$4500 Mining Rig any ideas?!?!? (Comes w/ Story)

[rhyseyness]

How rude. Yes, I realize 290x are cheaper, however you will fit more GPUs total with 2 R9-295x2 and the rest R9 290x.

Mining is all about price to performance ratio.

The 295x2, at best, doubles your hash rate compared to a 290x, but costs 5 times as much.

Maths is a wonderful thing.

Also, as @AK0490 said, you don't wanna be running 6 GPUs off of one board.

[Builder]

Mining is all about price to performance ratio.

The 295x2, at best, doubles your hash rate compared to a 290x, but costs 5 times as much.

Maths is a wonderful thing.

Also, as @AK0490 said, you don't wanna be running 6 GPUs off of one board.

I've done it.

 

I understand maths, for god's sake. I'm studying pure mathematics.

 

This isn't price to performance, he has $4500. You can go for absolute performance on that budget, it's not exactly price limited. You can buy two R9-295x2s and two R9-290xs and still have $500 for everything else. Maths is a wonderful thing, although I'd hardly classify this as mathematics.

[D3MON]

That was the point of the quote and story in pointing out the fact he's somewhat aware and still willing to risk it plus I'm in no position to deny him help and quite frankly he's a nice guy but we've been speaking of this for a while I've fully warned him, and it's to the point I'm just gonna take his money irregardless it's just I'm trying help him make his idiotic decision slightly less idiotic by consulting some people who know more about the subject than I do... And hope for some good karma down the road as hey even he's said he's willing to wait years if he has to... And trust me, he really does have patience of the highest degree.

i backup everythign faceman has said with the caveat (as someone who has lots of friends with money but no sense followed by no money and still no sense)

get him to buy a load of msi r9-290's (better bang/buck than r9-290x's) on a board with a ton of pcie lanes and the required adaptors, when it all falls through buy 1 or 2 of the cards off him for a big discount its like a private ebay but you dont have to bid, you just negotiate...

[rhyseyness]

I've done it.

 

I understand maths, for god's sake. I'm studying pure mathematics.

 

This isn't price to performance, he has $4500. You can go for absolute performance on that budget, it's not exactly price limited. You can buy two R9-295x2s and two R9-290xs and still have $500 for everything else. Maths is a wonderful thing, although I'd hardly classify this as mathematics.

Yes on that budget, you can go pure performance. E.g. a 295x2 for gaming, but not for mining.

Mining is always about price to performance and ROI.

Spending all the money on 295x2's he will never make a ROI.

I understand he probably won't on 290x's either, but it's more likely.

The 295x2 does not represent a good mining card.

You can sacrafice some price:performance (a 280x outperforms a 290x in price:performance) so that you can mine faster, but you can't just waste money. I.e. spending 5x more for 2x performance (best case for that card).

[.:MARK:.]

The ASIC things are legit. Stands for Application Specific Integrated Circuit. Basically a chip that is designed to carry out one function and do it as efficiently as possible. Hence the relatively high hash rates.

[Builder]

Yes on that budget, you can go pure performance. E.g. a 295x2 for gaming, but not for mining.

Mining is always about price to performance and ROI.

Spending all the money on 295x2's he will never make a ROI.

I understand he probably won't on 290x's either, but it's more likely.

The 295x2 does not represent a good mining card.

You can sacrafice some price:performance (a 280x outperforms a 290x in price:performance) so that you can mine faster, but you can't just waste money. I.e. spending 5x more for 2x performance (best case for that card).

But he has the budget for it. I honestly don't care, essentially we're doing all the work here, his friend doesn't even understand why this is a bad idea, so I'm not sure how important ROI is. Teach him a lesson.

[rhyseyness]

But he has the budget for it. I honestly don't care, essentially we're doing all the work here, his friend doesn't even understand why this is a bad idea, so I'm not sure how important ROI is. Teach him a lesson.

He has the budget for 2/3 r9 295x2's, or 10 r9-290x's.

For mining, I know which I'd rather have.

Isn't the point of a forum to help people out and learn about stuff you don't know about?

I don't think we'd be doing our duty as a community if we just recommend a terrible idea to "teach him a lesson."

[RuecanOnRails]

He has the budget for 2/3 r9 295x2's, or 10 r9-290x's.

For mining, I know which I'd rather have.

Isn't the point of a forum to help people out and learn about stuff you don't know about?

I don't think we'd be doing our duty as a community if we just recommend a terrible idea to "teach him a lesson."

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/140478-features-suggestions/?p=2401293

 

Builder

The suggestion of purchasing 295x2's is horrible, if you're going to advocate throwing away money, at least give the option to donate to a charity instead.

I really don't think you understand mining.

[DIV1D3]

But he has the budget for it. I honestly don't care, essentially we're doing all the work here, his friend doesn't even understand why this is a bad idea, so I'm not sure how important ROI is. Teach him a lesson.

You sir, can leave this thread before you taint it further, you have no knowledge in this matter at all, do you?

280X would be the best decision GPU wise, and probably against ASICs too as you have the choice to mine several different ASIC resistant currencies. 

[Builder]

He has the budget for 2/3 r9 295x2's, or 10 r9-290x's.

For mining, I know which I'd rather have.

Isn't the point of a forum to help people out and learn about stuff you don't know about?

I don't think we'd be doing our duty as a community if we just recommend a terrible idea to "teach him a lesson."

I didn't mean teach the OP a lesson, I meant teach his friend who doesn't really seem to understand cryptocurrency enough to realize this is a bad idea.

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/140478-features-suggestions/?p=2401293

 

Builder

The suggestion of purchasing 295x2's is horrible, if you're going to advocate throwing away money, at least give the option to donate to a charity instead.

I really don't think you understand mining.

I do understand mining. I understand price to performance as well. However when someone comes to a thread asking for us to make him a parts list so he can take his friends money and follow our directions, I don't feel too happy. I built my mining rig from scratch out of spare parts after researching the subject for several weeks.

 

You sir, can leave this thread before you taint it further, you have no knowledge in this matter at all, do you?

280X would be the best decision GPU wise, and probably against ASICs too as you have the choice to mine several different ASIC resistant currencies. 

I do have a lot of knowledge in this matter. I'm a hacker, crypto is like half of my domain. I understand it enough to know that it's way too late to expect an ROI with mining rigs in a reasonable amount of time and it would do him much better to invest that $4500 in Bitcoins if he's really this into it.

[Builder]

He has the budget for 2/3 r9 295x2's, or 10 r9-290x's.

For mining, I know which I'd rather have.

Isn't the point of a forum to help people out and learn about stuff you don't know about?

I don't think we'd be doing our duty as a community if we just recommend a terrible idea to "teach him a lesson."

What? 10 290xs? They are $700 each.

 

EDIT: The cheapest is $499.99

[AK0490]

What? 10 290xs? They are $700 each.

 

EDIT: The cheapest is $499.99

There is no reason to buy new hardware. $337 shipped  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sapphire-AMD-R9-290X-4GB-GDDR5-Graphics-Card-/121377959009?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item1c42b0ac61

[Builder]

There is no reason to buy new hardware. $337 shipped  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sapphire-AMD-R9-290X-4GB-GDDR5-Graphics-Card-/121377959009?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item1c42b0ac61

You can find 10 of those?

[AK0490]

You can find 10 of those?

Yes, right there is 5 and that's just a buy it now, you can find them cheaper on auctions. Just give it up before you embarrass yourself further. 

[GloriousPain]

I do understand mining. I understand price to performance as well. However when someone comes to a thread asking for us to make him a parts list so he can take his friends money and follow our directions, I don't feel too happy. I built my mining rig from scratch out of spare parts after researching the subject for several weeks.

I'm not trying to swindle him, by any means... I own and operate a completely legitimate business and he is contracting my services, and I am doing my own research as well as asking the help of what I assume are experts on this forum and a couple of other forums to confirm my research or find something better than I, John has no parts laying around, and calling him a friend in all honesty is a bit of a long shot, we just went to high school together we were never best friends he was simply in a couple of my classes... If you don't feel so happy please just leave this thread; I won't blame you at all. 

[Builder]

Yes, right there is 5 and that's just a buy it now, you can find them cheaper on auctions. Just give it up before you embarrass yourself further. 

Well I personally have only bought CPUs and sealed RAM from eBay, because there is little you can do to them to make them still function but not as well. Especially with something like a mining rig where it's going to be on 24/7 I'd almost want server grade parts. Not GPUs obviously, but ECC RAM and CPUs and such.

 

I'm not trying to swindle him, by any means... I own and operate a completely legitimate business and he is contracting my services, and I am doing my own research as well as asking the help of what I assume are experts on this forum and a couple of other forums to confirm my research or find something better than I, John has no parts laying around, and calling him a friend in all honesty is a bit of a long shot, we just went to high school together we were never best friends he was simply in a couple of my classes... If you don't feel so happy please just leave this thread; I won't blame you at all. 

AMD cards are the best. Don't get used ones, buy a bunch of new 280Xs and hook them up to one of the mining boards. I'd suggest running Arch Linux or Parabola with a very minimal customization to make it take up as few resources as possible, i.e. no GUI, smallest kernel possible, etc. Make scripts so that the miner is preset with the best settings for the 280Xs and then make it so that they run at every startup. Test rigorously. Running without a GUI will mean that it needs to be very stable so you don't want Windows and you want as few parts running as possible. The ideal would be flick the power switch, boot up, start mining, without any human interaction. Even then, you're still probably better off with one of these http://www.minersbox.com/index.php/products. The cheapest one is around $4000. Use the $500 to make him a machine specifically for hosting his wallet.

[Commander Llama]

Buy this case: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005ZUZD2K/?tag=pcpapi-20

 

Flip it on its side, and just grow pot in it.  Probably much higher rate of return.

[harrynowl]

Put the money in stocks instead

[AK0490]

Go to a reputable forum to get information. 

[Sintezza]

Is mining still something to botter about?

[Shack Tastic]

I'm seeing links to all sorts of bitcoin miners here, and advice about not mining at all, and I'm worried the OP might actually be swayed into buying one of those, or not get involved at all. My advice is, is you're looking to mine, buy scrypt asics...you have a much easier chance of fulfilling ROI than on bitcoin (which you'll truly never ROI on unless BTC prices go up). My real advice though would just be to put your money directly into bitcoin itself, and if you feel inclined to, some promising alt coins (not the pump and dump day trade kind) which I'd be happy to talk about with you. Mining scrypt or investing directly into bitcoin is going to be your best bet on making ROI, and not making yourself and cryptos seem stupid to your buddies. Some background on myself: I started with 1x 7950 mining in feburary (of which you can find my noob posts) and 2x the money of my 7950 in 1 month by trading the right things. Over the last couple months, I've put considerably more money into the crypto-scene, and made out very well by picking long term promising coins of which i bought and mined, so I'm no amateur in the crypto scene. Hope this short spiel helps you make the right investments regarding cryptos.  

[Mooshi]

Don't be /that/ guy and create another spike in Radeons. Mining with GPUs is dead anyway. It's tons of wasted electricity and heat more than anything.

 

Just grab some of these if you still wish to mine a non scrypt coin. http://www.amazon.com/BITMAIN-ANTMINER-U2-Bitcoin-Overclockable/dp/B00ITD5NV6/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

[AK0490]

Don't be /that/ guy and create another spike in Radeons. Mining with GPUs is dead anyway. It's tons of wasted electricity and heat more than anything.

 

Just grab some of these if you still wish to mine a non scrypt coin. http://www.amazon.com/BITMAIN-ANTMINER-U2-Bitcoin-Overclockable/dp/B00ITD5NV6/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Don't be the bitter noob who recommends 2GH usb sticks.

[Mooshi]

Don't be the bitter noob who recommends 2GH usb sticks.

As opposed to the delusional nub that thinks lots of graphics cards burning up power = free money?

[DoubleY]

I didn't mean teach the OP a lesson, I meant teach his friend who doesn't really seem to understand cryptocurrency enough to realize this is a bad idea.

 

I do understand mining. I understand price to performance as well. However when someone comes to a thread asking for us to make him a parts list so he can take his friends money and follow our directions, I don't feel too happy. I built my mining rig from scratch out of spare parts after researching the subject for several weeks.

 

I do have a lot of knowledge in this matter. I'm a hacker, crypto is like half of my domain. I understand it enough to know that it's way too late to expect an ROI with mining rigs in a reasonable amount of time and it would do him much better to invest that $4500 in Bitcoins if he's really this into it.

You built a mining rig yourself and you're a hacker? You must really want an internet cookie.

 

Suggesting R9 295X2 is dumb. Purely dumb. Yes, it gives the most performance per PCI-E lane, but it costs SOOO much more than a 290(X).