Starting first rig next week!

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jamesgalb

Gawd
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Feb 11, 2015
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565
I just got 5 RX 580 8gbs for $340 each and a 480 8gb for $300. Risers and 1000w PSU on the way as well.... Intending on using an existing i5 2500 and Gigabyte GA Z77X US3H motherboard to run it all from.

5 Big Questions going in:

1) Where can I find the best bios for the 580s (and 480)? What should I know going into my first ever GPU bios mod?

2) I hear using an unregistered Windows 10 is fine? Any advice against this?

3) NiceHash seems to be the 'go-to' mining program everyone is using, especially for those just beginning. Any advice otherwise?

4) Paper Wallets seems to be the most secure? I have no issue hanging onto physical documentation and prefer the most secure storage of money considering there are no 'banking protections' in the crypto world.

5) I have experience building PCs, and have a good cooling solution planned for the rig.... What are some obstacles I may not have considered going into my first rig? What are the software obstacles I may encounter? What is the idea software for monitoring temperatures and the cards? What is the most secure way to remove into my systems? Any extra advice helps here :)
 
Nicehash is probably where you want to start. use their internal wallet and empty it to coinbase every .002 BTC. Unreg Win 10 works fine.. I wouldn't invest too much into bios modding right now. See what they do and run them on Crimson drivers/ use Afterburner to lower the power.. The markets are shifting and everything is slowing down and if they crash you want to be able to sell your cards to gamers.

I just got into mining, and started with an old spare gaming computer and a pair of R9 270X I paid $175 for and my current gaming computer's GTX 1060 6gb. It all makes money but not a lot.. At current pricing and market stability, your ROI should be in about 105 days figuring those cards do $3 each and you spend $100 on a PSU
 
What case are you planning on using?

Can get Windows 10 Pro keys for $15 if you look around
 
#1 Your power supply isnt big enough

#2 dont bother flashing BIOS on the cards. What you need to do is lower the timings on the memory. There are lots of online guides on how to do this.

#3 Running unregistered Windows is 100% fine

#4 Nicehash is the easiest. Make sure you use the legacy version

#5 Paper wallets are OK. If you want the best solution, get a Trezor from www.trezor.io

#6 I bet you will have issues with your risers. Bottom line is all of them suck. You are also under estimating the power requirements. Sure, you can alleviate some of this with tuning the cards but running 6 cards isnt as easy as plug and play. Use the built in AMD performance monitoring for temps. Remote into the machine with remote desktop built into Windows.
 
H2R2P2 said:
#1 Your power supply isnt big enough

#2 dont bother flashing BIOS on the cards. What you need to do is lower the timings on the memory. There are lots of online guides on how to do this.

#3 Running unregistered Windows is 100% fine

#4 Nicehash is the easiest. Make sure you use the legacy version

#5 Paper wallets are OK. If you want the best solution, get a Trezor from www.trezor.io

#6 I bet you will have issues with your risers. Bottom line is all of them suck. You are also under estimating the power requirements. Sure, you can alleviate some of this with tuning the cards but running 6 cards isnt as easy as plug and play. Use the built in AMD performance monitoring for temps. Remote into the machine with remote desktop built into Windows.
Click to expand...

You have to flash the bios to adjust memory straps...
 
oblox said:
You have to flash the bios to adjust memory straps...
Click to expand...

Yes, you are correct. The impression he gave me was that he was looking for a full BIOS to flash to his card. That is not the way to do it. Thats why I told him to look for a guide as it would tell him how to read the BIOS from his card, mod the timings, then flash the same BIOS back with the updated timing.
 
atp1916 said:
1000w is fine for 5 RX580s and 1 480. Tune down to ~100-120w per card.

Also: AMD mem strap tweaked bioses by Anorak. Don't bother modding the bioses - he does a good enough job.
Click to expand...

I still stand by what I said that 1000W is not enough. Lets assume you get the card draw down to 120W per card (which I dont believe he will be able to do; especially using nicehash as not all algos are stable when you undervolt to that degree). Lets also assume he gets his CPU, RAM, Motherboard, and onboard video to only take up 60W or so. Thats 780W continuous load. We all know power supplies are not rated as such and are rated at peak. Lets assume he has a really high end power supply and say it can supply continuous load at 80% max (800w). So you are only leaving 20W (in the best case scenario) for sudden busts of load, Windows Updates kicking in, etc... Its not impossible, but again even in the best use case scenario this is cutting it very very close.
 
Well, I can tell you in my 7 card 1070ti rig, a 1000w PSU is just fine. The cards average ~100w each and everything else uses another ~50w. According to my switched/metered pdu, that one rig is pulling 3.5 amps of 240v.

Oh, and not to mention my 5 1060 and 2 1070 rig running just fine on an 850w PSU. Once again, it's at about 680w total power.

And, I haven't seen a good quality PSU be rated and "peak" power in a LONG time.

For reference, the PSUs in my rigs :

850w

1000w
 
xrealm20 said:
Well, I can tell you in my 7 card 1070ti rig, a 1000w PSU is just fine. The cards average ~100w each and everything else uses another ~50w. According to my switched/metered pdu, that one rig is pulling 3.5 amps of 240v.

Oh, and not to mention my 5 1060 and 2 1070 rig running just fine on an 850w PSU. Once again, it's at about 680w total power.

And, I haven't seen a good quality PSU be rated and "peak" power in a LONG time.

For reference, the PSUs in my rigs :

850w

1000w
Click to expand...

FYI: Your 1070's are much more efficient than the 580's he is using. I have systems with 580's, Vega, and 1070's and the AMD's are very picky.
 
Fair enough - I heard about the pickiness of the newer AMD cards, but haven't dealt with it first hand. My first rig was a 290x one, and it sucked power for sure.
 
I found I couldn’t run 12 rx580 cards on anything less than 3 power supplies


1000
850
850

No way you can keep power to 120 watt per card if autoswitching algorithms with nicehash or awesome miner. It just isn’t stable. So wattman will lose settings on a card or two and then power demands spike like crazy when the cards go back to stock settings. One time I came home and my wattman settings were ALL reset on my 12 card RX580 8 gb rig and that one rig was drawing 10-11 amps at 240 volt. Meaning ~2500 watts according to my LCD readout on my server PDU.

Nvidia cards are Wayyyyyyyy more stable than AMD in retaining their power settings. I sold all my AMD cards. They were too much administrative hassle. I’d almost recommend just dual ethereum mining with AMD. They’ll be rock solid and their undervolt/power limit settings will be reliable with eth and dual mining of your choice (lbry or decred)

Check out SMOS or ETHOS.
 
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Yes - AMD cards are indeed picky. That is why i do not have anymore of them ;)

However: 1000w is fine with 6 RX x80 cards.

My 2 old 8 card RX580 card rigs were consistently 1050-1080w at 1100/2000/.975vddc/.95mvddc with Claymore miners against Dual Eth / XMR. No need to use Wattman or any other overclocking tool if you stay with Claymore. Auto-switching with AMD stuff is usually not necessary because your best bets will be either Dual Eth or XMR.

jamesgalb will be fine if he has a quality 1000w unit.
 
H2R2P2 said:
I bet you will have issues with your risers. Bottom line is all of them suck.
Click to expand...

On my set of 6 that I bought from amazon, I'm 3 for 3 right now, all of them worked, all of them have at least a week of 24/7 mining on them. But based on what I've heard, I'm bound to run into a bad apple.
 
yowen said:
On my set of 6 that I bought from amazon, I'm 3 for 3 right now, all of them worked, all of them have at least a week of 24/7 mining on them. But based on what I've heard, I'm bound to run into a bad apple.
Click to expand...

There are of course lots of variables, but there are two general aspects that play the biggest role towards stability (in my experience). One is the PCIE card portion in the socket. Some designs have a lot of play in them and can be upset by even small amounts of movement. The other is power related. I have resorted to ditching the included PCIE card parts and going with a 4 in 1 USB3 card with a slot cover that can be screwed into place. I also only use risers that have PCIE power connectors on them and use server grade power supplies (with breakout boards). You can pick up 90% efficient 1200W power supplies for as cheap as $60 if you look hard enough. The breakout boards (which also happen to add a power on/off switch) and PCIE power cables are also very cheap. As others have stated, its not impossible to get things stable in other ways (limiting what you are mining, etc.) but in my opinion its better to spend a little more for increased reliability verses having something you need to babysit all the time. I have all mine running full blown autoswitching and very very rarely do I need to touch anything.
 
%80 of PSU is target max I use 1000W Gold PSUs for 6 AMD rigs just fine.
If you use -mode 1 with claymore it uses less power than dual mining.



Archaea said:
I found I couldn’t run 12 rx580 cards on anything less than 3 power supplies


1000
850
850

No way you can keep power to 120 watt per card if autoswitching algorithms with nicehash or awesome miner. It just isn’t stable. So wattman will lose settings on a card or two and then power demands spike like crazy when the cards go back to stock settings. One time I came home and my wattman settings were ALL reset on my 12 card RX580 8 gb rig and that one rig was drawing 10-11 amps at 240 volt. Meaning ~2500 watts according to my LCD readout on my server PDU.

Nvidia cards are Wayyyyyyyy more stable than AMD in retaining their power settings. I sold all my AMD cards. They were too much administrative hassle. I’d almost recommend just dual ethereum mining with AMD. They’ll be rock solid and their undervolt/power limit settings will be reliable with eth and dual mining of your choice (lbry or decred)

Check out SMOS or ETHOS.
Click to expand...

Completely opposite to everything I've experienced with over 50+ cards

Managed to kill 2 1080s by lowering power target :/

Titan XPs crash if I lower power target without touching mem or core

Trying to get Nvidia cards optimized is a bloody friggin nightmare and being forced to use aftermarket crap like afterburner that won't show voltage on some cards, massive headache to the point I have 3 Titan XPs sitting idle, getting 2 running was an event on its own.
 
shad0w4life said:
%80 of PSU is target max I use 1000W Gold PSUs for 6 AMD rigs just fine.
If you use -mode 1 with claymore it uses less power than dual mining.





Completely opposite to everything I've experienced with over 50+ cards

Managed to kill 2 1080s by lowering power target :/

Titan XPs crash if I lower power target without touching mem or core

Trying to get Nvidia cards optimized is a bloody friggin nightmare and being forced to use aftermarket crap like afterburner that won't show voltage on some cards, massive headache to the point I have 3 Titan XPs sitting idle, getting 2 running was an event on its own.
Click to expand...


You can't kill a card by applying less than default voltage. Something else is at play.
 
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Agreed, those are some odd reports and go against the general consensus from any mining community where I've read about both AMD and Nvidia cards.. Setting up my 10-series nvidia cards was almost plug-and-play.
 
yowen said:
Agreed, those are some odd reports and go against the general consensus from any mining community where I've read about both AMD and Nvidia cards.. Setting up my 10-series nvidia cards was almost plug-and-play.
Click to expand...
Other than the fun of getting a motherboard that plays nice with more than 4 GPUs, I haven't had issues with getting my 10-series cards up and running. Honestly, I think I've only had 3 bad risers out of ~50 I've used between my junk and other rigs.
 
xrealm20 said:
Other than the fun of getting a motherboard that plays nice with more than 4 GPUs, I haven't had issues with getting my 10-series cards up and running. Honestly, I think I've only had 3 bad risers out of ~50 I've used between my junk and other rigs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a motherboard at a reasonable price that's known to play nice with 6 to 8 GPU's. I'm at 5 now, so far so good.
 
pandora's box said:
What case are you planning on using?

Can get Windows 10 Pro keys for $15 if you look around
Click to expand...

I was going to be using a plastic shelving system I picked up at home depot, and zip tying the cards from it.

That said, should I have some sort of surface to set the motherboard on? This is a plastic shelf with plastic bars it would be sitting on otherwise.
 
H2R2P2 said:
#1 Your power supply isnt big enough

#2 dont bother flashing BIOS on the cards. What you need to do is lower the timings on the memory. There are lots of online guides on how to do this.

#3 Running unregistered Windows is 100% fine

#4 Nicehash is the easiest. Make sure you use the legacy version

#5 Paper wallets are OK. If you want the best solution, get a Trezor from www.trezor.io

#6 I bet you will have issues with your risers. Bottom line is all of them suck. You are also under estimating the power requirements. Sure, you can alleviate some of this with tuning the cards but running 6 cards isnt as easy as plug and play. Use the built in AMD performance monitoring for temps. Remote into the machine with remote desktop built into Windows.
Click to expand...

Ill start with 5 cards to see if power is okay. I am using a Corsair RM1000x, so its of good quality... What is the best way to monitor my power usage? I have no experience doing such.

I hear that flashing the BIOS will make it hard to re-sell to gamers in the future, but isnt it possible to re-flash back to the normal bios? Or can this be seen somehow? Could I get significant performance out of normal overclocking tools without bios mod?

Why is Trezor better than a paper wallet? From what I understand, a paper wallet is the outright most secure option so long as you can keep it safe, no? I still have to learn about when/where/how you use your wallet/key for transactions, and the safety concerns with entering it anywhere.

Thanks for the help!
 
jamesgalb said:
Ill start with 5 cards to see if power is okay. I am using a Corsair RM1000x, so its of good quality... What is the best way to monitor my power usage? I have no experience doing such.

I hear that flashing the BIOS will make it hard to re-sell to gamers in the future, but isnt it possible to re-flash back to the normal bios? Or can this be seen somehow? Could I get significant performance out of normal overclocking tools without bios mod?

Why is Trezor better than a paper wallet? From what I understand, a paper wallet is the outright most secure option so long as you can keep it safe, no? I still have to learn about when/where/how you use your wallet/key for transactions, and the safety concerns with entering it anywhere.

Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

Flashing the BIOS of the video cards isnt *that* big of a deal. The issue with it is if the flash goes wrong or if you have unstable settings, you need an additional video card to use on your display in order to flash the dead/unstable card back to stock. The biggest setting the BIOS flash gets you that isnt normally available is the memory strap timings. The other advantage is some cards dont behave well when changing the voltage via software, so that (and clock speeds, etc) can also be set. Its really up to you if you think its worth the risk of doing or not. If you have doubts, just use the stock BIOS and adjust voltage, memory, shader clocks via software. Take away is you can really bork a video card by messing in its BIOS and yes, there are people who stay away from cards that have been BIOS modded. Additionally, some 580's have a switch on them with 2 BIOS's. Often times one of these already has the mining BIOS on them, so you can switch from one to the other whenever you want. The Kill-A-Watt referenced in the above posts is a good way to monitor power usage of the whole system. You can also get per component estimates on HWINFO: https://www.hwinfo.com/download.php

Trezor is good because its a hardware wallet. Its encrypted all the time. Funds can be recovered with the recovery seed if the Trezor is lost/stolen/damaged. You need physical access to the hardware Trezor device while doing an outbound transfer. If someone posses your physical Trezor, they need your PIN to use it. Every wrong PIN entry has a power of 2 delay between retries (you get very few guesses before you are waiting years to try another PIN; and the clock NEVER resets). The PIN has to be entered on keys which change position each time its entered, so people cant just copy the keys that represent the PIN either.

Bottom line is you have 100% normal, stable wallet that is compatible with the most used currencies, thats for all intents and purposes impossible for anyone to steal from either remotely, or in person, and can be securely recovered if its lost or damaged. Its better security that a paper wallet and zero drawbacks.
 
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