Could CPU minning be done with CPUs in pci Express slots?

[Ryanwake]

10:45

 

If CPU minning can only be done with cpus, because CPUs are better at a specific type of workload that can't be don't with Asics or gpus.

 

Then why not have six of them all in PCI Express slots, that should save the amount of money per CPU spent on the rest of the computer, making CPU minning rigs more cost efficient

[Tosa]

How about a motherboard with multiple CPU sockets?

[Turretgaming]

xeon phi add in card?

[Mira Yurizaki]

16 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

If CPU minning can only be done with cpus, because CPUs are better at a specific type of workload that can't be don't with Asics or gpus.

 

Then why not have six of them all in PCI Express slots, that should save the amount of money per CPU spent on the rest of the computer, making CPU minning rigs more cost efficient

You'd have to create a system that would make the CPU appear as a PCIe device, because the CPU is a central processing unit after all and we can't have a card on a bus meant for devices (as opposed to hosts) trying to run the system.

 

Which also means for maximum efficiency, this board would have to have its own UEFI, memory, and some storage to run an OS or something that could accept commands over the PCIe bus.

[bradcool22]

In my opinion the cost of such cards would raise the ROI to the point of no return.

[snowfox99]

18 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

10:45

 

If CPU minning can only be done with cpus, because CPUs are better at a specific type of workload that can't be don't with Asics or gpus.

 

Then why not have six of them all in PCI Express slots, that should save the amount of money per CPU spent on the rest of the computer, making CPU minning rigs more cost efficient

I'd estimate that the cost of the custom components required to make something like that work (basically an entire motherboard that fits in a pcie slot) would be as much or greater than just buying a seperate entry-level motherboard.

[bradcool22]

One point most people who mine always forget is the cost of cooling it can be up to 30 to 40% of the power cost.

if you were to actually do something like this try to dump that heat in to a pool.( pools have an extremely high thermal mass and thermal conductivity.)

If you pump out side air in to cool your mining rig expect bugs and dust.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Another thing came to mind. Considering mining GPUs can be run off x1 PCIe slots, this makes me think that communication between mining nodes is not bandwidth heavy.

 

So really you could probably just buy a bunch of cheap hardware and create the equivalent of a Beowulf cluster for mining.

[Ryanwake]

20 hours ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

You'd have to create a system that would make the CPU appear as a PCIe device, because the CPU is a central processing unit after all and we can't have a card on a bus meant for devices (as opposed to hosts) trying to run the system.

 

Which also means for maximum efficiency, this board would have to have its own UEFI, memory, and some storage to run an OS or something that could accept commands over the PCIe bus.

These boards are basically whole computers, can they just run windows or Linux to CPU mine?

 

U know the intel graphics card prototype, yeah u can buy those, exept there just CPU exelorator cards like the one in this video

But I don't think this one can run it's own operating system

[Ryanwake]

20 hours ago, Tosa said:

How about a motherboard with multiple CPU sockets?

Yeah u could have a quad socket motherboard, but u could have a duel socket motherboard with 12 CPU exelorator cards like this.

 

 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, Ryanwake said:

These boards are basically whole computers, can they just run windows or Linux to CPU mine?

 

U know the intel graphics card prototype, yeah u can buy those, exept there just CPU exelorator cards like the one in this video

But I don't think this one can run it's own operating system

Xeon Phi already runs a Linux core to talk to the rest of the PC and its compute processor. Said compute processor is really a many-core x86 processor.

 

3 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

Yeah u could have a quad socket motherboard, but u could have a duel socket motherboard with 12 CPU exelorator cards like this.

Then just get GPUs to do the job.

 

I also can't imagine any mining algorithm that specifically does not like GPUs unless it's instruction heavy and unpredictable.

[Crunchy Dragon]

CPU mining also consumes a lot more power and produces a lot more heat for how long it takes to complete generating a coin of bitcoin, ethereum, etc compared to GPU mining.

 

You would need quite a few high power CPUs to come close to a single GPU's level of mining performance, and with the cost of that, you'd be better off using GPUs anyway.

 

Not to mention you can get a cheap Celeron or Pentium to run the mining rig, so you can buy more GPUs with the same amount of money and get better mining performance than if you were to go out and buy something insane like two Xeon Platinums or whatever.

[straight_stewie]

I guess theoretically a skilled enough individual could probably get a Latte Panda Alpha to appear as a PCIe device, but that would require atleast the following pieces of software:

1. A device driver for the host.
2. A custom OS for the Panda.
3. Custom mining software that knows to use the Panda, and that can run on the Panda.

Of those, the easiest to do would be the custom mining software. The other two would take a very skilled system developer a few months to pull off.

[Kachian Industries]

This literally already exists:

 

http://www.lukminer.org

 

It used to be insanely profitable ($7 a day per card). These days it's perhaps a tenth that, but enough that it pays the electricity bills in cheap areas.