I got 8 old computers running socket 1156 core i3 processors, they can handle up to 2 graphics cards in SLI or crossfire so i wanna know what a good card i could get for them is, i hear AMD is the best but i dont know what to go wtih. Any help you can give me is great :) just something that wont break the bank pleas, i need to get 16 of them afterall lol.
Your best bet will be to not use all of them. For max efficiency, don't use a crossfire bridge either, just run them as two seperate cards in one system.
The fastest miners are the 58xx series AMD cards. If you can get your hands on a few 5830's or 5850's that would be ideal. The 5830's, anything under $130 is excellent value, but under $150 is what you should aim for. The 5850's, anything under $160 is great, but expect to pay around $175. A 5870 is even faster but will be around the $200 price point.
It's more efficient to get a few of them than get 16 crappy cards and run them all.
Let me know what you think, im happy to provide other suggestions if you'd like.
Why exactly are the older cards better then the newer ones? lol i also got a few small foarm factor systems laying around, now im wondering if i can snag a few 5450's and run them in those to further increas my productivlity (think im slaughtering spelling right now but theres no embeded spell check on this site :( ) do you think that would be worth it as well?
The older cards aren't necessarily the best, but they ae the most cost efficient. i.e a 7950 at the moment gets about 25% more Mhash/s (measure of mining speed) than a 5870 but costs 50% more. Buying older cards, you aren't shelling out any extra cash for good gaming performance, so you save money. The 5xxx series are just unusually fast (its a bit complicated why they are so fast). The fastest card for mining is a 5970 but you'd be hard pressed to get one for under $500.
5450's are pretty slow and will still burn quite a bit of power, so they aren't really worth it if you are trying to turn a profit.
How much are you willing to spend? A couple of hundred dollars? a thousand? The more you spend, the more efficient the whole process will be. I'd suggest just getting a few 5850's if you can (maybe 4) and running them in 2 systems.
Let me know.
I got about $4000 limit
K, you can do heaps with that. Try get 16 5870's. That will pretty much be the best bang for buck. If you have some left over or whatever, either upgrade a couple to 5970's or, what i would do is buy some custom fans for them all. If you can get them overclocking well, it will significantly improve you mining rates. Make sure before you buy them, they are voltage unlocked.
Then, overclock the hell out of them (good gpu fans will help alot) and you'll get ridiculously high Mhash/s. By my calculations with 16 5870's all overclocked, you could crack 7.5 Ghash/s no problems.
lol that would be freeking epic
Yeah, you'd make about $140 a week or so, depending on bitcoin exchange rates.