Can I use 2 GPUs for gaming? (leave one disabled or something). Also what wattage of PSU do I need.

[AmyTheBun]

even tho I warned him a lot my brother is insisting on making a mining PC he can use for photoshop and mining. ( a 3060 ti is 2000$ here lol)

so I told him that 3080 has hot vrams and won't last long mining so i'll get him 2 3060 ti's.

 

2 questions

 

1) how easy is it to use this PC i this config for gaming? he wants to play VR games, can he just disable the second 3060 ti or make it mine while using the other 3060 ti for the game? would it require a restart?

2) what PSU should I get him (wattage wise). is 650w enough? the calculators don't seem to have 3060 ti as their options yet.

 

the rest of the specs will probably be a ryzen 2700 (will sell mine to him, get a 5600x for myself, he doesn't need anything more than that, I need a bit more single core for some workloads) 16gb of dual channel ram, an HDD and a 500gb nvme ssd. I'll use the stock cooler since it's running at 70c max on my PC

 

[AlwaysFSX]

3 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

1) how easy is it to use this PC i this config for gaming? he wants to play VR games, can he just disable the second 3060 ti or make it mine while using the other 3060 ti for the game? would it require a restart?

You don't even have to worry about that in the slightest. Games are only going to run on the main card in the first place. All the mining program has to do is be pointed at the second card and you're done with setup.

[Moonzy]

30 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

1) how easy is it to use this PC i this config for gaming? he wants to play VR games, can he just disable the second 3060 ti or make it mine while using the other 3060 ti for the game? would it require a restart?

I just disable the GPU I intend to game on and leave the rest to continue mining in my rig

There may be complications though, such as stutterings and what not, though it may have to do with something else in my system as it wasn't the case before (been doing this since 2018)

 

No restart required

 

30 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

2) what PSU should I get him (wattage wise). is 650w enough? the calculators don't seem to have 3060 ti as their options yet.

Depending on the rest of his parts, a good quality 650W is enough to run 2 3060ti that have their power limited to around 120W

 

I personally ran 3x 3060ti and 1x 2070super, all at 120W, plus a 3900x at full undervolted load (around 90W) off of a RM850x

That said, I'm red lining it as even increasing my CPU power consumption by 20W can trigger OPP/OCP on my PSU and it shuts itself off

 

I can't really comment on the longetivity of a 3080 VRAM running hot, but I would rather have a single 3080 than dual 3060ti for mining, unless if you don't plan on expanding to more GPU in the future

But if your intention is to game on it, then two 3060ti makes more sense if you don't need the GPU horsepower of a single 3080

 

That said... $2000 for a 3060ti is quite steep, and you may never earn back that money within a year, which is risky in itself

I'd write off that amount of money as good as gone, tbh

[AmyTheBun]

18 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

I just disable the GPU I intend to game on and leave the rest to continue mining in my rig

There may be complications though, such as stutterings and what not, though it may have to do with something else in my system as it wasn't the case before (been doing this since 2018)

 

No restart required

 

Depending on the rest of his parts, a good quality 650W is enough to run 2 3060ti that have their power limited to around 120W

 

I personally ran 3x 3060ti and 1x 2070super, all at 120W, plus a 3900x at full undervolted load (around 90W) off of a RM850x

That said, I'm red lining it as even increasing my CPU power consumption by 20W can trigger OPP/OCP on my PSU and it shuts itself off

 

I can't really comment on the longetivity of a 3080 VRAM running hot, but I would rather have a single 3080 than dual 3060ti for mining, unless if you don't plan on expanding to more GPU in the future

But if your intention is to game on it, then two 3060ti makes more sense if you don't need the GPU horsepower of a single 3080

 

That said... $2000 for a 3060ti is quite steep, and you may never earn back that money within a year, which is risky in itself

I'd write off that amount of money as good as gone, tbh

ok is a cooler master mwe 650w enough? because at this point i'm making a clone of my PC for him (I only have a single 3070).

i figured if the PSU is enough I save myself the hassle of wiring and just put his GPU into my own system and build myself a new one. cause my motherboard + cpu is going into his computer eitehrway. 

 

and 3080's vram can get up to 95c without watercooling, that sounds dangerous, I doubt it'd last more than 1-2 years. 

 

I told him the same, he wants to risk it. it's gonna take him exactly a year to make it back according to my calcualtion

 

but i'm confused by why 3080 is better for mining. 2 3060 tis are 14$ vs 11.4$ for the 3080. plus they last longer and wear down less

 

EDIT: the 3080 has 3 years of warranty. should I go with the 3080?

[Moonzy]

Just now, AmyTheBun said:

and 3080's vram can get up to 95c without watercooling, that sounds dangerous, I doubt it'd last more than 1-2 years. 

It's more like 100c for mining load, depending on your fan speed and ambient temp

 

But it throttles at 110c, so -shrug-

95c sounds high but you have to understand that it's Tjunction, so it's usually higher than other methods of reading temps

 

My 3080 are running their VRAM at around 100c, I believe changing thermal pad alone might bring that down to the 80s, not necessarily requiring watercooling

As I've reduced my 3090 VRAM temp by around 20c simply by changing the pad

 

2 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

but i'm confused by why 3080 is better for mining. 2 3060 tis are 14$ vs 11.4$ for the 3080. plus they last longer and wear down less

They take up two slots instead of one, but it doesn't matter if you don't plan on expanding

 

And 3060ti VRAM temperature can't be monitored, so you don't even know how warm it is running, and it doesn't have safety throttling because of that, unlike a 3080 which will throttle to prevent damage at 110c

 

But yes, 2 3060ti is slightly more efficient than a single 3080

100MH vs 120MH total, and around the same power consumption of around 240W

 

3 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

it's gonna take him exactly a year to make it back according to my calcualtion

If you based your calculations on the past few days, you're gonna need to add about 30% more time to it as the past week profitability soared to 2-3x of the usual

 

Personally I would be skeptical about spending $1500 on a 3060ti/3070, let alone $2000 (they have the same mining characteristics, just slightly higher wattage on 3070)

To add to the fact that 3080 costs $2700 here at the moment and $1800 for a 3070, the hash per dollar is better for 3080 at the moment for my location

 

5 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

is a cooler master mwe 650w enough?

Does it have enough pcie power connector for it? Most 3060ti I know uses a single 8-pin whole most 3070 uses dual 8-pin

[AmyTheBun]

2 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

It's more like 100c for mining load, depending on your fan speed and ambient temp

 

But it throttles at 110c, so -shrug-

95c sounds high but you have to understand that it's Tjunction, so it's usually higher than other methods of reading temps

 

My 3080 are running their VRAM at around 100c, I believe changing thermal pad alone might bring that down to the 80s, not necessarily requiring watercooling

As I've reduced my 3090 VRAM temp by around 20c simply by changing the pad

but that'd get rid of the warranty D: and i've heard anything above 80-75c actively reduces the lifespan, i'm not sure how true that is. but I saw a bunch of studies showing higher temps mean faster wear, and much faster

2 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

 

They take up two slots instead of one, but it doesn't matter if you don't plan on expanding

 

And 3060ti VRAM temperature can't be monitored, so you don't even know how warm it is running, and it doesn't have safety throttling because of that, unlike a 3080 which will throttle to prevent damage at 110c

 

But yes, 2 3060ti is slightly more efficient than a single 3080

100MH vs 120MH total, and around the same power consumption of around 240W

 

If you based your calculations on the past few days, you're gonna need to add about 30% more time to it as the past week profitability soared to 2-3x of the usual

oh i based it on exactly right now! 7$ for my 3070 (i mine too when i'm not gaming... it's pretty amazing to get money like that in my country which is iran) 

 

but i also heard that GDDR6 just doesn't make much heat, and considering that they're connected with the same thermal paste to the heat sink. wouldn't my GPU's hotspot be within 15c of the ram since it also heats up the heatsink? so I check my hotspot and add 15c to it to assume the memory's worst case scenario. my 3070's auto fan curve stays at 30% while mining, I turned it to 35% since 40% was a bit noisy for some reason (45-50 were not)). I assumed this when doing it.

2 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

 

Personally I would be skeptical about spending $1500 on a 3060ti/3070, let alone $2000 (they have the same mining characteristics, just slightly higher wattage on 3070)

To add to the fact that 3080 costs $2700 here at the moment and $1800 for a 3070, the hash per dollar is better for 3080 at the moment for my location

 

Does it have enough pcie power connector for it? Most 3060ti I know uses a single 8-pin whole most 3070 uses dual 8-pin

I told him that, I donno i could try really convincing him to not do that but he says he really wants to anyways.

i know i'm using 2 pci-8 for my 3070 right now, I think it might have another in the box i'll check kit. but is the PSU high quality? i don't want to burn his GPUs.

[Moonzy]

4 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

higher temps mean faster wear, and much faster

That's true to an extent

An Intel CPU is rated to throttle at 100c

I once ran a CPU at 99c 24/7 for 4 years, it didn't die or show any signs of problems, just throttles a bit

 

A manufacturer would rate their product with a decent life expectancy, usually

There can be anomalies and I understand if you do not want to take the risk

 

5 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

wouldn't my GPU's hotspot be within 15c of the ram since it also heats up the heatsink?

I wouldn't assume so, the quality of thermal pad matters too

My 3090 GPU core is 55c while the VRAM is 110c and throttling before pad swap

 

7 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

my 3070's auto fan curve stays at 30% while mining, I turned it to 35% since 40% was a bit noisy for some reason (45-50 were not)). I assumed this when doing it.

I suggest turning it to at least 50% or higher

Unless if you really really can't stand it

 

40% might be noisy because it's the resonance frequency of your components so it amplifies it, or it's simply the tonality that you're more sensitive towards

 

8 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

is the PSU high quality?

I'm no PSU expert, so I can't really comment on this, but it should be decent from what I recall from the PSU tier list in the PSU subforum

[AmyTheBun]

4 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

That's true to an extent

An Intel CPU is rated to throttle at 100c

I once ran a CPU at 99c 24/7 for 4 years, it didn't die or show any signs of problems, just throttles a bit

 

A manufacturer would rate their product with a decent life expectancy, usually

There can be anomalies and I understand if you do not want to take the risk

 

I wouldn't assume so, the quality of thermal pad matters too

My 3090 GPU core is 55c while the VRAM is 110c and throttling before pad swap

 

I suggest turning it to at least 50% or higher

Unless if you really really can't stand it

 

40% might be noisy because it's the resonance frequency of your components so it amplifies it, or it's simply the tonality that you're more sensitive towards

 

I'm no PSU expert, so I can't really comment on this, but it should be decent from what I recall from the PSU tier list in the PSU subforum

That's strange, i upped my 3070's fan to 55% because of this. i'm more scared of dead fans, tbh I don't mind the noise whatsoever even at 80%

I'll check the PSU in the PSU subreddit then!

 

and for a final answer. do you personally suggest the 3060 tix2 or 3080 in this case with the 3 year warranty on both? and also do you have any comments on my fear of fans dying at 100% or something?

[Moonzy]

6 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

i'm more scared of dead fans

 

6 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

also do you have any comments on my fear of fans dying at 100% or something?

That's one of the thing that mining can wear out, yes

No ways to avoid that

To me it's a trivial matter as my GPU fans are fine after several years (2018-2021) of mining

And if they do die, I'll probably just strap some case fans onto it, the mining earnings more than justifies the cost of that

I'd rather a fan failing than the card failing, tbh

 

6 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

I'll check the PSU in the PSU subreddit then!

Sure, or you may make a post specifically asking about it in the PSU subforum

 

6 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

do you personally suggest the 3060 tix2 or 3080 in this case with the 3 year warranty on both?

Depends on the price of both

How much does a 3080 cost?

How often does he game, as pausing half your hashrate is better than pausing your entire mining operation

[AmyTheBun]

2 hours ago, Moonzy said:

And if they do die, I'll probably just strap some case fans onto it, t

Don't judge me but I think the stock cooler on my 3070 is just so pretty xD I'm sure I can keep the outside RGB and just stick some new fans on the actual heatsink. worse case is that I'll 3d print something.

2 hours ago, Moonzy said:

 

Sure, or you may make a post specifically asking about it in the PSU subforum

 

Depends on the price of both

How much does a 3080 cost?

How often does he game, as pausing half your hashrate is better than pausing your entire mining operation

he maybe games 2-3 hours a day MAXIMUM.

a 3080 is 3,863$ and 2 3060 tis are 4,090$

[Moonzy]

10 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

Don't judge me but I think the stock cooler on my 3070 is just so pretty xD I'm sure I can keep the outside RGB and just stick some new fans on the actual heatsink. worse case is that I'll 3d print something.

there's also the choice to RMA if it's within warranty period

 

10 minutes ago, AmyTheBun said:

a 3080 is 3,863$ and 2 3060 tis are 4,090$

out of the two... 3060ti 2x probably...

but it's like asking me to pick rat poison and rotten burger, i wouldnt do either honestly

 

i strongly advice against paying such stupid price for the GPU, the ROI alone will be stupidly long, therefore the risk of it "crashing" before he ROI is very real

the max i paid for a 3070 is $1000 in march, and it's already borderline stupid as im looking at ROI around october or november at best, not even sure if the crypto hype will last that long

 

but if it's his money, then whatever he wants to do, i guess

 

edit: oh and, ETH is going POS, so no more mining ETH some time next year i think(?)