04-11-2013, 08:24 AM
(04-11-2013, 01:05 AM)Hammerskjold Wrote: Do spill the beans on the specs.
A little backround:
Bitcoin prices have been bubbling, and in spite of its drop today, the overall direction is clear. There's specialized equipment called ASICs and FPGA's, but they're not physically available for purchase (preorders are such a scam, the money can be better spent elsewhere). Bitcoins hit a high of 266 US yesterday, and shot down to a 'low' of 150 dollars the same day. At the time I am typing this, it is currently 180 dollars at Mtgox. It was about 15 dollars in december. I see where the world economy is going, and I want in. At the same time, I can afford to treat myself.
I plan on capitalizing on this. I've only got a fraction of a bitcoins from my laptop GPU mining and its enough to buy a pizza. I've done price estimates, and am speculating it'll go where I want. As with any investment, there is risk involved-- however I can afford it.
I chose a E-ATX mobo to fit more GPUs. I've never dealt with Crossfire, but is not as important as GPU mining does not require it, but should be easy enough to activate. Game support is another mattter, but again it'll primarily be used for bitcoin mining. Some individual choices are based upon supply availability. Purchases were made at newegg.
Normally I treat myself with nvidia if anything, due to CUDA acceleration, driver support, better microstutter stabilty and single GPU. Normally for gaming, I would prefer Nvidia cards for running cooler with a better TDP and overall stability (and lower overall cost of ownership due to drawing less power).
Also AMD cards currently don't have as much support for Adobe products, and while supposedly that's changing with adobe's promises for OpenCL development support, I am not relying on it and I don't use adobe quite as much.
However, even given all that, GPU bitcoin mining still heavily favors AMD due to the nature their design. They're a better bang for buck.
Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6819116501
I don't want/need xeon, and I can technically go for less CPU power, but if I ever want to game on this thing, my game choices tend to be CPU heavy. Additionally the built in GPU frees up usage of the dGPU's for mining. Sandy Bridge E / Sandy bridge better overclocks, but I won't be overclocking at first, and prefer the better thermals at base.
I normally would wait for haswell (june/july) / broadwell, but it is time to build. I also enjoy HT for CPU video rendering.
Sandy bridge E is better for heavily threaded loads, but overall system cost / benefits is not worth it. I also have a lot of single threaded loads that would do better at four cores.
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6835103099
Same CPU Air cooler as you. Obvious reasons. Best bang for buck outside of water cooling, and I don't have the time or desire to mess around with water cooling for an investment project.
SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100351-6GVXSR Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 6GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814202005
This card times four. Initially chosen due to a supply issue, as the other versions did not come in stock x4 at newegg. I prefer higher frame buffers for heavily modded skyrim and I will eventually have higher resolution games. Crossfire is not really important, as even one can run the games I want, and GPU mining can use all the cards individually since the workload is extremely parallel.
I will have a conservative estimate of 2.5 Giga hashes per second. ASICs promise a lot more bang for buck, but they are also vaporware at this point and have been for the past year (always promising one more month).
If the price of bitcoins remains stable, eventually the rising difficulty of mining them vs the cost of electricity will make it unprofitable, but the price of bitcoins is only going to go up. So I am taking that risk.
Each GPU is a workhorse in this case and is a return on investment.
PC Power and Cooling Silencer Mk III Series 1200W Modular Power Supply features 100% Nippon Chem-Con Capacitors and Metallic Modular Connector
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6817703037
Technically I could get away with less power, but with a rig of this cost, I am not penny pinching the heart of the machine. PC P&C is one of the best, and this series has been well reviewed. Basically the same PSU you are getting except at a higher output.
ASUS Maximus V EXTREME LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813131858
Recommended at anandtech, and somewhat hastily chosen, but really at some point you have to stop hem and hawing. There are differences between parts, but they're negible without specific objectives. This one fits mine with enough PCIe slots, and has some nice gimmes with Intel NIC (realtek sucks), and built in Wifi, and thunderbolt. The last has future potential--which really goes to say I have no current TB peripherals so it really doesn't matter. There's overclocking and such, but really that's so highly variable its not relevant.
I would've liked e-sata, but it isn't as relevant as I still have USB 3.0 and TB options
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-16GXM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820231568
Good enough category. All the reading I've done on RAM, is that the differences in performance are so neglible it is barely detectable. I have the option to install more for a full 32 gigabytes later on.
Rosewill THOR V2 Gaming ATX Full Tower Computer Case, support up to E-ATX / XL-ATX, come with Four Fans - 1 x Front Red LED 230mm Fan, 1 x Top 230mm Fan, 1 x Side 230mm Fan, 1 x Rear 140mm Fan
I needed a full tower. The NZXT's Phantoms 820's are a little prettier, but I don't need pretty when it costs 100 bucks more. This has excellent performance characteristics, and silence is not really an option for 7970 Ghz edition cards. If the Obsidian 900D were available and reviewed, I'd consider that. The same goes for if the Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 came in a full tower-- but it does not. The thor's a great bang for buck, and it.
Optical drive: Don't need it. Can install OS via USB or through my other computers. I'll get an external USB reader someday--maybe.
Storage drive:
I will be re-using my old SSD's.
Intel 520 Series Cherryville SSDSC2CW240A3K5 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820167086
I've got one of these, but I'd consider a Crucial M500 960 gigabyte now a days, or the Samsung pro like you.
Initial cost: Roughly 4 grand.
Break even point at current prices and assumed 0.15 / kWH: 173 days.
However... the prices of bitcoins have shown there's worldwide speculation and investment due to the cypress banking breakdown (which will only get worse over the course of the next month ) with europeans investing. The recent spike to 260 seems to have been due to asian investor speculation. However.... people's demand is what makes any currency worth anything and there's serious demand.
Worst case scenario: I have an extremely powerful gaming / video rendering rig. Boo hoo.