Bitcoin Forum

Hello everyone, I just recently started looking into bitcoin mining and began looking around at some ASIC miners. I'm planning on getting a new computer in the near future and wanted to know if investing in something like the Rockminer R3 box would be worth it? I've read that mining has been getting less profitable as time goes on, but is there a way to set up a mining rig that is fairly inexpensive and will yield a reasonable output? Lastly, is ASIC the only effective way to go about mining now? Any input is appreciated. Thank you.

Depends on your power costs mostly.  Yes, ASIC is the only way to go.  The r-box is very likely not going to be profitable in any way for you.

Currently, I'm not paying anything as far as power costs (which is nice), but what would be a good starting rig? Would several USB ASIC's be better than a single large unit?

 When you say "...not paying anything as far as power costs...", do you mean you power is included in your rent or you are not paying power costs because you are not currently bitcoin mining?

The power is included in the rent

well anything will work then. they get very hot though
 :o

as a new guy just buy the  best $$/GH  RATIO and u will do fine i think

remember some use ALOT of power and need special attention to power outlets cables and the like

Would this be profitable enough to add another unit every few months or so? I've seen a lot of people using various setups and saying that they get only a few cents a day worth of bitcoins.

Be careful with this statement.
Meaning do research about your rent terms, if you have a maximum power cap per month. That's what would get you on something like this.


You should do $$ to GH, but if your rent has a max power cap I would say s3's would work alright for you.
Avalons are another good alternative and can be made quieter than an s3.

You will need to consider your heat, noise and power requirements tho.
A good place to start looking is the hardware section for used miners: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=75.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=75.0)

 Do you have electric baseboard heating?

Why don't you think about buying a bigger miner? More terahashes?

That's because the vast majority of "hobby" miners earn exactly that: pennies worth of BTC a day.  Taking the S3 mentioned earlier as an example, if you had it mining right now, it would expect to make about 0.002373BTC daily.  Given the current exchange rate, that translates into about $1.05.  An S5 expects to make about 0.006216BTC daily ($2.74).  These values change.  The expected bitcoin mined changes every 2016 blocks.  The value of that coin is obviously influenced by the exchange rate and changes constantly.

I'd like to have a setup that can get me at least 10TH/s, but the ASIC miners are so expensive for something that would get me over 1TH/s. Are the USB ones as good as the full units? (of course, having several together in a usb hub)

Considering the processing power requirements for current ASIC I will state USB  miners are toys in comparison slanted more towards learning

dbl to trpl the current ASIC is said to not be far away so even with nextgen USB chipsets, nextgen ASIC will still own (we hope)

then you can go with a bunch of s5, don't wast time and effort on uselesses old asic, like usb, they earn you nothing

you can try s7, but since efficiency here does not matter because you have free electricity, it's either s5 or s7

Even if you pay less for your elecrictiy remember that mining is not plugg and play.
Learning about mining, your asic will take a considerable amount of time. If you have that time i would buy some S3 and see if you understand and like mining.

After 1 month try and figure out if it's meant for you and buy some heavy gear like the S7 or SpondooliesTech miners.