April 18th, 2013 
CryptoBadger 
One of my finished plastic-crate mining rigs.
So you’re interested in mining cryptocurrency, but you’re not sure where to start? No problem, this guide is all you need to set up your own headless litecoin mining rig—even if you have absolutely no experience with this sort of thing.
First, let’s get the obvious question out of the way: why litecoins? After all, bitcoins are worth more, right? The simple answer is that at the time of this writing, litecoins are currently the most profitable cryptocurrency to mine when you take into account how much each coin is worth, and the time required to mine one. Rest assured that if the situation changes, and another cryptocurrency suddenly surpasses litecoin as the best mining option, the rig outlined in the guide should have no problem switching over to a new coin.
This guide will be broken into several parts, each focusing on a different aspect of building your first mining rig. First, let’s take a look at what you’ll need in terms of hardware to put a respectable miner together.
Build your own Litecoin Mining Rig, part 1: Hardware
4/06/2017: This guide is roughly three years old. Please don’t attempt to buy any of the hardware recommended here—it’s quite obsolete! If you’re looking for information about modern GPU mining, please click here for my updated 2017 guide on mining Ethereum.
Here is the list of hardware that I recommend:
| Motherboard | ASRock 970 Extreme4 |
$98 |
| Processor | AMD Sempron 145 |
$38 |
| Memory | 4GB G.SKILL DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 2GB) |
$46 |
| Power Supply | Seasonic 860w Platinum PSU |
$199 |
| GPUs | 3 x MSI Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 (Twin Frozr) |
$319 each |
| (optional) | 3 x PCI-E riser cable | $5 each |
| (for dummy plugs) | 68 ohm 1/2 watt resistors | $3 |
Update 11/26/2013: The Radeon 7950 video cards are sold out pretty much everywhere. They’re still the best option for mining if you can find them, but if you can’t, then the new Radeon R9 280X cards are likely your best option. They do consume a fair bit more power though, so you”ll want to upgrade your power supply as well (this 1250w Seasonic should support three 280X GPUs without problems). As for brands, I recommend these Sapphire, Gigabyte, and MSI 280X cards for now. I’ll be updating the rest of my guide at some point in the near future with optimal settings for the 280X, so stay tuned.
Update 12/01/2013: If you’re trying to put a rig together, you’ve probably noticed that the above video cards have become nearly impossible to find. I’ve received a few messages from folks that are having some good results using the R9 290 cards, although they’re a fair bit more expensive than the 280X. If you’re itching to build a rig ASAP and can’t find a 7950 or 280X, then you might consider the 290. It looks like all of the current 290 cards are using AMD’s reference cooling design at the moment, so brand probably doesn’t matter too much. Although given a choice, you usually can’t go wrong with Sapphire, Gigabyte, and MSI. Again, remember to pick up a fairly powerful PSU if you’re going to run 3 of these in a rig.
You will also need a USB stick (8GB or larger, this one is fine) if you’re using Linux as your OS, or a harddrive (a cheap SATA drive of any size will do) if you’re using Windows. I will cover setup on both Linux and Windows in the next sections of this guide, as well as the pros and cons of each.
The video cards may be difficult to find, as they’re popular and often sell out. You can substitute nearly any 7950-based GPU, but if you have a choice, go for the MSI or Sapphire cards. They’re not voltage-locked and will save you some electricity in the long run. I have the MSI card that I recommended in all of my rigs, but I’m told that this (and also this) Sapphire card is also a good choice.
The motherboard, CPU, and RAM are all relatively unimportant. The motherboard simply needs to have enough PCI-E slots to host your three GPUs (if the recommended board isn’t available, here is another, or if you can’t find either ASRock, this Gigabyte board is a good alternative). The CPU will essentially sit idle, as all of the actual mining is done by the GPUs. The Sempron 145 is an excellent choice here because it’s cheap and draws very little power (if the Sempron is unavailable, this one is also a fine choice). If you’re going with Linux, you can get away with even less than 4GB of RAM, but I’d stick to that as a realistic minimum on Windows.
The power supply is important, and you don’t want to skimp on it. The Seasonic that I’ve recommended is extremely solid and 93% efficient, which will help keep power consumption to a minimum. It’s also modular, which is really nice if you’re putting this together in a plastic crate like I recommend.
The PCI-E risers aren’t strictly necessary, as all 3 GPUs will fit on the motherboard without them. However, airflow will be extremely limited due to the close proximity of the cards, and I really don’t recommend setting them up that way long-term. The riser cables allow you to position the GPUs off of the motherboard in a more spaced-out fashion. I dropped the temperature of my GPUs by nearly 10 degrees Celcius by simply using risers to separate them. Availability and pricing on Amazon is constantly changing, so check eBay if you can’t find them.
Important: you may also need to create dummy plugs for each of your GPUs. Some operating systems will idle video cards that do not have an active monitor connection, which will obviously kill your mining performance. Dummy plugs “trick” your OS into thinking a monitor is connected, thus preventing attached GPUs from being idled. You just need a few resistors ($1-2 at Radio Shack if they’re not available at Amazon) and these instructions to create your own plugs.
So you’ve got nearly $1400 worth of hardware, but no place to put it, as I haven’t mentioned a case. I highly recommend against trying to cram 3 GPUs into a conventional PC case. A plastic crate or two works far better due to the tremendous heat that the video cards will give off. Added bonus: they’re cheap!
Here is what you’ll need to create a simple DIY plastic crate housing for your miner:
Plastic Crate (get 2 if you want a place for your PSU) |
$5 each |
| Plastic stand-offs | $4 |
| 6 x #4 3/8″ wood or metal screws | $1 |
| Brace to rest GPUs on (I used two of these) | $4 |
| a few cable ties (8″ or so) | $2 |
| power switch & LED (optional) | $6 |
You can get plastic crates in most home improvement stores if you don’t want to ship it from Amazon. I picked mine up at Lowe’s for under $5 each. You should be able to get everything else on the list at Lowe’s if you happen to have one near you, too. As far as tools go, you’ll need a drill and a knife capable of cutting into whatever plastic crate you buy.
Assembly Steps:
First, attach your CPU & heatsink/fan to your motherboard, and place your RAM into the memory slot(s). Then follow the general steps below to mount everything into your plastic crate.
Click the images for a close-up look at each step.
Place plastic standoffs on the bottom of your plastic crate, and rest your motherboard on top of them. Make sure that all of the essential ports are accessible (SATA, USB, keyboard, mouse, etc). Use your knife to cut away pieces of the crate if necessary so that all ports you plan to use are exposed. Then plug your riser cables into the PCI-E slots of your motherboard.
Place your brace (either the plastic guards that I recommended, or a cut yardstick, or whatever you have that works) so that it is sitting above the motherboard, high enough for your GPUs to rest on. Cut the brace so that an inch or two sticks out on either end of the crate.
Drill holes in your brace so that you can secure it with cable ties (see image). Do not simply rest the brace on the crate! An accidental bump can cause it to fall into the crate, along with ~$1000 worth of GPUs if you do that!
Connect each GPU to it’s corresponding riser cable, resting the bracket end on the lip of the crate and the other end on your brace.
Screw each GPU down into the lip of the crate. If you drill small pilot holes ahead of time (mark where to drill with a sharpie), this is much easier.
If you have a power switch and LED, mount them into one of the crate’s corners. I was pretty sloppy with mine, but it’s functional.
You’re done! Simply connect everything to your power supply and you should be ready to power your rig on for the first time. If you have a second crate, you can put your power supply in there (along with your harddrive if you’re using Windows), and stack it under your main crate to save some space.
In the next part of this guide, I’ll show you everything you need to do to start mining under Linux (and Windows will follow shortly after)!
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Is it possible to run 3×7950 with an xfx850watt psu? Thanks my friend!
If you mean this one, it should be no problem at all if you’re undervolting. If you plan to run at stock voltages (and you really shouldn’t), then you’ll likely be right up at the PSU’s limit.
Just a note that the XFX PSU is bronze rated (~85% efficient), which is lower than the gold & platinum rated Seasonic & Corsair units that I typically recommend (90-93% efficient). You’ll save some money up front, but over the long run the extra money you spend on electricity will likely end up costing you more overall.
Thanks for your quick response!
I will buy you that beer when up and running!!!
Impossible, because the 850w PSU has an efficiency about 80% so 850*0,80= 680 max. watt and each hd 7950 at full load consume about 250w each one.
You’ll need a minimum 1050 watt PSU.
Kind regards from Spain.
I’m afraid you don’t understand the efficiency rating system. An 80% efficiency rating means that the unit will deliver 850 watts, but will draw about 1060 watts from the wall.
A 100% efficency rated PS would draw only 850W because it is 100% efficient ( zero line, heat, etc… Loss)
And that’s 1060 x 80% = 848
Sorry for not landing it directly on 850, but you get the idea.
Hello,
I have just ordered the components for my first rig and I am really exited to start using it. However I cannot find a good supplier for these extender cables. I read over the forums that these are hard to find and most of those especially the Chinese products are extremely unreliable as they may burn pretty fast if not immediately when you boot the rig. Can you guys recommended a good website where I can order some of those. I know a person who will make these for my but I need to order a few good cables to start producing those.
Great website man. I will send you some coins for beers immediately when I have my first ltc in my wallet :).
I’ve purchased the bulk of my risers off of eBay from various Chinese and Hong Kong sellers. So far, out of probably ~100 risers, I’ve only had 3-4 that were defective. I tend to order 20-30 at a time, and just go for whoever is selling them for the lowest price. So you probably won’t have any issues, but it may be safe to order an extra or two, just given the sometimes long delivery times.
A lot of people just order them straight off of Amazon, too. The prices from sellers there are much more reasonable than they used to be, and it looks like some of them are even eligible for free Prime 2-day shipping.
Will there be any difference in the hashrate productivity if I get x1 instead of x16 extender?
Also I am planing to make the rigs with 3 cards on each. Is is better to get all the extenders with mulex connector or I can use three cards on one of the MBs you used for the article without extra power on those all powered up from the MB.
I you have a supplier you use and the cables were good please provide me with URL to contact and buy from them. It is always better to use recommended source for the goods right :).
On the risers, 1x->16x vs 16x->16x makes no difference in a dedicated miner – hashing performance won’t be impacted at all when using a 1x->16x cable. If you plan to use the machine for other applications (gaming, etc), then you may want to go with 16x->16x risers.
For three 7950 GPUs, you should be fine with 3 unpowered risers.
I don’t have a particular supplier – I tend to just pick the cheapest seller with overwhelmingly positive feedback whenever I need to place an order. Since you’re just ordering a few, I’d probably recommend Amazon – you’ll likely receive them far faster vs eBay.
What do you thing about this components?
https://www.fortknox.de/shop/details.php?art=120548
https://www.fortknox.de/shop/details.php?art=85287
https://www.fortknox.de/shop/details.php?art=132508
I’m not familiar with the Club3D brand (we don’t have them in the US), but on paper all of those components should work fine. With the motherboard, I’d recommend trying to pick up a board with an AM3 socket if possible – that way you can use a Sempron CPU and save yourself a bit on electricity costs.
Thank you for your great article.
The graphic card that you have suggested is sold out on new egg. It’s around $400 on amazon. is there any alternative?
Thank you what hash rate will I be getting for 3 X GPU that you recommended ?
Hey Amir,
did you get answer?
Hey Amir,
did you get an answer?
I did, it should be around 650 Khs/s per GPU
Hi Badger,
First of great review, I didn’t end up getting xubuntu to work yet. But I do have an Ubuntu miner going thanks in tantamount to your guide.
One quick note, I made 3 dummy plugs and ended up not needing them, but I am most kicking myself because I found dummy plugs for 30% less than what I was able to make them for. If anyone is interested it was a relatively easy ebay search for “vga dvi dummy plugs”, only $10 part.
Edit: First off
P.S. I forgot to mention my gfx card did not come with DVI/VGA adapters.(XFX Double D FX-795A-TDKC Radeon HD 7950)
Hey!
Im selling my 2*7950 sapphire rig ( avg: 1,214 ) if anyone is interested
Location SWEDEN and not shippable , build in a milkcrate style
Price : Give me an offer
Hey,
We might be interested in your rig if its still available. We are also located in Sweden.
Contact us through our email.
Best regards
Carl
Hej, Är intresserad av din rig.
Skicka mail med prisförslag till gustafsson420@gmail.com
I’m interested if you still have it and I live in the US
I will start selling those extender cables and the 7950 Sapphire cards for litecoins anyone interested ? CryptoBadger I do not know if this is allowed to post such offers here but still I thought it is a good idea to have someone selling this stuff with litecoins to help the community grow.
I found a good supplier in Germany. Only high grade stuff so the cable will not burn out. It is a bit more expensive than the Chinese but delivery from what I will ship those takes like a week max not 10 – 20 days to get it from China.
Hi i’m planning to build a rig but i want an alternative for the graphic card.
is the MSI R7970 also suitable?
It will work but you will get higher electric bill compated to the 7950 and not way higher productivity.
Hi,
unfortunately I can’t find any of those mother boards
I was able to find
SAPPHIRE PURE Black X79N
and
Intel® Desktop Board DX79TO
Do you recommend any of them?
Thank you for the guide!
I was not able to find those graphic cards . any alternative ?
As the difficulty levels are being increased. Do you have any suggestion for a better Graphic Card and motherboard with better performance ??
Hi,
What do you think about the AMD Sapphire 6950 2GB. I read that they can produce about 500 kh/s (after unlocking shaders) and I am able to get these cards at $150 each instead of the $350 to $450 that a 7950 would cost me just to get 600 kh/s per each of these cards.
$150 ?? nice. can you get me 3 as well ?
Best option for mining is HD 7950 or HD 7990. These are the best hashrate/watt. possible
I’m doubting if buy 2x HD 7950 or 1x HD 7990.
Which do you think is the best option hashrate/price?
http://www.pccomponentes.com/gigabyte_radeon_hd_7950_3gb_gddr5_windforce.html
http://www.pccomponentes.com/sapphire_radeon_hd_7990_6gb_gddr5.html
I’m running two rigs with 7990. So far, the biggest problem I have with them is that they can’t be cooled with the stock fans when you push them to generate useful hash rates. They can easily be overclocked to crazy levels–I’ve had them over 1000+ core clock and 1700+ mem clock with intensity 20 without crashing, generating hash rates around 750-800 per GPU. The problem is, at those levels, the 3 fans will be pegged at 100% but it will run very hot, and I can’t get the temperatures to stay around 80F. This is with ambient room temperature of about 65F in an open air rig with no obstructions. I’ve tried all sorts of tuning to get better hash rates without overheating them, but haven’t found a way yet. At 100% fan, it’s way too noisy, too.
For me, keeping the fans around 70% and temperatures around 80C means that they need to be clocked down to where they can only generate about 1200-1300Kh (~600-650Kh/GPU). Not much different than two separate 7950’s or 7970’s. But the good news is that the cost of a Gigabyte 7990 today is about the same as two 7950’s. But I think two 7950’s or 7970’s are a better way to go, because with all things being equal, you get 2 fans per GPU, rather than 1.5 fans.
There’s got to be a way to get better performance out of these cards without water cooling them. I have an old 5870 that puts out 420Kh and barely breaks a sweat, with fan running at less than 50%.
Don’t know where you’re shopping, but I just got 3 XFX 7950’s for $270 each on amazon (and one had a $20 rebate) According to the hardware wiki, they get about 720KH/s.
My 860w PSU doesn’t turn on when I have my graphics card plugged into it, I am thinking it is defective. (But it works when theres no graphics card plugged in)
Would this PSU be just as good? corsair ax860 platinum, the Price is only $180 on directCanada
http://www.corsair.com/us/power-supply-units/ax-series-power-supply-units/ax860-atx-power-supply-860-watt-80-plus-platinum-certified-fully-modular-psu.html
If each HD 7950 need 2x 6pin conector with this PSU, the only way to work is buy three cables like these:
http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/images/product_images/large/W87261_0.jpg
Hey man. I see you’re running 3 7950’s off of the Seasonic Platinum 860W PSU, but the PSU only offers 4x 6+2 cables. What adapters etc are you using to run 3 7950’s off of it?
//Teri
Hey guys,
does anybody know how long with the above rig it’ll take me to mine 50 Litecoins?
lenny this machine at 1.8Mh/s should earn roughly 1 LTC per day when pool mining. this will change over time as difficulty increases and more miners join pools.
Hi all, please write me can I use one HD7970 and two HD7950 on single rig?
Thank You
Yes. You can combine as many different cards as you like in any combination of quantity, just as long as you don’t exceed the power provided by the PSU. You will have to use a conf file for cgminer, since you can’t spec different settings for each GPU via command line arguments (although you can run separate instances for each GPU using the -d option, but more efficient to let one instance manage all of them).
Thank You for answer can you write where I can find how config cgminer for 7950 and 7970?
Thnx for the good instructions! I was looking to buy Club 3D Radeon HD 7850 RoyalKing OC CoolStream. Looking good on hashrate and not very expensive. Could this work or am i overlooking something?
Cant’t find Radeon 7950… Could you list the parts for the upcoming version with Radeon R9? Better get hold of them sooner.
KEEP YOUR POWER SUPPLY AWAY FROM YOUR PCI RISERS.
I just spent 2 days chasing a BSOD/low-output problem. I built my rig from a “re-purposed” Q6600 system (nvidia SLI780 mobo, as well) and decided just to riser up the cards out of the horizontally-lane case and add a bigger PS.
One problem, the PCI riser was right next to the power supply. If I plugged it in directy, it would work (but get zero cooling), so I finally removed the PS from the case (cords are plenty long enough) and voila! Everything works!
Getting an average of 2.00MH/s without OC’ing, undervolting, etc…
Just wondering is it possible to use 2x 650W Gold power supplies (Corsair TX 650) where one is connected to the motherboard and 1 GPU (7950) and the other is purely connected to the 2 other (7950’s) while using the paperclip trick?
Can this be done? I assume it can but will that then use far more power than say just biting the bullet and buying a single 850W or 1000W etc? Its just I already have the 2x 650’s…
Thanks for any help and great page Cryptobadger.
It seems litecoin is still the way to go for making money, ASIC’s seem to have completely destroyed mining even in group buy jupiter, neptune, cointerra rigs etc
Btw, sorry i Meant Corsair HX650’s not TX650
Why not just get a pair of Antec HCP-850 Platinums and OC Link them? Then both PSU’s will be chained and synced to the system, giving you 1700W.
But it’s a lot cheaper to just buy a 1300W PSU.
Mr. Cryptobadger,
Thank you so much for all of the guides, they truly are great. I am learning a lot and I have a few questions. I want to contribute to this revolution, and mine coins.
Since your post in April, would the hardware you suggested for mining Litecoins, be outdated if I made a purchase today? In other words, what would you recommend as a bad**** miner to get me started?
Thank you so much.
Iron
Is that one going to give better hasrate per second results? Do you have any idea what will be the hasrate per second as it is a bit more expensive than the Sapphire 7950.
Hey cryptobadger great guide so far!
will this support 2 of one kind of video card and 1 of another
and if so will your recommended psu be able to handle 2 of your recommended 7950s and one msi 280x?
Thanks!
your old recommended 850 psu that is.
and what about on your new recommended psu can i upgrade and run 2 7950s and 2 280x?