I found this site from Corsair regarding PSU’s power efficiency.
To make long story short, PSU to the right (Platinum) is much better efficiency than other ones. More efficiency = less energy use = less heat = less noise = less electricity.
I found this site from Corsair regarding PSU’s power efficiency.
To make long story short, PSU to the right (Platinum) is much better efficiency than other ones. More efficiency = less energy use = less heat = less noise = less electricity.
I had interesting experience with this PSU over last night. It actually began 2~3 days ago. I noticed that PSU started to make some kind of static noise intermittently. I didn’t find out what was causing it until last night.
So, it began when I saw VNC(remote monitoring program) showing some weird numbers on RPM of GPUs and low temperature. I began to suspect that it might be pool server down, which did occur earlier that day. I went to the rig and turned on the monitor. Tah~dah~ it was on BIOS mode!? What the… I checked the SATA cables and restarted. The rig ran fine for 20~30 mins and shut off again!
The rig ran fine for last 3~4 days and what is going on?!
I restarted several times due to same incidences over hours. I tried figure out but I was too tired so I slept at 5 AM. =.=;;
Next morning… I mean.. the same morning, I got up at 8 and called SeaSonic, which happened to be about 40 mins away, for exchange. So, I drove there and picked up new one and came back. Installed again and started up. All seemed fine and it shuts off again!
Now I notice that whenever I click on something while the rig is hashing, I began to hear click noise as I click on the screen. Ha! So… my conclusion is that SeaSonic isn’t stable unit unlike what CryptoBadger indicated. Very high cost unit compare to Antec and Coolmax yet not stable on full blast on mining. I am considering to return and go with 1200W Antec or new company called Shark (costs around $100 for 1200W). I don’t blame CrytoBadger for this. It’s just that I should have done more research. Also, he should have done more research before posting where a lot of people follow his design to start LTC mining.
Recent hype of litecoin mining lead GPU manufactures to hike up the price by $100 in a matter of week. I purchased my Gigabyte R9 280X just after Thanksgivings for $320s each. Now, many retailers are selling for $420s and above. Along with current flow of market, even used ones started to appear everywhere and being sold close to the brand new GPUs. Is it worth buying for mining purpose?
Let’see. For the price of $320, R9 280X going about ~700 KH/s, it’s calculated to be ~$2.19/KH. I found out that 7950 used to be mid $200s before the hype, which would have been even cheaper $/KH. With current difficulty, it won’t be easy for any miners to even out the cost invested on GPUs, especially with $400+/GPU. I am currently running little above 2MH/s with 3 GPUs and it has been about 4 days. I am almost at my 3rd LTC averaging 0.6~0.7 LTC/day. I have been considering to have 2nd rid to aim for 1 LTC/day. That brings conclusion that I need to have another rig just as what I have considering immediate increase of difficulty in next a few weeks. I spent about $1300 for the rig that I am running and I calculated that it will take about month and half for me to even out the cost that I invested and that is not even considering the increase of difficulty. So, if I decided to make another rig with current price of GPUs, it will add up another $300+ in total. hum… this is starting to give me second thoughts. I feel that as I try to get a step closer to the goal, the goal just steps away with my pace or faster. hum… One time, I saw Newegg listing brand new R9 280X for $419. Surprisingly and interestingly, those weren’t sold out for couple of days. Usually, GPUs sold out in matter of minutes. I think more people are start to think that it’s not worth that much to buy GPU. On top of that, people who bought earlier and spent $100 less are beginning to list on eBay for short profit. Those usually are sold for mid to high $300s. I saw some being sold for more than $400, I wish luck to the buyers. Thus, until those pre-purchased GPUs are out of market, $400+ GPUs won’t go out in stock as quick as it used to be.
So, my final conclusion is to over invest on not just 2nd rig but also 3rd and 4th rig right away, that is IF I can purchase GPUs, and over run the difficulty for a bit of time or just get out of ego and enjoy the ride of new experience in cryptocurrency. The worst scenario is that I have 3 killer GPUs and I can sell for $100 more than what I bought and a few LTCs that I collected so far. Um… it doesn’t sound not that bad at all. But I am still not sure about $400+ GPUs… maybe better luck on eBay or consider other GPUs that produce less KH/s but better bang on the bucks!
Inspired by Cryptobadger‘s build, I am making one of his designs.
Motherboard: ASrock 970 Extreme 4
Processor: Sempron 145
GPU: 3 of Gigabyte R9 280X
Memory card: Corsair DDR3 1600 4GB (2 x 2GB)
PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1250W
Ect: 3x PCI-E riser cable, plastic crate, dummy plugs
Items are ordered during Thanksgiving weekend and items are arriving one by one. I hope to build by this weekend and run!
I will keep update with descriptions and pictures while I build.