First GPU Rig - A few questions

[zozeri]

Thanks for the quick response!

... So, are you building a password cracking rig, or a bitcoin miner?  If you plan to run six GPUs with 4GB VRAM each, then you should have at least 24GB of host RAM. There's certainly no reason to skimp on the CPU, either. You don't have to go with a i7-4790K, but you should at least go with an i5-4590 or something.

To be honest I was not too sure, I was watching all the old bitcoin miner videos to get an idea of set-ups.

For the CPU ill look at getting an i5/i7 as you recommend.

Ok so ram - there seems to only be 2 ram slots on this motherboard and going by the manufactures guide at http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H81%20Pro...cat=Memory
it can only support a maximum of 8GB in a slot - so max 16GB ram

maybe I need to look into an alternative motherboard? I would rather not if possible.

Why those GPUs? There's usually never a good reason to use AMD GPUs in a new build. I guess it's because you're wanting to spend no more than 100 GBP per GPU? Keep in mind those GPUs are power hungry pigs, you should budget for them pulling 325-350W each. This means on your 1200W PSU you should only power three GPUs max. Any more than that, and your nice wooden chassis will turn into a pile of ashes.

I got the impression from the forum that those GPUs are the most popular otherwise would of looked at others - bare in mind I have only researched this for a week or so on my off time.
What GPU/s do you recommend I look at - if there is a substantial savings in power usage and possibly a better hash rate I do not mind getting something slightly out of my budget.

Linux is the obvious choice.

Thought it would be, ill mess around with this once all is setup - only afraid of having trouble setting up drivers but will cross that bridge when I get there.

I will not be using the rig constantly and will be mainly a project to play with when I have some free time.


****EDIT****
Actually looking back at the threads I have bookmarked they seem to be outdated by a couple years so it makes sense that they are no longer the optimal choice GPUs

Also I have found the guide I was going by at https://blog.netspi.com/gpu-cracking-rebuilding-box/

They stated the following which lead me to believe CPU/RAM/HDD do not really affect the rig;

CPU/RAM/Hard Drive
All of these can be generic. It doesn’t hurt to max these out, but they don't really impact cracking performance. If you’re going to throw money around, throw it at your cards.

Their rig specs;
Component Model Est. Price
Case 6 GPU Rackmount Server Case $495
Motherboard: ASRock Motherboard H81 PRO BTC $64
Risers (6): PCI-E 1X To 16X USB 3.0 Riser Card $24
GPUs (6): XFX Black Edition R9 290 $1,884
Power Supply (2): CORSAIR AX1200i 1200W $618
Power-Splitter: Dual PSU Adapter Cable $9
RAM 8 GB: - Any Brand $50
CPU: Intel Celeron G1820 Dual-Core (2.7GHz) $45
HDD: 1 TB - Any Brand $50
Total $3,239