$5-$6K budget for bitcoin starter rig with 2 cards - what hardware do you guys recommend? Eventual goal is 6-9 cards.

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guit

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Hi guys - I am looking for recommendations on building a rig with 2 cards, that I will eventually upgrade (throughout the next 6 months) to 6+ cards.

My goal is to mine bitcoin. I would like to use linux if possible. I do not plan on gaming with this rig, but that would be a nice option (not a requirement).

I'd like to build this myself, and need recommendations on parts, and software (as I understand it nicehash is easy but not the most profitable).

If the plan is to start out with 2 cards and upgrade to 6+, what frame, motherboard, powersupply, ram, harddrive, and graphics cards do you guys recommend? (did I forget anything?) I want to future proof this build for 6-9 cards, and I am hoping to see an ROI within 6-7 months. I've also read that Nvidia has nerf'd a lot of GPU's and I'd like to avoid those, unless there is a solid workaround available.

I look forward to the responses and plan on buying parts in the next couple of weeks. I can post my journey on here including final cost and eventual profitability. For now my electricity is free btw. Thanks in advance!
 
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I'm long out of the game, but see what cards are available and Google their eth hash rates, higher is better, then divide that by price to see how they compare. Power draw is another concern.
You will need a large PSU to drive 4 cards, probably two PSUs to drive six. This is not something you can ask a broad question on a forum and then just do.

Also I don't think 6 month ROI is realistic either.

Don't waste your time trying to game on it if the objective is profit. More headache than it's worth
 
It's hard to say what will happen in 2022 at this point. As Travm already said 6 month ROI isn't realistic. How are you even going to get the most efficient GPUs for mining? Most GPUs are overpriced that it could take about a year to see a ROI for each GPU.
I hope your free electricity doesn't put the cost onto the home owners or some one else.
 
just thinking this through...

to get BTC, that means you'd want to use nicehash and mine eth, but they pay out in BTC.

You get lucky and score a couple 3090s from the shuffle at $2200 a pop. Why 3090s, well, they aren't nerfed.

I put in my rate on a 3090 into whattomine at 125mh, and it pops out $7.15 in gross revenue with nicehash with a one week difficulty.

$2200/7.15 is 307 days. That is before power and before the PSU, mobo, etc.
 
AMD site is another good place to try to get a card. It's not going to be easy competing with so many other people from around world. I did manage to get a 6800 XT. If the market can stay around this current rate it would take about 230 days to get my money back plus the cost of electricity for the GPU alone.
 
I've got a 3080 FTW3 that I would sell if the price is right, since it's already paid for itself. does around 95 Mh/s
 
xenium said:
. Millions of gpu's (especially ampere cards) will end up on the secondary market and prices will freefall. Same exact thing happened in 2018 and it'l play out again. .
Click to expand...
I bought four 580s in 2017, mined for a year, sold one for half what I paid for it, used the other three in gaming rigs. Didn't cash out, currently up 5k. There was no freefall of prices. I've been watching to replace those 580s...
 
Charlie5277 said:
Power supplies are very expensive once you go above 750 watts. For this reason, I used a 750 watt PSU to power my motherboard, CPU and ONE of my 3090 cards. To power the second card I used a separate 500 watt EVGA power supply that I picked up on sale at a local store for $36. This seems to be the best approach; instead of buying one monster power supply for $800, buy one cheap PSU to power the rig and maybe one card, and buy separate cheap PSUs to run each card individually as you acquire them. You will need to bridge a couple connections on the 24 pin plug on the power supply in order to turn it on; this website https://bit-tech.net/guides/modding/how-to-jump-a-psu/1/ has all the details.
Click to expand...

I personally think 850w are the way to go in the long run because if you look around / wait for sales they are often not much more expensive and often have 6x PCI express connectors where as most 750w PSU's only have 4 (there are some exceptions)
With Ampere and PSU's I usually run into a situation where I am running out of PCI express connectors well before I even reach 70% of the total power output of the PSU in question.
If you wanted to run 2x 3090 off a 750w PSU you would often not have enough cables to run risers unless you plan to power those off molex, which I personally prefer not to do as quality control can be suspect on that connector type and pins can push out of place causing potential shorts. Since a riser only needs ~ 75w max on average you can use a splitter to run 2 risers off a single 8 pin to dual 6+2 PCI express cables like this and still be well within safe limits / spec for that cable.
This is an example of the cable in question that I use: https://www.amazon.com/COMeap-Expre...I+Express+Power+Adapter&qid=1633290269&sr=8-3

As for running Multiple PSU, yes you can bridge the pins manually as you suggest but if you want an easier solution that will properly power on and off all your power supplies when shutting down or restarting I use something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/BAY-Direct-M...T/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=add+2+psu
The nice thing with these is you can keep adding them if you need to add another PSU to the rig.
 
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As for now being a bad time to start mining I would 100% agree with this. Even if you can somehow get the cards and calculate a 1yr ROI off the current rates (doubtful). The profits are very likely to drop off steeply once ETH goes POS which could happen early 2022.
At that point the profits are likely to be much less on other coins in my experience at least for a while and your 1yr ROI could easily turn into 3 years pretty quick. This is what happened to me in 2018.
Mind you I didn't panic sell since I was still making more returns then my electrical costs but at times it wasn't that much more. I am glad I kept my cards as profits did go back up towards the end of 2020 quit a bit and my 1080ti's did a very good job at that time of making some nice coins. The absolute BEST time to get into mining is when the profits are in a downward spike and everyone else is getting out. This is the time where you can pick up PSU's / GPU's and things like mining frames / mining motherboards at fire sale prices and if you are playing the long game this really comes in handy when profits uptick and you have the infrastructure you need when you want to expand.
 
xenium said:
Source: trust me bro. Ive been in this since 2017 and watched hardware prices rise/fall. They will crater again inevitably, if you think otherwise you're beyond delusional.
Click to expand...
So have I, delusional I guess.
I literally sold one of my 580s, in the time period you suggested, for over double the price you claimed. There was no crash.
 
alyen said:
It's hard to say what will happen in 2022 at this point. As Travm already said 6 month ROI isn't realistic. How are you even going to get the most efficient GPUs for mining? Most GPUs are overpriced that it could take about a year to see a ROI for each GPU.
I hope your free electricity doesn't put the cost onto the home owners or some one else.
Click to expand...

i guess 1 year is more realistic ROI for GPU mining, ty.

and i pay a flat fee for property taxes and all utilities including electricity, just want to take advantage of it with a mining rig
 
Charlie5277 said:
I currently have a rig with 2 - 3090's. I achieve 232 MH with those two cards, and running on NiceHash, I average 0.00005085 BitCoin every 4 hours (0.00030509 BitCoin every 24 hours). That works out to $14.62 USD every day, or $444.69 USD every month at current bitcoin prices. My ROI at current BTC prices is 376 days.

No matter what you buy, plan on a ROI of about a year or a bit more. That's true, regardless of the cards you purchase or the rig hardware. Occasionally you'll hear a story about someone that bought some hardware with an ROI of 6 months. Those stories are VERY much the exception, and usually come with a few conditions that would make the deal very unappetizing.

Buying cards is very difficult right now. My first card came from Ebay, at about $1,000 over the regular retail price; my second card came from a local dealer where I was on a wait list, and only had to pay the full retail price. I would recommend that you call every dealer in the local area, and try to get on a wait list. Sooner or later, you'll luck out with someone.

I've heard a few negative comments regarding GigaByte brand cards, but all the rest - MSI, EVGA, Asus, etc - seem to be solid. EVGA cards were being bricked by a particular video game out there - I forget the details - but EVGA was replacing all those cards under warranty.

I do not recommend that you game on your working machine. You can, but it will cost you money and needlessly complicate your build.

In terms of Cards, the AMD Radeon cards are more available, but they are more troublesome to set up and don't achieve the productivity of the Nvidia cards. They are slightly more efficient, but efficiency is not always the most important factor. Nvidia has artificially limited the hash rate of ALL of their 3000 series cards, EXCEPT for the 3090. For this reason, the 3090 is currently the most desired card, and it is the card I recommend. With 6 overclocked 3090's in a rig, you can achieve speeds close to 700 MegaHash out of one rig. When the cost of the rig hardware is then factored into the cost, your total cost per megahash is very competitive.

In choosing a motherboard, try to get the maximum number of PCI slots you can; a few boards still have 6, and those are the preferred choice. In terms of processor, most Intel processors have built in graphics, which can be used to run a monitor and administer your rig. If you run with AMD, most AMD processors do NOT have built in graphics, which means you'll be using graphics power from one of your graphics cards to administer your rig. For this reason, an Intel processor is preferred.

Power supplies are very expensive once you go above 750 watts. For this reason, I used a 750 watt PSU to power my motherboard, CPU and ONE of my 3090 cards. To power the second card I used a separate 500 watt EVGA power supply that I picked up on sale at a local store for $36. This seems to be the best approach; instead of buying one monster power supply for $800, buy one cheap PSU to power the rig and maybe one card, and buy separate cheap PSUs to run each card individually as you acquire them. You will need to bridge a couple connections on the 24 pin plug on the power supply in order to turn it on; this website https://bit-tech.net/guides/modding/how-to-jump-a-psu/1/ has all the details.

Nothing else - memory size and speed, hard drive size, etc - has any bearing on mining performance. Buy the cheapest you can find.

I'm running windows 10, simply for the convenience of working within an OS I know. I believe that NiceHash works with Linux.

Case - I bought a cheap ($50) mining rig frame out of China, wound up getting scammed and eventually got my money back, and eventually paid $110 for a rig frame from Amazon. Considering what I got vs what I paid, I got ripped off. If you're handy, I recommend building your own frame, using aluminum angle or EMT tubing or copper tubing from the local hardware store.

In closing - getting into mining right now is an expensive gamble. I would suggest you consider it a hobby; a hobby which might - or might not - have some profitability a year down the road. Some have suggested that you simply use your budget to purchase bitcoin. The advantage of mining instead of purchasing is that you wind up with hardware, which can be re-purposed or sold if your interests change. And, long term - over several years- you will wind up with much more BitCoin if you use your money to build a mining rig and mine it, instead of just buying it. My personal feeling is that the long term future for BitCoin is very bright, but this is just my personal gut feeling; I'm not an investment advisor, and cannot make recommendations in this area.

Hope this helps - Charlie
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thanks brosmith, very informative, and im with you on the long term investment aspect. regarding HDD is it worth getting an SSD?
 
motqalden said:
As for now being a bad time to start mining I would 100% agree with this. Even if you can somehow get the cards and calculate a 1yr ROI off the current rates (doubtful). The profits are very likely to drop off steeply once ETH goes POS which could happen early 2022.
At that point the profits are likely to be much less on other coins in my experience at least for a while and your 1yr ROI could easily turn into 3 years pretty quick. This is what happened to me in 2018.
Mind you I didn't panic sell since I was still making more returns then my electrical costs but at times it wasn't that much more. I am glad I kept my cards as profits did go back up towards the end of 2020 quit a bit and my 1080ti's did a very good job at that time of making some nice coins. The absolute BEST time to get into mining is when the profits are in a downward spike and everyone else is getting out. This is the time where you can pick up PSU's / GPU's and things like mining frames / mining motherboards at fire sale prices and if you are playing the long game this really comes in handy when profits uptick and you have the infrastructure you need when you want to expand.
Click to expand...


that guy spent 15K to get 150day ROI, mimic'ing a friend of his who spent the same amount last year to get an ROI in the same amount of days

i agree with you that ETH will be less profitable soon, but i think litecoin and doge and other alt coins will be worthwhile mining for a while, and if anything i believe bitcoin will reach new heights in january and push everything else up and all of these parts are going to be even more expensive next year. i also agree with you on buying parts during a dip but i have a feeling dips wont last that long and the overall marketplace and general population is getting more and more interested in mining so its not going anywhere.
 
xenium said:
Source: trust me bro. Ive been in this since 2017 and watched hardware prices rise/fall. They will crater again inevitably, if you think otherwise you're beyond delusional.
Click to expand...

travm said:
So have I, delusional I guess.
I literally sold one of my 580s, in the time period you suggested, for over double the price you claimed. There was no crash.
Click to expand...
I was pretty into mining around then as well $75-$100 480s were pretty common at one point in time (before eth really took off).

I also grabbed quite a few 290s around then as well for similar prices.

The real deal around then was the bulk firepros.
 
guit said:


that guy spent 15K to get 150day ROI, mimic'ing a friend of his who spent the same amount last year to get an ROI in the same amount of days
Click to expand...


That 5 month ROI was at the begining of the year. Profits are less then half now and its harder to score cards at a good price. Profits are also still trending down slowly. Hence good luck making 1 year ROI at this time.
 
Charlie5277 said:
Hi, Motqalden - not sure that I agree that profits are less than half now. Here's a graph of BitCoin over the last year:

View attachment 400134


Started out the year at $10,671.10 USD, rose steadily to a peak of about $61,000 USD, got hammered by China in May, dropped to a low of $30,842 in July, and has been climbing steadily since then. Currently flirting with a $50,000 USD price point, which is perhaps 20% below its all time high. Sure BitCoin is ridiculously volatile, but it's not all doom and gloom. Compared to a year ago, life is pretty good. I do agree that cards are very hard to find, and expensive when you do. But I just bought a brand new MSI RTX 3090 for $2,082 USD. So, there are deals to be had. You just have to look under a lot of rocks.
Click to expand...
may i ask why you choose to get the rtx 3090 instead of a 3080 ti?
 
guit said:
may i ask why you choose to get the rtx 3090 instead of a 3080 ti?
Click to expand...
RTX 3090 may seem expensive to purchase but they are not LHR and it's more likely to have a better rate for ROI assuming you can keep it cool and running long enough.
 
Charlie5277 said:
Hi, Motqalden - not sure that I agree that profits are less than half now.
Click to expand...

The price of bitcoin is only part of the equation. A bigger part is how much bitcoin you are actually earning per hash. I dont need to quote charts because i have been mining non stop for over 3 years and i know what my daily and weekly avereages are. I have been north of 900MH/s on eth for quite some time now.
 
Charlie5277 said:
But I just bought a brand new MSI RTX 3090 for $2,082 USD. So, there are deals to be had. You just have to look under a lot of rocks.
Click to expand...
I've built entire gaming machines for half that. Current GPU prices are not "deals".
 
alyen said:
RTX 3090 may seem expensive to purchase but they are not LHR and it's more likely to have a better rate for ROI assuming you can keep it cool and running long enough.
Click to expand...
ah theyre not LHR i didnt know that, ty, i just read somewhere everyone thought the 3080 non LHR was the play over the 3090, i just assumed 3090 was LHR
 
motqalden said:
The price of bitcoin is only part of the equation. A bigger part is how much bitcoin you are actually earning per hash. I dont need to quote charts because i have been mining non stop for over 3 years and i know what my daily and weekly avereages are. I have been north of 900MH/s on eth for quite some time now.
Click to expand...
youre getting 900MH/s on ETH ?? thats awesome! i want to be like you, this is why i want to get into mining now, maybe start off with one 3080 non lhr or 3090 and wait for deals on cards over the next 4-6 months. thats the play, right? frame, mobo, power supply, all other parts would be the same price now as well as later, correct?

also why is everyone saying i cant mine bitcoin with gpu's but then talking about how much bitcoin theyre getting. are you guys talking about asic miners? are you converting an alt coin to bitcoin and always choosing to refer to profits in bitcoin?

im thinking build a rig with 6 gpu slots now/next month...buy one 3090 or 3080 non lhr...then wait for finding a deal on the next 5 cards over the next 6 months....mine ETH till then...then switch to LTC or Raven or Doge...correcto mundo?
 
guit said:
youre getting 900MH/s on ETH ?? thats awesome! i want to be like you, this is why i want to get into mining now, maybe start off with one 3080 non lhr or 3090 and wait for deals on cards over the next 4-6 months. thats the play, right? frame, mobo, power supply, all other parts would be the same price now as well as later, correct?

also why is everyone saying i cant mine bitcoin with gpu's but then talking about how much bitcoin theyre getting. are you guys talking about asic miners? are you converting an alt coin to bitcoin and always choosing to refer to profits in bitcoin?

im thinking build a rig with 6 gpu slots now/next month...buy one 3090 or 3080 non lhr...then wait for finding a deal on the next 5 cards over the next 6 months....mine ETH till then...then switch to LTC or Raven or Doge...correcto mundo?
Click to expand...

Well me personally I choose to use nicehash for convenience even though i know I am leaving some profit on the table sometimes, so i do in fact get paid in bitcoin for mining ETH. Most people are probably talking converting alts to BTC if they are referencing BTC its mostly for convenience sake to make things easier to understand.
 
guit said:
youre getting 900MH/s on ETH ?? thats awesome! i want to be like you, this is why i want to get into mining now, maybe start off with one 3080 non lhr or 3090 and wait for deals on cards over the next 4-6 months. thats the play, right? frame, mobo, power supply, all other parts would be the same price now as well as later, correct?

also why is everyone saying i cant mine bitcoin with gpu's but then talking about how much bitcoin theyre getting. are you guys talking about asic miners? are you converting an alt coin to bitcoin and always choosing to refer to profits in bitcoin?

im thinking build a rig with 6 gpu slots now/next month...buy one 3090 or 3080 non lhr...then wait for finding a deal on the next 5 cards over the next 6 months....mine ETH till then...then switch to LTC or Raven or Doge...correcto mundo?
Click to expand...
Bitcoin, LTC and doge are asic..

Raven, eth, eth classic, ergo, flux...those are your gpu ones.
 
applegrcoug said:
Bitcoin, LTC and doge are asic..

Raven, eth, eth classic, ergo, flux...those are your gpu ones.
Click to expand...
got it, ty!

question: can i stick 6 GPUs with risers onto this mobo? how do i confirm this?
  • HP name: Dorado OC-AMP
  • SSID: 8703
  • Micro ATX, channel board exchangeable
  • Intel Z490
 
guit said:
got it, ty!

question: can i stick 6 GPUs with risers onto this mobo? how do i confirm this?
  • HP name: Dorado OC-AMP
  • SSID: 8703
  • Micro ATX, channel board exchangeable
  • Intel Z490
Click to expand...
How many pcie slots does it have? How many m2 slots does it have?
 
applegrcoug said:
How many pcie slots does it have? How many m2 slots does it have?
Click to expand...
guit
Poor choice. Only has 1 PCIe slot, and 3 m2. I expect one of those m2 slots will be incompatible, so at best you could have 3 GPU's, at worst, only 1.
You need to buy a dedicated mining mobo, or at least a full ATX option with lots of PCIe slots.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06937349
  • One PCIe x16 Gen 3 socket (for discrete graphic card)
  • One M.2 socket 1, key A
  • Two M.2 socket 3, key M (for SSD card PCIe x4 Gen 3)
Click to expand...
 
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Prebuilt with proprietary parts may not be the best for mining. I have seen a Dell prebuilt that required you to actually have a modern GPU in the primary slot with all of the pins connected before the system can even post. Using too many 4 way PCIe splitters can damage the motherboard. Be careful when testing things out.
 
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Reactions: travm
like this
ughhh ok

https://www.microcenter.com/product/639606/hp-omen-30l-desktop-gt13-0380t-gaming-pc

was gonna buy that just for the card, ive seen people sell this on ebay for $1000 with no gpu

my real parts list was gonna be this:

hive os​
50​
3090?​
​
intel i3-10100​
170​
8GB DDR4 RAM​
50​
1200W PSU (2)​
460​
4 1800RPM 120mm fans​
120​
120GB SSD​
30​
Risers 6x16x to 1xPCIE​
55​
Veddha T2 mining case/frame​
200​
Z490 ATX mobo​
200​
​
​
total​
1335​
 
I have two MSI B450 pro-max boards and then got the cheapest Ryzens off of used websites or something. They have six PCIe slots and then one m2. I have them running seven GPUs.

I have never tried one of those 4gpu in one pcie slot...if I was to try it, I'd try it on the promax before any of my other boards because of lanes and stuff.....

I also have a couple old as dirt gigabyte boards with FX-4300 that can do five cards. Those were free.
 
guit said:
ughhh ok

https://www.microcenter.com/product/639606/hp-omen-30l-desktop-gt13-0380t-gaming-pc

was gonna buy that just for the card, ive seen people sell this on ebay for $1000 with no gpu

my real parts list was gonna be this:

hive os​
50​
3090?​
​
intel i3-10100​
170​
8GB DDR4 RAM​
50​
1200W PSU (2)​
460​
4 1800RPM 120mm fans​
120​
120GB SSD​
30​
Risers 6x16x to 1xPCIE​
55​
Veddha T2 mining case/frame​
200​
Z490 ATX mobo​
200​
​
​
total​
​
1335​
Click to expand...
avoid linux if you want it to work. Unless you happen to be a C, python, (insert other 3 languages here) developer. Then by all means.
Especially with fringe hardware, linux just doesnt work. Not trolling, this is the voice of repeated failures, and wanting it to work for 15 years.

edit. looked up hiveos, looks interesting. My interest in mining ends at nicehash. Considered monero at one point, but not interested. the fact it is built on linux has me concerned you'll have nothing but trouble. However if you're paying for it, there is a chance someone cares enough to fix whatever problems you run into.
 
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travm said:
avoid linux if you want it to work. Unless you happen to be a C, python, (insert other 3 languages here) developer. Then by all means.
Especially with fringe hardware, linux just doesnt work. Not trolling, this is the voice of repeated failures, and wanting it to work for 15 years.

edit. looked up hiveos, looks interesting. My interest in mining ends at nicehash. Considered monero at one point, but not interested. the fact it is built on linux has me concerned you'll have nothing but trouble. However if you're paying for it, there is a chance someone cares enough to fix whatever problems you run into.
Click to expand...
HIVEOS is probably the most popular linux-based OS, pretty much ubuntu I think? You burn the image to a usb stick or SSD and just boot up the system, pretty much as easy as it gets and it's super stable, more than Windows for me and all the miners get constant updates.
 
travm said:
avoid linux if you want it to work. Unless you happen to be a C, python, (insert other 3 languages here) developer. Then by all means.
Especially with fringe hardware, linux just doesnt work. Not trolling, this is the voice of repeated failures, and wanting it to work for 15 years.

edit. looked up hiveos, looks interesting. My interest in mining ends at nicehash. Considered monero at one point, but not interested. the fact it is built on linux has me concerned you'll have nothing but trouble. However if you're paying for it, there is a chance someone cares enough to fix whatever problems you run into.
Click to expand...
hive os is free for up to 4 rigs then you pay, from my research

and yeah...it definitely seems to be the play

and i can sql and do some python, and run a linux mint laptop, if i run into a challenge ill probably solve it and be smarter afterwards, at least thats the mentality lol, but yeah hive os seems intuitive enough
 
alyen said:
AMD site is another good place to try to get a card. It's not going to be easy competing with so many other people from around world. I did manage to get a 6800 XT. If the market can stay around this current rate it would take about 230 days to get my money back plus the cost of electricity for the GPU alone.
Click to expand...
When did you score a 6800XT from their site? I gave up long ago when they would sell out faster than my browser could refresh the page. And that's knowing exactly when the drop was.
 
travm said:
avoid linux if you want it to work. Unless you happen to be a C, python, (insert other 3 languages here) developer. Then by all means.
Especially with fringe hardware, linux just doesnt work. Not trolling, this is the voice of repeated failures, and wanting it to work for 15 years.

edit. looked up hiveos, looks interesting. My interest in mining ends at nicehash. Considered monero at one point, but not interested. the fact it is built on linux has me concerned you'll have nothing but trouble. However if you're paying for it, there is a chance someone cares enough to fix whatever problems you run into.
Click to expand...
Linux is great for mining. Set it up correctly once and you should have a stable is for a long time. Its normally a bit faster then Windows as well.

Many of the pre rolled mining distros are plug and play for a large majority of hardware
 
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