Bitcoin Forum

Hey - been kicking around the idea of doing this for...well as long as I've heard of Bitcoins, but never pulled the trigger on anything. Boredom, curiosity and a few extra dollars laying around and I decided to pick up some "starter" stuffs.

Been doing my research on different miner rigs, costs, and whatnots so Basically looking for something in the 1.5 TH/s up to ???

Electricity is going to be free, so if you have a mess of older/cheaper units that are just hungry that may work for me. Sound is a mild issue, but not end of the world...quieter the better though.

Budget is ideally in the $200ish area to start, but if there is a hell of a deal that someone wants to give to a newb miner, I can reasonably part with $500ish without it hurting haha.

Located in Madison, WI (53713) for shipping purposes that may make some of the EU or Asia stuff fairly silly to buy haha

Thanks, and hope to be mining alongside you guys here soon!

you sir, need an s5, they're pretty cheap now because they are becoming unprofitable with the electricity rate. I have none to sell but you'll get everything you need lurking around here. If the noise is really not an issue, I can also recommend the sp20 but it's loud AF (mine is powered off because of this, it sucks...)

Ive got a couple of S3's under my desk in my room and can happily sleep with them on (ambient temp is 20c though). They are quiet compared to most. Had an S4 for a while in the adjacent bedroom which wasn't too bad with the door shut and the window open (for cooling). I liked the idea of the self contained aspect as the PSU was built in so only a power lead and Ethernet needed.

Yeah either the S5 or Spondoolies sp10 were the 2 I was looking at primarily, but those are going to come in under budget and I'm not much for one going under budget haha.

So the S5s though are going to be near useless unless you're running free electricity then? Is there any kind of timeline on that, I understand difficulty goes up, but just want to make sure that my timeline of 3ish months to break even won't be disrupted too badly haha

good luck with that timeline. Tried that a while back and had a near impposible time finding anyone willing to sell stuff at that pricepoint with psu included. That being said if you already have the power supplies its probably doable. Keep your roi plans in line with when the reward for mining bitcoins halves http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/ as after that most hardware wont be profitable.

Well I found a couple of SP10s for the $200ish - Few S5s rolling around here I've poked people about that are cheap enough that I can justify tagging up with some spare PSUs I have laying around from older high end gaming PCs that are retired haha so not overly concerned there.

Thank you though for the tips! Looks like I'm going to have to hunt down and message folks though cause no one seems overly interested in reaching out to me lol

SP10 is a screamer-like a buzzsaw, but if noise is not a problem, why not?

Good to know - SP10 is off the list now haha, S5 or if someone gets super nice something better haha. That is very good info, thanks!

S3s are by far the quietest of any gear listed here so far.  I've owned S1s, S2s, S3s, and S5s from Bitmain as well as SP10 and Avalon 6s.

The SP10 absolutely screams.  Very.  Freaking.  Loud.
The S5 is next on the list.  Not the high pitched whining scream of the SP10, but definitely loud enough to be noticed.
Avalon 6 (rev 2) comes next.  The fan has an annoying tone to it.  Not necessarily loud, but because of the smart fan controls it varies in pitch as the fan ramps up and down.
Avalon 6 (rev 1) is almost as quiet as the S3.  Only thing keeping it from being the most quiet is the variable fan speeds.
S3 is virtually silent.

Just my 2 bits.

I don't know if it's worth it to you, but I've got a couple of S5 units hosted with pcfli.  I'll sell them for .15btc each.  I'm not sure what the latest is on shipping cost though but you can check with him for your zip.