Here is the build list that I came up with after my research and the prices I paid for them on 8/22/17 to give you an idea of prices at that time. After the build list, I'll go into more detail on each item and also give you recommended alternatives in case these are out of stock at the time.
- GPU's - EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0, 8GB GDDR5, LED, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC) Graphics Card 08G-P4-6173-KR Qty 6 - $444 each.
- Motherboard - Biostar TB250-BTC Core i7/i5/i3 LGA1151 Intel B250 DDR4 SATA PCI Express USB ATX Retail - $113
- Processor - Intel BX80677G3930 7th Gen Celeron $43
- Memory -
- Hard drive
- SSD - EthosDistro 16gb with EthOS installed - $49
- SSD - Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB SSD - with a Windows 10 64 bit install - $139
- Power supply - EVGA SuperNoVA 1200 P2 80+ Platinum - $270
- PCI-E Risers - MintCell 6-Pack PCIe 16x to 1x Powered Riser Adapter Card - $49
- ATX power switch - Electop 2 Pack 2 Pin SW PC Push Button Switch - $6
- Case screws
- Motherboard - PC Mounting screws - $5
- Risers and GPU - Maxmoral 100pcs Toothed Hex 6/32 SCREW - $6
- Case - Parallel Miner Barebone Aluminum 6.1 GPU Open Air Mining Case - $198
- Parallel Miner has offered the readers of this blog a 10% discount. The discount can be obtained by using code 030964 when ordering. Please read the section below on cases as I believe your choice in a case is as important as the GPU's you use and I go into more detail there.
Total cost for build: $3688
A couple of months ago, I could have build the same mining rig for $1,000 less... and with the market changing on a daily basis and the speculated changes coming in the future, some will say I'm crazy to spend that much to get into mining right now. As I said earlier, I mined a bit of Bitcoin several years ago and regret getting out then... So I'm taking a leap of faith and hoping that I'll at least see a ROI in at least 10 months. Maybe more, maybe less... it all depends on the market. And I feel there will always be alt coins to mine. Hopefully my rig is future proofed enough that I'll be in the game for a while. *fingers crossed* Either way, it will be an interested journey :) And if it all goes belly up (which I doubt) at least I have top end gaming cards to recoup some of my losses with :)
So now on to the hardware!
Please note that all the links are from the products I purchased. Everything other than the open air case and SSD with EthOS loaded and configured, was ordered from Amazon and there are two main reasons why. The first being that due to the rush, there's a big shortage of hardware. Amazon supplies parts from several sellers and I've had better luck finding my components in stock on Amazon, than elsewhere. And the second, Amazon does not limit your purchases due to low stock, whereas other online retailers do. I was able to buy 6 GTX 1070's in one order, where at other sites, the video cards were limited to one or two per customer. Also, I'm an Amazon Prime member and free 2 day shipping rocks! :) Here in the US, there are two main places that I go to for my build components, they are Amazon and NewEgg.
GPU's
The first and most important decision is going to be what kind of video cards are you going to purchase for your new rig. As you probably know, there are two main types of cards that you can use, AMD and NVIDIA.
The first factor that is going to affect your purchase, is the availability of the cards. Due to a huge rush of people getting into mining the past several months, the prices of both cards have gone sky high... Regardless of which type of card you're interested in, expect to pay a premium and have difficulty finding the card in stock.
The most popular cards from each AMD and NVIDIA are:
1. AMD - MSI Radeon RX 580 Gaming X 8G
2. NVIDIA - EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0, 8GB
or the MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1070 8GB
Each card has it's strengths as to what type of Cryptocurrency it's better suited at for mining. The AMD cards have been the card of choice for Ethereum as they were priced well and hash at about 30 MH when overclocked properly.
The NVIDIA GTX 1070 is built on the NVIDIA Pascal GPU which hashes at around 30 MH as well, this is the first NVIDIA card that has hashed at a rate close/equal to the AMD Radeons. There are two important factors to take into consideration: First, the price. The GTX 1070 currently sells for approximately $100 more than the RX 580. Second, the GTX 1070 is more efficient, using approximately 100 Watts while hashing whereas the RX 580 will use 25% to 75% more depending on how they are overclocked. Depending on where you live and the cost of electricity, it may be a big factor for you when deciding which card to purchase. I've read several posts from miners who live or have access to "free electricity", whether it be in the apartment or office space! Now if I were only so lucky :)
One thing I would like to point out is that both the AMD and NVIDIA cards come in 4gb and 8gb versions. With the increasing hash rates on all coins, do yourself a favor and purchase only 8gb cards if at all possible. Ethereum for example uses a DAG file which is loaded by the GPU memory when hashing and it's expected to hit 3gb by early next year and eventually 4gb, etc... when it does, the lower memory cards will not be usable. Spend the extra money and future proof your rig as much as you can right now. The 4 gb versions may be good for another year, two, or more. But I would rather spend a little more now, than have to replace all my cards in the future due to memory limitations.
For my rig, I decide to go with the EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0, 8GB cards. I've been building custom gaming computers for 20 plus years and have always had good experiences with EVGA cards as they seem well designed and made. And from what I've read on the forums, a lot of people agree. I was lucky and found them in stock 2 days ago and purchased 6 of them. I was expecting to buy two at a time until I had a full 6 for my rig. Newegg will limit high demand items while Amazon typically allows you to buy as many as you like. Right now, it's a hit or miss game of who has what in stock.
Motherboard
There are a variety of motherboards out there that will work with a 6 GPU setup. After my research, I decided on a Biostar TB250-BTC Core i7/i5/i3 LGA1151 Intel B250. In my gaming rigs, I'm a die hard Asus fan, but this is not a gaming rig :) The Biostar TB250 was designed for mining and has a great reputation in the mining community. It includes a "Mining mode" that is available when you use 6 GPU's, or 12! Yes, this board can support 12 cards if that's something you might be interested in.
Processor
As far as the processor goes, basically you want to choose a compatible CPU for your board and you can choose one of the lower end processors as the GPU's are doing all the work and you're processor will be used primarily for the OS. My choice was the Intel BX80677G3930 7th Generation Celeron.
Memory
Again, the memory in your system will be used primarily for the OS. You can go as low as 4 Gb, but I opted for 8 Gb. For the price of memory these days, I didn't see a reason not to. It may help to future proof your rig and when I add 2 sticks of memory, I prefer them to be from a kit. My choice was the Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB Kit.
As an update, if you're going to be running Windows 10 64 bit, purchase 8GB ram at a minimum, 16 would be ideal for future proofing. I am only running 8, which is sufficient, but will upgrade to 16.
Hard drive and Operating System
Depending on your rig, number of GPU's and computer proficiency, you have several choices and I'll explain each.
- Windows 7 - Please note that Windows 7 only supports up to 4 GPU's. So if you're using 4 or less GPU''s, this is an option. There are also registry tweaks you can do to make it support 6, but I prefer native support. You can use an SSD or HDD with enough space for the Windows install.
- Windows 10 64-bit - Windows 10 64-bit supports 6 GPU's and there are multiple software packages that you can use on Windows 10 64-bit for mining. If you go this route, make sure you disable automatic updates to prevent your rig from patching and rebooting. I recommend a 250GB SSD at the very minimum, with a 500GB recommend. I'll go into configuration and tweaking of Windows 10 in a later section. You need the 64-bit Windows 10 as the ethereum and other mining software will not run on 32-bit.
- Linux/Ubuntu - This will depend on your knowledge of the OS and can be used on an SSD.
- EthOS - You can purchase a 16gb SSD with EthOS installed and configured. It can be used to mine Ethereum, ZCash, Monero and other coins. It's $49, comes with the SSD and license here: EthosDistro.
Update*** Okay, so now I have used both ethOS and Windows 10. Here's my experience with both:
ethOS - Works great and everything is included in the $49. It's simple to configure (if you use my steps below) and has been rock solid for me so far. I'm mining at over 190MH using ethOS. There was a learning curve for me, but again, it's simple, it works and I've had no down time yet.
Windows 10 - Great for mining a variety of altcoins as most of the coins have windows based miners and if not, configurations and guides for using ccminer, ethminer, etc... to mine just about whatever you like. Now I made a learning mistake I want to point out - get a larger hard drive; 250GB minimum, 500GB recommended. I started with a 120GB as I was trying to keep unneeded costs down. The problem is that if you're going to solo mine, you're going to be downloading block chains... and they can be rather large. For example, the ethereum block chain is approximately 40GB right now. So while 120GB would be enough for Windows and a block chain or two, over time, you're going to end up with multiple block chains for multiple wallets and you're going to run out of space.
My recommendation is to buy both an ethOS drive for $49 and a larger SSD for Windows. This way, you can set up the ethOS drive for ethereum, Zcash, etc... and use the Windows for other coins. I'm a techie, so I enjoy tinkering and have set up ethereum on the Windows drive as well. So if you want to mine ethereum or Zcash for a bit, install the ethOS drive. If you want to mine something different or set up multiple coins in Windows, plug in the Windows drive. I like knowing I have a solid performing drive I can plug in at any time if Windows is giving me problems :)
Power supply
For your supply there are basically two options: a 1200 Watt or 1300 Watt. Power supplied come in 4 different certifications which are bronze, silver, gold and platinum. The certification relates to the efficiency at typical loads. You want to avoid bronze and silver (unless you're one of those lucky ones who does not pay for electricity) and look for a gold or platinum. Most people are using 1300's, which also make them difficult to come by. Also, you want to try to keep your load at or around 80% of max load for full efficiency. Estimating the GTX 1070's at 100w each and then including the mother board and cpu, I'm expecting my rig to run at or below 800w. So I decided on a 1200w Platinum EVGA psu. At 800w, that would put me at 66% of max rating and leave room in case I want to add another card. If you go the AMD RX 570/580 GPU's, you will need two power supplies to power your rig. So by going with the GTX, while I have higher cost initially, I'm saving on only needed one power supply. I purchased the EVGA SuperNoVA 1200 P2 80+ Platinum which is rated at 92% or higher efficiency under a typical load.
PCI-E Risers
PCI-E risers are needed to connect your GPU's to the mother board. While the motherboards have enough PCI-E slots, there is not enough physical room to put 6 video cards side by side on the board. These risers connect the video card to the mother board via a cable. I choose the MintCell 6-Pack PCIe 16x to 1x Powered Riser Adapter Card. This comes with 6 risers, enough for each card and have a very good reputation.
ATX Power switch
You can short out pins on the motherboard to restart your rig, but I'd rather not be playing around and shorting pins to restart my rig. For the $6, buy a Electop 2 Pack 2 Pin SW PC Push Button Switch.
Case screws
Pretty self explanatory. These are used to the mount the motherboard, risers and GPU's to your case. If you have built pc's over the years, you probably have a container full of them... but I didn't want to go digging through everything to look for them. So spend the $11 bucks and buy both... there's enough here for several rigs if you decide to expand.
- Motherboard - PC Mounting screws - $5
- Risers and GPU - Maxmoral 100pcs Toothed Hex 6/32 SCREW - $6
Now with all of the miners out there building 6 GPU mining rigs, I thought it would have been easy to find a good open air case... boy, was I wrong! Honestly, I spent more time researching cases than I did all of the other components. You wouldn't believe how poorly designed the existing cases are and it seems like 99% of them come from China, Japan and other locales overseas. The last thing I want to do is have my components ready for my build out only to find out it's going to take another week or two for the case to arrive. And then... when it arrives, find out the quality is extremely poor.
My requirements for a case are simple... I want a well built, sturdy case. I also want a case where I can move it if need be. Meaning, unplugging the network cable and power cord, pick it up and move it. There are all sorts of cases being advertised and sold... most of them are made out of thin sheet metal, sheet metal and wood, plexiglass, etc... After more hours than I care to admit, I finally found a case that I'm excited about. It's made out of heavy duty aluminum square tubing, had a great design and fits my portable requirement where I can unplug it and move it. While doing my research, I've read so many articles/posts where a miner had a component come loose and fall and short out the GPU, riser or even the motherboard! Do yourself a favor and whatever you do, please... please... buy a quality case and protect your investment. If you skimp here and buy a lower quality case and god forbid, lost a $400+ card or motherboard, you'll be kicking yourself in the butt for a long time... $200 or so to protect your $3,000 plus investment is worth every penny and more. Remember, once you're up and running, any downtime will cost you money on top of the cost and time it takes to order and get a replacement component.
Another huge plus is that the case is built in the US and shipping times are typical. No waiting for 2-3 weeks, paying high shipping charges to receive a case your not happy with. I spoke with the vendor several times and he is working out a 10% discount for our readers, which will be posted soon, if it hasn't by the time you are reading this. Here is the case I purchase and I'm truly excited about it :) Parallel Miner Barebone Aluminum 6.1 GPU Open Air Mining Case. e Joseph from Parallelmining is offering a 10% discount to all readers here. The discount can be obtained by entering code 030964 when ordering. Thanks Joseph!
My parts have all been ordered and are in transit. As soon as they all arrive, I'll be doing a step-by-step blog showing you how to set up your hardware! I want you to be able to follow my guide and be able to build your rig without needing to go elsewhere :)
Recommended hardware list:
Okay, so now I have listed my hardware, I want to list alternatives in the event some of the hardware is not available at the time you decide to order your gear.
Below is list of my hardware as well as alternative hardware which I considered and is the same class and highly used by other miners. I'm going to provide actual links as well to both Amazon and Newegg for your convenience. This way you can click the links and check on the specific item, rather than having to search at each site. The first link in each category will be the component I decided on and purchase and the following links are other components that are highly recommended in the mining community, known to work and components that I researched and considered before making a final decision.
Here is a list of the components I am using and also a list of alternatives. The first component in each list is the item I finally decided on and purchase. There are a lot of popular components out there; but this is a list is of recommendations from the research I have done and the components I was initially considering. YMMV :)
This list is a link to the parts at Amazon.com
GPU's:
- EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0, 8GB
- MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1070 8GB
- Asus GeForce GTX 1070 8GB
- ASUS GeForce GTX 1070 8GB ROG STRIX
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming 8GB
- MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1070 8GB
- MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Armor
Processor:
- As far as the processor goes, remember, you want to minimize the watts used by your rig, so a simple Celeron CPU is fine as the hashing is done on your video cards. Get a Celeron that is compatible with your motherboard. The boards recommended have an LGA 1150 or LGA 1151 socket. Make sure pick a CPU that is compatible with your board.
- You can get away with 4 Gb of ram, but with the low price of RAM these days, go for 8 Gb and buy a kit to future proof your rig a little. Just make sure the timing is compatible with your motherboard of choice.
- EthosDistro 16gb SSD with EthOS installed. (Includes license)
If you're going to with a Windows 10 build, here are three good drives. Remember, you'll have to add the cost of a Windows license in if you don't already have one. - Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB SSD
- Western Digital Blue 500Gb
PCI-E Risers:
- MintCell 6-Pack PCIe 16x to 1x Powered Riser Adapter Card
- VICTONY 6-Pack PCIe 16X TO 1Z Powered Riser Adapter
Case screws:
Case:
- Barebone Aluminum 6.1 GPU Open Air Mining Case- As I stated earlier, this case seems to be the best available. It's one area I don't want to skimp on and I want a sturdy, well made case and I believe this is the best of the options out there. Parallel Miner has offered the readers of this blog a 10% discount. The discount can be obtained by entering code 030964 when ordering. Thanks Joseph!
So far so good, keep it up!
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