6 GPU Mining Rig AMD RX580 Intel LGA 1151 for Ethereum and Zcash
Latest version of my guide to building and operating a mining rig is here, How to Build a 6 Rig GPU Miner for Zcash and Ethereum with Nvidia GTX 1070 and EthosDistro posted Oct 1, 2017 on Steemit.
This is the latest model of 6 GPU mining rig I am building this week.
Bill of Materials
Equipment list – Links are to Newegg or Amazon or Parallel Mining product page
- Asrock Fatal1ty Gaming K4 motherboard with the B250 chipset
- Intel Celeron in the LGA 1151 processor
- Kingston HyperX FURY Black 8GB Kit (2x4GB) 2133MHz DDR4 Non-ECC CL14 DIMM Desktop Memory
- SSD – EthosDistro 16GB with operating system and application pre-installed.
- Case – ParallelMiner BAREBONE – ALL ALUMINIUM 6.1 GPU OPEN AIR MINING CASE
- Power Supply – Antec High Current Pro 1300W ATX12V/EPS12V Power Supply HCP-1300 Platinum 94% efficient
- PCI-E Risers – ITHOO USB3.0 PCI EXPRESS 1X TO 16X EXTENDER RISER CARD ADAPTER W/ 24″ CABLE from parallel miner – Qty 6
- GPU – MSI Radeon RX 580 DirectX 12 RX 580 8G 8GB
- ATX power switch – PC Case Red Green LED Lamp ATX Power Supply Reset HDD Switch Lead 20″ (optional)
- Case screws:
- Motherboard to case – PC Mounting Computer Screws M3 x 1/4-Inches Long – qty 50
- Risers and GPU’s to case – Maxmoral 200pcs Toothed Hex 6/32 SCREW 6 – 32 Computer – qty 200
Total Cost for Bill of Materials: ~$2250
Build Instructions
I always forget something when I build the machine. Here’s some basic instructions for the most efficient order of operations. The idea is to get a basic computer built, troubleshoot any potential issues, install the operating system and application, then build the rest of the machine.
Hardware Build
- Assemble the Case
- Put the CPU, CPU fan, and memory on the motherboard. Plug in the CPU fan.
- Attach the ATX power switches and LED’s to the power header.
- Plug the SATA cable into the motherboard.
- Put the motherboard in the case and screw it in with the smaller screws.
- Attach the power supply to the right side of the case. Use the screws that came in the box. Attach power cables from the power supply to the Motherboard, CPU power, SSD.
- Screw in one of the PCI-E Riser cards, plug it into the PCI-E slot closest to the processor, and plug in power from the power supply.
- Put a GPU into the PCI-E riser card, screw it into the case, and attach PCI-E power cable to it.
- Attach a keyboard to the motherboard and HDMI monitor to the GPU card.
- Plug the power cord into the Antec power supply, turn on the power switch.
- Press the ATX power button. The machine should boot.
If it doesn’t boot, this is the time to do basic troubleshooting. Don’t add any more graphics cards until you get at least one working.
If it does boot, set up the BIOS, connect an ethernet cable to the network that can get to the internet, and reboot.
Motherboard BIOS Settings
Turn of unneeded services on the BIOS.
Keep all the PCI settings on Auto
Set the graphics TOLUD to 3.5GB
Complete Build Guide – Older version
For details of setting up the hardware and software, look at this previous post:
GPU Mining Zcash and Ethereum with EthosDistro and AMD RX470 on 6 GPU Rig
May 16, 2017 @ 5:24 pm
Love it. Always so excited to read your posts.
May 16, 2017 @ 8:01 pm
Does it really worth a 8Gb GPU ?
Here in Canada there is a big difference in prices between the two cards.
Anyway keep up the good work! Love the blog and it motivates me to grow my little farm!
May 16, 2017 @ 11:23 pm
I have a rig that has 6 MSI RX580s with three being the 8GB and other three 4GB. With the default BIOS i’m getting: 8GB – 24.32 mh/s 4GB – 22.25 mh/s. With some tweaking I believe I can get them both close to 28. I just brought this up today with the 4gb cards and want to wait a day before trying the tweaks.
May 25, 2017 @ 9:58 am
I’m also in Canada, I have 60 rx570’s in shipment currently but my other gpu rigs the 4gb seem to be within 1-2mh of the 8gb ones. Yes the price difference in Canada is close to 33% higher for the 8gb cards. Just my opinion, but I think realistically the only reason to go with the 8gb cards over the 4gb would be easier resale of the GPU’s when your rig is EOL. This is in reference to current mining, not sure if/when mining software will fully utilize 8gb of mem…
June 24, 2017 @ 3:33 pm
it depends on what you are mining if you are doing eth you want the 8 gig cards. The DAG in the future will be larger than 4 gig i think 2018 time frame.
May 17, 2017 @ 4:43 pm
Did you get the 6th GPU working with the P2.0 BIOS?
May 22, 2017 @ 8:56 pm
Sorry, I don’t know what version of BIOS is on the system. Just whichever one it shipped with.
May 23, 2017 @ 8:51 am
Yes I did. P2.0 is working fine.
May 19, 2017 @ 9:09 pm
Hi Brad. I´ve see you have the same MOBO I’m using right know. May I know your exact BIOS settings if you are so kind? I’ve bought the pieces to build 4 rigs and I’m facing some serious troubles to get all 6 GPUs working. I’ve reach this site looking for an answer.
You may see whats the problem explained in here.
https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/comment/72916#Comment_72916
Thanks in advance
May 19, 2017 @ 11:29 pm
Al,
Set your PCI slots to GEN2 and TOLUD to 3.5. Make sure your onboard video is disabled. Below is a copy from Rolf’s instructions from this link. https://blockoperations.com/gpu-mining-zcash-ethereum-ethosdistro-amd-rx470
set VTd INTEL VIRTUALIZATION to DISABLE.
set ONBOARD AUDIO/SOUND (AZALIA) to DISABLE.
set IEEE1394 to DISABLE.
set PCI-E SUBSYSTEM/LANES to x8/x4/x4
set ONBOARD GRAPHICS to DISABLE.
set PCI-E GENERATION to GEN2.
I also like to set PCI bus speeds to 96 instead of 32.
May 19, 2017 @ 11:50 pm
Thanks for your fast response Brad. I already tried with GEN2 configuration and TOLUD 3.5 does not work . My UEFI dont have the option to disable ONBOARD Graphics, it just have the option to select the primary graphics adapter and the option to disable VTd. I can disable the all the unnecessary features like all the USB ports (legacy and 3.0), audio controller, this MOBO dont have IEEE1394, I havent found the option to set the subsystem/lanes and the same to select the PCI bus speed. I tried to follow the guidance of this post and the one you recently provided me here.
I’m thinking to try with EthOS to see if this solves something but all my rigs have 2 PSUs configurations, I’ve read that this configuration is unsupported with this OS, never used it before but I’m not afraid to use it. I’ thinking to modify my PSUs and connect them through the 16 and 15 pins of the 24-pin connector to make them work as one PSU. I’m running out of ideas, it seems I’m the only one who cant make work all the 6 GPUs in this mobo but I also notice I’m using Win 10 and you are using EthOS and this may be the difference.
May 20, 2017 @ 12:09 am
Get rid of Windows 10 and buy ethOS from GPU Shack here https://gpushack.com/collections/gpushack/products/ethos-16gb-ssd
May 22, 2017 @ 8:57 pm
I found I had to set the PCI settings to Auto, not Gen2, to get all 6 to work.
May 22, 2017 @ 9:13 pm
That’s interesting. I set mine to GEN2 right off and have all 6 working. I didn’t test the AUTO setting but I think I will to see what happens.
May 23, 2017 @ 8:54 am
Yep, is true, all 6 only work in AUTO for me.
May 23, 2017 @ 5:18 pm
I tested setting my PCI to auto and ethOS saw all six but only three were producing hashrates. I have 3 8gb and 3 4gb which I think is the problem. I have 12 more 4gb cards coming so I’ll test a rig with just 4gb cards.
May 20, 2017 @ 12:13 am
One thing I forgot to add. I would only use windows 10 to tweak each GPU but would never think of using it for a rig with 6 GPUs. If you’re interested in tweaking your GPUs here’s a youtube channel I follow that explains it pretty good.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVVWXoQfMfQVuzxcLylq9aA?&ab_channel=BitsBeTrippin%27
May 20, 2017 @ 12:16 am
I’ll try it and let you know what happen. Any thoughts about the 2 PSUs configuration and EthOS? thanks for your attention and interest. Have a nice weekend!
May 20, 2017 @ 12:20 am
My rig has 2 PSUs and it works great. I have a 1200w that powers the cards and a 460w that runs the mobo, risers, and SSD. I plan on ordering parts for a small batch and I’m thinking of using just one 1300w PSU.
May 20, 2017 @ 12:18 am
I do have a rig with 6 GPUs running fine for about 10 months, but it’s a H81 Pro BTC board, totally different story. But I’m now intrigued about EthOS and I’ll give it a shot! 🙂
May 20, 2017 @ 12:27 am
If you have multiple rigs you will like ethOS. Being able to SSH into multiple rigs from one windows machine is nice.
May 23, 2017 @ 8:51 am
Ey Brad, problem solved. I installed EthOS and all 6 GPUs are worknig fine in this MOBO. Now I need to learn how to use the OS in deep to take all the advantage of it. Thanks for your attention man.
May 20, 2017 @ 7:34 am
What is the hash rate you get with this for Zcash, and what rate for ethereum?
May 20, 2017 @ 7:35 am
And how much power does it consume?
May 20, 2017 @ 11:13 am
I’d be interested in knowing too – a lot of people are reporting a higher power usage than RX480s – which could push things much closer to 1200W – and possibly need an even higher PSU.
May 22, 2017 @ 8:58 pm
I’ll work on getting these answer. But I am also working on tuning BIOS to reduce power usage and increase hash power.
May 21, 2017 @ 11:07 pm
Folks,
Do we need very stable network for mining ETH ? Planning to use 3G mobile connection if possible. Please advise.
May 22, 2017 @ 8:58 pm
The lower the network latency you have to the pool, the better. 3G might work ok for one or two rigs.
July 16, 2017 @ 2:01 am
I am currently running one rig with 5 x RX 580’s on Win 10 with mobile broadband. It does ok, but has dips every now and again. I’m only doing it until I move and will have NBN. The biggest thing is an increase in stale shares. I get between 3-7% stale shares and sometimes up to 10%.
Also as some are asking. I’ve modded all my GPU’s I have gigabyte gaming, msi armor and asus strix top ed. Gigabyte = 25.8MH/s @ 107.6W, MSI = 27.8MH/s @ 110W, ASUS = 28.8MH/s @135-38W.
Although the Asus runs at higher power, it also runs cooler/lower fan speed. It has higher power I’m assuming as it has 3 fans rather than 2. The MSI runs hottest out of the 3.
May 22, 2017 @ 5:19 am
Would this still work as well if I bought a larger SSD and ran Windows 10? Or would there be considerations in changing the OS (not just performance, but something compatibility-wise with the set up)?
May 22, 2017 @ 7:32 am
The hardware would work – but if you want to use Windows 10 then you would need a larger SSD as Windows needs more space – and if you want to ever do Windows updates then you’ll need more space.
Ethosdistro will fit onto a 16GB SSD…
Windows 10 can also be a bit problematic when it comes to 5+ GPUs and you may need tweaks to BIOS etc to get it all working properly.
From my experience, ethosdistro works “out of the can” without any tweaking and reliability cannot be faulted. It runs for days without any issues on many rigs and when I tried the same with Windows 10, I had mining software hanging, GPUs stopping mining..
May 22, 2017 @ 8:09 am
Hi thank you so much for the information. May I ask why you went for the Antec High Current Pro 1300W and not HP 1200 watt Platinum which also has 94% efficiency but for much lower price 70 dollars?
May 22, 2017 @ 8:59 pm
HP 1200 watt platinum server power supply won’t power the motherboard, CPU, SSD, or risers.
May 22, 2017 @ 10:35 pm
After you build this can you please provide some info about the MH/s and power usage? Thanks!
May 22, 2017 @ 11:01 pm
Yes, probably next week for that.
May 24, 2017 @ 3:20 am
Hi Rolf, I am getting on my MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X overclocked 32mh/s with 40%TDP which is 60W (40% of 150W). Is this normal? Because this is much better than my RX 580.
May 29, 2017 @ 10:28 am
It’s a little high. I’m running claymore dual miner and getting 29MH and 600 sia coin
With the shortage of AMD cards this is starting to look like a viable option.
May 24, 2017 @ 7:51 am
I am having a bad day on Ethos, I can identify all 5 RX 570 gpus on my intel b250 pro 4 but, claymore does not want to start. on the show miner command it just shows the sssssssss… but nothing happens. I have double checked my local.conf looks fine. has anyone experienced this. also I have experienced the GPU hang on open cl, what causes this. thanks
June 5, 2017 @ 5:56 pm
sorry, was on vacation. Try increasing default powertune to 7.
May 25, 2017 @ 6:47 pm
I’ve seen most other people say to cheap out on system RAM, did you find that the HyperX Fury RAM makes a difference?
June 24, 2017 @ 6:09 pm
You should be able to use cheap RAM
May 27, 2017 @ 4:03 pm
Would this motherboard and all parts still be valid if I went with non-MSI RX 580?
I’m keeping my eye out for the MSI Radeon RX 580’s to get back in stock but I’m thinking of buying all the other parts in the meantime. However in the case that I can’t get the MSI brand, or in case I somehow find a good deal on RX 470’s or something else… would this setup still work?
May 27, 2017 @ 5:48 pm
Yes they will be valid, but you don’t have to get the same motherboard or PSU if they are unavailable.
May 28, 2017 @ 12:11 am
I use the same mainboard Asrock Fatal1ty Gaming K4 motherboard with the B250 chipset
But it work 04 VGA, When i plug VGA 5 is not work, i use ethos 1.2.2
Mining Setup : Hardware – Krypto Mining n00b
May 30, 2017 @ 3:44 am
[…] 6 GPU Mining Rig AMD RX580 Intel LGA 1151 for Ethereum and Zcash […]
June 3, 2017 @ 7:43 pm
How much Ethereum will this mine?
June 5, 2017 @ 3:26 am
Each 580 does about 28 MHs when OCed and there are 6 of them. That’s 168 MHs, which is about $800/month. With the current prices, it pays for itself in 3.5 months. It’s a pretty decent source of passive income.
June 4, 2017 @ 2:27 pm
Is there any problem with using the multiple PSU’s? I was planning on hooking 4 580x’s into the 750W breakout board, and use a primary psu to power everything else.
June 4, 2017 @ 2:30 pm
sorry running 2x 580’s on the primary supernova 750W, and everything else. Running the risers on the primary, only using the 2nd psu for the 8 6pin 6+2 pin power.
June 4, 2017 @ 2:58 pm
I have read that this is not the best way. The GPU’s riser and additional power connections should all be connected to the same PSU, otherwise there will be feedback between the PSUs. If you want to power 1 or 2 GPUs & their risers with one PSU, and the other GPUs + risers with another PSU, that is fine.
The PSU connected to the MOBO should be switched on last. First turn on the “secondary” power supply (which is only connected to GPUs & their risers), then turn on the “primary” power supply (connected to mobo, and may also be connected to GPUs+risers). Switch off in REVERSE order (primary then secondary).
Hope this is clear enough.
June 4, 2017 @ 10:24 pm
Do RX580 and RX570 GPUs require both 6pin and 8pin PCIe for power? Or can you get away with only using one PCIe?
June 5, 2017 @ 5:57 pm
one PCIe connector for each card.
June 5, 2017 @ 3:24 am
The ASRock Fatal1ty only has 4 1x PCIe slots and 2 16x PCIe slots. Why do you need 6 1x to 16x risers? Shouldn’t it be 4 1x to 16x risers and 2 16x riser to 16x risers?
June 5, 2017 @ 5:58 pm
it works better that way. my advice is to copy a proven design that works, then make modifications from there.
June 7, 2017 @ 10:59 pm
But how? How do you connect a 1x to 16x PCIe slot to a 16x PCIe slot?
June 13, 2017 @ 10:31 am
You can put the 1x riser adapter in the back end of the 16x slot (in line with the 1x slots.)
June 5, 2017 @ 10:42 am
All the AMD GPU’s, most of the motherboards and PSU’s seem to be sold out and heavily back ordered every where is NVIDIA GPU’s our only option until the AMD Vega release later this summer?
June 12, 2017 @ 11:06 pm
Hello, I am quite enthusiastic about this project, I gathered to armir my first rig, but what happened is that after buying everything, a vendendor told me that I no longer had cards and only buy a rx 8gb. You who already have experience in this, Should you wait for them to appear or not lower than $ 700?
June 5, 2017 @ 10:42 am
Great site by the way. Your information is very helpful for a beginner such as myself!
June 5, 2017 @ 5:59 pm
thank you!
June 13, 2017 @ 8:08 am
Hello,
Is there a way to have the rig automatically reboot after not responding, I left my house this morning and realized it was down.
Thanks
June 24, 2017 @ 6:12 pm
if it completely down, you can’t do anything remotely. But if it is running, you can reboot it by incrementing the counter in the remote configuration file.
reb 315a3f 8
to
reb 315a3f 9
that will cause it to reboot.
Or you can SSH to it (port forward port 22 on your home firewall/router to your miner’s IP address, and remember your home public IP address) then give it the command sudo reboot
November 23, 2017 @ 7:42 am
you can setup it to make it reboot or restart at a specific time. I think it is on the bio
June 13, 2017 @ 7:24 pm
I have 6 radeon rx580 connected to a corsair 1200W and no space to power the CPU. the CPU uses the same 8 pin connector that connects to the PCIe so its either 6 cards and no CPU so rig wont power on or its 5 cards and CPU. Where or how can i get the 6th one powered? i have the riser connected just to place to bring the Y 8 pin to connect to 6th GPU. Any ideas? thank you
June 24, 2017 @ 6:13 pm
You can connect 2 cards per PCIe connector, and two cards per SATA power connector.
July 2, 2017 @ 6:04 am
Thanks for sharing this rig setup, will be creating one this week. Keep up the awesome work.
July 7, 2017 @ 6:57 am
Thank you very much for your information. I’m very new. In fact in the process of putting together my first rig so this information is very helpful.
Unfortunately, I think I may have been mislead in choosing a motherboard. I have bought an ASRock Fatal1ty H270 Performance. It has six PCIE slots but I’m not sure if it will be able to do six GPUs. Do you think I should take it back or should I give it a go and see if I can get it going? Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. For you information I am trying to run 4 gigabyte RX580s and 2 gigabyte RX570s. Could get anything else. All sold out.
July 13, 2017 @ 8:25 am
I don’t really know. Sometimes with the latest BIOS update you can get enough PCI lanes available so the GPU’s can get enough.
July 15, 2017 @ 9:38 pm
I can get five working but when I plug in the sixth it won’t boot. Only way I got five working is with PCIe set to Auto and TOLUD 2.5.
I’m using AMD driver 17.4.4. does that make a big difference?
July 17, 2017 @ 12:23 pm
the drive won’t make a difference for booting. Usually not being able to boot is because there are not enough PCIe resources for the sixth card.
Turn off all the other things that you don’t need that might need PCIe resources, and set the lanes to as balanced as possible if you have a choice.
July 23, 2017 @ 8:48 am
Hello, it is possible to have exactly all the settings in the motherboard BIOS you have to run 6 GPU because after several days of testing I still have not arrived, some screens would be appreciated, Thank you for sharing, greetings.
August 5, 2017 @ 2:29 pm
Anyone got this same config to work but with the XFX – AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5 GPUs? EthOS wont recognize them: hardware error: possible gpu/riser/power failure. I’m trying to get only 1 working at moment…. Help greatly appreciated….
November 17, 2017 @ 9:28 pm
Patrick,
I have AMD RX 580, and Ubuntu and cant get my Gigabyte GA-Gaming B8 to recognize more than 1 GPU at a time. Super frustrating. The bios has very little options to tweak the PCIe cofiguration. Any thoughts? Time for a new MOBO?
November 17, 2017 @ 9:44 pm
In the tutorial I see that Rolf used a Asrock MoBo, not sure how much that plays into the scenero, but you might ask if that has any influence on your results
August 12, 2017 @ 1:58 am
Have the same problem on this board can only get 4 working when connect to any of the two x16 slots system refuses to work and the gpu fans spin 100%, the one that is connected to the board.
August 15, 2017 @ 4:39 pm
I have 5 Biostar TB250-BTC 6.x mobo’s i’ve assembled with 1300w evga psu’s. I have 24x RX480’s and 6x gtx 1070’s on hand to install. I have lost countless days trying several bios versions, dozens and dozens of bios adjustments/changes, multiple O.S. installs… please help I will pay a good coin to get these all running. I have already paid and upgraded my breakers, wiring and outlets to accommodate. I can only get up to 5 gpu’s showing in bios and in Win10 Device Manager, or GPUz, but even that’s been rare. Trust that I have installed in uefi only mode, set above 4g decoding enabled, tried pci set to Gen1, Gen2, and Auto, I disabled onboard graphics, audio, VM support, etc! I also removed the custom gpu bios I modded on 6 of the RX480, back to stock bios as I was having issues installing drivers on more than 1 card. Please help I will pay good coin! Greenville, SC
August 22, 2017 @ 11:59 am
This is great! Thanks for sharing.
Can you show a pic of how you have powering cabled to the risers and gpu’s. With the cables that were provided with the PSU I’ve only been able to get 3/6 gpu’s going. Finding a source for PSU PCI-e cables is tough. I’m pretty sure I’m missing something, no one else needed additional cables?
Thanks in advance!
August 28, 2017 @ 12:56 pm
Check out fitty’s photo gallery, and buy your parts from him: https://minerparts.com/customer-photo-gallery/
August 27, 2017 @ 2:33 pm
Rolf,
Ive been reading every build out and set up trying to take in everybit of the main different aspects of making a succeful miners minig operation work as effeciently and trouble free as possible.
Im about to chew threw the bit to get me a mining rig up and going, but. Im going to start out with buying everything listed above except the GPU cards, im only going to buy one Gpu and get it up and running for the moment, once ive been able to save up enough ill add the other 5 gpus one at a time.
Can you see anything wrong in starting out with what i can afford to start out with and adding a GPU every 3-4 weeks until i have all 6 heads up and mining? Anything i need to beware of thats going to cause me big problems doing it that way?
Thanks for all your knowledge, i look forward to reading every article that you publish.
August 28, 2017 @ 12:48 pm
I think that sounds like a great way to start. If you are going to start that way you can also hold off on buying a case, or build your own out of wood, like I did at first.
August 28, 2017 @ 4:28 pm
I’m On it, like a Duck on June bug.
November 3, 2017 @ 1:22 pm
How many BTC a rig like this one would make a month? I’m very new in mining and I’m trying to figure the cost-reward rate based in the cost of electricity where I live.
Thanks!
November 4, 2017 @ 5:52 am
This rig cannot mine Bitcoin – but if you use whattomine.com you can choose your cards, enter power costs and it will give an approximation of much you can earn in ZEN/ZEC etc.
linux setup https linuxconfig org begin mining ethereum… | LottoTrade.com
November 15, 2017 @ 7:52 pm
[…] Crypto business https://blockoperations.com/6-gpu-mining-rig-amd-rx580-intel-lga-1151-ethereum-zcash/ […]
Mining Ethereum 2018 – NXTinfo
November 27, 2017 @ 8:51 pm
[…] 6 GPU Mining Rig AMD RX580 Intel LGA 1151 for Ethereum and … […]
Ethereum Mining Rig For Sale – NXTinfo
December 6, 2017 @ 8:51 pm
[…] 6 GPU Mining Rig AMD RX580 Intel LGA 1151 for Ethereum and … […]
Ethereum Mining Rig 2018 – NXTinfo
December 7, 2017 @ 11:48 am
[…] 6 GPU Mining Rig AMD RX580 Intel LGA 1151 for Ethereum and … […]
Fury X Ethereum – NXTinfo
December 13, 2017 @ 3:49 am
[…] 6 GPU Mining Rig AMD RX580 Intel LGA 1151 for Ethereum and … […]
Zcash lower cost alternative
February 23, 2018 @ 8:37 pm
[…] 6 GPU Mining Rig AMD RX580 Intel LGA … – Block Operations […]