Bitcoin Forum

I have access to a good amount of technology-related equipment, including plenty of video cards/processors/and full systems... and have pretty good buying power with some of the bigger vendors out there selling equipment like this, and plenty of knowledge on building computers, and could easily setup additional 'rigs'. I currently have a group of machines generating a good amount of hashpower (between 3000-5000MH/s, depending on how many machines I have mining at once) and cheap power... but curious as to whether its even worth trying to upgrade or add to this right now or if I should hang around with what I have and wait for an ASIC device and invest there. Probably a million dollar question, but thought I would ask anyway to get some insight... struggling with which way to go right now, don't really want to invest funds in gpu/fpga devices knowing the hashpower they generate is going to be wiped out by ASIC devices. Any thoughts/recommendations for a newbie?    :-\

AFAIK, everyone's recommending that you ditch GPU and invest in an ASIC.  Once ASICs get popular, GPU mining will be so inefficient that you'll be paying more for electricity and burned out cards.

why bother if you can buy asicminer shares?
trust issue or you actually love to dig your hands in tech which i can totally relate with  ;D

Even if your GPUs were free, the time and effort involved getting up to speed on it would not be worth it. GPU mining will absolutely be unprofitable very soon, and it takes a while to get it running smoothly.

Not worth it.  BFL might be shipping next week, and difficulty will be up 3x what it is now once that happens, continuing to climb rapidly over the next months as well.

I guess its a little of both... I looked a little into buying asicminer shares... I did not do a ton of research on it because it didn't really appeal to me.  I do like getting involved with tech-related devices, building them up, etc... so that is a big part of it... but I do have trust issues as well, which is another piece of it.  Although, I did get involved with a mining pool, which is a big step for me in the trust arena, but I literally researched for over 2 weeks before deciding which pool to go with   :P

It is not easy sending any money towards BFL considering the backlash of posts on this forum, and on others... but I feel like ASIC must be the way to go at this point.  Hopefully Avalon will open up a 3rd batch, although Avalon's seem to consume way more power than BFL's are claiming to use?... not sure there are many of them out there to even verify actual power consumption, but that's what it seems like to me. It seems like BFL has the superior product... but seems a little unstable on the management/organization side of things.

Certainly understandable, but why send money to anyone at this point?  You do not want to invest in GPUs right now, and you do not want to invest in unproven ASICs.  So wait until the ASICs are proven, then order.

I wouldn't buy an Avalon myself because of the power usage, but I think it is quite reasonable, at this point, to buy BFL once they are proven to be working.

Its not worth it plain & simple. Even if you order an asic today, by the time you will receive it the difficulty will be so high that it just wont be worth it. At this rate I think you would be very lucky to receive an asic by the end of the year if you ordered right this second.

if you are in the hardware thing so much and have it all there already:

just get going already - you have my 100% garanteed valid permission slip!


perhaps this rally really is the beginning of a revolution that overturns old
govermental structures by consensus agreement that their methods of keeping
people in line is so 19th century declase!
And if this happens my friend - every second and every satoshi will make itself
count - or in otherwords: hardware influences the social software by
brainwetware interface.

perhaps not.

what counts is that you had fun with your time and electricity

on a revised note: why don't you take some of the money and put it into sollar power
so these "rigs" will remain hashing forever until you finally plug your asic into the sollar
socket?

Why?
IF you are not shure to do A or B
THEN consider C
test operate exit

Because that would be a waste of money compared to investing in additional ASIC units.  Solar power pays itself back after 7-20 years.  A Bitcoin ASIC would pay itself back after less than one year.

ASIC all the way.

But no one is selling any? I took a look at the FPGAs and ASICs listed on the hardware comparision site and not one is available. Sure, you can buy a pre-order for something that will be delivered some time in the future. Isn't that more risky? Set up a 800 Mhash/s miner now and mine while its high. In a few months, prices might hover around $50. There's no way to tell if it will go up or down. Long term, chances are good but in the short term, you might lose money trying to get an ASIC.

Wait for the ASICs

If you already have the equipment, DO IT NOW. Don't wait. Do it immediately. You only have a couple of months before ASICS go mainstream. Still, the difficulty is pretty high, already, and you probably won't mine that many coins.

IMO, it's kind of pointless to attempt to get an ASIC now. The people who will be receiving them in a couple of months or who already have them ordered them last year. Think about that. These people were lucky enough(or connected enough) to be in the know last year and to have the capitol to invest. AND EVEN THOSE PEOPLE have a limited window of opportunity. You don't don't even have a window right now.
Once the ASICs arrive(and I don't mean BFL because, let's face it, we don't even know they actually exist) and a bunch of people are using them, they will become obsolete rather quickly. With in 4-6 months so even if you ordered an ASIC right now, it will arrive after those 6 months. Maybe not, but that would mean you would be able to take advantage of about 1 month of that 4-6 month window.

Your best bet is wait for tech that comes after ASIC and preorder a year before they arrive like the people who currently have ASICs(or are receiving them soon). Of course, they will be even more expensive than ASICs.

However, if you are a technophile, and just want to do it for fun, I would still say find another endeavor. lol


People need to realize that, if they want to mine and make money, they need to be ahead of the curve. You're better off just buying BTC. There is a legit reason why people keep saying that. Mainly for the reason I just stated.


GL

ASICs will be mainstream if we will be ready for them. Now we are not.

just invest all the money you have into btc and wait for them to be more worth

Asic's will take very long time....

People need to stop hoarding bitcoin, if you don't plan on using it properly you shouldnt get into it imo.

ASCI if you can wait!

Have any been shipped out yet?

Batch #1 of the Avalons shipped 300 units and the  majority of them have been delivered. And even with those couple of hundred who are currently using ASICS have shot the difficulty up,

Yes, it is my understanding that Avalon are the ONLY ASIC provider that have currently shipped... Period!

From reading various message boards it seems the general consensus is that other ASIC rig providers are just looking to use funds from orders to create machines for themselves, whether that is paranoia or not who knows, until other companies ship there *could* be come truth in the accusations.

Agreed. IMO, the fact that Avalons have been shipped is a huge reason that people may still have faith in the other companies. But I'm not believing anything until I actually see legitimate proof. That stupid 1993 quality video of their offices that BSL released has only increased the possibility of them being a scam, I think.

the whole point of bitcoins is nt jus to mine horde n exhange for hard currencies,  bt to replace them by trading with bitcoins for products whether their pizzas or electronic goods  ;) so get in on asics for the long run we all should endeavour to make bitcoin a major game changer in world finance

I agree with this notion but I can't recommend that someone purchase an ASIC unless they have that type of disposable income. And if someone does have anywhere from 5-20K to play with, it's not a problem but that also means that the rich can still control the flow of currency by simply purchasing these machines that most people can't afford. One of the flaws in the system, if you ask me. This is only exacerbated when the next level of mining tech is released for even more money.

And let's face it, 80% of the miners want to hoard and hopefully increase their riches. A small few are investing in the tech because they believe in BTC.

If you already have the gear and pay next to nothing for electricity, then mine with GPU until the well dries up.

I'm currently like you with a number of computers mining away in a location where I don't have to pay for the electricity. A hashrate of 4000mhps is currently getting me approx. $900 a month at difficulty 7673000. (that's assuming I sell my coins at about $120 each.). I also have a spreadsheet to help me estimate earnings at various difficulties.

Assuming exchange rates stay the same, 4000mhps gets you:

Difficulty (x1) 7,673,000: $918.89 per/month
Difficulty (x2) 15,346,000: $459.44 p/m
Difficulty (x3) 23,019,000: $306.30 p/m
Difficulty (x4) 30,692,000: $229.72 p/m
Difficulty (x5) 38,365,000: $183.78 p/m
Difficulty (x10) 76,730000: $91.89 p/m
Difficulty (x50) 383,650,000: $18.38 p/m

So... anyone who has to pay overheads then it's not worth it. But if you already have computers and cards and don't pay the bills, then there's still money to be had. I guess it just depends how quickly the difficulty rises. I haven't modelled that yet to find out how long I can keep going. It all depends on how quickly the ASICs get going.

Are they producing what was advertised? Heard it was something around 400 btc a week?

Mine BTC using a sick GPU rig fornow, then when ASICS come out move the GPU rig over to LTC.  </thread>

Honestly don't know, I saw a review somewhere on a different board (don't recall which one) that said it was pretty close to what was advertised but not close enough.

I guess it ultimately depends on a users individual settings though, we have been playing with a range of GPU units were about to start marketing and the hash rates have a variance of around 100-200MH/s on the low end models and upwards of 800MH/s on high end model. The cooling requirements and clock speeds depend on how high the MH/s is on GPU models though, even 2 people using a 7970 GPU can have a wide variance depending on their individual setup and which mining client is deployed.

Sounds like a little tweaking and they could come pretty close, also wouldn't they have to take in effect the difficulty going up once more people starting running their ASIC?

Appreciate you taking the time to answer my newbie questions, just trying to get my info right so we I tell people I can give accurate information.

I'm a newbie myself all things considered, have just been reading a variety of forums about topics relating to bitcoins so take what I say as just my opinion #disclaimer   ;D

But yes, once difficulty increases the costs associated with mining will also increase as the profitability will decrease (over time) the only good thing about the ASIC systems, when they do finally ship, is that those whom invested the money in them should in theory, be able to get a jump up the proverbial ladder. Until then if you can afford it, go the GPU route and have as many rigs mining as possible, not just bitcoins but also litecoins and any other type of cryptcurrency to minimize your losses and maximize your mining potentials.

I was looking into other currency but with litecoin there is nothing you can do besides buy, sell, or hoard them. You can't buy any products like you can with bitcoin. Do you see companies accepting these in the future? Seems like bitcoin is paving the way in a sense but they are having a hard time getting companies to follow also. I just don't see them going mainstream, but then again I could make some real money if they do. Tough decision to throw something at them and see what happens in 5 years.

ASIC All the way, worth the investment, ditch your GPU now.

Agreed.

I look at it like this though, the only *ASIC* that has shipped is only available to mine BTC, for *me* on a personal level, that is too much like putting all my eggs in one basket.

We have a couple of GPU setups running currently and we're also using them to mine LTC in addition to BTC (yes, it cuts down the profit potentials of each but also spreads risk), even if it takes 5 years for LTC to increase in value, we have 5 yrs worth of mined LTC on hand whilst profiting off the BTC mining almost instantly.

I have heard of a site that accepts LTC (Atlantis), although I have never used it, so I have no clue what they would have to purchase... but you always have the option to convert your LTC to BTC and pay for items using BTC  :o

To be honest - I suspect majority of the people do exactly that - hoard them and wait for the better times.
And after all - what else can you do with your bitcoins? (other than black-market usage)
Currently they're not quite useful - I'd say they're rather quite useless. The few things that you could buy with BTC you could buy with money at a much cheaper price.
Hard cash is still a great competitor to BTCs.

Hopefully things will change though...

And not only that - to add insult to injury Avalon prices are a COMPLETE NONSENSE! 75 BTC even at today's rate of about $75/BTC makes roughly $7K. AND they're sold out.
Looking on eBay - they go for about $10-15k (talking about the 60GH/s model).

At those prices it's no wonder people aren't rushing into buying them.

AND also BFL have delayed theirs yet again ... makes you wonder - trying to limit the competition? Or just use the hardware for them for a while? (e.g. confirming what was said earlier)

thoroughly agree , bitcoins r not a bloody savings account where u jump ship at highest possible price.
we need more genuine enthusiasts to join the community and push into to the next realm.

everything depends on the price here