Quote from: zebigfoot on January 22, 2014, 04:38:43 PM

Hi All,

I`ve got a spare system lying around & wanted to convert it into a Mining rig for below system specs.
I`m open to suggestions of which card will give be the best ROI (considering R9 280X & HD6950 right now)
I`ll have someone flying back from the USA shortly so thankfully they can pickup a couple of items as well

Intel mobo D945GCPE, Bus Clock: 200 MHz
1 PCIe 16x slot (which is PICe v 2.0 I guess) and 2 PCI 1x slots
3GHZ Intel P4 processor (64-bit ready and 2 hyper threads)
1GB DDR2 RAM (expandable upto to 2GB)
250W PSU (which i`ll definitely need to upgrade!)
Windows XP 32-bit OS SP3

I had a few queries for the upgrade and would appreciate any help and
hope this thread also helps others like me upgrade their old rigs.

1. I plan to buy a PCIe 3.0 card like R9 280X on the existing single PCIe16x slot.
But will the card get "bottle necked" in terms of hashrates going below 750kh/s ?
I did find the link below which said it wont, but has anyone tried this specifically for
mining and can confirm it works ok ?

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/will-i-bottleneck-the-r9-280x.192214/

2. If the R9280x is not bottle necked can i use 1X to 16X risers
(like these - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3XT18W8386)
and pile on newer cards on the other 2 PIC slots ? Should these be powered risers ?
Considering the above specs, will a HD6950 be a better bet ?

3. Is there a huge difference in terms of power bills if I use a bronze PSU & Gold PSU ?
If yes, how much of a benefit will it make? For a 1 card setup I was thinking of a
Seasonic 620W S12II or Corsair CMX600. If the multi-card setup seems feasible and Gold PSU`s
make a reasonable power savings I don`t mind spending a bit extra to pick up a good 750W PSU

4. Are ATI drivers and APP libraries available for CGMiner to work properly on 32-bit XP ?
I`ve been trying to get this done on another WinXP box but it hasn`t been easy yet.
For this mobo, Win7 is not a recommended installation. I`m trying to get a rig up ASAP
and would need to avoid an OS installation right now since this system needs a fair amount of file backups t

5. Are the scrypt hash rates impacted by the OS being 32-bit or 64-bit OS ? and also by RAM amount?

6. For a multi card setup, is it required to use ATI Crossfire on this mobo ? Whats the
advantage to using Crossfire?

1: Any PCIe card should be fine, mining does not use a lot of bandwith (unlike gaming), so no bottleneck.

2: No, PCI and PCIe are COMPLETELY different, and you can NOT connect a PCIe card to a PCI slot. So if you have one PCIe slot, one card is your max (and you can use a riser with it if you wish).

3: The difference between bronze/gold/platinum is small. If the price is the same, go for the highest rating, otherwise take the cheapest (but stick with reliable brands).

4: Haven't tried XP, but make sure to use cgminer before 3.7.2, after that scrypt and GPU's are not supported anymore!

5: No, and no. Maybe with the exception if your ram amount is so tiny that your OS is struggeling with it (like 128mb on XP or something).

6: Do not use crossfire for mining. There is no advantage, only with gaming.

By the way, are you sure you have PCIe slots at all? If I look up your motherboard on google, I find boards with only two PCI slots?