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This is making me feel iffy about buying GPU's for mining. Everyone won't stop talking about ASICs. If I don't pay for electricity, should I keep running my computer if I'm getting 1.5 ghash with 4 ATI Radeon HD 5870s?
Sorry for noob question.

Yeah why not? Run them until you don't feel it's worth while.

I dunno.  I've been GPU mining for a while but unlike OP my hardware is paid off with a decent profit over and above that.
It's probably too late though you could make some BTC as long as you're not too ambitious.

When ASICs start shipping try picking up an FPGA miner cheap. 

I thought he said he already has 4 5870's ? I guess I read that wrong...


All my hardware has been paid off through mining. I'll continue to mine until I make next to nothing. I only pay for some of the power I use for mining.

Any estimates on shipping date?

Plenty of threads dedicated to speculating on that one.

Yea, I don't know either.

Thanks for the answers guys!

If difficulty jumps to 10 times what it is now (right after the ASIC's come out), you'll be making about $8 USD per month. The difficulty will continue to rise as ASICs ship and you'll be down to 1 or 2 dollars per month. If that is worth it to you for the wear and tear on your cards and the noise, go for it.

Happy Halving Day Everyone!  The latest post from Josh at BFL suggests that FPGAs are still shipping, but the ASIC devices (Single, MiniRig, Jalapeno, etc.) probably won't be out the door until the week of December 11 (optimistically reported).  He says the pre-orders dating from June 2012 will be shipped first.  I pre-ordered in September, so I don't know when my will arrive.

Aaaaaand the latest (official)updates saaaaay (drum-roll please)....

--BFL has postponed their shipping until the week of the 11th. Expect the middle of December.

--Tom has said that the bASICs are delayed due to a board redesign and will ship middle of January.

--The Avalon team has actually bumped up their shipping time from March to the middle of January end of February. EDIT: I got confused.

If you're not paying for electric, I don't see why you wouldn't continue to run them.  It's free money then.  There is much talk about ASICs, but none have been released yet.

I'm not living in my mom's basement with "free power" like some posters around here.  8)

Well I'm not 18 yet. But I do have a job so I can pay for somethings by myself.

Free electicity aside, unless you are using the rig for quad crossfire gaming, I would sell the 5870s before ASICs and 8970s come out. Both are going to drive down the price of your 5870s at a faster rate than you can recoup with mining.
Plus, why you gonna do your parents like that? You know you are just cutting into your inheritance.

Well since the new Asics are coming out pretty soon, Your Gpu's will only be making the Fraction of what your getting now, so the Real question is,

Should i sell them while there still worth anything?


Or should i run them to the Ground and Suck every penny out of them :D


your pick brother, i stop and sold all my GPU's and Bought Asic's From BFL Hopefully soon within a month or 2 will be getting our Asics!