# Mining Rig Buildout.  Need your input!



## nflesher87 (Sep 4, 2021)

So I'm a little late to the game!  Hopefully I don't get this all built out and 2.0 hits the next day 
But this thread isn't for general mining discussion.  Help me build out a sick rig!
Initially I was on a mission to build a 12 card rig with RTX 3080s but I'm discovering that the power supply factor may prohibit that from being an option (I'd love input here if anyone knows a workaround).
Also side point, if anyone has components for sale I'd rather support you than Amazon/Newegg, so speak up!
Aside from productivity, I want the build to be attractive so I will definitely be focusing on aesthetics.

On to the build:

Chassis - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08VDPYJPM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?smid=A23NVCSO4PYH3S&psc=1 
Again not expecting to be able to get to 12 cards but I'd rather have the capability than be limited by one of the smaller 8 or 9 card chassis​Mobo - https://www.newegg.com/p/1JW-00KJ-00002?Item=9SIA2W0DZV9493
Pretty self explanatory here (dedicated mining rig, no other intended use)​CPU - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SBKXDNS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A23NVCSO4PYH3S&psc=1
Sources appreciated for something less expensive!  Mostly I'm seeing that the Coffee Lake Celerons are ideal.​Ram - https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-8gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820231882?Item=9SIAREZF548290
I'm sure someone has a set of something similar to sell me!​HD - https://www.newegg.com/team-group-gx2-128gb/p/N82E16820331313?Item=N82E16820331313
Cooling - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R6TPT6D/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?smid=A2167514TR9ONI&psc=1
I plan to put one of these in front of each card​Video Cards - RTX 3080 nonlhr.  Sourcing these wherever I can.  Currently up to 7 at an average cost of $1800 per.

Points up for the most discussion:
PCIe Risers - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HR1XTSV/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=ARKB1SNQAVRLS&psc=1
Adapters for power to video cards - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072JR4H3N/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3QWZTNL12RWVS&psc=1
Can someone please confirm that these will work fine?  I plan to use these to consolidate power connections from the PSUs to the 3080s​Adapter for multiple PSUs- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07543LNRH/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A2HRXDCK7SIH44&psc=1
I also have no experience with this.  My first question is, can you use 2 of these to have a 3 PSU setup?  Or does this limit to 1 daisy chained?​
Wattage and PSU:
So as built, the basic components including fans look to consume a bit under 200W
I'm reading that the 3080s can consume between 250-400W each depending on voltage and draw.
So that means I'll have a range from 3200W-5000W assuming 12x RTX 3080s
I've seen some people use less expensive server PSUs and I'm thinking I may have to go this route to keep costs down.
Also there are "mining psus" for sale :https://www.amazon.com/Modular-Bitc...d=1630766410&sprefix=mining+po,aps,191&sr=8-4
But the reliability of these concerns me.

Please pick it apart and give me more input regarding the power supply issue!


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## ShiBDiB (Sep 4, 2021)

The difficulty bomb is hitting in december, you're literally pissing money away building this now


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 4, 2021)

ShiBDiB said:


> The difficulty bomb is hitting in december, you're literally pissing money away building this now


He is Right, plus a surefire way is to save money you earned working


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## nflesher87 (Sep 4, 2021)

Ok so I’ve discussed this with NiceHash and they are pretty confident that the other algorithms will provide enough profitability to offset the shift to POS.
For conversation sake, let’s assume I will be fine 
Anyone have input regarding the power issues?


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## ShiBDiB (Sep 4, 2021)

nflesher87 said:


> Ok so I’ve discussed this with NiceHash and they are pretty confident that the other algorithms will provide enough profitability to offset the shift to POS.
> For conversation sake, let’s assume I will be fine
> Anyone have input regarding the power issues?



If you look at your nicehash stats the only algos that make YOU money are eth ones. And they get a cut either way... they're probably the worst source of information for this.

Also december isn't the shift to POS, it's a difficulty bomb to cripple GPU mining in preparation for POS.


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## 111frodon (Sep 4, 2021)

Seriously, just buy ethereum at this point. Way less risky and a whole lot less trouble to manage! This is coming from a guy owning a GH/s farm. It's been almost a year since I bought any gpu...


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## trog100 (Sep 4, 2021)

111frodon said:


> Seriously, just buy ethereum at this point. Way less risky and a whole lot less trouble to manage! This is coming from a guy owning a GH/s farm. It's been almost a year since I bought any gpu...



yes buying the coin may well be the best option.. for example 10K invested in eth at the beginning of this year would have bought about 15 eth..  15 eth is now worth around 60K.. 

that is about 50K profit in around 8 months.. 

profits are mostly made from the increase in value of the coins.. the snag with mining is the hardware costs are very high and it takes too long to acquire enough coin to matter..

mining is best done during the down periods.. hardware costs are low and you just wait until the next up period to count your profits.. mining is a long term thing.. 

trog


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## Metroid (Sep 4, 2021)

111frodon said:


> Seriously, just buy ethereum at this point. Way less risky and a whole lot less trouble to manage! This is coming from a guy owning a GH/s farm. It's been almost a year since I bought any gpu...


To anybody wanting to buy gpus or coins, please dont do now, time to buy coins or gpus is over, check what happened in 2011, 2014 and 2018 and think about it, a huge mega crash is coming soon, now is time to sell coins, if you have gpus then keep mining and sell every payout and when the cryptomarket crashes then act fast and sell your gpus high then wait till gpus go below msrp levels, a 3080 that is sold for 3000 usd now will be sold for 400-500 usd when the time comes, thank me later.


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## R-T-B (Sep 4, 2021)

Unless you are doing this for fun, I agree with the above logic of the posters.  You'd be better off buying.


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## cvaldes (Sep 4, 2021)

Trying to get rich mining cryptocurrency is like trying to get rich from Amazon by driving one of their delivery vans.

If you want to make money from cryptocurrency, *TRADE* the currency. If you want to get rich from Amazon, buy shares of AMZN.

I would say that 99.9% of the world's accumulated fortunes are from investments not ordinary wages. Cryptocurrency prices are driven by traders -- buyers and sellers -- not miners.

If you had a few extra GPUs sitting around idling that were purchased prior to November 2020, you'd be able to reach the break even point a little earlier, but any RDNA2 or Ampere GPU is a total bust from a mining value standpoint. Rather than buying three 3060 cards, you'd be better off sinking two grand into ETH, walking away, and checking ETH prices in a year.

Note that the price of cryptocurrency doesn't significantly impact GPU pricing. In the last few months, ETH shed nearly half of its value (as cryptocurrencies routinely do) but this wasn't reflected in GPU market pricing. And now ETH is nearly back to where it was and GPU pricing has stayed relatively the same.

It is better to swing trade cryptos and take your profits when you've reached the limit of your risk tolerance: +20%, +30%, +50%, whatever. If you could make +20% three times a year from trading crypto, you'd be up +72.8%. There is no way any miner could do that.

OP doesn't address the key factor that makes cryptocurrency mining a remote consideration: extremely cheap power and cooling. Cryptocurrency mining costs make little sense at ordinary residential electrical rates.


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## trog100 (Sep 4, 2021)

whatever you do with crypto you need some spare money to start off the game in the first place.. maybe driving that amazon delivery van is all some people can do in the beginning..

i am currently mining with nicehash.. i am currently seeing around $1600 dollars a month from doing this.. that 1600 dollars is being hodled (invested) in the form of bitcoin..

how much i will make depends entirely on what happens to the price of bitcoin.. i am rather hoping it will make at least 100K by the end of the year.. which in theory will double my mining gains..

i first started mining back in 2017.. when it all crashed i simply forgot about it.. this year it all started off again i and fired up my mining machines again and have since upgraded them.... from what i know now it was a big mistake to have switched them off.. what they would have earned during that off period would be worth a fair bit now..

i know i would be better off mining and holding eth but i am lazy and cant be arsed to change.. plus part of me would like to own at least one whole bitcoin..  he he..

we live we learn.. but ether way it still needs money to make money..

trog


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## Space Lynx (Sep 4, 2021)

I will never help anyone in threads like these. Enjoy your global warming.


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## sepheronx (Sep 4, 2021)

I myself am mining a fair amount.  I am mining ETH+ZIL, RVN+ZIL and ERGO.

When mining ETH, you are drawing about 220W average with that GPU.  Depends on the type of the 3080 too.  MSI Ventus 3X for instance is terrible.  Hot and requires more wattage than my Dell RTX 3080 in order to get same hash rates.

Once ETH goes 2.0 (not in December, not sure where some members are reading this), it will move off to a mix of different coins - Conflux, Autolykos, Kawpow, ETCHASH, ZelHash, Cryptonight GPU, ProgPowZ, etc.

Ergo for instance I saw a rise in difficulty, but the price compensated that as I went from making $6 USD to now about $17 USD per day on that algo for instance.

I would avoid in the future RTX 3080ti's as they are too expensive.  If you can get 3080's now, they are going to be LHR models which mean that mining ETH will be a pain and dialing in the OC and wattage for ERGO will be a pain.

I would avoid Nicehash now as they take quite a cut.  I would look at doing it directly.


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## cvaldes (Sep 5, 2021)

One little detail that usually goes ignored in these discussions: residential wiring is not designed to handle a sustained maximum load over long durations.

How old are the conductors in your wall? What was their relative quality level when installed? What load have they experienced since the installation? (If you don't know, best to assume the worst.) How brittle is the insulation today? The quality of your electrical panel? The circuit breakers? The wall outlet itself? Do you retighten the connections on a regular basis?

Now I'm no electrician nor engineer but I have owned residential real estate for over three decades and I can say from experience that much of the wiring in ordinary houses was never the best, even when it was brand new, and it certainly isn't after fifty years of use.

I have never heard an electrician who looked at a 50-year-old residential property say, "the electrical system looks great."


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## sepheronx (Sep 5, 2021)

cvaldes said:


> One little detail that usually goes ignored in these discussions: residential wiring is not designed to handle a sustained maximum load over long durations.
> 
> How old are the conductors in your wall? What was their relative quality level when installed? What load have they experienced since the installation? How brittle is the insulation today? The quality of your electrical panel? The circuit breakers? The wall outlet itself? Do you retighten the connections on a regular basis?
> 
> Now I'm no electrician nor engineer but I have owned residential real estate for over three decades and I can say from experience that much of the wiring in ordinary houses was never the best, even when it was brand new, and it certainly isn't after fifty years of use.



Very good to mention this.

My home is new(ish) but I still ran 3 individual 15A lines for using max 1440W of power (you know, dont exceed 80% of the power the line can handle).


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## cvaldes (Sep 5, 2021)

Another thing that most people don't think carefully about is how to calculate electrical costs.

Depending on your plan, you are paying by tiers of usage or by peak/off-peak hours/days.

If you pay by tiers of usage, it is far more reasonable to look at the most expensive tier that your electricity usage hits and calculate mining electricity cost at that rate.

If you pay by peak/off-peak hours, again it is most reasonable to calculate mining costs at the peak rate. Basically worst case scenarios in both instances.

At least one of the major PC media sites periodically measures GPU cost efficiency but they pick a general electricity rate. Moreover, they only calculate the "days to break even" for the GPU. They never include the rest of the mining rig. Motherboard? Not included. PSU? Not included. The $5 HDMI plug to prevent the GPU from thinking is should be asleep? Not included. 

Clearly if you have repurposed parts that were previously used for other tasks, then it's okay to consider those sunken/paid costs at least partially. But if those parts are less than five years old, maybe it's more realistic to include them as partially amortized costs (20% per year). For sure if you purchased parts for a dedicated mining build, those should definitely be included in the total cost of operation.

People rarely do this; they generally fixate on the GPU price.


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## nflesher87 (Sep 5, 2021)

Well then....where to begin...

Thank you @sepheronx for being the only poster to actually follow my requests in the OP.   You brought no agenda and you embraced the soul of the TPU that I know which is to aid you peers in an encouraging nature!
Thank you to @trog100 for doing so as well in your own way.  But did I ask at all about trading crypto?  Is it quite possible that I already have a strong portfolio of crypto?  I do, and I asked nothing about trading crypto.

@cvaldes you paint a cute picture regarding the economics of mining, but not only did you completely neglect my request in the OP, but you then went on to espouse your agenda of negativity regarding this process.  I requested no such counsel regarding these aspects of mining.  Did you consider that I'm quite aware of electricity costs?  What if, shocker, I own a business with electricity included in my property rent? Based on my perspective of this thread only, you are on your path to troll status.  I hope that you gain some perspective and adjust your mindset.  If not, I'm sorry for you.

This thread is an interesting case study of agendas.  I specifically asked about guidance regarding the build.  Not about profitability, the current or future state of mining, my personal financial status, or electricity costs.
TPU has always been a forum of inclusion and friendliness.  Those of you who brought closeminded and narrowminded opinions to this thread in direct defiance of my requests, I suggest that you reevaluate the way you communicate on this forum.  Are you here to inform, encourage, and educate your peers?  Or are you here to fulfill an agenda?


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## ShiBDiB (Sep 5, 2021)

nflesher87 said:


> Are you here to inform, encourage, and educate your peers



We're educating you that right now is a horrible time to spend the money here... you keep bringing up agendas like you aren't also pushing one by ignoring all the sound advice on how perhaps waiting and seeing how December shakes out is the better move.

The build advice is to not have a build right now. You will not make your money back if all the projections are correct.


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## cvaldes (Sep 5, 2021)

First of all, if your property situation includes all-you-can-use electricity, it would have made sense for you to mention it in your original post. Since you did not, I assume this is some sort of defensive diversionary comment that isn't true.

I did obliquely reply about the GPU situation. It makes zero sense paying today's prices for any GPU for mining. I have a Radeon RX 580 that I bought brand new a year ago at $180. Today the street price is around $600. I own a 3080 that I paid $1049 (thank you Newegg Shuffle). That's $350 over the FE MSRP of $699. Your 3080s are $1100 over MSRP. Your math sucks.

I did not comment on many of the other component choices you made since I believe that was adequately covered by others.

If you look at the over simplified crypto-mining GPU cost analyses, all of the GPUs with the best performance-per-dollar ratio are older and weaker GPUs.

I won't delve more into the fact that you ignored my comments about residential wiring quality.

I have no agenda to fulfill. This is the Internet. Many people ask questions and blithely ignore all advice and do what they initially set out to do, whether or not they get any sort of affirmation. You made all of the classic errors and informational omissions that clueless aspiring miners make. Mining only works in a very limited number of situations that are essentially out of the reach of Joe Consumer.

Go ahead. Blow your money. I don't gain or lose if you drop $20K on your mining rig. However I'm not going to lie to you and say, "attaboy, it all sounds great" when I believe you can get better ROI from cryptocurrency another way. 

If you don't want answers that you don't want to hear, don't ask the question. We're not your mom making your favorite breakfast. I will bet you a buffalo nickel that even your mom didn't approve of every single decision you have ever made.

I sure as hell am glad that I'm not your next door neighbor though. I hope for your neighbors that you have a quality smoke detector and fire suppression system.

Best of luck.


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## Hardcore Games (Sep 5, 2021)

There is no real future in mining anymore, costs are high and revenue to moving sideways

Bitcoin is not regulated so its risky to trade, I would suggest waiting for regulators to get around to it


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 5, 2021)

Hardcore Games said:


> There is no real future in mining anymore, costs are high and revenue to moving sideways
> 
> Bitcoin is not regulated so its risky to trade, I would suggest waiting for regulators to get around to it


Greediness leads to folly


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## bogmali (Sep 5, 2021)

If this thread is not for you, I suggest you leave at once and stop posting-you're just making yourself look foolish. If you do not like mining and crypto in general, kindly leave cause obviously this is not for you. Thread cleansed of troll posts


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## trog100 (Sep 5, 2021)

bogmali said:


> If this thread is not for you, I suggest you leave at once and stop posting-you're just making yourself look foolish. If you do not like mining and crypto in general, kindly leave cause obviously this is not for you. Thread cleansed of troll posts



there are plenty of them.. i could name them all... he he..

they have a simple agenda..  bash crypto whenever they can.. they join in crypto threads for this one simple reason.. 

trog


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## R-T-B (Sep 5, 2021)

If you really want to go ahead with this, I can strongly advise using a 240V appliance circuit to power your gear.  It will greatly reduce the impact of wiring concerns.


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## sepheronx (Sep 6, 2021)

I agree with the frog.  240v will guarantee the necessary power. Plus, you can take advantage of the cheaper HP power supplies with breakout boards.



Hardcore Games said:


> There is no real future in mining anymore, costs are high and revenue to moving sideways
> 
> Bitcoin is not regulated so its risky to trade, I would suggest waiting for regulators to get around to it


I suggest you first learn a thing or two on prices before posting.

If unsure, check "Whattomine" to get an idea what is profitable in GPU mining.


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## Hardcore Games (Sep 6, 2021)

trading in bitcoin etc have now attracted regulators for larger transactions mostly for tax reasons which suggest this will affect larger mining operations but smaller ones are likely to also find the tax man wanting their piece of the pie

earnings need to consider capital cost, earnings, power and taxes ect

most are not educated in economics like I am


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## R-T-B (Sep 6, 2021)

Right now taxes are pretty easy if you cash out with coinbase, they'll export docs you can plugin to calculators.  Most smaller mining ops won't pay much in taxes.


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## applegrcoug (Sep 6, 2021)

So I've been doing some mining since May.  I am still underwater, but it has been fun; a challenge that is my own, so I get it.

I didnt look at your build list, but here is what I did...I got cheap stuff where I could to minimize on the overhead.

I have four different dedicated mining rigs with my hash rates spread sorta equally.  I didn't go for the knock out punch rig.  It has actually been a blessing, because every once in awhile one goes down for some reason and needs to be rebooted or something.  When that happens, I only am down like 25%.

But, I arrived here because of the cheap part.  At work, we had a bunch of old FX-4300 on these gigabyte boards with five PCIe slots.  Price=freeeeeeeee!  Guess what, they work just fine with Hive.  There actually was another in the junk pile last week that needs "rescuing"

Then I got a couple Ryzen machines running the MSI B450 promax boards with the NVME to PCIe adapter.  I can't remember how many total slots that gave me, but it is a slick, simple set up that I can reuse in a real computer if I want to.  Bought the ryzens used from people on craigslist or something.  Got a 3600 with cooler for $120.  

Frames I got at home depot....just the wire shelves and then used zip ties.  

I did buy one true mining frame as an experiment.  I built a full water cooling rig that uses my pool water to cool the GPUs.  It probably didn't make economic sense, but it is somewhat of a hobby after all.  

Have fun and don't do anything too foolish.


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## MentalAcetylide (Sep 8, 2021)

nflesher87 said:


> Well then....where to begin...
> 
> Thank you @sepheronx for being the only poster to actually follow my requests in the OP.   You brought no agenda and you embraced the soul of the TPU that I know which is to aid you peers in an encouraging nature!
> Thank you to @trog100 for doing so as well in your own way.  But did I ask at all about trading crypto?  Is it quite possible that I already have a strong portfolio of crypto?  I do, and I asked nothing about trading crypto.
> ...


If its possible, you should try to hook up with someone in your area that is doing it. Nothing beats hands-on experience! You might get lucky and find someone doing it completely solo(i.e. not mining as part of a pool) that could give you some advice in regards to setup & hardware. FYI, you probably should go with lower end cards(1070's or 1080's as examples) vs. RTX 3080s as the power consumption & cooling is going to be a ball ache.


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## trog100 (Sep 8, 2021)

MentalAcetylide said:


> If its possible, you should try to hook up with someone in your area that is doing it. Nothing beats hands-on experience! You might get lucky and find someone doing it completely solo(i.e. not mining as part of a pool) that could give you some advice in regards to setup & hardware. FYI, you probably should go with lower end cards(1070's or 1080's as examples) vs. RTX 3080s as the power consumption & cooling is going to be a ball ache.



just for the record a 1070 will produce 26 M/sh  for around 130 watts.. a 3070 will produce over twice that 60 M/sh for a similar power consumption.. 

this of course is why later generation cards cost what they do.. 

trog


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## applegrcoug (Sep 21, 2021)

Just curious, what did you ever do?


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