Pro's and Cons 6 GPU vs 8GPU

Mining
1

Hello,

I’ve been lurking here for a little while and just registered to help make the right decision from the start. I was originally planning on a 6GPU setup inside a closed 4U server case for improved airflow with fans moving air through the case the temp may be lower than an open rig with 0 static pressure.

Lately I’ve been thinking why settle for 6 when I can use the same compute platform for 8? Would the cooling be that much better inside a box vs open air? I know you need 2 power supplies for 8 gpus but everything else it connects to (mb,cpu,network etc) is shared. So if in future I add more rigs instead of going to 12 I’ll have 16 and so on. And also reduce power consumption without needing to run more pc’s for more gpu’s.

Is there any cons to running 8 over 2 power supplies? Lets say I started with 6GPU’s with two power supplies running would they use more power? Our power costs are pretty high where I live though I do have a 6kw in solar panels running through a 5kw inverter which would offset my cost during the day. I don’t have issues running multiple 6 GPU rigs inside cases if it makes sense on power and cooling though figure the sweet spot for efficiency might be running 8.

If anyone has any knowledge of these things please share so I can make the right decision from the start.

Thanks
AMinus

2

Hi Aminus,

I did run a 6 GPU nVidia rig (win7 x64) from 2 PSUs without any problem.

Now I’m running a 7 GPU nVidia rig (Win7 x64) from one 1200W PSU.

Before starting mining, make sure the TDP % of the GPUs are lowered in MSI Afterburner, otherwise it would exceed the capacity of the PSU. the best is to have some kind of a watts meter to measure watts at the wall.

Since the cost of electricity matters to you (and you do not want to burn your cards in a few months) I assume you are not going to use them at full power anyway.

I would go with one PSU if possible, but you wanna make sure it’s at least 80+Gold or if it’s a big one then 80+platinum.

2 PSU would be more energy efficient though, but I think it’s less risky. (even if you had to go with just 6 cards)

About the number of cards: If you want to use some kind of Pci Express splitter with nVidia cards, then make sure it works with nVidia. As far as I know AMD cards work with most of the pci express splitters, but it can still be a hit and miss.

Disclaimer :slight_smile: : I’m not an expert at mining by any means, just wanted to share my experience.

If you got any questions don’t hold them back. :wink: