Bitcoin Forum

I have an outbuilding that is electrically heated, and desire to repace one of the two electric baseboard heaters with a GPU based mining rig.  Since my primary goal is to heat my space, the rise of ASICs and the halving of the block reward are not concerns of mine.  However, the cost of the rig certainly is.  I'm looking for a real deal.  If you're thinking of getting out of the mining business, selling your entire rig to me at a discount is less work than disassembling it to sell the GPU's to gamers. 

Anyone who is interested, please post in this thread or PM me.  I need to know details of the rig, shipping concerns, etc.  As well as some evidence that I'm not buying a pig in a poke.

You might have better luck here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=75.0

Moon, you might want to rethink that idea.  You could very likely end up spending more money for power to run the GPU rig as opposed to heating the outbuilding normally and buying BTC straight up.  For example, if it costs you $20 to run your GPU's to heat that building and you make 1 BTC, you might have paid much less out of pocket to heat the building and buy the 1 BTC.  Crunch some numbers and see if it's really worthwhile.

Obviously, I've run the numbers; but no matter how you look at it, I'm already heating with electricity.  Whether or not I use a electro-resistive heater or a mining rig, 1 KWH is still going to produce the same amount of heat.

.. excepting the mechanical parts in mining rig :)

(ok .. that's .. what .. a few watts per fan, but still :p )

Even the fans ultimately produce heat.  And one of my heaters already has a fan anyway.

3 x 5970
1 x 890fxa-gd70
1 x cpu
1 gig ram
1 x 1k psu

110 BTC shipped

My calcs imply that I couldn't expect to make one block at the current difficulty with that setup before the heating season was over.  It would take four winters to pay for itself, assuming difficulty doesn't rise during that time, not counting any electric costs.  That is never going to happen.

what are you expecting to pay..or hoping to pay?

You're not going to make hardly anything with any GPU mining over the heating season regardless.  With the reward dropping to 25 and ASIC's on the near horizon you're looking at a 20-40x difficulty increase :p  A killer GPU rig with 2 GH/second at 20x difficulty is going to pull in about .9 BTC a month...

20x difficulty? Your assuming ASIC's will be in peoples hands in the next 3 months.. That is not likely..


I sent you a PM about a mining rig that I would be willing to sell.


It mines @ 2ghash and I think max' asking price is ludacris :)

what are you asking?

Half of your asking price :P

hardware must be cheap in sarnia!

 :-\

? It's what it's worth in my eyes.

cards are going for about 280 on ebay. mb 90, ram and cpu...and the psu?

If i could get that for under 1000$ i would jump at it too...

It would be a better idea to mine Litecoins than Bitcoins. Your heating will actually be profitable compared to it being non profitable mining Bitcoins here in a couple weeks.

You won't make as much as BTC mining, but at least it's free heat + a little spare $$.

That isn't an insane price, but it is on the high end for used equipment on this site. I've bought quite a few 5970s for $200 on here recently.

ebay = 13% off the top guaranteed as well (to ebay and paypal). People alwaaaays neglect to mention that.

Half is a pretty good deal though imho.

Why would I want to mine for Betamax when VHS already has the market locked up?  IMHO, litecoins are never going to amount to anything, simply because there is no niche market for them that bitcoin itself couldn't compete in.

If I'm losing money at half price, it's not a good deal.  I can't make it up on volume.  If the components are worth that much more to the gamers, sell to the gamers, but eventually that market is going to be saturated as well.

Throw a price at me... and I'll get back to you with a quote on a rig.

I'm still considering your proposal, but your price point is still beyond the total amount of bitcoins I presently possess.  I'm also looking into the possibility that gas prices have gone down enough that it would actually be more economical to pay for a direct vent gas heater and a new gas line, and use the cost difference to buy some more bitcoins.

I'm torn really.  It's looking like the gamer market is going to have to come down pretty far for a GPU rig to be within reach, even if the cost of the power isn't a concern of mine. Again, I expect that to happen as GPU miners switch to ASICs or close shop, but that might not be for weeks.  It's not in my own interest to get into any hurry here, so I won't be down that.  I'm not buying a shiny toy, I'm buying an investment.  I might not be doing it at all, if I need the funds for something else.  I live in an old house built over 100 years ago, with 3200 square feet of (heated) living space; plus a bonus room over the detached garage.  It's the bonus room that I'm looking to heat here.  However, another opprotunity has dropped into my lap.  I have a big family, and even 3200 feet is getting to be a bit tight.  A really large house (6 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, a claimed 7K square feet) has appeared very close to where I live within my means, but only barely.  It's even older than mine, and likely needs much work done, including being converted back into a single family home from a stint as a multi-family.  It's in a section of Old Louisville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Louisville) known as "Millionaires' Row", and it's basicly the result of the real estate crash.  The landlord who rented it out as three, two bedroom apartments aparently gave it up to the bank.  If I end up moving, I might buy a rig or two later, but more likely I'd give out rackspace in the cold sections of the house (beyond the reach of the toddlers) in exchange for the waste heat paid for by the actual owners of said units.  But only under the condition that they only run during the local heating season.

^ Not as fun :D second pm sent :)

Yeah sorry man, but hardware is A) large, B) heavy and C) worthwhile for other uses.

You are very unlikely to find a 1kW machine for < $500, no matter how many GPU miners jump ship. For example, the 5830, the cheapest, most energy wasting, strongest (in its class) GPU on the market pulls like 300MH/sec? Roughly 7 to 2GH/1kW, even at $50 per card, that's already $350, toss in a 2x $25 CPU, 2x $25 Mobo, and $100+ PSU + cables/extenders/splitters/etc. (I dont remember the wattage on the cards but 180/card sounds reasonable, you can do a crap PSU I guess, and potentially blow up the system or burn down your place), and before shipping you're at $500 bucks, for potentially the most discounting you can do on a system outside of slitting your own neck.

BUT, hope springs eternal, I don't want to say that NO ONE will ever discount their system beyond that.

I recommend getting a 7970 rig. I have one in quad fire and it dominated on benchmarks and gaming. And gets 2.6ghs.

Here is a better idea.  But an ice making machine.  It's cheaper than a bitcoin miner.  The heat generated will heat your space and the ice made can be sold for $2 a bag at your local convenience store.  It's the same idea as you have but probably will lose you less money.  (I haven't done the numbers.)

I'd be surprised if ANY place in the US at least will buy a consumption product from an average joe.. wayyy too much liability for lawsuits if some jerk decided to put a chemical/drug/whatever in with the water before freezing it.....

Heat Pump (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump)

You get 3-4 times as much heat compared to simply using a plain heater/GPU.

wow.. paranoia state.

Your recommendation sucks. He's looking at possibly making some money. Not tossing it out the window.



With that rig to obtain 2.6 ghash you're spending over $1200 only on GPU's.



I'm offering a 2ghash system in and around $600 plus shipping. .

Heat pumps transfer heat, what is the heat-source? It sounds like he will be in a cold-climate (winter time) which he is hoping to stave off via electricity, not ideal for having ready sources of heat to be moved in.

Interesting thought though, I wonder how the efficiency compares to BTC generation, taking into account initial price, if his climate weren't so cold.

Also, the space is relatively small, and heat pumps are large machines.  Heat pumps don't really do to well around here, too many really cold nights in winter.

Found a rig on ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bitcoin-mining-server-2400-mhash-s-8x-Sapphire-ATI-Radeon-5830-Video-Cards-/121019863443

THATS FUNNY!

LOL... from the description: "I've been running this server (hidden in the drop ceiling of my work) for a year now."

1/4 of the time it takes bitcoin for confirmations

Silly boy....

It's pretty funny. Even the light from the monitor ultimately becomes heat when matter absorbs the photons.

So you'd let your kids eat the apples some stranger gave them while trick-or-treating? Takes all kinds, I guess.  ::)