I've been mining ethereum and zcash for a few months now, mostly as a hobby for now, but I've also made quite a profit! As I was relatively new to this, I decided to make my first miners in real cabinets, looking like normal gaming computers. This turned out to have a lot of perks! Especially if you're a hobby miner like me.
First of all, I want to show off my two mining PCs. Almost all of the parts were used parts I either had left from previous PC builds, or bought used from nearby sellers.
The left PC has two AMD 7990 mining ZCash (cause of DAG-size problems with Ether) and the right one is watercooled, (the fan is on the inside now) and uses 2x AMD 290x for Ether mining. I can probably also fit four GPUs in the latter one if I'm creative.
OK, so here's a few reasons why:
The parts are easier and faster to acquire
This applies especially for cabinets. Trying to acquire a mining-rig type "cabinet" can not only be expensive, but also time-consuming. These arecusually sold at specialized stores online, and the shipping may take weeks, depending on where you live. To top that off, they're often sold out.
Even if you make the cabinet yourself, you'll probably have to wait a bit for the huge industrial fan from Amazon.
Meanwhile, a lot of people in your local area usually sell used cabinets for a fraction of the price, and you can usually pick these up the very same day.
It's safer
Ofcourse if you're handy or even cheaper, you may use a plastic box as a cabinet, or make it yourself, if you're of the handy type with a garage available. Most computer cabinets have been engineered especially for cooling optimally, and there's a huge chance your homemade one hasn't.
As most of the graphics cards in a mining rig setup are either dangling loosely, or slightly held in place with screws, yet not by the PCI-tray, moving your miner(s) will mean you'll either have to dismount all your graphics cards, or take a high risk that they will break during the ride. Most cabinets hold graphics cards safely in place, as long as you keep the motherboard facing downwards.
The cost is almost the same, and the potential loss is lower
Mining rig type cabinets aren't usually cheap, even though they usually consist of a few metal poles and maybe screwholes. I've seen everything from $120 to $500. This is because of the high demand and low supply. A used PC cabinet for on the other hand, can range from $20 to $50 depending on size. Even though they can only fit 2-4 cards, the price will approximately be less or pretty much the same.
Ofcourse this means you'll have to invest a little more in motherboards, CPUs, RAM and everything needed for a functioning computer, but these will also increase the value of your assets. If you also buy them used, your asset value won't decrease a lot, as the general power of computers don't increase as much now as it used to.
There's also a high probability that the day comes when mining isn't as valuable anymore, or the market crash long spoken off will at last happen. The market will be flooded with old graphics cards, and mining rigs will be practically worthless.
Cabinets on the other hand, will mostly hold the same value. Maybe even go up, as everyone might harvest cabinets, motherboards and parts to make Gaming PCs out of their old rig GPUs. Then you have the upper hand, and may sell your PC days, maybe weeks before the others have screwed their PCs together.
You may sell or rent out your gear
As I mentioned above, you may be able to sell your PCs way before the market floods over with cheap gaming computers made from old mining GPUs. The graphics card producers themselves are quite sure this will happen, according to an interview on YouTube.
Also, depending on where you live, you may rent out your computer as a Gaming PC for more than twice what you make from it mining. PeerRenters is an example of an app allowing this, and they usually offer you insurance as well. Add an old widescreen and your old gaming mouse and keyboard, turn on the SLI/Crossfire and you got a gaming beast ready for rental.
So these are some perks I think comes along with building a real computer while you're at it. I know power cost may be a little higher, but I don't think it's notably more (remember that a rig requires a large fan). What do you guys think?