Bitcoin Forum

Here's my thoughts. Everybody thinks it's going to take months and months and months for butterfly labs to actually ship the asic based machines. I have until friday to contact all of the companies I bought my computer parts for to return. I am still within the timeframe.

Now, tell me if I'm making the right move. Return all my computer parts and invest them into jalapeno machines from butterfly labs. This is my first crossfire configuration. I like video games but I'm not as hardcore as I use to be. As a matter of fact, I get bored quick. I'm thinkin about returning everything and investing the 1.7k I spent on this computer into butterfly lab's asic machines.

Now. Here's the main question.  Can you think of any reason why I should not?

You will change your mind tomorrow.

I think it mostly depends on if you think that ButterflyLabs is going to ship on time and where you think you are or will be on the pre-order list.  From what i understand they are going to start shipping to the pre-orders next month, but no guarantee on when you will get yours if you are just now ordering.

Last Official BFL News I heard was shipping was estimated to start LATE October

Also they are not just shipping the items in the order they were pre-ordered.
I forgot the exact %'s but like 33% are shipping to Pre-orders, 33% are shipping to random orders, and 33% are shipping to Upgrades.

You also have to understand there are something like 15K pre-orders for the BFL-Product

<HR>
If I was you, I'm guessing your running a 2,3 or 4 card system.
I would only keep 1 video card, but make sure its a 7970 or 7970x2 aka 7990.
That Way your hedging your risk, you can get some coins before the block reward change.
If BTC mining becomes unprofitable you can switch to LTC
If BFL or competitors ship a ASIC product within the next 1-6 months, and you can get it within 1-6 months.
Then you can still purchase a with the cash you saved on the cards your returned.
<HR>

<Disclaimer>
I'm not ANTI-BFL, I just don't drink the cool-aid
I would never purchase a product that has not been publicly Demonstrated and performance specs 3rd party tested
If my understand ASIC chip production, you don't really prototype the chip, you do it all virtually and then make a huge BATCH and hope for the best.
Unless you use a Multi-Project Wafers (MPW) to prototype your Chip, not all Fabs offer this.
If BFL had a working Prototype with a MPW ASIC chip, they would display the shit out of it.
Plus you also have to take into account that there currently shipping product is just another company's re-branded FPGA, and they originally said it was a custom built chip until someone proved them wrong.
I'm currently a GPU Miner, that will purchase a ASIC products on the open Market once they start to ship and there performance is verified.
Until a 3rd Party Tests one, I still consider it VaporWare.
</Disclaimer>

I am with RandomQ, i dont hate on BFL.. but if something sounds too good to be true.. it usually is.

I don't hate BFL, I'm just betting against them  ;D

If you bought your computer just to mine BTC with GPUs then I would say to return it. It will never pay for itself. Ever.

I am not going to do the math but elect costs really matter in the decision.

I will also not spend money on asic until i see proof. The bfl delivery lottery is very humurous.

+1

Also switching to mining with 1 card is a terrible idea.  Your hash/watt ratio will only get worse.

Well its depends on how Fast BFL Ships and When they Start to Ship.

Right now Latest Dates say from BFL says END of October Mostly likely November.

Giving BFL's Past Shipping Record IMHO its going to take 6+ months to ship the Preorders.

AND I'm not mistaken there is currently still a 2 month Backlog of shipment of its current Products.

Plus you have to remember that a large majority of of owners are Upgrading, and that involves shipping to BFL.
And they are going to have to use a huge amount of man power to process incoming upgrades.

If BFL was going to play its cards right it would show pictures of a warehouse full on prebuilt cases waiting for waiting for the ASIC Chip to be installed. Nada not even a working sample

With 15K pre-orders the OP if he orders directly from BFL, won't see a jalapeno for a long time, unless he wins the shipment lottery.(33% shipping to random people in the list)

Besides GPU Rigs aren't going to be suddenly worthless, when BFL ships. If someone tells you that they are drinking the cool-aid.
I can still sell Video cards for 75% of there Value after 6+ months. You gotta remember these are still Computer parts and they can hold value pretty well, you'd be surprised.

And there is always Litecoin when the magic time when its no longer profitable to mine BTC because of ASIC.

<HR>
I do have a question for the OP, is this your Main Computer or is this just a mining Rig?
And what is your Power costs?


<Disclaimer>
I do have Bets against BFL shipping Anything ASIC in OCT
And I'm willing to purchase Mining Rigs at 10% of current value  ;D
</Disclaimer>

Well if its his main system that part doesn't matter, if its a mining rig thats a different story.

Sorry I forget about Mining Rig Watt overhead,because my (Super Secrets stuff) setups are very low footprint ~35-31 Watts per Rig  ;D(MB/Ram/OS) not including card.

But if the system its a 8 core 10 drives etc pulling 200 watts for a baseline then thats a different story.

But if the OP has $.06 KwH power its not going to effect him as much as $.26 KwH Or Free Power.

He does not need a $1,700 computer to use to mine with ASIC. A $50 one would work just as well.

Wow, a ton of reply's. I'm at work. I'm going to read this when I get off at 5.  I'll post all the information you need. You guys are kinda buzz kills :-P. I appreciate that honesty though. Thank you.

It's a 4x 7970 configuration. The cards alone cost 1.45k. Got them on sale for 370 from tigerdirect. I get my electricity for free so it's all profit. I used my previous cpu, cpu fan, ram. However, I have doa am3 motherboard. Here's what I'm thinking

Return everything besides the case. I already have a 600 watt power supply, ram, cpu, motherboard, fans, gonna keep the case. That way I can return everything and have a 1 video card setup that's also good for gaming. However, maybe I should return all the video cards because I have a 6970 video card. That makes more sense to me.

Doesn't mine as much but when bf labs releases the asic chips the threat level is gonna go up insanely if the predictions are right. Making my 7970 worthless. The 6970 is pretty good for gaming at the moment.  Not the greatest bitcoin miner but video cards are going to be phased out. And let's say something does go bad. Let's say they switch hashing protocols. I can just buy another machine.

Sound about right? Keep the case, I already have all these parts laying around to assemble a new computer with 1 video card, invest in a few jalapenos and if it takes months I'll just cancel my orders with butterfly and call bitcoin mining quits because I won't make any more money thanks to the threat level going up all the time.

It may seem slimey what I'm doing but let me explain. EVERY piece of equipment that I bought has some fundamental flaw. I spent around 40 hours trying to make them all work together using hotfixes I thought of. The video cards, don't even get me started, the case power button works 25% of the time, the motherboard's audio out is broken so I had to buy a usb audio device. And those were the only parts I had to buy because I already had parts laying around that I just slapped in. So please, don't get it twisted.

Thoughts?

Free electricity makes everything OK. But is it truly free electricity or is someone else paying it? Those cards might cost around $150-$200 per month in electricity costs to someone. It won't take too long for someone to notice. That will also be loud and put off a ton of heat. I say to go with FPGAs and sell the 7970s if you are not a gamer.

You can always buy new computer.  Faster and better.  If you have doubts, return computer and decide later.

I wouldn't touch a FPGA right now with a ten foot pole, you gotta spend $800-1000 just to get 800mhz.

You can buy single 6990 with almost the same hashing power at half the price of a FPGA right now.(FREE POWER)

<HR>

In the OP situation depending on how much FREE POWER he can get away with spending. Get rid of your crappy 7xxx series cards, it sounds like you have a Bad MB or BAD PS when that many problems.

For this OP, if he still wants to MINE BTC and since he has FREE POWER(Depending on how much free power he can SPEND) Buy CHEAP POWER HUNGRY 5xxx and 6xxx series cards.

Another point people seem to get forgetting, The DAY BFL ships your card are NOT going to become worthless! There are 2+year old graphics cards that are stil sell for $200+ on ebay.
Its going to take weeks and months to ramp up shipping BFL's new product(if they are even the first to ship ASIC). The difficulty is going to go up pretty fast but its not going to be an instant 2 days and you make 0.001 BTC a day.

The way to calculate profit for this OP is as follows.

A. Purchase Price of graphic Cards

B. BTC Generated Before Blockchain Halving

C. BTC Generated When BFL Ships it first ASIC

D. BTC Generated until its no longer worth the OP Time to Run his computer 24/7

E. Sale Price of Graphics Cards


(A+)-(B+C+D)-(E)


(1450)-(340+100+200)-(1080)=Profit $270

---

Variables
2.0 ghz at .75 BTC a day @ $10 per BTC
60 days till block half and 90 days till BFL Ships
running the cards for the next 3-5 months after BFL Ships
card holding 75% of there value at time of sale.(I think this card should stay around 300 till 8xxx series is released.

---

Now run that same thing above but when cheap 5xxx and 6xxx cards :)

But back to the point return the computer, use your old spare parts computer and put a 6990 in it.
(Buy a 6990 from someone that thinks they are worthless when BFL Ships)

Enjoy your Free Power.


<Disclaimer>
I like working with Odd's , Numbers ,and  Financial Math.
I enjoy putting different possible outcomes into google spreadsheet and see how different outcomes can happen and what the odds are behind different theories
People who Buy and Sell on emotion and don't look at hard numbers make people who do so without emotions rich
</Disclaimer>

You pretty much got it...I work for a company that makes test equipment for wafer testing, they basically make a bunch then test. Had a really big company cancel an order from us because their initial yield was 1%
I really hope they arent having the same problems or people will be waiting a really long time.

There are already two competitors to BFL coming out, it's a race to get products out first now and BFL already has the headstart, if they're late they shouldn't be THAT late or they're be a lot of order swapping people would trade you other companies orders for BFL orders etc.

Sell IT. stop the video games. waste of time.

My initial tests of crossfire configurations is that it's shit.  I was expecting a way better frame rate then what I'm getting. It's just a waste. Plus, I'm an old gamer. Nothing really excites me any more. The cards cost 1.45k alone. Returning the parts and investing in some low power jalapenos. I still have my 6970 for gaming in the closet. 275 dollars profit before I get my jalapeno is a huge loss considering what I mentioned above. Right?!

Profit is the opposite of loss

That's what I'm doing. They are shipping in two months and I'm returning for a refund so I can invest in some jalapenos!! ??? ??? ???