Editorial Confessions of a Crypto Miner: The Setup

[Upgrayedd]

I see a lot of comments here hating on crypto but seemingly ok with having their hard work valued on how much gold your particular country posseses. More gold, your work is worth more, less gold, your same work is worth less.
People talking about mining needs to die will just love being told by the gold owners they're getting paid less because of some shiny metal that loves to be hoarded isn't as abundant.
What's even funnier is people think crypto is only worth what it costs to mine, if that is the case then you should only be paying for manufacturing costs of your car, house and everything inside too.

 

[W1zzard]

I see your MB sitting on top of the anti static bag, not sure if you know they are slightly conductive. Would be better just on cardboard.

+1 on that

 

[_JP_]

Thank you R-T-B.
It kinda sends a message that the best choice for the avg. Joe's drill would be a pair of 1080s.
On the other side, picking up the angry replies, since prices have gone up and availability down for the general mass of products, maybe we can start getting optimized games again?
Because purchase power is limited in most cases and/or it's just plain hard to find a card. Upgrades for gamers might grind to a slow pace. (even though Steam says the 1060 is everyone's favorite).
Either that or there will be a great exile to consoleville...in fact, I'm surprised no audit/analyst has done a paper on the increase of console sales/use. I know console sales hit records here, in this x-mas.

 

[silkstone]

What clocks do you have your 1080's at and what TDP?

I have a 1080 (that I bought for gaming, but paid off by mining), but it only does around 520 at +100/+100 85% TDP.
My 1080Ti (again a purchase I made with the intent of gaming and paying for with mining) does around 710 sol/s at +25/+100 90% TDP

I also have a few 1060's (that I just bought to mine with), they are a bit of a mixed bag doing from 280-310 sol/s on +150/+150 85% TDP

Oh and just to add to the crapshoot of a discussion this is becoming. I totally hate people who buy anything. If people didn't buy shit, there would be no demand and everything would be free. I especially hate people who own their own land.

The sense of entitlement here is amazing. Can I say that I hate BMW owners? If people didn't buy so many, they would be so much cheaper? How about damn Levi jeans wearing people? They used to cost nothing! Now all this fashion business means that I can't get my favorite jeans at a price I like. iPhones are pretty cool too. Top end models used to cost 1/2 the price, but now people keep buying them, I can't afford to have one.

The people that think a couple of cards have any sort of affect on the market make me laugh. The card shortage isn't due to people doing this at home with 1 - 100 cards, it's big industry and people with lots of money. Think along the lines of ten's of thousands of cards for the medium sized mining farms.

 

[drohm]

Miners still play games with their own gpu in some desktop or laptop somewhere. I play games on a laptop with a Nvidia gpu.

It's obviously the hard-core miners that have fu_ked up the video card market, not the casual, part-time miners. Those are the people we should direct our anger at

 

[silkstone]

It's obviously the hard-core miners that have fu_ked up the video card market, not the casual, part-time miners. Those are the people we should direct our anger at

There are a lot more outrageous things going on in the world to direct your anger at. Because building a gaming rig is now more expensive is nothing. First-world problems.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

All i know is that mining is ruining the gaming industry because people buy video cards in droves shooting up the prices of GPUs and making it very difficult to purchase to build a new rig or upgrade a part or replace something that has gone bad. This craze is actually HURTING the gaming industry as a whole and I refuse to be a part of it.

 

[drohm]

There are a lot more outrageous things going on in the world to direct your anger at. Because building a gaming rig is now more expensive is nothing. First-world problems.

Agreed. Thankfully my anger isn't at that level yet.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

There are a lot more outrageous things going on in the world to direct your anger at. Because building a gaming rig is now more expensive is nothing. First-world problems.

My first world problems are indeed my problems. I dont care about anything else going on in the world if it isnt affecting me directly.

 

[TheTechGuy1337]

The miners are not to be faulted for buying gpu's. At the end of the day, it is a supply and demand issue. The supply could not keep up with the demand and that is and has been a production issue for a while now. No one was prepared for these kinds of waves. Think how much more money Nvidia and AMD could have made if they kept up with demand with the already included price hike? I do not blame crypto for the industry not being able to keep up.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Not blaming you or anything, but to be honest I am sick and tired of this mining stuff. It's really not fair on people who want to buy video cards for gaming and can't. This insane GPU shortage and overpriced BS is going to kill PC gaming. All for people to just get a bit of "free" money. I am 100% in favour of introducing a 'one per customer' rule for video cards except dedicated mining cards that can be bought in bulk.

Atm, Nvidia and their certified partners are trying to change their warranty policies on gaming GPUs so that miners dont pick them up. Good deterrent but its difficult to detect if a GPU has been used for mining.

 

[silkstone]

All i know is that mining is ruining the gaming industry because people buy video cards in droves shooting up the prices of GPUs and making it very difficult to purchase to build a new rig or upgrade a part or replace something that has gone bad. This craze is actually HURTING the gaming industry as a whole and I refuse to be a part of it.

That is fair enough and completely your decision. I don't know anyone that would knock you for it.
People getting so angry about other people home mining though really confuddles me. There are plenty of other things to blame it on. Capitalism, that sucks right? The current duopoly in the GPU market, the lack of foresight by manufacturers, the greedy retailers (and resellers), the big money investors, shareholders, the banking industry, the abolition of the gold standard, console gamers, . . . I guess that people just think that public forums are the best place to vent their frustrations and the current online culture (hiding behind a kb) doesn't help the situation any.

 

[iO]

It's obviously the hard-core miners that have fu_ked up the video card market, not the casual, part-time miners. Those are the people we should direct our anger at

Nah, home miners are just as bad as they snatch up the rest that somehow slipped through the greedy hands of the big players and ended up in retail.

 

[silkstone]

Nah, home miners are just as bad as they snatch up the rest that somehow slipped through the greedy hands of the big players and ended up in retail.

Entitlement

 

[R-T-B]

I see your MB sitting on top of the anti static bag, not sure if you know they are slightly conductive. Would be better just on cardboard.

+1 on that

Did not know that actually, though it makes sense.

Looks like tonights maintanence window will be for tilt correction and removal of the static bag.

I see all your questions, I honestly think tdp is stock or slightly oc'd, will have to check and get back to you.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

difficult to detect if a GPU has been used for mining

Even if it has been used for mining, what impact does that have on the card as far as RMA or even reselling second hand goes?

 

[silkstone]

Did not know that actually, though it makes sense.

Looks like tonights maintanence window will be for tilt correction and removal of the static bag.

I see all your questions, I honestly think tdp is stock or slightly oc'd, will have to check and get back to you.

The 1080's have one of the best sol/W rate of all the card for ZEC, so you might want to have a play around with frequencies and TDP to lower your power usage for the same hash rate.

 

[madness777]

Been building since 2015, first for a friend when ETH was only 7$ worth and miners were pumping out 6-7 coins A DAY, now building for much bigger clients. I've had over 300GPUs go through my hands the past 2 years. VEGA cards are on the way as well as 18 1080Ti which will be new for me, been working with AMD only till now. I'm not mining myself, not even planing to invest but this has given me the chance to make some extra money just by doing what I LOVE to do. Work on computers, diagnosing and doing extended tests on them. What I'm trying to say is it's not just ''OMG these dirty miners just think for themselves they don't care'', because of the fact that there's so much work with RIGs is the fact I'm literally enjoying life right now and SO SHOULD YOU! Do your own thing and stop wasting your breath with these degenerates!
Trust me, if you loved computer hardware and someone gave you over 50 RIGS to work with you'd be the happiest chap in the whole freaking world!

 

[R-T-B]

The 1080's have one of the best sol/W rate of all the card for ZEC, so you might want to have a play around with frequencies and TDP to lower your power usage for the same hash rate.

My philosophy is to hold until a peak. In that sense, more coin is almost always better, but when my watt meter finally arrives I may experiment.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Even if it has been used for mining, what impact does that have on the card as far as RMA or even reselling second hand goes?

abused to the point of destruction. Gaming GPUs arent made to be under constant 90-100% load 24/7. Im guessing the silicon deteriorates and the VRMs slowly start to die. Even if you game 24/7, that will wont put as much pressure on your card as mining.

 

[Tumbler1987]

Been a long time lurker of this website, but this thread motivated to post for the first time.

With all due respect to the OP, IMHO, there's no biggest threat to the PC gaming industry than the current cryptomining craze, video cards selling for 2 or 2.5X their price, and out of stock on all major etailers, this will effectively strangle an industry that finally is starting to come back from a low point in history, and rivaling even console gaming for the first time in decades.

Who in his right mind would pay more than $1,300 for a 1080Ti or $1,500 fo a Vega64 to game? I know the OP paid MSRP for his cards, congratulations on that, but cryptominers have driven this market to insane highs, and real gamers will be left with no choice but to buy a PS4 Pro or XBox One X if they wanna play the latest games and not pay an arm and a leg for just a GPU.

Thankfully, cryptocurrencies have lost more than 40% their value in less than a week, and there's no end in sight for the free fall of prices of bitcoin, litecoin, and ethereum, we can only pray this tendency continues, and some sanity can return to the PC GPU market.

I've been a PC gamer for decades, ever since my dad purchased my first 486 PC, and besides putting the power of your GPU and CPU to good use for a great cause like folding at home, gaming specific hardware was never seen as such a high commodity among market speculators looking to make a quick buck at the expense of our passion for gaming.

This is not an "the end is nigh" post, it is no all doom and gloom, like I said, it looks like the bubble finally burst, and we can only hope market tendencies will correct themselves, and prices of GPUs will go down to a more affordable level, among with the apparent correction in the prices of DRAM just looming on the horizon.

To the OP, thanks for documenting your experience on building a mining rig, but, as far as I'm concerned, as an old PC gamer, crypto mining can die a quick death.

 

[Reeves81x]

Been a long time lurker of this website, but this thread motivated to post for the first time.

With all due respect to the OP, IMHO, there's no biggest threat to the PC gaming industry than the current cryptomining craze, video cards selling for 2 or 2.5X their price, and out of stock on all major etailers, this will effectively strangle an industry that finally is starting to come back from a low point in history, and rivaling even console gaming for the first time in decades.

Who in his right mind would pay more than $1,300 for a 1080Ti or $1,500 fo a Vega64 to game? I know the OP paid MSRP for his cards, congratulations on that, but cryptominers have driven this market to insane highs, and real gamers will be left with no choice but to buy a PS4 Pro or XBox One X if they wanna play the latest games and not pay an arm and a leg for just a GPU.

Thankfully, cryptocurrencies have lost more than 40% their value in less than a week, and there's no end in sight for the free fall of prices of bitcoin, litecoin, and ethereum, we can only pray this tendency continues, and some sanity can return to the PC GPU market.

I've been a PC gamer for decades, ever since my dad purchased my first 486 PC, and besides putting the power of your GPU and CPU to good use for a great cause like folding at home, gaming specific hardware was never seen as such a high commodity among market speculators looking to make a quick buck at the expense of our passion for gaming.

This is not an "the end is nigh" post, it is no all doom and gloom, like I said, it looks like the bubble finally burst, and we can only hope market tendencies will correct themselves, and prices of GPUs will go down to a more affordable level, among with the apparent correction in the prices of DRAM just looming on the horizon.

To the OP, thanks for documenting your experience on building a mining rig, but, as far as I'm concerned, as an old PC gamer, crypto mining can die a quick death.

This^ glad someone else wrote it so I didn't have to.

 

[nemesis.ie]

abused to the point of destruction. Gaming GPUs arent made to be under constant 90-100% load 24/7. Im guessing the silicon deteriorates and the VRMs slowly start to die. Even if you game 24/7, that will wont put as much pressure on your card as mining.

Actually in the case of the Vegas I use, the mining puts them under less stress than gaming - 180W consumption versus maybe 360W and the core at 1000MHz versus 1600MHz.

Less consumption = less strain on the VRMs.

 

[R-T-B]

abused to the point of destruction. Gaming GPUs arent made to be under constant 90-100% load 24/7. Im guessing the silicon deteriorates and the VRMs slowly start to die. Even if you game 24/7, that will wont put as much pressure on your card as mining.

Look at my load temps and tell me that with a straight face. You can find it in the OS screenshot.

The VRMs are even cooler.

These cards will game fine for many years when all this is said and done. I'll likely sell them to TPU in one of my insane discount sales.

Been a long time lurker of this website, but this thread motivated to post for the first time.

With all due respect to the OP, IMHO, there's no biggest threat to the PC gaming industry than the current cryptomining craze, video cards selling for 2 or 2.5X their price, and out of stock on all major etailers, this will effectively strangle an industry that finally is starting to come back from a low point in history, and rivaling even console gaming for the first time in decades.

Who in his right mind would pay more than $1,300 for a 1080Ti or $1,500 fo a Vega64 to game? I know the OP paid MSRP for his cards, congratulations on that, but cryptominers have driven this market to insane highs, and real gamers will be left with no choice but to buy a PS4 Pro or XBox One X if they wanna play the latest games and not pay an arm and a leg for just a GPU.

Thankfully, cryptocurrencies have lost more than 40% their value in less than a week, and there's no end in sight for the free fall of prices of bitcoin, litecoin, and ethereum, we can only pray this tendency continues, and some sanity can return to the PC GPU market.

I've been a PC gamer for decades, ever since my dad purchased my first 486 PC, and besides putting the power of your GPU and CPU to good use for a great cause like folding at home, gaming specific hardware was never seen as such a high commodity among market speculators looking to make a quick buck at the expense of our passion for gaming.

This is not an "the end is nigh" post, it is no all doom and gloom, like I said, it looks like the bubble finally burst, and we can only hope market tendencies will correct themselves, and prices of GPUs will go down to a more affordable level, among with the apparent correction in the prices of DRAM just looming on the horizon.

To the OP, thanks for documenting your experience on building a mining rig, but, as far as I'm concerned, as an old PC gamer, crypto mining can die a quick death.

Honestly, I am of the same mindset as you. I just like to try to understand all sides of things. The best thing that can happen (and I want this bad) is some kind of forced market segmentation.

 

[Tumbler1987]

Honestly, I am of the same mindset as you. I just like to try to understand all sides of things. The best thing that can happen (and I want this bad) is some kind of forced market segmentation.

Thank you, I didn’t mean any disrespect to you, I hope you can recoup your investment and then some, but I fully agree with your idea of market segmentation, akin to what happened with mining ASICS just a few years ago.

If this were to happen, then we could all go back to enjoying the reason that brought us together as gamers, and by all means, make money on the side with mining specific hardware, that doesn’t drive the prices of gaming hardware to unattainable levels.