But isn’t that just the same thing? A GPU hashing is work that takes up it’s computing capacity. A plot on a disk is capacity you can’t use to store something else. I don’t think anyone has anywhere near enough disk space laying around to make reasonable contributions to the net space(too much hassle).
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I think @codinghorror wins this one actually. I don’t see why you would need a more high-end motherboard for Chia plotting. I’ve found 100$ boards that support DDR4, AM4 chipset, and 2 PCIE4 m.2 slots.
Also a good mother board doesn’t cost any where near more power, it’s more of an up-front investment.
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You’re using processing power and HDD space interchangeably when talking about “capacity” but they aren’t the same. GPU can switch almost instantly from one task to another, but when it’s one one task it can’t do another. Sure, you could try limiting your hashrate to allow you to do other things, but most GPU tasks take the full GPU. You can’t play games and mine on the same GPU.
The topic here is electricity. You can’t use overprovisioned electricity or processing power on GPU while simultaneously using it for something else. Even if you do, you are using additional electricity equal to the hashing power. With an HDD, I am using 5-10w when farming or not farming.
My point with requiring a rig to plot is the additional costs to plot versus GPUs. And you can only run 1 “plotter” per rig at 65-250W TDP , but 6-19 GPUs per rig at 100-300W each.
Interested in hearing which specific board and CPU combo you’re going for. Yes, you can plot on a lot less than what people are, but like you said, it’s a race 
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I’ll settle it at that then.
That should serve a 5950x wouldn’t it?
@Zahk You could use it, but no OC and it’d be running quite hot Affordable B550 VRM Thermal Performance, In Search of the Best Value Board - YouTube Maybe the bazooka at $120?
Eh. You’re probably right. I just slap my 3700x with a Corsair A500. I am definitely not planning to go big in Chia anymore. Are Ryzen CPUs stable enough to OC? When I mined ETH with OC, my card would just get an internal error randomly and I don’t think CPU having a bit flip during plotting for 10% extra frequency is worth the risk.
I don’t think I can let the “limited supply” argument go by without offering a counter view. There is nothing limited about cryptocurrencies, it is the most unlimited concept for “store of value” ever. Sure within a given coin there is a concept of limited supply but absolutely nothing limits spinning up (or forking) a new coin. Never in the history of man (or woman) has it been easier to just create a new “store of value” and get buy in from a significant segment of the population. There are over 4000 crypto coins currently. 108 of these have market caps over $1B. The top ten combined market cap is $1.8T. Ya wanna make a quick million, spin up your own coin and get Elon to tweet it out once. This is in no way “limited supply”.
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@Zahk You mined ETH on a CPU? I consider my plotting right now mostly testing before pools go live. I haven’t OC’d yet, but the CPU already boosts up to 4.5-4.6ghz. Not sure if an extra 100-200mhz would have much of an improvement. But I think $300-400 on a mobo is worth it versus $100. Imagine asking someone in early BTC days when GPUs were mining BTC, “Do you wish you spend a few extra bucks to get that much more hashing power or stability on your mining setup 10 years ago?” Just my personal opinion/valuation of Chia.
I did discover that I get ~7% uplift going from 2666mhz to 3200mz on RAM rated at 3200 (but Ryzen/x570 defaults to 2666 if you don’t mod it.) That’s been worth it. But I agree, stability is king, at least until we can restart plots mid-way.
@casualChia Just like blogging or a YT channel. Infinite space to create content and the world as your audience. Go for it and make your millions I would guess the chart for cryptos would look similar to blogs, YouTube channels, Ebay or Etsy shop revenues, full-time sports player salaries, # of roles an actor gets in a major motion picture per year, Twitch streamer numbers, etc.
80% get almost no views/action/money/roles/views/etc. Then of the 20, there is another segmentation that’s 80/20 (16%/4%) then another 80/20 (3.2%/0.8%) etc.
Each time there is a MASSIVE jump until you get to the VERY top where they get insane views, revenue, roles, etc. Shroud on Twitch, The Rock in movies, popular blogs, Pewdiepie on YT, etc.
Yes, crypto is big and you can start your own currency. But today you can start your own TV show, movie studio, newspaper (we call them blogs), radio station, and or you can even copy the platforms that let you do that: Twitter, IG, YT, Periscope etc.
There is a lot of opportunity, but it’s not infinite and the vast majority of coins without any innovation don’t go anywhere, just like the majority of blogs, YT channels, and actors. And network effects will impact crypto similar to social media platforms. The more people that have and use a currency the stronger its position becomes. Chia has potential to do this. A few other coins that solve a specific problem and tie in a coin to do it have potential as well, like Helium.
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I mine on a 2060 super.