So you've gone thorugh the whole site, and you're really excited to get mining, but your Mac or regular PC kinda suck, and at 3kHs you're not getting anywhere. You're ready to build your rig, but where do you start? Below are a couple of things to keep in mind before mining, and some sample rigs. 

 

Before you begin mining, one of the best tools you will need to check out is the Coinwarz Dogecoin Mining Calculator. You will need this to figure out what your best possible rig is and how much Doge & income you could generate with mining. Very handy tool.

 

This is what that tool looks like, you can input your hashrate, power costs, watts, pool fees, and hardware costs. The rest is set by default by the system, but you can change it as well if you wish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So let's say your hashrate is 1000 (which is its abbreviation is kH/s and you can find recommended GPU's and their hashrate in our GPU Guide), you're at 500 watts, your power cost is at .10 per kWh, and your gear cost $1000. I'm talking in US Dollars since this is where I'm at. You can figure out for your currency. you click Calculate and get a Summary that will let you know how many days to generate one block solo mining (which we are not doing at this point), days to generate one BTC (Bitcoin), and days to break even from buying your rig. All very handy info. Looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then you get a more in depth summary that lets you know how much doge/profit you will make per day, week, month, and year, based on the info you entered. So it's very handy to find out if minging is something you really want to do. Here is what that looks like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With this particular rig, you will be making $10.45/day, $73.14/week, $313.48/month, and $3,813.96/ year. The more the hashrate, the better those numbers will get. But also the more you will spend on your rig. 

 

Keep in mind that with this rig, you can mine any Scrypt coin, and you can check out which one is worth mining here at Dustcoin.com and looks something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The coins in green are what you'll want to mine, right now Dogecoin is #1 on here with 134% ratio. And since this site is about Doge, we're gonna mine some Doge!

 

So how much will a rig cost me? You can basically put a rig together starting at around $540 and up. Of course, the more GPUs you have and the better they are, the more hashrate you will generate and the more DOGE you will make. 

 

Before we get into sample rigs, let's talk about the components that make up the rig.

 

GPU: The GPU's are going to be your graphics cards and what are going to give you the hashrate you need. They are the power to GPU mining.

The faster and better your cards are, the more Doge you will get.  

 

CPU: the CPU is mainly used to run the operating system. The processing speed of the CPU makes no difference for mining. 

 

MOBO: the motherboard is where all these components will hook up to, hence the name. 

 

PSU: the PSU is the power supply, what is going to power your entire rig. It is very important to get a good high rated PSU so you waste less energy. Less energy means more Doge for you. So you may spend an extra $40 getting the better PSU, but in the long run, it will be better.

Make sure you pick the correct PSU for the amount of cards you have, and don't forget to include extra power for your other components as well. Check out our GPU Guide to find how much power each GPU card gets. 

 

We recommend getting a GOLD Plus and above PSU. Good brands are Corsair and Seasonic. These guys explain it a little better here.

 

HD: the hard drive is where you will keep your operating system and can be a solid state drive, regular, or even a good fast USB. The main purpose of the HD is to store your operating system. Like with anything else, the faster the better your rig will run, but it's not necessary to go all out with the HD.

 

RAM: the RAM is the memory, RAM has no big impact on mining, it is predominantly used to run the operating system, so a good 4-8GB will do for your rig.

 

CASE: the case is where you will assemble your rig in, it's what will hold everything in place nicely. The cheapest way is to get a milk crate from your local grocery store, or buy one on eBay or Amazon for $7. There are also pretty pricey professional ones, but they will both do the same job and if you're starting out, spending $300 on case is pointless. 

 

Smallest size crate recommended is 13in. x 16in. x10in. (height). They need a lot of ventilation, and a closed case would overheat your GPUs. 

 

RISERS: risers are used to connect multiple video cards to a motherboard by "lifting them" off and away from the motherboard. This also allows for more efficient cooling, thereby increasing the life of the cards, as well as possibly running at higher speeds. If you are on a tight budget and runing 1-2 cards, you don't really need these, just keep an extra fan on your crate at all times. 

 

DUMMY PLUGS: are used to trick the computer to think there are additional monitors being detected on a MultiGPU folding solution. The GPU clients will not let you fold unless it detects a monitor. and if you dont have multiple monitors, you will need dummy plugs to make it think it does.

 

OS: You can buy an operating system like Windows 7 or OS X or download Linux (advanced users) for free. 

 

KEYBOARD/MOUSE: this is a basic mouse and keyboard, if you don't already have these handy, you can pick them up free from Craigslist usually, or buy them cheap on eBay or at a thrift store.  

 

MONITOR: you'll need a monitor for your rig too. You can buy a cheap one on ebay or at a thrift store for your rig to be able to install OS and check your stats and make changes and updates to your cards. You don't need anything fancy, so if you're spending over $100 for a monitor that's probably way too much. Unless you've got the cash to spare. 

 

EXTERNAL FAN: external fan/s are not always needed, but if you're going to be running your cards hot, they are highly recommended. I have a big boxy one that I got for $20 at a local store, but you can find these used anywhere or even free on local listings. You place them outside your crate and they cool your rig better.

 

Sky is the limit with building your rig. It all comes down to, how much money you wanna spend, and how much hashrate you want to be at. 

 

Here are some example rigs below: