GPU Farm Advice

[LtStaffel]

Hello,

 

I am in the US and am looking to spend up to $2200 (USD) total on a GPU farm.

 

Applications include coin mining (planning to start with Ethereum), Blender rendering (better than my GTX750ti), and password cracking (I'm a cybersecurity student).

 

IMPORTANT:::

All of these applications rely on computing power, and not bandwidth (so using PCI 1x with a Celeron for 16 GPUs is okay).

I can't use a mining os because I need to be able to run hashchat and blender, so I'm probably going to end up on some lightweight Ubuntu because I'm good with Debian.

 

I'd like any and all advice/tips/suggestions/warnings/death-threats/love-letters you are willing to give.

 

For a start, I'm currently looking at this:

Spoiler

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mNBWFd
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mNBWFd/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Celeron G3930 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Asus - STRIX B250F GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($150.00)
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA - Premier Pro SP600 64GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($46.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: MSI - Radeon RX 570 4GB ARMOR OC Video Card  ($1600.00)
Power Supply: Corsair - CSM 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($250.00)
Other: Add2PSU ($20.00)
Total: $2173.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-09-26 15:59 EDT-0400

 

NOTES:

Video card price adjusted for 16 cards.

PSU price adjusted for 3 PSUs.

Add2PSU lets me use multiple PSUs simultaneously on one system.

MOBO is actually this one here on Newegg, the one I put in is just a placeholder.

 

 

Thanks in advance!

[Crunchy Dragon]

I've heard RX Vega has really high mining potential(perhaps someone else here can confirm/correct me on this topic)

[TheRandomness]

You could have a look at the used market to find a motherboard with all those PCIe slots. Also, Asus has a board that has 3 24 pin connectors coming soon. Also, Vega has really, really good compute capabilities if you undervolt the card. It's how Vega 64 got about 40 MH/s at 150W power draw.

[TVwazhere]

Just now, TheRandomness said:

You could have a look at the used market to find a motherboard with all those PCIe slots. Also, Asus has a board that has 3 24 pin connectors coming soon. Also, Vega has really, really good compute capabilities if you undervolt the card. It's how Vega 64 got about 40 MH/s at 150W power draw.

Quote

MOBO is actually this one here on Newegg, the one I put in is just a placeholder.

 

 

[LtStaffel]

2 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

You could have a look at the used market to find a motherboard with all those PCIe slots. Also, Asus has a board that has 3 24 pin connectors coming soon.

 

I'll look into those, though I'm not sure how I'd apply such specific filters to, for example, eBay. Secondly, how soon with that board? I'd be interested in it if I could bypass some of the issues inherent with a third party thing such as Add2PSU.

2 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

 Also, Vega has really, really good compute capabilities if you undervolt the card. It's how Vega 64 got about 40 MH/s at 150W power draw.

2

 

6 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I've heard RX Vega has really high mining potential(perhaps someone else here can confirm/correct me on this topic)

I read in at least two places that Vega was not good for mining. Where can I find more information on it? I hadn't heard of the 64 getting so many Mh/s, and at such low power... The question with that though would be if it's worth it, because I can get 22 Mh/s with one 570, which is $265 vs at least $650 for a 64 as far PCPP tells me.

[TheRandomness]

3 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

 

 

Oh I did not notice that, and funnily enough, yeah that was the one that I was describing

Just now, LtStaffel said:

I'll look into those, though I'm not sure how I'd apply such specific filters to, for example, eBay. Secondly, how soon with that board? I'd be interested in it if I could bypass some of the issues inherent with a third party thing such as Add2PSU.

 

I read in at least two places that Vega was not good for mining. Where can I find more information on it? I hadn't heard of the 64 getting so many Mh/s, and at such low power... The question with that though would be if it's worth it, because I can get 22 Mh/s with one 570, which is $265 vs at least $650 for a 64 as far PCPP tells me.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/amd-vega-mining-boost

[LtStaffel]

5 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

 

 

I did not realize that board had the connectors... Will edit my build to remove Add2PSU

[LtStaffel]

3 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

Oh I did not notice that, and funnily enough, yeah that was the one that I was describing

https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/amd-vega-mining-boost

Will look into costs of vega... It's so much more expensive though so I'm not sure that for $2200 I'll be able to match 16 570s.

[LtStaffel]

7 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

Oh I did not notice that, and funnily enough, yeah that was the one that I was describing

https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/amd-vega-mining-boost

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-vega-56-ethereum-mining-performance_197049

[TheRandomness]

Just now, LtStaffel said:

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-vega-56-ethereum-mining-performance_197049

Look at the dates of the articles. Mine's more recent.

[LtStaffel]

7 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

Look at the dates of the articles. Mine's more recent.

Yeah. Unfortunately, that was one relatively small group of reddit users who got those kinds of results. Vega is quite expensive too.

[LtStaffel]

11 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

Look at the dates of the articles. Mine's more recent.

 

24 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I've heard RX Vega has really high mining potential(perhaps someone else here can confirm/correct me on this topic)

Do any of you know if anyone here in the community is especially versed in GPU computing?

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, LtStaffel said:

 

 

Do any of you know if anyone here in the community is especially versed in GPU computing?

There's probably someone, I don't know any names though

[TVwazhere]

1 minute ago, LtStaffel said:

Do any of you know if anyone here in the community is especially versed in GPU computing?

I too dont know of any names off the top of my head, but there are a lot of people who've mentioned that they have or are building mining rigs

[Serpius]

17 minutes ago, LtStaffel said:

Hello,

 

I am in the US and am looking to spend up to $2200 (USD) total on a GPU farm.

 

Applications include coin mining (planning to start with Ethereum), Blender rendering (better than my GTX750ti), and password cracking (I'm a cybersecurity student).

 

IMPORTANT:::

All of these applications rely on computing power, and not bandwidth (so using PCI 1x with a Celeron for 16 GPUs is okay).

I can't use a mining os because I need to be able to run hashchat and blender, so I'm probably going to end up on some lightweight Ubuntu because I'm good with Debian.

 

I'd like any and all advice/tips/suggestions/warnings/death-threats/love-letters you are willing to give.

 

For a start, I'm currently looking at this:

  Hide contents

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mNBWFd
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mNBWFd/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Celeron G3930 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Asus - STRIX B250F GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($150.00)
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA - Premier Pro SP600 64GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($46.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: MSI - Radeon RX 570 4GB ARMOR OC Video Card  ($1600.00)
Power Supply: Corsair - CSM 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($250.00)
Other: Add2PSU ($20.00)
Total: $2173.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-09-26 15:59 EDT-0400

 

NOTES:

Video card price adjusted for 16 cards.

PSU price adjusted for 3 PSUs.

Add2PSU lets me use multiple PSUs simultaneously on one system.

MOBO is actually this one here on Newegg, the one I put in is just a placeholder.

 

 

 

Thanks in advance!

1

Did you mean when you stated "video card price adjusted for 16 cards" to really mean... a total of 16 GB of VRAM?

 

I do hope that you did because I have yet to see a setup that can do 16 graphic cards on a single mainboard. 

 

I'm assuming that you meant 16 GB VRAM...

Pricing at Newegg for the Radeon RX 570 4 GB is $259.99. Multiply that by 4 gets you... $1,039.96.

However, Newegg LIMITS 2 graphics cards per customer, which means... you can only get 2 cards at a time from Newegg.

You will have to resort to another vendor to get 2 more graphics cards... assuming you can find one that will allow you to get 2 at a time.

 

Looking at that mining mainboard, where do you see that you can put in more than 1 graphic cards? I don't see it.

 

Unless you are planning to get 16 x PCI Express x1 graphics cards. I seriously doubt you can find the kind of graphics cards you need for your computing needs.

This is what Newegg has Newegg PCI Express x1 Graphic Cards

 

What about a computer case?

 

Are you going to get a retail case or make your own? 

[TheRandomness]

1 minute ago, Buzzsaw said:

Did you mean when you stated "video card price adjusted for 16 cards" to really mean... a total of 16 GB of VRAM?

 

I do hope that you did because I have yet to see a setup that can do 16 graphic cards on a single mainboard. 

 

I'm assuming that you meant 16 GB VRAM...

Pricing at Newegg for the Radeon RX 570 4 GB is $259.99. Multiply that by 4 gets you... $1,039.96.

However, Newegg LIMITS 2 graphics cards per customer, which means... you can only get 2 cards at a time from Newegg.

You will have to resort to another vendor to get 2 more graphics cards... assuming you can find one that will allow you to get 2 at a time.

 

Looking at that mining mainboard, where do you see that you can put in more than 1 graphic cards? I don't see it.

 

Unless you are planning to get 16 x PCI Express x1 graphics cards. I seriously doubt you can find the kind of graphics cards you need for your computing needs.

This is what Newegg has Newegg PCI Express x1 Graphic Cards

 

What about a computer case?

 

Are you going to get a retail case or make your own? 

I don't think you've ever seen a mining setup.
PCIe x1 to x16 risers because mining doesn't require much bandwidth at all
Mining case rack which is just an open air test bench with extra card support
And he literally meant 16 graphics cards.

[Serpius]

3 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

I don't think you've ever seen a mining setup.
PCIe x1 to x16 risers because mining doesn't require much bandwidth at all
Mining case rack which is just an open air test bench with extra card support
And he literally meant 16 graphics cards.

That's the part in the original post that he left out... the risers. 

 

That's going to cost money. Those risers aren't free.

 

Regardless... on Newegg, he won't be able to buy 16 graphic cards at once. Newegg (and other vendors) are limiting the maximum number that one can buy. 

 

Assuming that the average price of that AMD Radeon RX 570 4 GB is $260, multiply that by 16... that gives you $4,160. That $1,600 he stated is way underpriced.

 

One has to do AWFUL LOT OF MINING to even break even. How long would that take?

 

It's cheaper just to buy the coins and be done with it.

I mean... at the current rate of Ethereum at an average price of $290 and buys about $2,174 worth of Ether (cost of his total build), he will have 7.5 Ether coins.

That's far easier way to get the coins.

(just for the record... Ethereum is projected to go up to $500 per coin by the 1st quarter of 2018... buy it now is the best option)

[Sanctorum]

Yeah, OP, where the hell are you getting 16 RX 570s for $1600?

[PianoPlayer88Key]

9 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

PCIe x1 to x16 risers because mining doesn't require much bandwidth at all

That gets me thinking ...

Do PCIe x16-to-(whatever) splitter risers exist?  I mean something that plugs into a single x16 slot and can split it into any combination of x1, x2, x4, x8, Mini PCIe, M.2 PCIe, up to the 16 lanes of the host slot.  One example would be x16 -> 4* x1 + x8 + M.2, or x16 -> 16* x1.

[LtStaffel]

18 minutes ago, Buzzsaw said:

That's the part in the original post that he left out... the risers. 

 

That's going to cost money. Those risers aren't free.

1

 

20 minutes ago, Buzzsaw said:

Regardless... on Newegg, he won't be able to buy 16 graphic cards at once. Newegg (and other vendors) are limiting the maximum number that one can buy. 

 

1

I'll have to deal with that by buying them over time, as planned. The first six may be a slight difficulty, but doable nonetheless.

20 minutes ago, Buzzsaw said:

Assuming that the average price of that AMD Radeon RX 570 4 GB is $260, multiply that by 16... that gives you $4,160. That $1,600 he stated is way underpriced.

 

 

 

15 minutes ago, Sanctorum said:

Yeah, OP, where the hell are you getting 16 RX 570s for $1600?

 

My mistake, I meant to say 6 cards. Over time I will work up to the full 16.

 

20 minutes ago, Buzzsaw said:

One has to do AWFUL LOT OF MINING to even break even. How long would that take?

 

It's cheaper just to buy the coins and be done with it.

I mean... at the current rate of Ethereum at an average price of $290 and buys about $2,174 worth of Ether (cost of his total build), he will have 7.5 Ether coins.

That's far easier way to get the coins.

(just for the record... Ethereum is projected to go up to $500 per coin by the 1st quarter of 2018... buy it now is the best option)

 

 

Except I'm not mining to make money. I'm mining to reduce some of the costs of this machine, which will also render and crack. Please read more carefully next time.

 

13 minutes ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

That gets me thinking ...

Do PCIe x16-to-(whatever) splitter risers exist?  I mean something that plugs into a single x16 slot and can split it into any combination of x1, x2, x4, x8, Mini PCIe, M.2 PCIe, up to the 16 lanes of the host slot.  One example would be x16 -> 4* x1 + x8 + M.2, or x16 -> 16* x1.

No idea. I'd use the single x16 that board with a normal riser under my current plans.

[LtStaffel]

41 minutes ago, Buzzsaw said:

 

I do hope that you did because I have yet to see a setup that can do 16 graphic cards on a single mainboard. 

 

 

Hence the probable build log.

[TheRandomness]

21 minutes ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

That gets me thinking ...

Do PCIe x16-to-(whatever) splitter risers exist?  I mean something that plugs into a single x16 slot and can split it into any combination of x1, x2, x4, x8, Mini PCIe, M.2 PCIe, up to the 16 lanes of the host slot.  One example would be x16 -> 4* x1 + x8 + M.2, or x16 -> 16* x1.

Yeah they do. And you can do that.

31 minutes ago, Buzzsaw said:

That's the part in the original post that he left out... the risers. 

 

That's going to cost money. Those risers aren't free.

 

Regardless... on Newegg, he won't be able to buy 16 graphic cards at once. Newegg (and other vendors) are limiting the maximum number that one can buy. 

 

Assuming that the average price of that AMD Radeon RX 570 4 GB is $260, multiply that by 16... that gives you $4,160. That $1,600 he stated is way underpriced.

 

One has to do AWFUL LOT OF MINING to even break even. How long would that take?

 

It's cheaper just to buy the coins and be done with it.

I mean... at the current rate of Ethereum at an average price of $290 and buys about $2,174 worth of Ether (cost of his total build), he will have 7.5 Ether coins.

That's far easier way to get the coins.

(just for the record... Ethereum is projected to go up to $500 per coin by the 1st quarter of 2018... buy it now is the best option)

1) Yeah but they're dirt cheap from moddiy.
2) He could buy 16 different RX 570s, in pairs of two.
3) Considering an RX 570 can do about 28 MH/s at a power draw of around 110W undervolted (or less), that generates a profit of about $13.75 a day for all 16 graphics cards, including power costs (assuming 12 cents a kWh). Which is about $412.35 a month.
4) Just for a record, ethereum is projected to have a difficulty spike when they change to a pos algorithm instead of whatever they're currently using, meaning that the value will go down as graphics cards become more useless to mine it.

[Sanctorum]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Celeron G3930 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Asus - STRIX Z270F ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($149.95 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($64.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: SK hynix - SL308 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($52.88 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: MSI - Radeon RX 570 4GB ARMOR OC Video Card  ($1600.00) 
Power Supply: Rosewill - 1200W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($184.99 @ Newegg Marketplace) 
Total: $2089.70

[Serpius]

1 hour ago, TheRandomness said:

Yeah they do. And you can do that.

1) Yeah but they're dirt cheap from moddiy.
2) He could buy 16 different RX 570s, in pairs of two.
3) Considering an RX 570 can do about 28 MH/s at a power draw of around 110W undervolted (or less), that generates a profit of about $13.75 a day for all 16 graphics cards, including power costs (assuming 12 cents a kWh). Which is about $412.35 a month.
4) Just for a record, ethereum is projected to have a difficulty spike when they change to a pos algorithm instead of whatever they're currently using, meaning that the value will go down as graphics cards become more useless to mine it.

Regarding #4, that proves the point that mining Ethereum would be a useless endeavor because Point of Staking is going to be the norm for Ethereum.

 

Why bother start mining when that will become useless sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2018? 

 

I don't see the logic of mining Ethereum now or for the short term.

[TheRandomness]

Just now, Buzzsaw said:

Regarding #4, that proves the point that mining Ethereum would be a useless endeavor because Point of Staking is going to be the norm for Ethereum.

 

Why bother start mining when that will become useless sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2018? 

 

I don't see the logic of mining Ethereum now or for the short term.

Because if you can predict when it crashes, you can sell to other miners and maybe even make a profit from selling all the GPUs.