Afternoon, All. I’ve finally compiled all of the parts that I need to start making my first amateur GPU rig build.
The used ASROCK H110 Pro BTC+ that I purchased came with an Intel Pentium G4400 3.3 GHZ processor, an Intel E97379-003 - CPU Heatsink & Fan Cooler, and a single stick of Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2400 MHz DDR4 DRAM Desktop Gaming Memory Single 4GB CL16 BLS4G4D240FSB.
At this point, I’ll be running 1 or 2 RX 580 8GB GPU; but, hope to expand that number soon, and to eventually upgrade the cards as resources allow.
My question is this: should I upgrade the CPU, or memory before I start my build? If so, can anyone recommend a CPU and/or memory?
Thank you in advance for your input. This will be a learning rig, and not necessarily a money maker. 
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If you are doing GPU mining, the CPU and memory aren’t a big deal per my understanding. You probably don’t need to update them, unless you plan to try to use the computer for anything else.
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Thank you for your reply, Invest. I may try to make it into a “Tri-Miner” type of setup like Drew had in the older rig that he made. This setup is getting a 128GB SATA drive. If I boost the processor, and max out the memory, would it help with CPU mining?*
- I’ve heard that AMD reportedly do better with CPU mining.
You would get a far faster ROI by just buying another GPU instead. The fastest CPU the board supports only mines $0.25/day or so (I assume you meant the H110 Pro BTC+ in your post). I wouldn’t bother. You would need a new motherboard to run anything from AMD.
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Thank you for your reply, bick. Yes, that was a typo (fixed!). H110 Pro BTC+. I was thinking the same about the CPU, as the Intel Core i7-8700T in my desktop doesn’t even get half of that. I’ll stick with the Pentium G4400.
Would it be worth it to up the memory past the current 4GB, or will that suffice?
I have an 8 GPU rig that is only running 4GB of memory and I haven’t seen any issues. I used 8GB in my other rigs just because it was only a few dollars more than 4GB at the time but I haven’t seen any real benefit.
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same as bick. running 8 RX580 Red Devil 8GB on 4gb RAM. If i were you, i would run a flash drive OS for mining because the moment i try to run a mining program on top of windows, that 4GB Ram definately shows.
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To be honest, if you can get those cards’ Bios flashed then you can do pretty well with them short term. mine are getting 30Mhz @90W and perform really nicely. I wouldnt use the Nicehash OS for your flash drive mining because you can’t adjust power/speed and they will run 30 Mhz @ 135W. They are good cards to start because they arent as temperamental as newer cards.
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Hi, PT. I’d planned on placing a 128 GB M.2 SSD (6 Gb/s) on the board, and was planning to put my OS there. If I were to use a flash drive to run the OS through one of the USB 3.0 ports, perhaps I could set some virtual memory on the drive?
Not sure if I’m going to do a Windows, or Linux OS. I’m MUCH more Windows-friendly, and have virtually no Linux experience.
As for flashing the cards, I was thinking of just using the auto tune software that Vosk showed in one of his recent videos.
I’m so new to all of this, that I’m certainly open to any and all suggestions.
AG, yeah following Vosk’s Bios video is the way to go. With Windows, you can use the AMD Adrenaline software to play with the settings, and the best have been posted many times here. With HiveOS you can also adjust settings without all the windows stuff going in the back ground.
However, i use Windows based Nicehash because i mine Ethereum but i get paid in BTC which is what i want. but it does have its issues, such as defender security always trying to mess with my mining software.
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@PTCrusader I’ve been the same as you and really like the idea of Nicehash Mining ETHASH and paying in BTC (it sort of makes all my tax stuff simpler as well).
I’ve just migrated two of my rigs (6 x RX5700 modded to 5700XT and 6 x RX570 modded to 580) over to HiveOS and am happily mining away on Nicehash with both these rigs.
I still have one 6 x RX570 rig that is the same as the one above, mining to Nicehash from Windows. My plan is to see if there is any difference in mining performance since I’ve had no issues with this rig being stable mining at 31mH/s at about 86W on each GPU. I’ve applied the same overclock/undervolt setting to both the 570 rigs so I should be able to get a pretty objective comparison - as long as I run them for a period that negates any effects of luck. I’m planning to go for a week and see what happens.
I’ve downloaded HiveOS and Etcher, and I’m currently writing the HiveOS image file to a thumb drive using Etcher. Eventually, I’ll probably dump that to the on-board SSD on my rig.
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