Dear Cyberspace,
I've decided to buy a new computer.
My Brother's been talking non-stop for the last few days, or weeks about setting his computers up for Gridcoin and I'll be honest with you. I don't know what he's talking about.
That said he tends to talk in a computer language that most of us don't understand, and we don't judge him for it; but at the same time we don't know what type of set up he wants us to build.
Currently I have an old desk top computer and an Android phone my brother had me hook up to his account. It doesn't do much which is why I've decided to help out; But I'm looking for advice on what to get.
My Brother Andrew mentioned that I'm looking for a Gaming computer, I don't know internal bits and pieces but can anybody let me know what I'm looking for with a 1200 dollar budget and access to a Bestbuy store. Perhaps the name of a computer with everything in it without having to tell me what's in it.
Thank-you in advance.
Pre-Medical Student
Instead of #bionic, you should change that tag to #boinc.
I have no idea what bestbuy carries nowadays, here's a link to a recent gaming laptop review. Might do the trick.
And here's a link specifically geared towards gridcoin hardware.
Hey! Thanks, just fixed it :)
I'm a terrible speller. LOL
No worries. That @dutch guy is one to talk to about gridcoin. I just followed him, and while he doesn't post much, I think his interest in gridcoin aligns well with yours.
Sent my brother the link, we're finding it all very helpful. Thanks again!
Thank you for summoning me. =)
No problem. It's just about getting people in touch with each other.
Welcome to the path of Gridcoin :)) i promise you, in a few months you will have enough knowledge to discuss with computer science students. Joke aside - For this money, just buy the Gaming PC with best GPU (compare on gpuboss.com). For medical research, you can also just concentrate on a nice CPU. I use cpubenchmark.net for comparing them. But thats just my knowledge - to be honest im not a hardware pro. The art about Gridcoin is that you can just use ANY kind of new PC to help science - if maximizing profits is secondary for you.
If you wanna read a nice article about how people develop a passion for tuning PCs for Gridcoin, read this awesome article by @xaqfields -> https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@xaqfields/i-m-a-boincer-not-a-miner-how-i-built-two-gridcoin-boinc-powerhouses
Followed you to stay tuned on your decision and Gridcoin-journey 😎
Hey, and welcome to the Gridcoin community!
I guess the first question here is, do you actually want to buy a new computer? If the primay goal is 'only' to run more BOINC jobs then you may be better off buying specific pieces of hardware and installing them into either your or your brother's existing rigs. With USD$1000 you could buy 6 HD7970s which would yield you 180 GRC/day in MilkyWay@Home, a project that maps the Milky Way in double precision. Of course, you would still need a motherboard and power supplies to run those GPUs...
I am a biomedical engineer PhD student, and have been running BOINC for about a decade for the same reason as you - doing research. Some of my compute is still going to the projects I believe in most despite them having very low (or no) return in terms of GRC. Hit me up if you ever want to talk.
About your brother, in case he hasn't found it yet you can point him to this faucetjoin the developer Slack. for free GRC every 24h. He (and you) may also want to join the IR channel #Gridcoin and
You can always buy 2nd/3rd hand computer equipment for cheap, you don't need to buy brand new equipment.
I haven't messed around with gridcoin yet, but from what I understand it isn't very profitable.
The only reason I'm involved in gridcoin is because my brother keeps pushing, I'm in it for the medical research; all the coins are going to his account :)
If you are in it for medical research, its probably World Community Grid projects you want to work on, then dont worry so much about a graphics card, you want a computer that can run the most CPU threads in parallel as possible.
Right now that is probably an AMD Ryzen 1700 which you should be able to get your geeky brother to overclock (make it go faster).
All the rumours are that AMD and Intel are releasing much better CPUs for this shortly (called i9 and Threadripper) but they may exceed your budget.
To add to what Scalextrix said, you'll find the most interesting or philanthropic projects will often not have the best payout. This is because lots of users flock to these projects, and so the GRC minted per day is split between more people.
Overclocking is a great idea, if you know what you are doing. A lot of people overclock their hardware, and then get lots of computation errors which voids part of their work. You'll have to experiment to see what works best, and may need to look into overvolting. This is especially true for GPUs (and Vortac is the man to talk to if that is your plan).
Our lab is getting several of the 16 core Threadrippers when they are released to replace the CPUs in our workstations. I'll have a play with how they perform on projects like YAFU which has 16 thread jobs and report back.
Hey how comes you get a lab full if shiny new CPUs and I have to buy them ;)
When you have to deal with government grants for many years to fund your research, you become REALLY good at begging. =)
Looking forward to your Threadripper thoughts, Im sorely tempted to liquidate some GRC for some of that action.
You'd be surprised. It's possible to make close to $1000 per month, using just two powerful PCs (i.e. hardware that gamers usually have anyway). Check @xaqfields and his experience:
https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@xaqfields/i-m-a-boincer-not-a-miner-how-i-built-two-gridcoin-boinc-powerhouses
Going to check out now, thanks!
That would really surprise me...
You are saying that one gaming PC can make 500 a month.
A gaming PC usually has 2 graphics cards.
A 6 GPU dedicated ethereum miner makes about 900.
Are you suggesting that gridcoin mining is 2/5 more profitable that Ethereum per graphics card?
Because by your numbers a 6 GPU miner mining gridcoin would make 1500 a month.
I'm not trying to be confrontational but these numbers don't make sense.
Gridcoin's mining process is completely different from any PoW. If you choose the right BOINC projects (where there is no intense competition), yes it's possible to make decent earnings with 5-6 GPUs. However, crunchers will gradually fill up that space, competition will increase and profitability will decrease over time. Mining can be a lot more than repetitive PoW hashing ad infinitum, no variables, useless for anything else except securing the blockchain.
Okay thanks for the info, I suppose that makes sense although the numbers do still seem high to me.
I'll check it out tonight.
Not taken as confrontational, just looking for clarification are you asking me?
Or responding to above comment?
What else are you doing with your CPU that earns you money?
I'm new to this world, so very little. He's about two months ahead of me with information....he has the medical research projects on my Mac and android, and a PC at his place running.