DIY Ethereum Miner: List of Mining Configurations Available on the Market

Strictly speaking, electronic currency is nothing new; we have reported on the first wave of Bitcoin craze; however, with the sudden surge in the prices of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, more and more "miners" are entering the market to participate; so not only are traditional mining artifacts A cards out of stock in the market, but even the mid-to-high-end 10-series N cards have been cleared out by miners; players who just want to buy graphics cards to play games cannot buy them at normal prices... The madness of the mining hardware market can be seen by looking at the situation on e-commerce platforms.

I'm afraid this price is a bit exaggerated.

Since the market is so hot, hardware manufacturers will definitely develop a new round of mining products. At present, the market is already full of various strange mining equipment. If you think that the mining boss is still a mysterious organization, it is recommended that friends who are interested in mining or want to solve their doubts read this article carefully. I believe you will gain a lot.

A "monster" board with 8 graphics cards, only used for mining

Recently, I have also responded to many friends who asked whether the CPU can be used for mining operations. Here is another unified answer: Yes! ! But the efficiency is extremely low compared to the GPU! ! ! Because mining mainly depends on the performance of the graphics card, and the more independent graphics cards in a mining host, the stronger the actual mining ability, so of course the more graphics cards can be inserted into the motherboard of the mining host, the better. In addition, the performance parameters that graphics cards value in mining and playing games are different. Why? Because mining applications are actually very sensitive to the computing power of the GPU; and there are not too many excessive requirements for PCI-E bandwidth and graphics card memory; therefore, the graphics card of the mining host only needs 1 PCI-E channel, which also solves the problem that the general processor + motherboard chipset cannot provide many full-length slots with PCI-E ×16 channels.

If you don't know, you might think this is a memory stick.

But Jun has to make another appearance, because the mining motherboards launched by mainstream motherboard manufacturers usually integrate multiple PCI-E ×1 slots, and then convert PCI-E ×1 to PCI-E ×16 through an adapter cable to connect to the graphics card. We found some third-party motherboard products specially developed for mining hosts on a certain e-commerce platform, so we named products of this specification "monster" boards.

Recently, this motherboard from Biostar is also very popular among miners, but there are more powerful ones to come.

A third-party mining motherboard that must be used with a dedicated rack or chassis

Do you see the picture? In fact, the so-called mining motherboard is no longer the common ATX structure product; because it must be used with a special chassis and rack; the motherboard itself has compressed the functions required by the traditional PC as much as possible, so in terms of I/O, there is only a set of HDMI/DP, 1 USB and 1 network card interface used by the core graphics card, which is enough to connect the keyboard, mouse, monitor and router.

You said you have seen 3x8pin? Have you seen this?

Of course, the most distinctive feature of this motherboard is its graphics card slots; this product provides 8 PCI-E ×16 full-length graphics card slots, which can directly plug in 8 graphics cards without adapters. In terms of power supply, it uses 8 6-pin headers to power the graphics cards, and 7 6-pin headers to power the motherboard. Therefore, if you want to use it, you need a special power supply or a sufficient number of power adapters. In terms of processor, it integrates Intel's mobile low-voltage processor, and the motherboard provides a notebook memory slot that can support notebook DDR3 low-voltage memory. The purpose is to minimize power consumption while meeting system operation requirements.

The purpose of designing this "monster" board is very clear. First, it is to insert as many graphics cards as possible, and second, it is to reduce power consumption. However, this also means that it is not worth using as a normal computer if it is not for mining (it takes up too much space and the processor performance is also weak). Moreover, it is developed by a third-party merchant, and the source of chips and components, motherboard quality and after-sales service are also questionable.

Mining-specific racks/chassis are relatively reliable

"Mining machine" special chassis (the picture is slightly distorted)

How to evaluate whether a mining chassis is qualified? It only needs to be able to install cards and have good heat dissipation.

As mentioned before, the mining host will inevitably use many independent graphics cards. Therefore, if it is to be equipped with a chassis, a regular chassis will definitely not work. Therefore, there are also dedicated mining chassis.

Currently, the "containers" used to store mining hosts mainly include racks and chassis. Among them, third-party products such as racks are indeed simple and crude but economical solutions. Basically, the entire mining platform is placed naked on the rack and equipped with fans for heat dissipation.

This solution is more suitable for "mining bosses" who have large-scale mining equipment and special machine rooms (because the platform is exposed, a special machine room is necessary to ensure that they are not accidentally touched and damaged), because it is easy to expand (the merchant can customize the rack size according to the buyer's needs) and the cost is low. However, it is not suitable for ordinary players who just want to play mining and earn some pocket money.

Compared with racks, mining chassis have better protection. Generally, they are modified by third-party merchants based on server chassis. The graphics card area and the motherboard area are placed separately, and the workmanship is relatively solid. In addition, this type of mining chassis also draws on the cooling solution of the server chassis. Each graphics card can be cooled by a direct-blowing fan. If noise is not a concern, users can also add violent fans by themselves. In addition to being suitable for large-scale miners, mining chassis are also suitable for feverish players who want to make a small profit. After all, this kind of chassis is more reliable than racks at home.

Other accessories of the mining host are all dedicated

A mining power supply must have at least 6 PCI-E graphics card power cables.

The PCI-E ×1 to PCI-E ×16 adapter cable with USB interface is a common accessory for mining hosts

Since a large number of independent graphics cards are used, and these graphics cards generally need external power supply, the power supply of the mining host is not ordinary. First of all, in order to meet the power consumption of multiple graphics cards, the power of the mining power supply must be high, so the mining power supply is generally above 1200W. It is best to use 80Plus gold or even titanium products, which is more power-saving.

Secondly, the mining power supply must provide enough PCI-E power supply lines. Although general power supplies can also add adapters later, wouldn’t it be better if this problem is solved natively? For example, the high-power mining power supplies of Great Wall and Xingu are equipped with 6 native PCI-E power supply lines, which were originally prepared for 6-card crossfire. Unexpectedly, they were used on mining hosts, which can be regarded as the discovery of a new market.

In addition, there are some small accessories for mining, such as the PCI-E ×1 to PCI-E ×16 full-length slot adapter cable. In the past, this type of adapter cable was generally used in small chassis that needed to place graphics cards horizontally, but now it has become a must-have for mining. Of course, unlike the previous flat cable adapter cables, this type of adapter cable now uses a thinner USB cable, which is more convenient for routing inside the chassis and also improves the heat dissipation of the chassis.

Summary: Be careful when purchasing third-party mining accessories

Except for the power supply, many of the mining accessories on an e-commerce platform are developed by third parties, and they don’t even have a brand. Therefore, reliability and after-sales service are still unknown, so you need to be careful when purchasing. Of course, some well-known manufacturers have launched a number of hardware products dedicated to mining. We will introduce them to you in detail in the following articles, so don’t miss them.