I’ve gotten fancy with zip ties but it probably isn’t as secure as actually screwing them in.
Total -- $1024 (1064 with better power supply)
Not bad! This is pretty cheap and one of the most effective machines for the price per coin you will gain.
Nice to Haves
Cheap Good Wireless Card
Make sure the wireless card is PCI, not PCIE, so if you want to add another graphics card later, you won’t be using a PCIE slot by your wireless card.
Make sure you grab one of these if you will be needing it.
Windows 7
You will need this if you prefer Windows over Linux.
This board supports up 4 cards, so if you wanted you could grab 4 270s, a beefier power supply (At least 1050 watts or second power supply), and another riser you could run all 4 cards at once. But this of course brings the price up.
And that should be everything you need! This assumes you already have a keyboard, mouse and monitor you can use to start your miner up.
So how much Dogecoin can you make from this? At the current difficulty of 1300, you would get around 11027 dogecoins a day for 1.20-1.3mH/s. How much cash is that equivalent to? Around 15-20 bucks a day. So it begin to pay for itself after less than 2 months! Even the machine I paid 1700 for 2 months ago has already made me back more money than I paid for it, thanks to dogecoin. But to be fair I got into it when the difficulty was much lower, and who knows what prices are a month from now. They could go up or down so its always risky. But the good thing is you still have a decent computer if you stop mining, and not lose all your cash if you bought coins. I just purchased my second rig and this is what I went with.
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Ryan Plymire
I’m thinking about building this rig or one similar, but I was wondering a few things.
1. About how much power do you consume and do you run 24/7 or about how much has your power increased?
2. About how much to you make on average per day? If you don’t feel like answering that, do you think it’s possible to make my money back in the first 2 months?
I was planning on doing it for a few months to see how it goes and if all else fails I will have almost everything for a gaming pc. Minus the cpu and ram of course.
Thanks for any and all insight.
1. It does add quite a bit to the power bill, but the amount of coins I make is more than enough to cover the costs. I pay $0.19 kw/h and it is 2-4 dollars a day extra. But it helps offset my heating costs too so its about 60 bucks a month extra on my bill. But I imagine in the summer it will make my cooling costs higher. This is also why it is important to get a platinum rated power supply like I linked in the post, as it will cut down on your electricity costs by quite a bit.
2. Profit per day is around 15-20 bucks. This is if you sell your coins immediately. If you keep your coins, like I do, they usually go up over time, so the actual profit is much higher. In 2 months I made almost 1700 dollars worth of coins with the same hash power that is in the post. This was mostly by getting into dogecoin early on and mining it non stop. So you have to be smart about which coins to mine. Even if it takes 6 months to break even it is more than worth it, but most likely it will be much faster.
Your thoughts are pretty much the same as mine when I started. I actually got a better CPU and RAM just incase I wouldn’t mine with it. But I was wrong. I just bought my second mining rig which is the one in this post. If I had gotten this in the first place I would be ahead nearly 700 dollars in 2 months of mining. My other parts are listed for my other machine in This Post. But the amount of coins is nearly the same, because CPU/RAM and other stuff I upgraded have no impact on mining. The graphics cards are slightly better, but not by much. Maybe 20% more. Not to justify the extra 400+ extra dollars. Plus 7950s are sold out or way overpriced everywhere now.
Thanks man. I only pay about half of what you pay for electric, so I think I will go ahead and try it in the next month or two.
I am building a rig with those same video cards and I am curious how you are supporting the front of the video cards (the side without the spoon)? I am going to build it in the same crates as you at first then once I make some money I will move it into a wall mount rack enclosure.
You will need something sturdy. If it bows at all then its no good. I use a square piece of wood that is about 1inch x 1inch x 20 inches long. Depending on how your crate sits, you may want something flatter so your video cards aren’t pointing towards the ground. My rod is grooved and fastened using zip ties. You will want to either drill holes or find some way to make sure it won’t slide back and forth if it is bumped or moved. Hard to find anything on amazon I would recommend, but if you had a hardware store near by you could grab something like this http://www.lowes.com/pd_4511-99899-4511_1z13cei+2z8vi__?productId=3504446&Ns=p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1¤tURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_qty_sales_dollar%7C1%26page%3D1&facetInfo=$1%20-%20$5
Just be sure to make it fastened by drilling or adding grooves to it and you can fasten it on with some cable ties.
Some people are nervous about using wood, so you can always find something like this but a hardened plastic instead. If you ask a Lowes, Sears, Home Depot employee what you are looking for and what you want to do with it, they might have good ideas here. It just needs to be sturdy, able to be secured, and at least 20 or so inches long. I’ve seen these recommened too http://www.lowes.com/pd_328939-315-1816921_0__?productId=3804939&Ntt=rubbermaid&Ns=p_product_price|0
So your guide lists the parts. I’ve used Linux before and am comfortable using a command line setup, but I’ve never built a computer or loaded an os from scratch. Any good guide out there for this?
I have the guide up for building the whole pc here. As far as loading the OS, windows 7 is really straight forward, you really just click a bunch of “Next” buttons, but to do it easily you will need a dvd rom or go through the hassle of setting it up on USB. Then you would just install your video card drivers and cgminer. With Linux there can be all kinds of driver issues if you use a slightly different component than a tutorial, and can be harder to fix. It took me almost a full day to get linux installed, my video cards + wireless card working and all the software installed. Not saying you shouldn’t use linux but you will need to do a lot of googling.
Do you build these miners for sale. I want to start mining, but I have no idea on how to build a machine.
Thank you for posting the parts needed, but I am technically clueless, as to how to put this together, so that it would actually work. If you know of any instruction, on how to learn to build something like this, would love to know how.
Thanks again.
Hi Elise,
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll try to get a guide together for this by the end of the week.
Thanks so much Dylan, really appreciate your willingness to do this! Just a quick question on your graphics cards – I was reading on another website, to stay away from the XFX brand, and to stick with the better quality ones, such as AMD, ASUS, etc…
I am thinking of upgrading an older desktop, and just starting with one graphics card, for now. I live in Ontario, and the electric is really expensive here. Do you know, if I would have to upgrade my motherboard and still purchase an additional power supply, if I just install one top of the line graphics card into this machine? Also, I need to upgrade the operating system from XP – would you suggest going with Windows 8?
Sorry for all of the questions, am just so curious to try this out – thanks!
Elise
Hi Elise,
AMD is the manufacturer who makes the chips that XFX, Sapphire, Asus, and companies use to make their cards, so they all use the same base chips, but there are some brands that are better than others. The problem right now is that many of the best cards to get are either really overpriced or out of stock, so it is hard to consistently recommend which cards to get.
It also gets confusing because, for example, Sapphire puts out multiple models of the same card and they are slightly different. So one model of Sapphire 7950 may be amazing and the other one not so much. Or the specs are slightly higher in 1.
And to add on top of all that… it can be complicated to know which cards are truly the best for mining in a certain price range. People report drastically different hash rates for the same card model, and it can vary because of OS, someone forgot to add a setting, some unknown hardware is affecting it, their cgminer settings are different, they use a slightly different driver, etc. And cards can also be overhyped because 1 person got 800 khs/sec on a 200 dollar card and everyone else saw it and bought them all.
I haven’t had a problem with XFX before, and the good thing is that some of their cards are lifetime warranty. I am not sure if any other card manufacturers do that anymore. But as far as manufacturers go, XFX isn’t in the top top, as far as customer rating goes, but its not horrible either. This is the most revalent thing I could find regarding manufacturer rating. http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/13381-best-manufacturers-for-video-cards-vote/ Keep in mind EVGA is nvidia only cards. Make sure whatever card you get is AMD (Radeon) based chip.
“Do you know, if I would have to upgrade my motherboard and still purchase an additional power supply, if I just install one top of the line graphics card into this machine?”
This depends on a bunch of things. Your motherboard needs to support PCI Express x16. Your power supply would need to meet the minimum requirements for the card. The 270s have pretty low wattage requirements but if you go with a really high end card, your power supply might not work. Or if your PC is barebones and they only gave you like a 300 watt power supply.
“Also, I need to upgrade the operating system from XP – would you suggest going with Windows 8?”
I haven’t used Windows 8 TBH, there also might be issues with cgminer on Windows 7, but I am not sure, sorry. I do see some guides for Windows 8 (like this one https://coinaxis.com/index.php/entry/how-to-configure-cgminer-for-litecoin-bitcoin-windows-8) with CGminer and it appears it works but I can’t say from experience. Windows 8 got a bad rap at first but 8.1 is supposed to fix a lot of the issues with it. My miners use Linux but this is much more complicated to set up and I haven’t had the opportunity to put a guide together on it yet. I think you can mine on Win XP as well, but I haven’t tried it either.
You can also look here: https://litecoin.info/Mining_hardware_comparison and get an idea on which cards may be good. Do a sort by kHs and the ones with the highest are the top performing cards. But this is self reported and people may do crazy stuff to get it that high.
Hi Dylan,
Wow, thank you so much, for taking the time to go into such detail! I’ve been trying to educate myself on these different cards, and end up pretty much confused, and after your explanation, I can see why! So I think I’ll just go with your set-up, or at least start with one of these cards. That’s a great tip – to make sure to purchase ones with the AMD (Radeon) based chip. I’ve been looking at different videos, trying to figure out how to put it altogether…oh well, Rome wasn’t conquered in a day! I guess if I start with one card, and then add more later, I could always upgrade the motherboard at the same time. The only question I have right now, is whether or not it would be worth it, to run just one of the cards…can you still expect to mine some doge every day running on just one of the cards you recommend?
Again, thank you so much, for your amazing willingness to help.
Best,
Elise
1 card is a great place to start if your computer can support the card. Whether or not it is worth it, it depends, and there are a lot of factors involved. If dogecoin goes up x10 in the next year, it would definitely be worth it. No one can say for sure if this will happen. Even now you will make a small profit if dogecoin stays the same.
Dogecoin is also about to go through a reward reduction when the 100,000th block is reached too. So it will mean miners won’t get as many coins as before if the difficulty stays the same, but the difficulty will probably go down after that, making it easier to get coins.. so its a strange cycle.
But I think the biggest benefit from mining is the amount of knowledge you gain. So whether you make a lot of extra money from the coins or not, you come away from the experience being much more knowledgable about many different things. Things for me, I might not have taken an interest in the subjects before, but it gives you a way to make it fun and easier to learn.
The most common advice that people give, is don’t risk all your savings in trying to get coins. Only spend money you are comfortable with losing. But the good thing about buying computer hardware instead of buying the coins straight up, is that you can always resell computer parts.
Also, there are a lot of other types of coins you can mine besides dogecoin. So even if dogecoin is not worth mining, you can switch to something else for a bit if you wanted.
Hi Dylan,
Once again, thank you for taking the time to respond. I genuinely look forward to your guide, and if you decide to make a quick video, of your set-up, I would love to see sort of step-by-step, how all of the components are put together. Although it is a stretch financially I am so fascinated with learning how to do this, and as you say…the benefit of learning about all of this through mining is just so cool.
So I am thinking of trying to duplicate your set up, maybe get 2 cards at first, and then as money comes available, purchase the 3rd one and build it from scratch, and forego trying to fit everything into an old desktop computer. What do you think, a good way to start? The main reason people build outside of a traditional enclosure is for cooling purposes and also space constraints, correct?
I actually feel confident for the first time, moving forward and at least trying this on my own, because of the support you have given. I feel really comfortable asking you questions, and hopefully will be able to give you a nice tip, once everything is set up and running, thank you Dylan!
Elise
Yes, cooling can be a big deal in a normal case. You can’t even fit more than 2 cards on most motherboards without using risers, and for the normal PC case, there is no way to hold the cards up using risers. Even with 2 cards running full speed for mining in a normal case might not be good, as you won’t be able to run the cards at max settings without heat becoming a concern.
You also want to make sure your power supply is enough wattage for 2 cards and that your computer has the available slots for them. The recommendation is at least 750 watts but you might get by with slightly less. You also need a PCIEx16 slot or PCIEx1 slot with a powered riser.
I’d think about your budget, and also I’d figure out what your computer can handle, and maybe just go with 1, more expensive card for now, with a brand you are comfortable with. Maybe a 280x. You won’t get as much hash for the money, but the power requirement shouldn’t be as high and the airflow in your case will be much better. You can get an idea here : https://litecoin.info/mining_hardware_comparison on what performance cards give using the kH/s column. Just stick with the first AMD table. Or just go with 1 quality 270x just to start mining. Even with 1 card you can get coins and learn about the process without risking more money.
So, figure out what your computer can handle, if you haven’t already, and go from there.
Just to let you know, the other poster was Dylan, not me = ), not a big deal. These comment boxes have the bad habit of keeping the text if you switch replies to someone else.
I’m so sorry that I got your name wrong, my apologies! Thank you for the suggestions – I am going to try and build this from scratch, just starting with the two cards, for now…and just add a third card and possibly 4th, as time goes on, if things are panning out, so to speak! Your insights have been incredibly helpful, I am so glad to have found your site.
I am pretty much an illiterate when it comes to setting up a system. and I live in India, so I cant get all the components that you have mentioned. Specially the Graphics card and the power supply which both are the most crucial. The following is the website which pretty much sums up everything available in our country. Can please be able to recommend me alternates from the site?
http://www.theitdepot.com
I’d check all the cards on this list. Any of those models should work, and beside it you can see listed the potential performance. Then just factor in price and see if you can get an idea what would be best. For power supply, the main thing is that you need enough power for the number of cards. For the 3 I recommend, you need at least 800W, and I’d recommend at least 850. If you are going 4 cards, you should go at least 1000w power supply or higher. It is also good to make sure the power supply is at least gold preferably platinum rated, for power savings. I’d also go with ones with higher reviews over lower review power supplies, as they are probably less likely to go out on you.
Getting the cheapest power supply for the watts is almost never a good idea and it will probably go out on you.
thanks for this!
question:
where do you put the extra (fourth) riser in the 4 card setup given the motherboard only has the three slots?
Hi Dylan, the board has 2-PCIE x1 slots, 2-PCIE x16 (1 running in x4 mode). For the x1 slots you will need powered risers 1x-16x. For the 16 slots you need 16x to 16x risers. Maybe I accidentally put 3 in the post, sorry.
Here’s a question that I have:
Many of the parts you listed (approximately $300 worth) are found in laptops. For instance, the motherboard, RAM, hard drive etc. are all in a standard laptop.
If I have a spare laptop lying around, can I just buy the graphics cards and power supply and connect them together, saving me approx $300? Would this still cause the laptop to overheat?
Thanks! Awesome guide.
Its not the same motherboard as a laptop, and unless I am mistaken, laptops don’t have x16 pcie slots. Ram is usually different for laptops as well, unless it changed in the last few years. Hard drive is about the only thing you can really use that would be the same, as far as I know. But doing a quick google search I do see there are some external adapters for x16pcie for laptops, but I have no idea how reliable these would be for mining.
OK, thanks! Also, would these work for graphics cards if I made a set up? I found some new ones local for cheap but don’t want to buy them without checking. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DMLMJGC
Hi, it depends how much you are paying for them. You can compare the estimated kHs here and decide whether or not they are worth it for the price.
Another quick question:
Do you think this setup will work with 4X Dual X Sapphire r9 280x?
Thanks in advance!
Yes but you need a way bigger power supply, 1300w at least. (Maybe 1200 but I’d not press it). Some people also go with 2 seperate power supplies for 4 or more cards. But this can be a pain to manage because you need to start your 2nd power supply manually. Just make sure your cards use powered risers. Unpowered risers will make more power be pulled directly through the motherboard and really increases the chances of it being fried.
I bought 3 of those XFX cards and I am just wondering what settings you are using for cgminer? I am having a hard time getting anything over 390 kh/s each and I am still not sure they are stable at that.
Hey, sorry for the delayed reply Kelly, I’m working on tweaking my settings this weekend and I’ll be providing more info. I found this for now:
http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoinmining/comments/1w5use/my_xfx_r9_270_mining_performance_sucks_please_help/
Maybe it can be helpful to you.
Awesome. Let me know what you find and I will do the same. Here’s my current config and it has been running stable for 4.5 hours with a hash rate of 1170 kh/s. I do not know how to see hardware errors in smos but my invalid shares is very low so I am assuming I must not be getting hardware errors. I have 2926 accepted and 16 invalid shares for a .543% reject ratio.
“intensity” : “18″,
“vectors” : “1″,
“worksize” : “256″,
“kernel” : “scrypt”,
“lookup-gap” : “2″,
“gpu-engine” : “925″,
“gpu-memclock” : “1400″,
“gpu-memdiff” : “0″,
“gpu-powertune” : “20″,
“gpu-vddc” : “0.000″,
“temp-cutoff” : “80″,
“temp-overheat” : “75″,
“temp-target” : “70″,
“api-listen” : true,
“api-mcast-port” : “4028″,
“api-port” : “4028″,
“auto-fan” : true,
“expiry” : “120″,
“failover-only” : true,
“gpu-dyninterval” : “7″,
“gpu-threads” : “1″,
“log” : “5″,
“thread-concurrency” : “16384″,
“no-pool-disable” : true,
“queue” : “2″,
“scan-time” : “40″,
“scrypt” : true,
“temp-hysteresis” : “3″,
“shares” : “0″,
“no-submit-stale” : true,
“kernel-path” : “/opt/miners/cgminer/bin”
Hi Kelly,
Finally got all my parts and system completely set up, I’m running around 1.325 average on pretty basic settings:
One thing I noticed is the ventillation for these cards seems to come out everywhere, which would be bad if you are in a standard case, because the air flow would not work out. My cards are actually not even noisy at all and fans are barely running at 50% in an open rig though.
This is all I’m running now:
–scrypt -I 19 –thread-concurrency 21712 –gpu-engine 1050 –gpu-memclock 1500
Using xubuntu with latest linux drivers.
I’m going to rebuild my other rig and fix the crappy airflow then I will be back to tweak these, but its not even that laggy either, I can actually still do things on the computer without any problems, unlike my windows machine, so it probably still has room to be tweaked. Still need to run a lot longer to get a better idea on rejects.
Awesome! I got mine running at 1.35 and it seems stable as it has been running for 24 hrs but if it has stability problems I will try those. FYI I set intensity at 20 and gpu engine at 1050. Other than that memory clock is default and I did not set tc. Also they are undervolted to 1100 and they run 65 degrees with the fans at about 50 % in my open air case with no other fans blowing on them.
Yea, I guess what I used is actually not very stable. It was fine for a few hours but now I’ve gotten sick cards like 3-4 times, and bringing down just the intensity doesn’t do anything, so I’ll try with lower memclock, thanks.
You said you could also do 4 270s, but you would need at least a 1050w power supply. Could you recommend one? I’ve tried looking around but I’m not sure exactly what I need, and obviously it would be nice to be a Platinum rated one as well.
Thanks for asking this – I have the same question. I saw one on Amazon, 1200 Watt power supply, for around $375.00 – platinum rated (Corsair). Would this be adequate? Also, a noob question – the larger the power supply, the more electricity you would be drawing, or would it save on your electric bill, to have a larger capacity power supply?
Thanks for your help,
Elise
Yea that power supply is pretty good, seems like the best platinum power supply that is over 1050+ watts that I’ve seen. You don’t need that much power unless you are running 4 or more cards though.
” Also, a noob question – the larger the power supply, the more electricity you would be drawing, or would it save on your electric bill, to have a larger capacity power supply?”
Probably a lot more info than you need, but just in case you are curious = ).
Think of it this way, the number of watts that it can support, is the maximum amount of things that you can plug into it. So if one of your video cards takes 200 watts, you are 200 watts closer to the maximum the power supply can support. Your CPU, Motherboard, Case Fans, and everything else also add to this amount. Not all pieces of your computer use the maximum amount of power they require at all times too. Your video card might use just 50-100 watts when not running very hard, but if you are mining it might be going closer to the maximum.
So if I have 1 video card for 200 watts(more powerful cards will use more), and your CPU, motherboard, ram, hard drive and so on is using another 200 watts, you are at 400 watts. If your power supply is at 700 maximum supported watts, you are fine. You might even be able to add another card, and have no problems. Because you will only be at 600/700. But then you add a third card.
Your computer might start, because not everything is running at maximum, but when everything is running at maximum, you would be at 800/700, which would be bad. Your computer will probably shut off.
So if you get a 1200 watt supply, you would be way above the requirements for 2-3 cards. So everything should run fine. The good thing is that your power supply will also generally only use as much power as your components are asking for, plus a little bit more. So you won’t use more power for getting a 1200w instead of an 800w automatically. But if you buy a 1200w and only need 800w you are paying more than you need for the supply, but it gives you more room for future expansion.
The little bit more electricity used is where the platinum rating comes into play. Power supplies are rated on efficiency, which is where you get the platinum, gold, bronze, and so on ratings. The efficiency comes from how much power is coming from the outlet, and how much power is being used by the computer components. If it is platinum, 90%+ electricity pulled from the wall should be delivered to the components. The rest is lost and usually is dispersed as heat, (Which is another good reason to have a higher rated supply, it won’t be as hot). For Bronze, this goes all the way down to 82%. So you are wasting quite a bit more electricity. Gold is 87%, which isn’t as bad, and you won’t save a TON of money from going from platinum to gold, but it does help a bit. But the fact that it doesn’t run as hot also probably means its a little safer, and there is less chance that you will blow a fuse because of less used as well.
Just one last thing, I wouldn’t run more than 1600w from a single outlet unless you know for sure what it supports. If you notice your power going out, you have a problem. Many outlets also use the same line, so if your power is still going out after switching outlets you probably have too much power on that line and need to find a different outlet that isn’t on the same line to your fuse box. This probably doesn’t apply to you though unless you are plugging a ton of stuff in that uses a lot of electricity, 1 miner machine with 3 cards won’t do that by itself.
Very insightful and thorough answer – thank you once again for taking the time to be so educational and helpful. Am still juggling with the choices for components, thinking of buying the beefier power supply, and just one card now…and expand, accordingly. I still don’t know though, how this is all going to get assembled. How to install the Windows 7 software, for example, onto the hard drive? Without a tray to put the disk in? Monitor, keyboard and mouse also have to get hooked up to the rig? I know how noob these questions are, but everyone has their areas of expertise, this just isn’t mine (at least, not yet!)
Still very confused, as to how it all goes together. I know I could do it, if I could just see it.
Hey Elise, you aren’t asking noob questions, they are totally legit. You are right, you will need a dvdrom to install windows 7, however you can also get away with installing through USB, but it looks like kind of a pain to set up:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/a/install-windows-7-usb.htm
I install linux from usb to my miners. Yes you will need a monitor, keyboard and mouse hooked up initially, but you can take them away later and set it up so you can access the machine from your other computers.
Dear Poor Shibe (sorry, I don’t know your first name!)
Thank you for your reply and for the vote of confidence, that these aren’t exactly noob questions, after all. I hope you are still able to put together the guide, or video at some point – I know you have a lot on your plate, doing the tweaking,etc… Anyway, you have helped my understanding of things greatly.
It does look a bit involved, installing Windows 7 through a USB drive. Is there a USB port on the hard drive you are recommending, where the USB would go, to complete the installation of Windows 7? You are using Linux, in place of Windows 7? I found this link, that explains how to do this, from a USB: http://www.instructables.com/id/Install-any-linux-from-a-usb-the-easy-way/
Is Linux better for mining than Windows 7 or does this not really matter?
I know, I am quite the fountain of questions! I am not familiar with Linux, so if it involves another steep learning curve, probably best to stick with Windows 7.
Have a great weekend,
Elise
Actually working on the guide right now, spent about 5 hours on putting the miner together and getting the pictures, Hopefully I’ll get it posted tomorrow.
Linux can be a pain if you haven’t used it before. Its easy to follow a tutorial for linux but if you have a problem that isn’t covered in the tutorial its hard to know how to fix it.
Your best bet might be to either borrow the dvd drive from your computer if you can, to install windows, or get a cheap dvd drive. Maybe something like this:
Asus 24x DVD-RW Serial-ATA Internal OEM Optical Drive DRW-24B1ST (Black)
That’s great – doesn’t add too much, to the overall cost to also purchase this little unit. Glad to hear you are making progress on the guide! I will wait to go through it, before asking any more questions.
Thanks so much!
Elise
Corsair Professional Series AX 1200 Watt Digital ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Platinum (AX1200i)
This corsair one seems like one of the best of the 1050+ watt power supplies that is platinum rating. You can also get away with using two power supplies, but it can be a pain to start the second power supply because it won’t automatically turn on when you boot your computer.
This is a really clean easy way to start 2 power supplies at the same time. You can typically get 2 solid 860 watt power supplies for the cost of 1 good 1200 watt which obviously gives you more bang for your buck.
http://www.add2psu.com/store/
I bought this one , it is very reasonably priced with good ratings, it is gold rated.
Coolmax ZPG-1200B 1200W 80Plus Gold ATX12V v2.3/EPS 12V v2.92 Power Supply
Hello , i just have $300 , do you know a advice to turn it into $1000 by investing in dogecoin or a cheaper mining rig, dont worry about power supply because i dont pay it. Thank you, sorry for my bad english.
300 dollars you might be better off just buying doge, but I can’t say for certain if the price will always go up. You can also try to get a 270x or something, and mine some dogecoin, but you will only get 3000 a day.
Hello Poor Shibe I bought 4 ASUS R9270X-DC2T-2GD5 Graphics Cards R9270X-DC2T-2GD5 and a 1200w power supply along with all your other recommendations but I still wonder if I need anymore risers,cables or anything else to make it all work correctly. thank you
Hello! Thank you for this, two questions:
Which are the best graphics cards, ir order (for around these prices)?
1) ASUS R9270X-DC2T-2GD5 Graphics Cards R9270X-DC2T-2GD5 at $288.77
2) ASUS R9270-DC2OC-2GD5 Graphics Cards at $209.99
3) Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 4GB GDDR5 DVI-I/DVI-D/HDMI/DP Dual-X with Boost and OC version PCI-Express Graphics Card 11217-04-20G at $280.97
4) Gigabyte R9 270 GDDR5-2GB 2xDVI/HDMI/DP OC Graphics Card (GV-R927OC-2GD) at $249.00
5) XFX Double D R9 270 925MHz Boost 2GB DDR5 DP HDMI 2XDVI Graphics Card (R9270ACDFC) at $246.00
Is this a good power supply:
*) EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2 80PLUS Platinum Certified ATX12V/EPS12V Active PFC 1000W Power Supply (220-P2-1000-XR)
Thank you!
I’d go with ASUS R9270-DC2OC-2GD5 Graphics Cards at $209.99. The power supply seems decent, haven’t used it myself, but its good for having platinum rating and decent reviews.
Nice guide but after building up all this, whats next? I am new to dojecoins so not sure if there is a miner software or what?
Yes, if you look at this guide, you can find out what to do next.
Hey! Thanks for the guide.
I’m having some trouble, though. I bought pretty much all the parts you listed here, put it together, and it booted up and I was able to start mining. However, it crashed a few minutes after and I can’t boot up the computer anymore. Only difference in components is the hard drive (I opted for a 120GB Samsung SSD) and instead of 3 graphics cards, I only purchased 2 of the Gigabyte R9 270 cards due to Amazon’s limit.
I used the risers mentioned, but may not have had the power correctly plugged into the PCI Express 1x riser. When I was mining, it went up to 490khash/s for each card at less than 75 degrees C.
The motherboard now has its DRAM LED solid red when I turn it on. I’ve tried:
-Swapping in RAM that works in another computer
-Moving the RAM stick to other slots
-Removing all unnecessary components
-Using only one graphics card
-Removing the riser and attaching the graphics card directly to the motherboard
-Clearing the DRAM
-Holding the MemOK button on motherboard
-Resetting the BIOS
Could I have damaged the motherboard or graphics cards in those few short minutes? CGMiner wasn’t showing any hardware errors either. The last thing I tried to do was put the graphics card into another computer with the riser and powered with a second PSU. It didn’t boot up and no POST.
Is it possibly a bad motherboard, bad graphics cards, or both?
Oops. Forgot!
Here were the settings I used in CGminer:
- TC 24k
- w 256
- I 19
- lookup gap 2
- g 1
- mem clock 1500
- gpu engine 1150
- no submit stale
- gpu powertune 20
- auto fan
- temp target 70
Hi Phil, I know you said you already reset the DRAM, but I’d check this out:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20110115055115414&board_id=1&model=P8P67+PRO&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
and this:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20110109013000847&board_id=1&model=P8P67%20PRO&page=3&count=59
Maybe there is something that you didn’t do that it recommends, it also recommends removing the CMOS battery in one of those posts.
I am also not sure how you tested the card in the other computer with the other power supply, you have to manually start the power supply if there are 2 supplies on 1 PC.
You can damage your motherboard by not using powered risers and can’t say if that is your problem or not, but when this happens, most people post pics of visible damage to the motherboard/port where it actually burnt a bit. So maybe if you haven’t already looked, you could see if you could find any visible damage.
So I bought this exact rig with the Radeon R9270s, and I cannot get it to boot with three cards. It will do two just fine, but not three. Is there a trick to loading all three cards? When I hit the power the CPU fan spins slowly, and nothing else happens. If I use two it all boots up normally.
Is there any special configuration settings to use all three cards?
Thanks, D
Hey Derek,
There shouldn’t be any tricks, I haven’t had any issues. When you say 2 cards work, did you verify that it is any of the 2 cards out of the 3 or is it a specific 2 cards? Make sure your powered risers are plugged in if they aren’t already, and that everything else on the board looks like its plugged in ok.
So it looks like it may be one of the 1x to 16x risers. Tried both video cards, in both slots with the same riser and no good. Both video cards work in both slots with my other riser, so there’s the culprit. Currently mining at ~410 Kh/s, ~77°C with two cards. Going to exchange this one at Amazon and let you know what happens in a few days.
Thanks for all the help. This was a great tutorial. I was mining on my personal computer, at about 240 Kh/s at 70°C, but couldn’t do much else except remote in and check the status. it’ll be good to have my media server back, with uninterrupted mining.
If you assemble 3 video cards in one mining rig will your rig automatically use the power of those 3 cards to mine ?
Poor Shibe
I have the asus 270x and want to know if there is any point in using the crossfire cable option? thank you
No, you don’t want to use crossfire. Since all your cards do several separate tasks at once it doesn’t benefit at all.
Hi! Thanks so much for this guide. I was taking a look at the new mining rigs offered by ibuypower. It specifically includes 2x 270Xs for $1,099 and states around 840mh/s. Obviously i know it won’t be as cheap as building one yourself, but do you think this is an okay deal for the cost? Appreciate your honest opinion.
This is not worth it unless you are unable to find 270s/270x’s for under 300. For 1100 you can get at least 1200 kHs if not more.
Thanks for the insight!
One more question. 270s are practically all our of stock everywhere. So, I was thinking about getting the 7870 instead. From what i have read in reviews, they are practically identical. Would you think they would also perform the same when it came to mining?
The profitability of dogecoin fell so much. You barely get any coin now
Has the difficulty increased that much, in such a short time? What will even one card produce in a day? I know this always fluctuates but it would be sad to build a rig, only to have it not produce much.
Well, what happened was that the reward for mining dogecoins was just halfed, but the good thing is the value of dogecoin has increased by 2-3 fold in the past week. So even though you will get less coins it will still be worth a decent amount of cash. The difficulty went clear to 2200 yesterday when people were trying to get the last blocks before the reward was halfed, to 1200, so its not as hard to get coins now. So it kinda balances itself out.
Also, there are many different types of coins other than dogecoin you can mine. But for me, I am still mining dogecoin because it is still the best thing right now. I’d not worry too much about it. Even if you build a rig and don’t get as much coins, you still end up with a computer.. so its not 100% a waste of money. Just don’t expect to get rich from it and there are always risks involved.
You can get less coin, but the coins are also worth 3-4 times as much as they were a few weeks ago.
Hey! I want to build a computer as yours, but with 4 cards. If you could help me it would be very cool!!! Id like to talk to you on skype OR facebook so I dont mess up… Can you help? Thanks
With 270s running out everywhere, do you have any experience using 7870s to mine? On a performance level they are practically the same. i am currently seeing them for 75 bucks cheaper than the 270s
If they are the same performance and cheaper then I’d totally go with them. I haven’t used 7870′s but I use 7950s and they are pretty easy to set up. But the only thing that really matters is kH/s for mining, and preferably getting the most kH/s per dollar spent.
Hey, its me again. I saw you havent answered the question above… With your 3 x r9270 how many dogecoins are you mining actualy after the dificulty went up? Thanks
Forgive my ignorance here, I’m new to this whole thing.. just trying to get started mining and still waiting for my wallet to sync. My desktop currently has just an AMD Radeon HD 7700 – I didn’t really plan to build a whole rig just for mining, as I just wanted to try it out, and have some doge to play with. Is it worth it to grab another HD 7700, since they are only ~$100? Will my Doge actually ~double?
Yes, because your video cards are what do all the work to get the coins. But you will need to have a power supply good enough to run two cards, and an extra slot in your computer for another video card.
Hey there, I’m back. Same setup, three 270s. Three fans. On 24/7.
Got my three cards running at 420+. The third card issue was the riser. Replaced it and it’s working great. I have a question about temperatures, and stability. I notice that card 0 is running ~15 degrees hotter than the other two cards, even though it’s got an extra fan all to itself (img 1). I lowered the intensity, engine, and memclock a bit, but it’s still ~10 degrees too hot (img 2). I also noticed that setting card 2 to the same max settings as card 1, it will be DEAD about halfway through the night. This was happening with card 1, when I only had the two cards (0, 1) plugged into the board.
Have you had the same issues, temp or stability? Luckily, I’m getting <= 1% rejected, so I'm okay, but the temperature issue is really bothering me. Is 85 okay? I don't feel right letting it run that hot for very long. I live in SF, so I can get the temperature to drop ~5 degrees by opening my windows and balcony, but during the day card 0 varies between 80-85 degrees.
Thanks in advance for the help.
img 1: http://i.imgur.com/2Xqc6Mr.png
img 2: http://i.imgur.com/m20emxl.png
In my opinion that is a little bit hot. I would enable the auto-fan option and set the target temp for like 75.
I agree with Kelly, and I also would try and make sure the card has good airflow. There shouldn’t be that huge of a difference between your 3 cards. The RPM on the fan is low if that is at 85. With autofan also try temp-target 80 if you don’t already have it.
These are my overnight settings, because it gets really cold here overnight. My temp drops to <80 on card 0:
–auto-fan –temp-target 70 –temp-overheat 80 –temp-cutoff 86 -I 18,18,17 –thread-concurrency 25614 –gpu-engine 1100,1100,1050 –gpu-memclock 1500,1500,1450
Otherwise, during the day, it's:
–auto-fan –temp-target 70 –temp-overheat 80 –temp-cutoff 86 -I 17,18,17 –thread-concurrency 25614 –gpu-engine 1050,1100,1050 –gpu-memclock 1450,1500,1450
I tried to put the temp-target low, so the fans would go higher (and it seems to be working on the other two cards). I lower everything a little bit during the day, and it pretty much lowers the temp about 3 degrees. I have a separate fan on card 0. My biggest issue is that I underestimated my setup, and the cards aren't positioned the way I wanted them to be. I would actually think that with this positioning, card 0 would be the coolest, especially with a second fan on it.
I've included a photo of the early stages of my rig, before I replaced the faulty riser on card 2 and added the second fan (img 1). card 0 is closest to the camera. I've also removed all the items from this half of the closet, and created a really good airflow. I live in a really small space, so this is literally the only place I can put this. I now have one fan behind card 2, blowing down and across the cards, and one fan blowing just across card 0, air going between card 0 & 1. My original plan was to have the cards turned 90 degrees and just put a fan on the back of the shelf. Need to just find somewhere to cut my extra shelf.
img 1: http://i.imgur.com/upZ6WIq.jpg
Do you really think it’s the cooling? I just find it really strange that this GPU runs ~15º hotter than the other two (which can run at much higher speeds). I just can’t figure it out. It couldn’t be the riser malfunctioning, could it? I would assume it just wouldn’t work if that were the case. I don’t believe I’ll see any changes if I turn them 90º from where they are now, or put any more fans. I’ll try some more stuff tomorrow, and see if anything will fix it, hardware-wise.
Any other tips?
It could be the heatsink on the GPU not being put on very well or with not enough thermal paste, but messing with this can void your warranty.
Okay. I’ll do some more troubleshooting when I can and see what I can find out.
Thanks!
So here’s an interesting development. I switched gpu 0 (the hot gpu) with gpu 2 (my third gpu), and now gpu 1 is 15 degrees hotter than 0 & 1. Then, I switched 0 & 1, leaving 2 alone (original hot gpu), and 1 is still 15 degrees hotter, and all three hash rates are down about 60 kh/s. I lowered the gpu engine and they’re all back up to 450 kh/s, and card 1 is now 20 degrees hotter.
I was experimenting with 1125 for the gpu engine, but 1100 seems to net the most kh/s oddly enough. At least it does in this configuration. In my original configuration, 1125 put them all at 465 kh/s.
This is really frustrating. my temp cutoff is 86, and gpu 1 is at 89 degrees right now, with the lowest accepted shares. Am I just crazy here? What could be causing these issues? We now know it’s not the risers, or video cards, and I can’t imagine it’s the motherboard. My settings are the same across all cards. Should I even be asking these questions here, or can you recommend a better place?
After running for about 30 mins, and changing the intensity, engine, and memclock of gpu 1 from 18 to 17, from1100 to 1050, and from 1500 to 1450, the card is running at 79 degrees.
http://i.imgur.com/AbZsrK5.png
Looks like that’s the best I can do. It’s also night time, so who knows what it’ll look like during the day.
That’s not too bad. It is really a guessing game and constant tweaking because there are so many variables involved, as you can see changing 1 parameter, even lowering it, can actually improve performance. You can try out reddit.com/r/dogemining and they might be able to give some additional feedback and advice.
Thanks, I’ll check them out. So far, night temperature has brought it down to 74, so that’s a step in the right direction.
So, the two cards were just baking the third. I changed the orientation of my shelf by cutting it in half, rotating the two pieces 90 degrees, and attaching it back together.
http://i.imgur.com/dtIcgnS.jpg
Here’s the new temperatures, about 8-9°C cooler now.
http://i.imgur.com/3bRgjOY.png
Thanks for all of your help. Looks like it’s not a problem with the card, but was in fact the ventilation. I only have one fan on it now. I recommend the Vornado fan if you have limited space.
http://tinyurl.com/mveqtnr
That fan looks cool, thinking about picking it up. Thanks for the followup!
I cannot get this to work. When I put both cards in, I get no signal at either monitor. When I put the old card in alone, I have to re-download the driver for it. I know I am just missing something basic, but I cannot get it right. And about the cords: I assume all the different types should deliver video, correct? DVI-D and DVI should both deliver video?
How much can we mine with 1.2-1.3 mhash/s these days? as you stated when you started it could make you around 11k doges a day, also is there any graphic card that can give you around 1 mhash/s with only 1 rig?
I found a link to top graphic cards, but I now have 1 question, How much can you make these days with 1.2-1.3 mhash/s because the current difficulty has dropped it seems?
Hi Bilal, this calculator gives a good estimate.
Thanks for the reply, I am confused with the Wattage, I currently have bought a Gigabyte R9 280x (which states i need a 600 watt power supply atleast) and I have a 1200 Watt Power supply, What will be my Wattage in calculator then?
Also If i get another 280x card, will be wattage be doubled?
It means 600 watt power supply for that card and your computer components. You need to find what the wattage for the card itself is, under a full load. For 280x I think it is 250-300 watts per card. But it can vary per brand. Then give 200-300 watts for the components and overhead. Each card will be an additional 250-300 watts required.
This might help you out. It lists 2 cards as requiring at least 750watts.
Just a question,
If I were to install 4 gpus, would the card in the x4 slot have a hashrate one quarter of the other cards?
No, they would all have the same hashrate, just make sure you use a powered riser. The reason is because the GPUs are doing a ton of calculations, but when it needs to return the result, its not very big. This is in contrast for when you are playing games, where all the complex information needs to be returned to your monitor. So you want to use the x16 slots for gaming.
Thanks for the help, Poor shibe.
What kind of power supply is needed for 4 gpus of similar power consumption to the ones in this guide?
270s are around 150 watts each, then you add some for your compoents. So around 800 watts, maybe 850 just in case. 270x power requirement may be a little higher, I see it listed for 1 270x at 180 watts per card.
I have one last question hopefully lol, but thanks a lot for your help through out the guide I have now built a rig and its running one r9 280x card on 750 khash/s avg with 82 C average temperature, I searched around and that looks pretty fair, But now i will be soon planning to put up another card, most probably same as this one, my motherboard link is below:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VI_FORMULA/
(Note i dont have a cooler as this one states, it has a space to put one but i havent)
The motherboard temperature never goes above 40 celcius, though now im concerned what if i put another card on the same motherboard? What would you advise? and are the riser cables used to put away the cards from one another? i have no idea what riser cables are so im just wondering if riser cables can be used to make some distance between graphic cards so they dont become too hot or they are just used to not put much load on motherboard? Because i only got this motherboard because it says it has great heat dissipation technique or what so ever, so what do you think is the best thing to do with this motherboard?
Thanks again for everything!
With video cards, you can get away with just 2 cards with no risers, but it may be a little hot, and you will want to space them out quite a bit. (If you have 4 PCIEx16 slots, use the ones furthest away from eachother). If not, the fan from 1 card will be right on top of another. For many motherboards, there is no way to add more than 2-3 cards without using risers. They allow you to connect a cord from the slot to the bottom of the card, so you have flexibility when placing them. But your PC case might not easily allow you to put this card anywhere once the riser is being used, except maybe up or down a slot that you aren’t using. Check out the building guide part 2 to get an idea on how I use the risers.
Thanks, I will most probably use Riser cables to prevent issues, since i might be wanting to put 3 cards too, Can you tell me if the motherboard i linked you has 3 PCI slots if i am not wrong?
Yes it actually has 3×16 slots and 3×1 slots, which means it could actually have 6 cards. The 3×1 slots would need powered risers. The motherboard would be way more expensive than necessary for mining though. Also, I have not used this board, but the heat you have to worry about is the cards them selves and not the motherboard overheating. The CPU and RAM don’t need to be overclocked for mining, it actually would have no affect, because mining dogecoins is all about the graphics cards.
I really appreciate your posts and advice. I am looking for help in installing different cards on the same rig. I bought a new 270X and when I installed it my system reverted to onboard graphics. I pulled the older Vapor-X 4870, but I would like to put it back in, so that I can keep the 270X running full speed, and be able to use the 4870 for other tasks or a second worker. Any thoughts or links to how to do teh physical install/drivers?
You can use the same ATI drivers for both cards most likely. When you have both cards in, put the one you will be mining with in the slot that is least powerful, for example, some motherboards have a 16x that is actually a 4x-16x slot and a 16x slot that is actually 16x. The card you will use for your monitor should be in the real x16. The reason being is that mining doesn’t require much dataflow to and from the graphics card and the rest of the computer, where using your graphics card to play games or other tasks does.
If you put the mining card in a x1-16x slot you should use a powered riser.
For cgminer, when you have it running, you can specify specific settings per card by separating the settings with commas. You can also disable GPUs like this:
-d 0 --remove-disabledThis will make CG miner not use it.
So you need to find out which card number is the 4870. To know which GPU is what, go to the command line (for windows, go to start, and type cmd, change directories by going typing
cd c:/mycgminerlocation), and navigate to your cg miner directory, then typecgminer.exe --ndevs, it will tell you which device goes in what slot.OK. Thank you for your detailed response. I will work on this tonight!
Sorry I put this in the wrong thread:
I cannot get this to work. When I put both cards in, I get no signal at either monitor. When I put the old card in alone, I have to re-download the driver for it. I know I am just missing something basic, but I cannot get it right. And about the cords: I assume all the different types should deliver video, correct? DVI-D and DVI should both deliver video?
Update: I installed the 4870 in the number one slot, and the 270x in the third slot. I had to reinstall the driver for the 4870 and mess with the display for quite a while to get it to look good and show the correct dimensions. I wasn’t expecting that.
I have an old screen connected to the 270x but get no display. Reviewing the display adapter, I see that it is in error Code 43. The driver is up to date.
Also! When I start cgminer it crashes now. I did try running it with the –ndevs and a couple other switches I found in the readme, but no matter what, it crashes. I do not see anything in the .bat or config that points it to the 270x, but maybe I am missing something there.
So, I need to fix the problem with the GPU first. Has anyone dealt with this?
Update. I unisntalled the 270x driver, then Windows installed a generic one. Now I am viewing on the display attached to the 4870, but that card is now showing error 43. It seems like the two drivers conflict, but I can now run cgminer. WTH?
From AMD: The HD 4870 is a legacy card, the R9 270x is not, they do not use the same driver set, cannot be Crossfired, and cannot be used in the same system without conflicts.
Really? I know you can’t crossfire them, but I am pretty sure you can run them both with the same drivers. For example, when I select HD 4870 and r9 270x from here:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows%207%20-%2064
They both return the same drivers.
Have a link where it says they are incompatible?
Make sure you use the downloaded catalyst drivers and not the drivers on the disks for the cards.
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=440&threadid=171954
BTW, There are a lot of discussions about this issue.
I’m not really convinced, since both cards are supposed to be able to use the same drivers. I would make sure the drivers are completely wiped out and use the newest downloaded drivers for ATI catalyst. If you tried to install two different ATI drivers it could have caused problems with your configuration. I’m not trying to argue and you have looked into it longer than me, but I haven’t been able to find anything specifically that says that two ATI cards from different generations won’t co-exist.
Since almost everything else was out of stock at the time, I purchased the Gigabyte R9 270′s instead of the Asus or Sapphire. But it seems the Gigabyte version is the only one that requires to connections to the power supply instead of just one. Are both required?
Yes, you need to make sure both are plugged in. If you don’t have enough connectors, sometimes your video cards come with adapters to turn your other cables from the PSU into the 6 pin ones you need for the card.
This post have been very helpful for me. I was wondering if it is a good idea to put a floor tile under the motherboard.
I haven’t used floor tile, and it might work, as long as it isn’t conductive and it doesn’t easily gives off a static discharge.
This post is very well done! After reading it and browsing through parts I’ve decided it might be more efficient too boost up the states and gain some cost savings. What do you think about this, poor shibe?
Here’s the gist:
-1300 W power supply
-7 XFX Core Edition HD7850 860MHz
- Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
Here’s the link for parts of the build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/30S1N
http://amzn.to/1bNzzGU
All said and done it would run me about 1900. With each card @370 btc @600 and elec at 0.1 kwh it’d take 157 days to pay back.
Would these be feasible to build?
I think this board is only 6 slots, because 1 is PCI. But other than that, it looks decent. Just be sure if you have 6 cards on one board, that you have powered risers, and even with risers, your cards might be pretty close together so you will need decent ventilation.
Why are powered risers necessary? Aren’t I plugging the gpus into the psu?
GPUs plug into the GPU and the motherboard for power. You can get powered risers which make the card take less power from the board, it isn’t required for the 16x slots, but it might help prevent a burnout. For the 1x slot you definitely need the powered riser.
So each gpu would be plugged into the psu directly and then then connected to a molex on the powered riser?
Yes, and if you are getting risers its usually not much more expensive to get the powered versions anyway.
Well unfortunately I already ordered then. The molex then connected to to the psu as well right? So they’re really plugged into the gpu twice?
Yes, all it does is attempts to prevent the power from being pulled directly through the motherboard, and less likely to cause any damage, but it is more of a concern for people who use several x1-16x risers that aren’t powered. Since your board is mostly x16-x16 its not as big of a deal. The x16-x16 unpowered risers should be okay, but if given the choice of paying a dollar more for the powered I’d go with that just to be sure.
Thanks for the site. Being a totally newbie, I thought it is just great and jumped in.
Hence, I just bought the same motherboard M5A97 and, due to availability. fx-6300 plus two Gigabyte R9 270x. Not good in working with gears and I asked the shop to install it (and also 6 hard drives for my future RAID when the mining is no longer profitable). They spent 3 hours installing it (!) and after I stood for 1.5 hours I gave up. Unfortunately when I came back (and without knowing the significance), the cards was installed in cross fire configuration .
Back home, I have not been able to get the two cards work separately. Now under Windows 7 only one is 400 kH/s and the other is about 50 KH/s. The Catalyst said that it is NOT crossfire enabled and I tried also remove the crossfire cable.
Should I just gave up and bought a third card plus raiser cable.
Would install Linux help? In this line, which Linux would be good to go? Any suggestion what to look for during installation. I have spare one hard drive for this in the system but could use an external usb thumb drive.
For your kind advice.
Dennis
Windows should work fine, and crossfire should not be set up, you are correct in removing the cable. 400 kh/s for one card may be ok starting, but 50 kh/s for the second is low. What does your configuration look like?
I found out the cross fire cable is not the issue; just disable it in crystal centre. Key is to unplug the hdmi cable and gradually the second cards grows to 370 kh/s and q constant now for both cards. Not sure later it’s change to windows basic 7 or aero meant when I team viewer it as a headless box. But it is 740 kh/s with 72c and 62c now. Work only using I 16 but hw error is 0.
Overall not enough to pay for the electricity though. I am paying $0.2 per kWh. Switch to litecoin does not help but seems better return (?) and the above is actually litecoin rate. Lite guardian got a good remote monitor Php that tells the temperature.
Once stable down in the next week or so eg inc I etc (most test so far bring down the windows or too hot). I would try raiser cable etc to lower the temp. and other coins. Just not sure have a 3rd card now as it is a lost clause so far.
Thanks again for the site.
Btw, what is your windows parameters?
Also, any hints to use linux(which version, drivers,… Etc).
Thanks again.
Hej.
So great article, just because of you i am on my way to become a miner also, but i just CANT figure this out, so hope you can help me.
Buying a mining rig with 3 GPU´s for about 1300$ mining about 2100 Mh/s or 2050 Gh/s (About)
Or i can buy 2 x Antminer S1 with PSU for around 1400$ mining 360 Gh/s
I realy dont understand these GH/s, MH/s, KH/s so i cant find out to use the calculators correctly, to see if a GPU mining rig or a ASIC mining rig is the best choise, right now for ROI in the next 3-6 months.
Antminer S1 are for mining SHA256 coins like bitcoin. You would use a different calculator for that, like this one here.
If you want to mine dogecoin (scrypt based), for now only GPU mining is widespread.
Are you mine solo or pool? if pool which pool are you mining at? that alot of dogecoin for 1.5mh
Yea I got started several months ago when it was much easier to make that much coins. It is harder now and with 3 mH/s (2 rigs) I make just 10k dogecoins a day.
Of you just plan on putting the OS on that solid state drive, you could probably get away with just 2 GB of RAM, or even 1. Like you said, RAM doesn’t affect the mining process.
not bad i prefer Metal just because went i think computers i think metal not plastic here is my 1st attempt. but i give you credit for thinking out of the box. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnCGtxG4Wdw
Hi, great article. Any suggestions for a regular PCI card for casual mining? I don’t have PCIe and just want to get my feet wet with what I have. I assume there are compatibility restrictions with cuda/cg miner?
I haven’t looked into this in detail, but there are PCIE adapters for PCI slots, like this. This might allow you to use a newer PCIE card, but you may want to do additional research on this. Any cards that are PCI only aren’t likely to be very good, and I don’t think they make them anymore.
First off thanks for this wonderful guide! Second I am 15 years old and I am a new to building computers. I need a new computer so my parents are going to give me some money and i will add some of my own to get about 1100. I have been researching altcoins for a couple of weeks and i want to make a rig. I need some advice as to whether or not i should build this rig (I would have to build it myself and only use this guide) or just get a new computer. Will I be able to make my money back? Is it harder than it appears to build? Am I crazy for wanting to set one of these up?
Either way, if you are getting a new PC anyway, it is a win/win. I’d just go with more ram/better cpu which will be better when using the computer, and a single, more powerful graphics card or two decent graphics cards. You probably won’t make your money back at this point, but you will learn some cool stuff and if you are getting a new computer anyway, then why not. I’d just make sure what ever graphics card you get has a decent warranty (most of them do) of at least 3 years, because mining can cause strain on it, and make it more likely that it would go out, and that would suck if you use it as your primary computer.
Hey thanks for this guide it is really helpful
I am a poor college student currently and I am looking for ways to make a little extra cash to pay off my loans. Could mining dogecoin possibly help me out with this? Also could I use this rig to mine other cryptocurrency?
Just a quick question. I bought the 180GH/s Bitcoin miners a few months back, and I wanted to ask if it is possible to configure my miners to mine dogecoin instead of bitcoin?
You assistance is much appreciated.
Thanks!
Hi thanks you much for your guide I was wondering at this point in time if you are still running your rig and if so how much are you making at this point in time. I also noticed you said it puts a lot of stress on the gpu’s and I was wondering if you know on average how long a rig like this would live and also if it could mine other cryptocurrencies as well or if it’s only a dogecoin minner. thanks!
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I’m thinking about buying a new computer and using as a mining rig as well. It will contain only one GPU. Currently I’m looking at AMD Radeon R9 290 Sapphire TRI-X but I’m hesitating, maybe 780ti will be better?.. Need advice.
How would I get now with exact the same mining rig? Difficulty increased by 12 times. Does it mean I earn 12 times less than author of the article?
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