Mining rig

A mining rig is a computer system used for mining bitcoins. The rig might be a dedicated miner where it was procured, built and operated specifically for mining or it could otherwise be a computer that fills other needs, such as performing as a gaming system, and is used to mine only on a part-time basis.

Tips

• Motherboards with on-board graphics (also referred to as integrated graphics) often are either problematic or unusable when more than one GPU card is installed. Choose a motherboard with no on-board graphics.
• The following component lists might be used to help in building a new rig. To minimize shipping costs, components from the same supplier were preferred over compenents from the least expensive source.

Typical Dedicated Miner Configurations Using a Tower

One ATI 5830, Approximately 245 Mhash/s

Component	Description	Source	Amount
Chassis	n/a	n/a	n/a
Power Supply	Rosewill Green Series RG530-S12 530W, 80 PLUS Certified	NewEgg	$49
Motherboard	Foxconn M61PMP-K AMD	NewEgg	$45
CPU	AMD Sempron 140	NewEgg	$39
Memory	2GB DDR3	NewEgg	$12x2
Graphics card	Radeon HD 5830	NewEgg	$110
Case Fan	n/a	n/a	n/a
Storage	Western Digital Caviar 80GB	NewEgg	$21
Media Drive	DVD Rom Drive	n/a	n/a
Keyboard, Mouse and Display	n/a	n/a	n/a
Total			$288 + s/h/t

Two ATI 5850s, Approximately 600 Mhash/s

Component	Description	Source	Amount
Chassis	n/a	n/a	n/a
Power Supply	CORSAIR Builder Series CX600 V2 600W , 80 PLUS Certified	NewEgg	$70
Motherboard	MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX	NewEgg	$75
CPU	AMD Sempron 140	NewEgg	$39
Memory	2GB DDR3	NewEgg	$12x2
Graphics card	Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 XTREME	Amazon	$298 ($149 x 2)
Case Fan	n/a	n/a	n/a
Storage	Western Digital Caviar 80GB	NewEgg	$21
Media Drive	DVD Rom Drive	n/a	n/a
Keyboard, Mouse and Display	n/a	n/a	n/a
Total			$527 + s/h/t

Three ATI 5850s, Approximately 900 Mhash/s

Note: this build requires a "dremel" modification to the pcie adapter for the x16 card to fit into it. Using this adapter also means that one of the cards will not be mounted in a typical case location.

Component	Description	Source	Amount
Chassis	n/a	n/a	n/a
Power Supply	CORSAIR Builder Series CX600 V2 600W , 80 PLUS Certified	NewEgg	$70
2nd Power Supply	ePOWER 450W Modular Juice Box	NewEgg	$25
Motherboard	ASRock 870 EXTREME3 AM3 AMD	NewEgg	$90
CPU	AMD Sempron 140	NewEgg	$39
Memory	2GB DDR3	NewEgg	$12x2
Graphics card	Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 XTREME	Amazon	$447 ($149 x 3)
PCIe x1 adapter	Extender Cable PCI-E 1X Riser Adapter	9mart	$9
Case Fan	n/a	n/a	n/a
Storage	Western Digital Caviar 80GB	NewEgg	$21
Media Drive	DVD Rom Drive	n/a	n/a
Keyboard, Mouse and Display	n/a	n/a	n/a
Total			$725 + s/h/t

Three ATI 6990s, Approximately 2.1 Ghash/s

Component	Description	Source	Amount
Chassis	CoolerMaster HAF X	NewEgg	$200
Power Supply	CORSAIR AX1200 1200W, 80 PLUS Certified	NewEgg	$280
Motherboard	MSI 890FXA-GD70	NewEgg	$200
CPU	AMD Sempron 140	NewEgg	$39
Memory	2GB DDR3	NewEgg	$12x2
Graphics card	3 * Radeon HD 6990	NewEgg	$2220 ($740 × 3)
Storage	Kingston 30GB SSD	NewEgg	$76
Keyboard, Mouse and Display n/a
Total			$3,039 + s/h/t

Typical Dedicated Miner Configurations Using a Rack Mount

Dual ATI 6990: Approximately 1.4 Ghash/s

Component	Description	Source	Amount
Chassis	IPC-4370S 4U	P-Link Computer	$85 (incl s/h)
Power Supply	Antec CP-1000 1000W, 80 PLUS Certified	NewEgg	$135
Motherboard	MSI 890FXA-GD70	NewEgg	$200
CPU	AMD Sempron 140	NewEgg	$39
Memory	2GB DDR3	NewEgg	$12x2
Graphics card	2 * Radeon HD 6990	NewEgg	$1480 ($740 × 2)
Storage	Kingston 30GB SSD	NewEgg	$76
Keyboard, Mouse and Display n/a
Total			$2,039 + s/h/t

Typical Multipurpose Miner Configurations

High-end Intel-based miner/gaming rig: single ATI 6990, Approximately 750 Mhash/s

Component	Description	Source	Amount
Chassis	CoolerMaster HAF 932	NewEgg	$155
Power Supply	CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W, 80 PLUS Certified	NewEgg	$135
Motherboard	MSI P67A-GD65	NewEgg	$180
CPU	Intel i5-2500k	NewEgg	$225
Memory	G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB	NewEgg	$41
Graphics card	Radeon HD 6990	NewEgg	$734
Heat Sink Fan	CoolerMaster Hyper212+	NewEgg	$40
Storage	Seagate 1TB 7200RPM HDD	NewEgg	$70
Media Drive	ASUS DVD-RW	NewEgg	$22
Keyboard, Mouse and Display	n/a	n/a
Total			$1602 + s/h/t

Mid-level AMD-based miner/gaming/workstation rig: single ATI 5770, Approximately 300 Mhash/s

Component	Description	Source	Amount
Chassis	CoolerMaster HAF 932	NewEgg	$155
Power Supply	Antec TruePower New TP-750 750W, 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified	NewEgg	$130
Motherboard	Biostar TA890FXE	NewEgg	$140
CPU	AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition	NewEgg	$114
Memory	G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB	NewEgg	$41
Graphics card	Radeon HD 6870	NewEgg	$188
Heat Sink Fan	CoolerMaster Hyper212+	NewEgg	$40
Storage	Seagate 1TB 7200RPM HDD	NewEgg	$70
Media Drive	ASUS DVD-RW	NewEgg	$22
Keyboard, Mouse and Display	n/a	n/a
Total			$900 + s/h/t

See Also

• Mining Hardware Comparison