Cheap low end F@H GPU

[william444555]

I am currently in accommodation where my power bill is free, so I am not too concerned about the efficiency of cards, but the price of initial purchase and the power it delivers.

 

I have a machine with a 600w PSU, and a 6 pin 12v rail 

 

What cards are out there which are relatively cheap (used on eBay) but get enough points on FAH to be worth it?

I do have space for 3 cards too, but limited by power supply issues

 

 

 

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated

[Bombastinator]

This sounds like some fairly complicated balancing math.  An algorithm for it would be cool.  I lack the capacity to make one.

The general fan fave for more FLOPs per $ and damn the torpedoes is the 480.  The problem is it may not be the most efficient because of the PSU limitations.  This matters more than your cheap/free power.  You can only put so much through the box and it’s only got so many gpu power cables.  Another possibility might be 3 1650s or similar board power only GPUs because they don’t require any external cabling.  Could possibly hit your mobo pretty hard though. 

[svmlegacy]

9 minutes ago, william444555 said:

I am currently in accommodation where my power bill is free, so I am not too concerned about the efficiency of cards, but the price of initial purchase and the power it delivers.

 

I have a machine with a 600w PSU, and a 6 pin 12v rail 

 

What cards are out there which are relatively cheap (used on eBay) but get enough points on FAH to be worth it?

I do have space for 3 cards too, but limited by power supply issues

 

 

 

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated

R9 290 has entered the chat

[Zando_]

What price range are you looking at? 

[dizmo]

IIRC the Vega56 has the best price to performance.

[william444555]

1 hour ago, Zando Bob said:

What price range are you looking at?

Anything under three digits really, the cheaper the better

[Unilevers]

2060 supers are super bang for your buck

[Zando_]

4 minutes ago, william444555 said:

Anything under three digits really, the cheaper the better

So up to $99? Should be able to find an older, lower end Pascal/Maxwell card within that range. They won't do amazing PPD but they're better than nothing. 

Just now, Unilevers said:

2060 supers are super bang for your buck

^^^ Can confirm this, mine quotes around 1.3-1.7m PPD depending on the WU. Ran it for around... 18 hours or so the other day, belted out 1.05m points. 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

IIRC the Vega56 has the best price to performance.

Vega56 might go next to the 480.  hot card with great numbers that might have cabling issues.

 

im getting the impression this thing is max FLOPs/$ within the constraints of the PSU, actual power consumption not a concern.  With not enough information (at least for me) about the particulars of the PSU for me to do much.

 

Some PSU data was given, but it wasn’t useful to me at least.  Might be to someone else.  The problem with PSUs is playing games with the cable connections is dangerous because they’re not standardized except at the plug, and the things have big caps in them which can blow if one gets something wrong.  Conventional wisdom is then unless you’re an electrical engineer with appropriate measurement tools and safety knowledge do not mess with the cabling.  What you get is what you got.

[william444555]

42 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Vega56 might go next to the 480. hot card with great numbers that might have cabling issues.

 

im getting the impression this thing is max FLOPs/$ within the constraints of the PSU, actual power consumption not a concern. With not enough information (at least for me) about the particulars of the PSU for me to do much.

 

Some PSU data was given, but it wasn’t useful to me at least. Might be to someone else. The problem with PSUs is playing games with the cable connections is dangerous because they’re not standardized except at the plug, and the things have big caps in them which can blow if one gets something wrong. Conventional wisdom is then unless you’re an electrical engineer with appropriate measurement tools and safety knowledge do not mess with the cabling. What you get is what you got.

I did try to run a 970 from the 600w PSU with lots of cable adaptors, but the wires going to the PSU got too hot to be safe.

There is a 6 pin 12v connector going straight to the PSU and a few peripheral connections, however not enough to run a 6+8 pin card.

 

I am looking into upgrading the power supply at some point, but I do want to squeeze some more life out of it.

The PSU can put out 12v 26A, 5V 36A and 3.3V 30A

 

So a slightly older spec with less wattage in the 12v rail.

 

I could use a separate PSU Scrapyard wars style, for the GPU though.

 

 

Basically I want to spend as little as possible but get the best results from a 24/7 machine. However I do understand if I want something powerful and reliable, I will have to spend money

[Bombastinator]

A 600w PSU with only a single six pin for gpu?  That is unusual.  Yah. I’ve never heard a single good thing about pcie power adaptors.  They’re dark magic for me.  They’ve got a rep for not being built very well and doing bad stuff like that heating thing you mentioned.   Not for everyone of course.  Hopefully there’s someone here who can work with that data.  

 

[LAR_Systems]

On 6/18/2020 at 10:38 AM, william444555 said:

I am currently in accommodation where my power bill is free, so I am not too concerned about the efficiency of cards, but the price of initial purchase and the power it delivers.

 

I have a machine with a 600w PSU, and a 6 pin 12v rail 

 

What cards are out there which are relatively cheap (used on eBay) but get enough points on FAH to be worth it?

I do have space for 3 cards too, but limited by power supply issues

 

 

 

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated

This list is recent PPD values for a number of cards you can get new or used which may help you on the "worth it to fold" part of the equation looking for GPUs.

https://folding.lar.systems/folding_data/gpu_ppd_overall

 

In terms of what may work on a 6PIN connector in RTX cards the 2060 and 2060 K0 have versions with only one connector if you look for them.

Otherwise 1060s are affordable and 6PIN in many cases, but not nearly as power / PPD efficient as RTX series.

 

[OIIOOIOI]

If @william444555 looking for a good lower end card with a lower TDP Watt consume the GTX 1660 Super would be fine cause its at a fair price and consumes only 125 Watt. Alternatives may be the GTX 1650 ( NOT GTX 1650 Super ! ) cause GTX 1650 has a TDP of only 75 Watt ( the super variant needs allready 100 Watt and than the first recomentation would be better....) . If the GTX 1650 is too expensive at Ebay or similar, you can buy a GTX 1050 TI or just cheaper but only very few PPD´s less GTX 750 Ti . On AMD side --- well as far as i know they consume more electric power as equal Nvidias ( i have myself runing both in my system with very equal computing power but the AMD Vega10XL/XT consumes more Watt for it than the Nvidia TU104 card ).