Bitcoin Forum

Ok, since everyone is GPU mining, CPU mining has been declared obsolete. I don't totally under stand mining. Is everyone racing to find the same next block? once the block is found, does everyone start working on the same new next block?

Granted, CPUs are slow, but there are some low power ones made specifically for laptops. Would it be possible to use one computer to request work from a Pool and then locally split the work up over multiple CPU miners?

Basically, i'm trying to figure out how to capitalize on a bunch of old computers and motherboards that i have laying around and maybe a few new ATOM motherboards.

Lol, just forget about that idea. Even GPU and FPGA mining is dying. CPU mining wont ever be feasible anymore

can you explain your statement? Are you saying that a CPU. or 10 CPU working in a pool will never be able to find a block? or that it would just cost too much?

Wouldn't we see a lot of the GPU miners go to other cryptocurrencies (LTC)?  That's what I'm suspecting.  Once the ASICs are all up and running the BTC network, a lot of GPU miners will be left with a shit load of hardware so I'd suspect the difficulties of the altcoins to shoot up over the course of 2013.  Barring any critical failure of BTC of course.  It's either that or the emergence of gaming cafe's popping up everywhere.  :P

The effectiveness of your hash rate is relative to everyone else mining.  CPU's pale in comparison to GPU's which pale in comparison to ASICs.  For CPUs to be viable again, you'd need to see a very significant decrease in overall hash rates.

where we are going we don't need cpus

So you are saying that it effectively a race to get to the next new block?

Something along those lines.  I don't quite fully grasp exactly what the miners are doing.  I think they are trying to guess the encryption of the next block in the blockchain and the miner that guesses correctly is rewarded 25 BTC.  That's why you always see remarks like "(if you're lucky)" when talking about mining. 

Anyone else care to take a stab at this explanation?  I don't think I did it justice.

CPU mining is ludicrous, it would take you a year mining 24/7 on a new i5 CPU to even make enough Bitcoin to meet the minimum withdraw amount on pools, while costing ten times more in electricity than your earnings.



http://we.lovebitco.in/mining/

Ah thanks.  That was perfect.

So you are saying that 8 i5s could do the same job in 1.5 months. Granted. i5s us a lot of power, probably more than you could make in coins. But Atom processors are relatively cheap and low power. Granted they are slower as well.