3.1 Build your ITAL coin mining rig - Makh1/italcoin GitHub Wiki

Let’s take a look at what you’ll need in terms of hardware to put a respectable ITAL coin miner together.

Motherboard

Generally, any motherboard with PCIe slots on it is suitable for mining—typically one GPU per PCIe slot. The PCIe slots don’t need to be full-length, as we can attach GPUs to 1x slots with the help of risers. With that said, there are potentially some limitations when you start to pack a large number (4+) of GPUs onto one motherboard, even if that board has enough PCIe slots to physically accommodate them. That’s why picking a suitable motherboard is probably your biggest hardware headache if you want to run as many GPUs as possible in your rig.

A top choice is currently the Asus B250 Mining Expert board. It’s literally made for mining, with support for up to 19 (!) GPUs and 3 power supplies right out of the box. Even if you don’t intend to initially run more than a few GPUs, the included mining-centric diagnostic features and ability to expand later probably make the price premium over less-robust boards worth it.

The Biostar TB250-BTC is also aimed at miners, and costs considerably less. The Biostar board “only” supports 6 GPUs, but that’s likely all that the majority of us need. If price is your primary consideration, the TB250-BTC should be at the top of your list for 6 GPU rig builds.

If you only want to use 3-4 GPUs in your rig, then you’ll have a much easier time. Most boards with up to four PCIe slots should accommodate a GPU in each. Keep in mind that you can use old hardware that you have sitting around—the board doesn’t have to be recent. An old ASRock 970 Extreme4 can still works fine today for up to 4 GPUs (5 is possible with some work). So it’s possible to pick up an ancient board on eBay/Craigslist for nearly nothing and mine with less than 6 video cards.

CPU / Processor

This one is easy: buy the cheapest CPU that works with whatever motherboard you pick. When it comes to mining, the GPUs do all the work. Your CPU will essentially sit idle, so there is no reason to waste money on anything other than the bare minimum.

Memory

4GB is fine. Overkill really, at least for Linux. If you have an old 2GB stick (or even 1GB!) sitting around and plan to run Linux, you’re good to go. If you want to run Windows, then 4GB is probably a realistic minimum.

While mining is pretty memory-intensive, everything happens on the GPUs. System memory will be pretty much unused, so there is no reason to spend money here, especially with DDR4 prices so high.

PSU / Power Supply

The power supply is extremely important—don’t skimp on it! A good, efficient PSU will keep your electricity costs to a minimum and more than pay for itself over the long run. Seasonic, EVGA, and Corsair are all generally top brand choices. A 1200W unit may seem like overkill, but power supplies are most efficient when they’re not running near their rated maximum load. A 6 GPU rig will draw about 750 watts (assuming 6x RX 570 cards, properly optimized), which means a 1200W PSU will have sufficient headroom to perform efficiently.

If you’re planning on running only 3-4 GPUs, you can save a bit of money and go for their 850 watt model instead.

GPUs / Video Cards

Which model to pick, though? While literally any card will do, the most important thing to look for is memory speed if you want the best performance. Cards with a higher memory clock speed will generally perform a bit better while mining (and can generally be overclocked more). Memory capacity isn’t really important beyond 4GB, so all other things being equal, there is no reason to shell out extra cash for the 8GB version of a card.

With all of that said, the 8GB versions of the cards tend to have faster-clocked memory than most of the 4GB cards, so if the price difference isn’t too large, spring for whatever is the fastest. Most of the cards fall between 1650 Mhz (6600 Mbps effective) to 2000 Mhz (8000 Mbps effective). The slower 1650 Mhz memory GPUs will hash at 21-23 Mh/s, and the fastest 2000 Mhz ones will do 25-28 Mh/s.

The best advice is usually to just pick up whichever card you can get your hands on for the least money, as mining speed differences between brands/models are pretty small after optimization.

If you can still find old cards on the secondary market, they’re just as good the cards that replaced them.

*nVidia’s 1060 / 1070 video cards are excellent for mining. Generally these days I recommend whichever is cheaper (and right now, that’s AMD). But if you find a deal on some nVidia 1070 GPUs, don’t hesitate to grab them—they perform just as well as AMD’s offerings, and are arguably easier to set up (just remember to install nVidia drivers instead of AMD’s).

Boot Device

If you plan to run Linux, you can use pretty much anything, including a ~$5 16GB USB stick. With that said, SSDs are pretty cheap nowadays and it might be nice to have one in case you want to try Windows at some point.

If you plan to run Windows, then a cheap 60GB+ SSD is your best bet. If you have an old mechanical hard drive laying around, that’ll work fine too.

The Case

I highly recommend against trying to cram a bunch of GPUs into a conventional PC case. You have two realistic options here: buy a purpose-built mining frame, or build something yourself.

The first option is straightforward, if not a bit more expensive. You’ll pay a premium going this route, but it’ll save you some time and effort.

Building your own is much cheaper, and (arguably) more fun! If you’re handy, you can put together a simple aluminium frame yourself for a fraction of the cost of buying one. If you don’t have the necessary skills or tools for that, it's been popularized building mining rigs inside plastic crates back in 2013, and that still works fine today (for up to 4 GPUs or so, anyway).

Risers & Miscellaneous Stuff

If you’re building your own case (whether it’s from a plastic crate, or aluminium, or something else), you’ll need risers to connect your GPUs to your motherboard. If you’re buying a mining frame, most include risers. Risers tend to be pretty misunderstood among new miners, so here is what you need to know:

Risers can be powered or unpowered. A riser is unpowered if it simply connects a GPU to a motherboard PCIe slot. A riser is powered if it additionally accepts power from the PSU (generally via a molex-type connector). Unpowered risers allow GPUs to receive up to 75 watts of power through the motherboard’s PCIe bus, just as if they were plugged in directly. Powered risers will take that additional power directly from the PSU instead, bypassing the motherboard. You may mix unpowered and powered risers, but the total number of unpowered risers should not exceed two (this includes GPUs plugged directly into the motherboard)! Motherboards are generally not designed to deliver more than 150 watts of total power through the PCIe bus, so two GPUs on unpowered risers is the safe maximum (2 x 75 watts).

The newer USB-style powered risers often include SATA-to-molex power adapters. Throw these adapters away! SATA plugs are not designed to deliver 75 watts safely, and these can get hot enough to potentially be a fire risk (admittedly, 99% of the time you’ll be fine, but it’s not worth the risk). Instead, connect the molex plugs on the riser directly to your PSU (no more than two risers per PSU plug). Newer versions of these USB risers forego the molex adapter and instead use a PCIe connector for power.

I do think the newer USB-style risers are the way to go—they’re longer and easier to work with than the old ribbon-style cables. Here is a 6-pack of USB risers with the newest (and safest) PCIe connectors. It’s always smart to buy an extra or two, as defects are relatively common. If you have older ribbon-type risers laying around, or can get them cheaply, they’ll work just fine.

If you’re building or buying a large frame, you might need extenders for some of your molex plugs and PCIe power plugs.

You’ll also need a power button, unless your motherboard has one built in (which is fairly rare).