How to choose your mining equipment

Frame, motherboard, power supply, risers, graphics cards: when you build a mining rig, every component matters, and a poor choice costs you in breakdowns or overheating. In this video (in French), we review the hardware we use and the points to check before buying each part of a GPU rig.

Video from 2021: the figures below date from that time. See "What about today?" at the end of the article.

1. The frame: open for better cooling

An open frame keeps the cards better ventilated, with an airflow that is easier to generate. Single-level frames, built lengthwise, usually take 6 to 8 cards.

For ventilation, the figure to look at is CFM, the airflow rating: aim for at least 45 CFM. These fans usually spin at 1200 to 1800 revolutions per minute.

2. The motherboard: gaming or mining-specific

A gaming motherboard

The first criterion is the number of PCIe slots. Take an ASUS Prime gaming motherboard: it can take 6 graphics cards out of the box. A small adapter on the M.2 port, costing less than €10, lets you add one more. On a gaming motherboard you often have to go through the BIOS: update it, enable Above 4G Decoding and the crypto mining mode.

Mining motherboards

• A board with an Intel B250 chipset: socket 1151, for 6th or 7th generation Intel processors. Watch the processor generation: having the same socket is not enough. We have often had customers whose motherboard would not start for this reason.
• The BTC-S37: a motherboard for 8 GPUs without risers, built lengthwise, with DDR3 memory in SO-DIMM format. Its power setup differs a little from a standard motherboard: you must power the first 6-pin connector, which feeds the motherboard and the processor, and start the power supply by bridging two pins of the 24-pin connector with a paperclip.

The S37 takes up more space. We find a small motherboard used with risers on a frame more practical: the rig cools better.

3. The power supply

• Corsair 850 W and 1000 W: 80 Plus Gold certified power supplies, with a very good price-to-power ratio for the 850 W. They offer 5 PCIe connections on the 850 W and 6 on the 1000 W.
• Chinese power supplies of 1400, 1600 or 2000 W, in ATX format: they are cheap and deliver a lot of power.
• Server power supplies: they are noisy, which you need to keep in mind depending on where you install your rig. We have always ruled them out.

To run two power supplies on the same rig, an adapter (Add2PSU type) connects to a Molex plug on the first one, which sends the start signal, and to the 24-pin connector of the second. Short PCIe extension cables and splitters, which turn one PCIe output into two, also come in very handy.

To size the power supply, start from the real consumption of the cards, overclocking included, and keep a 20% margin.

4. The risers

• The 009S: a model with 4 capacitors for stability.
• The 009S Plus: a much better-made PCI Express port and, above all, twice as many capacitors, 8 instead of 4. This is the one we use on our rigs.
• The V10, V10 Pro, V11…: new versions keep coming out, but for us it is mostly marketing.

Avoid the old versions 6, 7 and 8, which have only two or three capacitors. And do not power risers from a SATA plug.

5. The graphics cards

There is no "best card" in absolute terms: it all depends on its price compared with its mining power. On Ethereum, you calculate the price per MH/s. A more powerful card can be overpriced, and a card that costs half as much can offer a better ratio. The rule: avoid going above €15 to €16 per MH/s. Card prices had become "crazy" at the time: either you wait a little, or you buy while keeping a close eye on that ratio.

Two strategies stand out:

• Latest-generation cards (RTX 3000 from NVIDIA, RX 6000 from AMD), which you can later resell easily to PC gamers;
• Older-generation cards (GTX 1660 Super, RX 480 or 580), bought second-hand at a good price, for example on Leboncoin.

Power draw observed when mining Ethereum:

• RTX 3060: about 120 to 130 W;
• RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070: about 130 to 140 W;
• RTX 3080: about 220 to 230 W;
• RTX 3090: a good 300 W;
• AMD RX 6800: hashrate equivalent to the RTX 3060 Ti and 3070, for about 130 W;
• AMD RX 6600, just released at the time: barely 70 W.

Above the RTX 3070, cards run hotter and draw more power. Their GDDR6X memory makes all the difference: it tends to run very hot. Some brands, such as Zotac or Gigabyte, and even some ranges from better-reputed brands, also have heat problems.

What about today?

Since Ethereum moved to proof of stake in September 2022, Ethereum can no longer be mined with graphics cards, and the prices per MH/s above no longer apply. The advice on power supplies, safety margin and cooling still holds, but mining today is mostly done with ASIC machines.

To configure your motherboard's BIOS, read our article on installing and configuring a motherboard for mining, and see an example build in our 8-card rig. Also have a look at our power supplies and our ASIC miners.