Entry Level Mining Build to mine with GPU's, CPU, and Hard Drives with ROI Estimates

[Dave]

I've been putting this together (on paper) for over a week.  This build has several goals.

 

1. Budget Build. Let's not break the bank.

2. Leverage parts from your stash as a server builder.

3. Mine as many different things as possible at once without impacting each other

4. Have it all fit in a case. No open air frames or rigs.

 

That's a lot of goals!  I think with your help we can make this thing happen so let me know if you are going to build one.  I'm waiting on a few things to pan out before I start it but I am going to build it.

 

I'm not real sure what to call this beast.  I've heard someone use the term Tri-Miner so I was trying to come up with something else.  Leave a comment on the name.

 

Tres-Miner

ThreeBox

The RESET Miner

My wife is going to kill me Miner

 

 

Hardware

 

Most of the folks in this forum are builders.  Server builders.  I know you have a case and some HDD's laying around.  Possibly even  some more parts that can make this build cheaper.  That's the whole name of the game in this build because the expense is the GPU's.  We'll talk about ROI (return on investment) too.

The motherboard will need to hold 3 cards without risers.  Can't get a compact board so I have a full size board that will take all three cards for you.  Keep that in mind for your case.  I'm going AMD Ryzen on this build.  YES!  I can't wait to see it in action and have always wanted to build a Ryzen since it came out.

 

Internal HDD's Use what you have for the OS and save a little money.  You don't need anything elaborate.  Something around 100Gb will do.

Motherboard -  GIGABYTE GA-AB350-Gaming 3 AMD RYZEN AM4 B350 RGB Fusion Smart Fan 5 HDMI1.4 M.2 SATA 6Gbps USB 3.1 Type-A ATX DDR4 

http://amzn.to/2F5MRhS

$108

 

 

There are some alternatives too.

MSI ATX DDR4 AM4 AMD X370 Chipset SATA III $120 - http://amzn.to/2DseXDx
and /or this one - http://amzn.to/2DuLRmZ

What you will notice about these boards is that there are 3 PCIE x16 slots with enough space to put 3 cards on the board, in the case.  There are a couple more of these boards in this MSI family of motherboards.  Gigabyte has the ONE board that is $108.  Their others have 2 slots only.

 

CPU

Ryzen 7 1700 - http://amzn.to/2E0SmiD $289  500 - 600 H/s XMR-Stak

Power Supply

Depending on cards used. 750 watt minimum.  You can shop this around a lot.

http://amzn.to/2E2ynQB

$80 Gold P/S

http://amzn.to/2DCdb5X

$110

Ram

ADATA XPG Flame DDR4 4GB 3000MHz CL16 PC4-24000 U-DIMM Single Pack PC Memory (AX4U3000W4G16-SBF)

http://amzn.to/2DtN8uG

$55

 

108+289+80+55=$532 Total Build

 

All good so far?  You provide the case, Win10, OS Drive, Mouse/Keyboard.

Software

Were going to use NiceHash Legacy Miner and Burst all sitting nicely on top of Windows 10.  It's your job to come up with a Win 10 license.  I'm going to be paying big attention to the CPU usage between Burst and NiceHash.  My hope is that we can use the NH Miner, Idle mining feature. When Burst needs the CPU it takes it and NH backs off.  We can do this with NiceHash Legacy Miner and we can run multiple instances of it.  You can run one instance for the GPU's and one for the CPU.  On the CPU instance we would set it to idle mining.  More on all this later or in a separate post.  

Return on Investment (ROI)

Ryzen 7 1700 at a cost of $289
Makes $1.50 to $2 a day mining (nice hash reports $2) 

Looking for GPU's

I'm looking at a budget GPU.  That keeps our power requirements lower and allows us to put 3 in a case.  We can get 3 of any card honestly.  I'm picking one that I have recently purchased on the cheap because all the high dollar miners want the big dog cards.  I've purchased the Radeon RX550 anywhere from $100 to $140.  So I'm going to average this cost here at $400 for 3 cards.  We will optimize these cards in a later post.

3 RX550's at a total of $400 will give you 1000 H/s (hash per second on xmr-stak)  I think even more is possible as I'm still playing with config.txt parameters.
On NiceHash Legacy Miner one card yields $32 each a month.  I'm not hiding anything here.  These are BUDGET GPU's!  The big dogs DO NOT want these cards.  A $700 NVIDIA GTX1070ti will net $120 a month on Nice Hash.  That's one card.  Our three cards don't even make that!  We will look at the ROI comparisons below for fun.  If you have the cash sitting around burning a hole in your pocket then by all means get the big cards.  Don't forget a bigger P/S!

I'm going to stick with the little guys for this post and don't expect these prices to last long.  You have to dig around on eBay, FaceBook, Craigslist, and NextDoor.  I got the majority of mine from NewEgg on eBay.

 

108+289+80+55=$532 Total Build Plus GPU's at $400 = $932

 

CPU and ROI

On NiceHash the Ryzen1700 = $60 monthly PLUS 3 RX550's at $100 month = $160 per month Profit Mining. I had a Core i3 setup once and was pulling .30 cents a day so $1 a day on a Ryzen with a bunch of cores isn't far off at all.

 

ROI

932/160=5.825  or  6 months ROI
The rest of the year? 6 more months of profit = 6*160=960  $960
ROI will probably be longer because we are going to use idle mining on Nicehash to setup a Burst miner as well. Burst will use flashes of CPU time to mine HDD. We're on paper to start with.

If we stop there and tally up the numbers.  We spent $932 and it is taking 6 months to get that money back in coin.  That's before power but also before any appreciation of coin you may have collected.  We're not spending multiple thousands of dollars.  We are building a PC and have tangible assets to keep should you stop mining with it.  Before we start talking about HDD Mining

 

There has been a lot of talk of lower end GPU's vs. higher end GPU's.  Let's price this out on paper.

Let's take the numbers from this build - 
108+289+80+55=$532 Total Build 
You provide the case and HDD for OS as stated above.

NVIDIA GTX 1060's with 3Gb RAM sell for $300 to $400 each
NiceHash estimates $73 a month.
Base cost of $532 + $350*3=$1,582.00 
Ryzen earns $2 day $60 month
1060's earn $73 a month each, $73*3=219
Total 219+60=279 
1582/279=5.6703 
Still somewhere around 6 months
6 more months of profit 6*279=1,674

That's the key right there.  You outlay more upfront and after ROI you generate more profit.

1070ti sell for $650 to $750 each
NiceHash estimates$130 a month
Base cost of $532 + $700*3 = $2,632.00 
Ryzen earns $2 day $60 month
1070ti earns $127 month each $127*3=$381.00 
Total $381+60=$441.00 
2632/441=5.9683 
Still somewhere around 6 months
6 more months of profit 6*441=2,646 

 

You can stop here if you want, but wait, there's more!

 

Hard Drive Mining

 

 

No steak knives for you but let me show you how to reduce that ROI above with hard drives you may have laying around.  The coin were going to mine is called Burst.  You mine with hard drives and not high power GPU's and CPU's.  Gather up 10TB of hard drives.  Dig, I know you have it somewhere!

 

Burst is usually .04 to .05 cents per coin.  I have made 180 since Dec 28th on 10TB.  I have 120 pending that haven't been shifted to my wallet.
300 Burst = 300*.05=$15.00 on 10TB a month  I know, it's not much but the goal here is to leverage what you ALREADY have sitting around.

 

GPU Mining + CPU Mining + Plus HDD Mining = Monthly = $175 profit

So, $932/$175=5.33  or a little over 5 Months to ROI and start making extra.
This is assuming you can scrape up 10 TB like I did. No purchases.
Additional 8TB external drives are only $160
Let's add 3 of these.
3*160=480 
480+932=1,412  
Let's round those three 8TB drives down to 22TB of useable space after formatting. Plus the original 10TB. Yield is now 900 Burst per month.  900*.05=$45 Plus the GPU and CPU mining figures.
$160+$45=$205.00 a month profit using RX550 scenario from above and Burst mining with HDD's.
$1412=4.9366 or a 5 month Payback. Looking better!
7 more months of profit 7*205=1,435  Remember above it was 6*160=960 but we reduced ROI to 5 and added more return and return time.

 

External HDD - http://amzn.to/2F5tdCw

$160
Internal HDD - http://amzn.to/2G7K8G9

$199

You can see the sweet spot is not having to buy drives! The Burst profitability is a W.A.Guess.  NiceHash should be pretty close.  If you want to be as realistic as possible you should downgrade those profits by 5 to 10 %.  BUT, mining NiceHash for BTC could possibly increase in value.  Burst as well.  There is also a luck factor especially with Burst.  @jcollisonincreased to 30TB and killed it.  He had a 1800 Burst month.  1800*.05=90.0 That's $90!

The one variable I have not tested is NH with Burst and the idle mining.  That needs to be gone over with the hardware in hand.  I'll be buying all of this and will get some results.  Burst uses the CPU and can use the GPU if you want.  When it is not using the CPU you can mine it with NH idle miner.  Again, may change some numbers a bit.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's crazy how these cards have roughly the same payback period but if you can afford it the higher end cards have a better payout over the long haul.

https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator/
This link was used for the basis of hash rate and profitability between CPU's and GPU's.

Substitution Cards  Get what you can get at the lowest price.  The ti is a great card to use.  Try to group like cards and you can overclock them as a group. (they should be tested individually at first however)

 

 

Card    Monthly Profit
RX550  $33
1050     $37
1050ti   $47

 

Let me know what you think.  Check the math.  Check for your power costs and consider that.  I wouldn't publish this if I wasn't actually doing it.  I have not purchased this board but I plant to purchase it and do this exact model as a test.

One last thing.  Try mining from a browser with JSECoin.  Join me in self mining - https://jsecoin.com/o/?a=40280  We both get a bonus!

 

 

[Dave]

I'm having second thoughts on the CPU/Mobo combination on this build.  I love the Ryzen but I'm thinking the savings of $100 by going with a smaller Ryzen might be the better option.  That changes ALL the ROI numbers though.  I need to look at it again.

 

I've been watching my Burst miner closer and it uses more CPU than I initially thought it did.  I don't think I can get close to the Ryzen 7 mining estimate that is above.  

[Dave]

Updates:

 

The Motherboard for this build is now down to $80.  That's a lot of help in the ROI section especially since BTC and alt coins have been losing value.  The RX550 model still stands.  I'm running ONE with a CPU and optimized it is making 450 to 500 H/s.  I think three will easily go over 1KH/s on XMR-Stak.  @Trig0r tells me he is getting more from another miner and I'm going to work with him to sort that out on my test 550.

 

I'm waiting to pick up an auction lot that has a motherboard or I would have already purchased this.  I really think a budget 550 build is worth its while.