Building my first 5.3MH/s litecoin mining rig

Component	Desc	Cost
GPU	5x Sapphire R9 290	$2495
GPU	1x MSI R9 280x	$399
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer LGA 1150	$125
CPU	Pentium G3220	$59
RAM	G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB	$85
PS	2x Thermaltake Tough Power TP-750P	$160
PS	1x CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750	$109
Case	HDX 24 in. W x 14 in. L x 30 in Rack	$20
Case	8ft aluminum angle piece	$10
Risers	3x PCIE 16x to 16x	$39
Risers	6x PCIE 1x to 1x	$47
	TOTAL	$3548
	Potential KH/s	5300KH/s
	$/KH	$0.669

I did my homework on this and didn't take the decision regarding which motherboard to get lightly. Most of the guides I found suggested staying away from anything over 4 gpu's on a single motherboard but I really wanted to get 6 running on a single motherboard for a number of reasons. It would be cheaper than having two systems, less overall power than two systems and less to manage. Most guides for 5-6 gpu systems suggested only a few motherboards would work but they were really last gen boards and I really wanted to use a Haswell chipset. The ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killerlooked like a perfect match and with a total of 7x PCIE slots left room to expand :) As far as I could find no one else has been using it to mine scrypt currency so I'm taking a risk this motherboard might not work however I think the potential reward of discovering a perfect motherboard is worth the risk.

I decided to go with the R9 290's because I was able to get 5 of the battlefield 4 edition cards  for $499/each from newegg (They had a 48-hour purchase limit of 5 cards or I would have gotten 6). I planned to use my existing R9 280x in the setup as well.

First: I waited before newegg actually shipped the GPU's to make sure they were mine before I bought everything else. Then I put my order in for everything else and got a pretty good deal from newegg(cyber week specials).

Second: Once I got everything I started my build

 

STEP 1: Make a stencil and drill the holes for the standoffs

STEP 2: Screw in the standoffs

STEP 4: Mount the motherboard

STEP 5:Admire it

STEP 6: Install CPU and heat-sync with lots of thermal paste

STEP 6: Add RAM, HDD and PS and use a paperclip to turn it on

STEP 7: Install windows and make sure there are no issues with the motherboard

STEP 8: Add motherboard to the rack and measure for the GPU support bars

STEP 9: Mount GPU support bars and measure to drill holes to mount the cards

STEP 9.5: Grind off an end of the PCIE 1x extenders to fit on the cards

STEP 10: Check the cards are spaced evenly and screw them in

STEP 10.5: Try to avoid looking at the pile of packaging trash building up

STEP 11: Mount everything, run power to the cards (2 cards/ power supply) and start it up