Mining with a GTX 970

[ZenMonkey]

I've never mined cryptocurrency before, but I recently upgraded to a hybrid 1080, so I have a spare GTX 970. I've read that I can dedicate a second video card to mining without affecting the performance of my primary GPU or system as a whole. However, I'm also using an i5-4690k, which only has 16 pcie lanes, so I'm not sure if that's true for my system. So, I'm debating whether or not to sell it (seems to be worth around $175ish in the current market) or to install it and try my hand at mining. Advice?

[Guest]

If you want to try mining then 16 will be fine if you have no other pci devices (elgato, pcie ssd, m.2, etc)

[ZenMonkey]

3 minutes ago, Abyss Gaming said:

If you want to try mining then 16 will be fine if you have no other pci devices (elgato, pcie ssd, m.2, etc)

 

I have a GTX 1080 as my primary video card.

[lieder1987]

From what I understand you don't need a bunch of PCIe lanes for mining. You should be able to do decently well, but hell put it in and try and see what happens. It is going to drain more power than you probably will make, but you should be able to mine with it.

[rn8686]

CPU is fine, only need 1x to mine (very little data throughput needed, only result of hashes). Can try mining if you want, might be interesting for you. 

[ZenMonkey]

My concern with the lanes is that my primary video card uses all 16 PCIe lanes my CPU supports. With mining, the 970 might only require one lane, but how will it affect the performance of my 1080 while doing other things like playing video games? Any idea how long, approximately, it would take to make the $175 in profit I could get by selling the 970?

[GOTSpectrum]

2 hours ago, ZenMonkey said:

My concern with the lanes is that my primary video card uses all 16 PCIe lanes my CPU supports. With mining, the 970 might only require one lane, but how will it affect the performance of my 1080 while doing other things like playing video games? Any idea how long, approximately, it would take to make the $175 in profit I could get by selling the 970?

I mine with a 970 and make around £1 a day, so less than two dollars. But if you run it for a year, you could make 400-500 USD(minus expenses).

[ZenMonkey]

1 minute ago, Ben Quigley said:

I mine with a 970 and make around £1 a day, so less than two dollars. But if you run it for a year, you could make 400-500 USD(minus expenses).

 

Well, that's not so bad, I guess. If I would leave my computer on all day mining with the 970, I could also mine with the 1080 for like 18 hours per day while I'm not using the computer to make it more worthwhile. Guess the next step is to figure out how to mine.

[GOTSpectrum]

Just now, ZenMonkey said:

 

Well, that's not so bad, I guess. If I would leave my computer on all day mining with the 970, I could also mine with the 1080 for like 18 hours per day while I'm not using the computer to make it more worthwhile. Guess the next step is to figure out how to mine.

Get a bitcoin wallet, I use coinbase and install nicehash. Type in your bittcoin address and press start. It's that easy. 

[WkdPaul]

We have a guide for eth here:

 

 

 

And here's a simple guide to use nicehash (simple mining software with GUI):

http://www.realhardwarereviews.com/how-to-bitcoin-for-beginners/

[LienusLateTips]

don't forget about the chipset lanes

[AugOwnz]

If you have 16 pcie lanes and you use 2 gpus they will both go at 8x, it doesn't affect performance for mining and neither for gaming on your main gpu (maybe a 0.1% decrease).