Quote from: MagicSmoker on January 08, 2018, 01:32:05 PM

It's possible to mix AMD and Nvidia cards on the same mobo, but it tends to be temperamental and not really advisable for the noob miner.

I have a dual GTX 1060 3GB rig mining ZEN that delivers about 610 H/s on average and uses a total of 315W at the wall (the entire system). Cards are set for 85% power limit and modestly overclocked to 2000/4150.

If you mine a Cryptonote coin like Monero, Electroneum, etc., then a powerful CPU can easily pull its weight. The Ryzen 5 1600 I have in one desktop does 370 H/s while an older FX-8300 still delivers a respectable 190 H/s; a really ancient Phenom II 955, however, only manages 55 H/s and Windows (7) slows to a crawl.

So a possible setup would be two RX 570 or GTX 1060 plus a decent CPU so you can use a GPU miner program at the same time as a CPU Cryptonote miner (e.g. - Claymore's v3.9).

Thanks for the tips! Yes, that's what I was thinking about - having the CPU mine other coins in the mean time or have it working fine for gaming as well.

Quote from: parisbitcoin on January 08, 2018, 01:42:25 PM

Totally agree... mix and matching AMD/Nvidia is not trivial as depending on what miners you use it might not be so easy
For instance Claymore's Ethereum mining would work on both Nvidia & AMD however its Cryptonote (XMR/ETN) is only AMD, you need a separate software for Nvidia
I would recommend trying to get 2 AMD RX 580 it's more profitable than the GTX 1060 however not by much (for the past few months atleast)

Thanks for the tips!
So, basically when you say "Claymore's Cryptonote (XMR/ETN) is only AMD" that would mean the mining software would not detect the nvidia GPU, right?
I suppose I could use another mining app designed for nvidia and that should work fine at the same time with the other app for amd, right?
Although the disadvantage would be you cannot mine with both GPUs to increase the hash rate.

Quote from: Undefined31415 on January 08, 2018, 01:43:24 PM

If you want a decent gaming PC, you'd better have a clear vision of what you're expecting, since that will place constraints on at least one of your cards, your CPU choice, and other components.

1. You can mix AMD and Nvidia GPUs fairly easily on Windows. Most Linux distributions tend to make mixing them much more of a headache, but it is possible.

2. This depends on the exact components selected. Also note that the typical unit for power is watts (joules per second), not w/h.

3. This depends on your goals for the rig as a gaming system. For most users, an i3 or i5 will suffice. Alternatively, you could go with an AMD-based build. (Pay close attention to the chipset if you are thinking about expanding the rig.)

Note that this rig might not pay for itself. Making a mining rig also work effectively for gaming (depending on user expectations for gaming performance) usually requires additional RAM, storage, a more expensive CPU, etc.
This rig only has 2 GPUs, one of which will be mining part-time. You'd be tasking 2 cards with the burden of paying back not only their initial cost, but also that of the rest of the rig. (This is one reason why rigs with more GPUs are favored, as mining with more GPUs and/or more powerful GPUs makes better use of the overhead cost associated with purchasing and powering the rig base {motherboard/CPU/RAM/etc.}, which does not directly contribute to revenue.)

Of course, you might end up with a nicely "discounted" gaming rig.

Thanks for the tips!
1. I didn't select the OS yet, I'm a windows user but if hashing is better on Linux (although I haven't heard of something like this yet in the few days I've researched this) I would consider moving and solving the headaches. I have a computer science background, I should be ok.
2. Yes, w/h = "watts per hour" sorry for the ambiguity.

3. I was thinking of also using the CPU for mining and in case it's not working out, I could sell it/use it as a gaming PC.
Yes, you are correct, gaming also requires other components but I was thinking to use a 250 GB SSD, 8-16 GB RAM & a decent CPU that can also mine/run games.