Welcome back to part 3 of our guide on how to build your first cryptocurrency mining rig. This will be similar to part two but will be focused on building a 6 card rig using AMD video cards.
If you have not read part one of our guide you can find it here or if you are looking for the NVIDIA edition you can find it here. The main difference you have to take into consideration if you go the AMD route is you need to make some BIOS mods before you will achieve optimal hash rates. This will require some work on your part and you can brick your card if you do it wrong twice. Luckily I will provide some basic BIOS mod links and there are plenty more available out there as well that you can find. I am only going to focus on one build here as the expensive version of AMD cards, VEGAs, are hard to find and a bit overpriced right now in my opinion.
Mining Rig Cryptonight Killer!
AMD cards are known to work best on the Cryptonight algorithm and while current earnings estimates are inflated due to the fallout from the Nicehash hack you still can expect to make a bit more than NVIDIA 1070s with BIOS mods. The drawback here is AMD cards take a bit more power and produce more heat, something to consider when you are placing your rig.
Hardware Needed
Motherboard
ASUS Prime Z-270-A- http://amzn.to/2BsjBnK
Alternative- http://amzn.to/2AaY7r1 (cheaper but still solid)
Video Cards
6 x MSI Rx 580 - http://amzn.to/2ALP29z You should be able to get up to 30 MH/s at about185 watts with this card.
Alternative card Rx 480- http://amzn.to/2iOJi6J You should be able to get 27 MH/s at about 165 watts here.
CPU
Intel G4400 - http://amzn.to/2A6IP6E
RAM
Kingston 4gb- http://amzn.to/2kHHjFg
SSD
Sidenote here if you are only going to use this machine for mining and maybe a few wallets or nodes you can go with a cheaper option. I chose this SSD as it has space in the even you want to run masternodes or larger wallets in the future which could increase your passive income.
SANDISK 120GB- http://amzn.to/2AQ0WRC
Power Supply (PSU)
Corsair Platinum 1200w- http://amzn.to/2yXCMmP I recommend at least a 1200 watt PSU here as these cards tend to pull more power than the NVIDIA version.
Alternative-- http://amzn.to/2iPcMRI
Risers
Mintcell 6pack- http://amzn.to/2BQmJFY
I remain loyal to this brand as they have never served me wrong since I started mining.
Windows 10 (Can get cheaper discounts through being a student or military, can also go Linux or Simplemining OS. I can help you set up Simplemining OS as well please reach out) - http://amzn.to/2Ar1xu0
Extra Connectors (Always good to have on hand in case you need more or you have damaged ones)
At least 2 6pin to 2x 8 Pins- http://amzn.to/2BsVxkC
Zip Ties (for cable management or mounting video cards)- http://amzn.to/2kLJaJs
Total Estimated Price- ~$2515 without the cost of Windows or other Operating systems.
This comes in about $1200 cheaper than our expensive NVIDIA build! In addition, when you optimize these cards you can rival and even outperform the NVIDIA cards mining certain coins using the Cryptonight algorithm.
Mounting Options to Complete Your Mining Rig
Similar to the previous NVIDIA build guide you can choose to use anything to mount your mining rig on. You can use things like shoe racks, clothing racks, milk crates, or build your own. A few examples of builds are below.
You can order a shoe rack almost anywhere similar to this one http://amzn.to/2kLX1PS.
Or if you want a custom mining frame and don't want to build it yourself you can find a ton of different options such as this one http://amzn.to/2AHn3aM.
BIOS Mods
The last thing you need to do is mod the BIOS. Its important to ensure you know what you are doing here as you could potentially turn your cards into an expensive paperweight. I will do a walkthrough of this soon but there are plenty of youtube sources out there that can help once you have the data.
Modded BIOS- https://ufile.io/6xq8x
This should get your rig running around 166 MH/s at about 900-980 watts.
I also ran across a great post at Bitcoin talk that discusses BIOS mods for almost every version which is a great resource for help.
Things to Consider
As we mentioned in the previous article prices are still surging. You will need to obtain the cards where you can at the best deal. If you are in a hurry then if you see them available get them. Just keep in mind you don't always have to buy all the cards at once if things seem overpriced. Get a few and get up and running. You can always add more cards to your mining rig later.
Please feel free to reach out with any questions to [email protected]
Stay tuned for part 4 where we will discuss the different mining pools available to choose from. This will be extremely important now that Nicehash is gone and not looking like it will be coming back anytime soon.
If this guide helped you at all and you feel like sending over a tip please feel free as its what keeps this site alive.
BTC- 3PBrgAXqdJuv4Uv8s2jxDi6jU2wFuqkZyq
LTC- MWbybP4pZtnS3iHUvuXR1qJMdprbXuo9F7
ETH- 0x6652b8bF75B6BE72DC42C06B4768e239faB3ed66
ZEC- t1Pg6Fhi4Bv1HV1GyLSN1eCz4wzYvQ9w8jp