I thought getting GPUs would be the hard part! Now can't decide on rig. Advice please?

Mining & Hardware GPU Mining
,
#1

I have 3 RTX 3080 GPUs otw. I really want to get started ASAP (minerstat showed $14+ per day!!) but I can’t decide if I’m going to buy an open air frame or case and build the rest of it, or whether I buy it complete and just connect GPUs.

I really could use some advice on each of these options. I would be so grateful if I can get some help from you seasoned professionals.

Like what fans should I look for that are known to be good and at least somewhat quiet?

What is a good power supply to get (I want to eventually run 6 or 9 RTX 3080 GPUs)?

I see mixed reviews about open air vs cased. Any opinions on that?

Thanks so much for all of you guys help so far. Great community!

#2

Man. I’m new to this world. Like, new new. I was inspired by ole Mr vosk here to get in the world of crypto. So, what do I do? I research as much as possible for almost 3 days straight, no bullshit. Slept for almost a whole day and then went back at it. I found an ASIC miner which numbers I liked. It made the most sense to me. I order 3 from coin mining central(CMC) and they’ll be here in March. I ordered a Love Core A1 (not recommending because I’m new) to familiarize myself before my other miners arrive. Today I watched Voskcoins new video and low-and-behold the exact machines I ordered are the ones he’s talkin about. I feel more confident in my purchase in both that it was endorsed by Voskcoin and Voskcoin gives CMC the thumbs up. The miner: Canaan Avalon 1246. I also suggest the same thing Drew did. Get on Canaans website and send em an email asking to purchase 1. I saw he did it and thats how he was able to purchase it (undoubtedly not at these ridiculously inflated prices). Getting it straight from the manufacturer cuts second hand costs and cuts down on your ROI.:wink:

1 Like
#3

Congrats on obtaining GPUs in the current market. By now you know they use the new 12-pin connector. Fortunately you can use dual 8-pin to 12-pin adaptors. But at 350watts per card you’re gonna need a beefy PSU to push them.

For a rig of 3080’s I’d go open frame. It will be easier to deal with the power & cables & adpators for 12-pin and still keep the airflow to vent off the heat. A single PSU won’t push eight of those cards usless you get a large server PSU and use 220VAC. That’s gonna be loud as hell.

To be honest I’d say you’d need two PSUs eventually. Just to push (3) 3080’s you’re looking at a 1100wt PSU once you factor in cpu & system. Over course you’re not going to run them at full wattage, but still, no 750wt PSU is going to cut it.

Noctua makes good silent fans.

1 Like
#4

Man you are awesome Cryogen. I was so worried that if I built my own rig, I would get all the parts just to realize I am missing something or got the wrong thing. With that said, I will now look for these new 12-pin connectors.

I did go with the open frame. I know I overpaid for it but it is a Veddha T2 model with the fans already in it. Once I fill it up with 3080s I will look at stacking another. That’s one reason I’m debating paying scalper for an Asus B250 or save a little and get the ASRock H110 Pro. Less GPU capability but I read somewhere that Windows doesn’t support that many GPUs anyway. On the other hand, I read it’s great for dual PSU. Do you prefer one to the other?

I do plan to run 220V to my upstairs room to keep the noise down. But for now, just to get started quicker with the 3 GPUs I do have, I was thinking to get a PSU that will run on 110V. Only problem is if I upgrade later I will have no use for the 110V PSU. Decisions, decisions.

Anything else you think I need to know before I purchase? DDR4 RAM, CPU, SSD (or other)?

Thank you so much again for all your help since I started this journey!

1 Like
#5

Other parts for an open frame:

A.) Enough power extenders from your PSU to your GPUs.
B.) PCIe risers with power connectors.
https://www.amazon.com/pcie-riser/s?k=pcie+riser
You have to basically extend the PCIe slot from the motherboard to the GPU hanging on your open frame.

There are litterally 1000’s of videos on Youtube showing how to build your rig. Take the time to watch some and learn, otherwise you could end up with parts you don’t understand, or missing parts which can make an enjoyable experience quite frustrating.

Start simple!!! If you have (3) 3080 gpus right now, look at them, look at the connectors, read the power requirements. Start from there…

My advice since you’re starting new and have never done this before. Build your system with just one GPU, if you can build it with the GPU installed directly on the motherboard even better. Get your system installed and booted.

Then download and setup up your mining software. Learn how to edit a .bat file and configure your pool settings in your mining .exe. Get it to work. Verify that you are hashing on the mining pool.

If you can make that work then move your parts over to your open frame and add in the PCIe risers and additional GPUs.

As for other parts, nothing special. No need to get an expensive CPU for mining ETH. Find 8GB of compatible RAM and at least a 128GB SSD. Windows is BLOATED and takes up half of that just to install it.

2 Likes
#6

Awesome! I will definitely do as you suggest. In fact, I feel like I haven’t been able to stop thinking crypto since I decided I was going to start mining like 2 weeks ago! I’m so psyched!

So I was looking at going with the ASRock H110 Pro…one because it’s cheaper and the other is I don’t need 19 GPUs…not anytime soon. However, I did find the mining optimized BIOS settings and the ability to detect bad GPUs. I just don’t know if it’s worth paying so much more for it…like 300 on ebay! Insane!

#7

Hey Cryogen, what do you think about this from parallel mining:

I know you told me in a different thread to not go cheap on the PSU. But it seems like the server PSUs are much cheaper than the modular ATX PSUs. I found this one on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007LFVG50/ref=crt_ewc_title_oth_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3GXBO4732SHMX

I know I’m asking a lot of you. I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped me. I am just so stoked that I will finally be a real part of this technology, and as a bonus, maybe make some extra $ in the process. I really appreciate your time, Cryogen!

#8

So what you were saying about the new 12 pin connector…the RTX 3080 is gen 4 PCIe, but the MOBO and CPU I bought (ASRock H110 Pro and Intel Celeron G3930, respectively) are both gen 3 PCIe. So the risers I need to get must be PCIe gen 3, as the gen 4 GPU will be backwards compatible so long as I use the 8-pin to 12-pin adapter for the risers? Thanks in advance!

#9

As far as I know, the PCIe speed is not that important with mining. Maybe someone better versed in risers can chime in on this one. But I believe gen3 risers should be fine for mining. PCIe is backwards compatible.

1 Like
#10

Okay great. Thank you. And for the parallel miner kit? I’m having a hard time trying to figure out every type of cable and adapter I will need to try and price it out; whether the kit has everything I will need (minus the risers) and if it is way more expensive than if I just bought everything individually. Any thoughts on that? Thanks Cryogen!

#11

Parallel miner kit? do you mean a server case? That’s referred to as a riserless mining rig. All GPUs attach direct to the motherboard and you only feed power from the PSU to each GPU.

Here’s an older VOSK video that walks you through how to hook up the risers and mount your cards on the frame: https://youtu.be/YGoSODTsa10?t=261

1 Like
#12

I’ll watch the video and see if that answers my question. The kit I linked is from a company that uses breakout boards from the server PSU and apparently lets you connect all the GPUs and motherboard, etc. to the breakout boards. The include the PSU, breakout boards, and a ton of cables. I feel like I’ve got all the parts ordered that I will need except for how the risers will connect to the breakout boards. It’s hard to tell in pictures. I have a feeling I will need to get my hands on this and then order missing parts. Thanks Cryogen!

#13

The video was very helpful. I only have one concern that some things may have changed since the GPUs advanced. Specifically power cables, etc…

Also, one of my MSI RTX 3080 Ventus GPUs arrived and I was looking for the 12-pin connection. Turns out this MSI model doesn’t use it, instead using 2 8-pin connectors. So I guess that’s a good thing in that it saves me a little money in adapters. On the other hand, I suppose it means it is less powerful, which will result in smaller hash rate…? :frowning:

#14

Okay. After speaking with a rep from Parallel Mining, I think I might just have this figured out. As much as possible anyway, given I don’t have anything in hand yet less the GPU LOL

I will leave you alone now, Cryogen. I don’t want to wear out my welcome :laughing:. Besides, I have a feeling I will be leaning on you some more once I start to build this thing. But for now, thank you, thank you, and thank you a million more. You have been such a big help. I will be sure to pay it forward once I get a little experience and actually have something useful to share. Take care man!

#15

The motherboard manual says to run in Gen 2 pcie speed anyway so you’re not gonna use Gen 3 or 4 on the video card as mining isn’t gaming. Believe me, it will do just fine. If you want to try some Gen 3 risers visit GPURisers.com and get their latest ones. Use code redpandamining for a $5 discount.

I like EVGA power supplies. You will need two of them for 8 GPU’s. The 1200P2 and the 1300G3 are just fine. There is nothing wrong with those server power supplies you showed. The molex connectors are on the separate breakout board that plugs into the power supplies. Voltage? i’LL discuss in a minute.

I feed the video cards with pcie power, and the risers with sata or molex peripheral power using an adapter to 6-pin pcie. The EVGA supplies have 6 sata/peripheral ports and 6 pcie ports. Only the founders edition cards use that dumb ass 12 pin power connector, but you must use 2 cables from the power supply for each video card. You can’t just use a two ended pcie cable or splitter with that much wattage. You will only be able to connect 3 GPU’s to each power supply for a total of 6 GPU’s.

At 120 volts, and 2400 watts or more of power supplies, you can only safely draw 1920 watts which is enough for 8 GPU’s provided your miner software is configured to start up the GPU’s one at a time (easy fix). It’s having the correct number of connectors to hook everything up.

You need 220 VAC on either a 15 or 20 amp breaker to run 9 GPU’s or more. The server power supplies and both the EVGA power supplies can run on 220VAC if you have the right plugs/receptacles. 9 or more GPU’s exceeds the ampacity of a 120 volt circuit (using 3080’s).

3080’s generate much heat which is best romoved using open frame cases. Your fans should run at at 1800 rpm (or more). Good Airflow is important and 1800 rpm fans are quiet. you may want to look at airflow in CFM and the 0.3xx or higher power rating on the fans. Inefficient fans will have a power rating of only 0.18 A or so. They will not blow any air.

Hope this helps.

1 Like
#16

Man thanks. That is a huge help. I’m interested to know how I will use the fix you mentioned for the GPUs turning on one at a time. I guess I will see that in the MinerOS?

Checked out the risers. They look great but like so many other items mining related, sold out lol.

Looks I’m just going to run 220V to my bonus room upstairs. I will begin working on that project tomorrow so I’m ready when things begin arriving.

I’m glad to hear the fans aren’t too loud. But the framd I ordered is supposed to come with fans already. Hopefully they are decent but I will be sure to check those ratings you mentioned.

I’ve been living online for the past 4 days it feels like, trying to learn how to build this rig and what parts are needed. Thanks to people like you and Cryogen, I was able to get everything ordered. I think, I hope, I will have everything I need.

I really appreciate the time you took to write that reply. Thanks much my friend!

#17

Hey Cryogen. Is 5300 RPM overkill for RTX 3080? I’m thinking buy 5 fans to between the 6 GPUs.

Or is 3000 RPM sufficient?

Thanks much!

#18

Can i ask you where did u get the 3080 from ?

#19

Yeah I paid dearly for them on eBay. :pensive:
That seems to be the only way to get them now. They are having small restocks but the site crashes from so many people trying to get a hold of one.