Bitcoin Forum

I'm about to order parts for my first rig... Or maybe not.

I've been researching mining for the last 3 months, and I'm keen to dive in. The plan was to build an 8 x RX 480 8Gb rig, with a view to expand in 6-9 months to a much larger setup. However, there's a lot of things I've been considering that makes the decision a little tougher.

1. Ether mining is going to get really tough soon, but that's not to say other coins are not worth mining when it gets tough.
2. I can't seem to find an answer as to whether the forthcoming hashrate drop for RX cards will affect other coins too, or just Ether.
3. SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT ENCOURAGING!!!

Point 3 is arguably the biggest issue I have right now. On one hand, I'm seeing people with huge rigs making good profits. They're helpful, give advice, and offer tips for optimisation! This is awesome!!! But then there's people who just diminish the whole idea of mining, claiming that its pointless, not profitable, a waste of money etc etc.

I'm looking at this as both a proof of concept, and potentially a long term option. I'm not going blindly into this, or buying 1 ancient card with a hashrate of 2. If I'm going to do this, I want to do it properly, which is why I've spent a good while researching cards, pools, altcoins, even did 3 months of day trading on bitrex, where I managed to make a little bit of profit!

So, I'm asking some of the more experienced miners out there, is mining still worth getting into? (Also, if anyone can give a definitive answer on a good backup coin to mine after the RX get hit with the ether hashrate drop, that would be great!)

Many thanks to everyone. This community is infinitely more helpful than other ones out there!

Mining is worth it but the catch is that it needs patience. It could take a minimum of six months to two years to start making some profit with it. In a post I had read a guy earned a lot of money but it two years to reach that position and it was from his Antminer.

See, this is helpful. Many thanks for this!

I do understand that it'll take time and patience to get any decent sort of return. That's why I'm looking at this from a long-term perspective. But with any investment, in any field or industry, getting your money back in a year, or even 2, is a good investment!

If I end up making 50% or more back within 9 months, I'm going to invest in a much bigger setup. But I do think there's money to be made. Its reassuring when someone with experience gives advice like that though.

My Internet is working.

The thing is no one really knows what mining will be like 3-6 months down the road. Card prices are sky high right now and AMD is coming out with Vega cards in August. Ethereum could go PoS by end of the year etc.. Don't expect to turn a profit until at least 4-5 months down the road.

Like I said, if I get more than 50% of my return back within 12 months, I'm calling it a success of sorts. Nvidia are also inching closer to their 20 series cards, which I think will have a big effect on the current 10 series cards. My plan on that front is to hold out until early next year when I would be looking to expand. Right now, my aim is to have a setup where over the next 9-12 months, I'd get 50% or more of my initial investment back. I've checked every mining calculator I can find, and with 580s, it seems possible.

Why would they want to encourage you? You're gonna steal part of their profit. Do your own research and take responsibility for it.

Well, with anything new, its nice to get feedback or help from people more experienced. Realistically, is 1 more miner going to affect your profit? Probably not.

there won't be any. After RX hashrate drop and ETH goes PoS thousand of miners world wide would start seeking profitable coins incresing the hashrate of every one of them by multitude, profits would drop rapidly

Agreed. 100% agreed. However, I think that's also the reason why so many hobby miners will be left behind. My understanding is that the key to longer term success is to continually update hardware, software, coin selection on an ongoing basis. I anticipate there being a time between the hashrate drop this year and the PoS change. Its during that time that I'd like a backup.

However, I do like the way nicehash will adjust to whatever is most profitable. That seems like the best option while someone gets their teeth into the world of mining.

Mate, mining isn't anything new. And this isn't ,,one more miner". Look at this forum. Every third question sounds like ,,Is mining profitable?" "1050ti hashrate?" "How many $ will earn ... gpu" Just do your own research  ;)
But tbh we are facing difficulty bomb and price of cryptos is constantly dropping, so buying new rig now is much more risky than it was before.

Mine works too. ;D

I understand that. I've been doing a lot of research on this over the last 3 months, reading everything from hardware specs and stats, to articles in Forbes over the future of cryptocurrency.

To be clear, I'm not doing this to be a part time gamer miner with 1 x 1050ti playing call of duty 6 hours per day. I'm using the first 6 months as a proof of concept, with a view to investing around $20,000 early next year, depending on the result. The 20k is ready to go, but I'm building a $2,500 rig first to explore profitability first.

I know I'm getting into the game late, but that doesn't mean there's not return to be had.

you are right having efficient hardware is the key


hashrate drop is already happening now as we speak. PoS is not close yet


nicehash is not an option for any professinal miner it is only for begginers.
i do use them sometimes but generally it is much better to mine coin directly

Many thanks for the help, by the way!

I have made myself very familiar with the likes of whattomine. I plan on using nicehash while I tweak the cards to get the best hashrate/wattage etc. Once that's done, I'll mine directly, as you suggested.

I'm still a little unsure on 8gb 580s vs 6gb 1060s. Potentially, I could do both, but I am trying to work out if the hashrate drop (factoring in that it is not expected to hit nvidia quite as badly) is reason enough to go with the 1060s. They have a lower hashrate, but I'm trying to figure out if/when the 580 hashrate will dip below the 1060.

lool funny , dude expects to be handed all the info on a platter, and when ppl dont encorage him and validate his risk
he gets mad?  No one will encorage you to take the risk right now bc six months from now if things go belly up you will return here probably name drop and flame them.   Yes you might. make money u might not its called taking a risk
as long as u dont over pay for ur equipment at least you know u can get ur 80% of ur $$ back from eBay

I bet u are a millenial 😂😂

Also idk why u are worried about the rx hash drop, you cant find them for sale most anywhere anyways

Nice work reading the post. I bet you're a baby boomer who destroyed just about every financial market for the entrepreneurial generation that is us "millenials." Excuse me while I go back to drinking my latte out of an avocado.

I wasn't looking for all the information on a platter. That's the whole point. I've been doing endless research of this. I'm not doing a half-assed approach.

And RX 580s are available. Easily. And at non-inflated prices. You clearly need to do some research.

Read the post before you decide to comment from your ivory tower.

Thankgod we have this kind people here because if not then many users would have committed suicide already. Yes, the internet sucks cause reality hurts right? If you had started mining 8 months ago perhaps the users would have encouraged you, oh, but wait 8 months ago, miners were getting pennies, see that is the thing 8 months ago you would never think about it, right now, only scammers would encourage you especially the asic market hehe, i mean many people around here have more money then sense and scammers are watching your desire to get scammed hehe

Also, in few weeks, miners will get once again earn pennies instead of dollars. So watchout about your thinking.

If you've done your research, whats the problem then?
What do you want to hear? Go and buy tons of rigs you're gonna make a fortune?

No one knows where mining is leading, we don't have magic crystal balls do we now?
You know what? People are tired of noobs asking the same question over and over again all across the forum, no wonder they are NOT ENCOURAGING!!!

lol he doesnt even make sense if you have access to cheap 580s wtf are doing here crying 'ppl are mean to me on the internet' If you had any brains you would be buying up the 580s not to mine but to sell for like $400 pop , Im selling my stack of 30 cards at $550 a card and not looking back.

either youre an idiot a just a plain coward , man up and do something then since u say you have it figured out

dumb millenial lol

You make me laugh. Bitter about negative equity?

That is funny...
I posted something talking about that earlier. I had the same feeling as yours seen comments very oftently pointing in that direction. Mining is not Profitable!

And reading the topic I discover that some will hide behind the fact that the question is ask millions times... well. How easy and unfinished statement is that ? in my opinion.
I think there is an other one and here is my earlier post.

There is one thing I am quite sure is that some miners doesn't want you to mine. Because more miners less profit for them. So they will tell you how hard it is. And that it is not profitable.
That you should not invest in mining because you will loose money at the end.

IT'S ALL FALSE.

if it was true well NOBODY would be mining. NOBODY would be buying equipment from Bitmain or others... but the problem is that they are all out of stock and you need to order 2 months in advance to get them and prices are rocketing... really !?

Something doesn't match here... !!? Is everybody gone mad buying stuff to loose money ?
NO

Mining still profitable if you are doing it the right way.
Electricity cost still the biggest problem to stay in profit and for sure it is impossible to get some profit mining BTC in most countries.
But there is plenty other coins to mine.

At this point the only thing who can change is a Market crash with very slow recovery.
Then it wouldn't be sustainable, but also maybe no more BTC then, if there is nobody to mine it at big lost ?

We just need to be aware that market crash happened before and can happen in the future. And that you can loose money investing in mining. Fact. But you can also make money. Also fact.

lol netagive equity wtf u talking about I have a house and a condo no negative eq here thank you lol , youve got good advise already in this re-tread thread why dont you be a good boy and run with it build your farm of 580s , or resale them no one cares millenial ur sense of entitlement is palpable

You want to cherry pick adviise for only the good and positive comments egging you on , like the previous poster said your lucky you didnt get a bunch of positive stuff or you probably would have sold daddys Bentley or Ferrari and had

been shitting ur pants now as the eth hits 70k soon and prices keep dropping until segwit is resloved lol

See the problem is, crypto rose so fast and these new people see the opportunity to earn dollars, not pennies like many miners usually earn, these new people want to earn lot of money fast and that is not something you will get cause like you there are many opportunistic people around. Cryptocoin market like any market has boomy and gloomy times. If you want to get in only when is boomy then dont think it will work out for you. If you really want to be a miner then you will have to accept to earn pennies and expect your return of investment around 18 to 36 months.

theres no conspricy theory here gtfo, mining is profitable if you can get your hands on hardware at a good price , say 20 percent max over retail, then u still have to buy the jacked up priced motherboards, power supplies risers etc lol

the large farms are the ones buying up all the hardware stocks not small 100 to 500 gpu farms, all they can do is preorder and hope for the best.

either way u noobs are stupid late to the game , maybe you will make money maybe you wont no one really cares enough to stop you from mining wtf

no one is gona encorage u to take a dumb risk bc that what it is right now , but taking risks is how money is made duh.

personally i would buy a ton of rx 580s make a few rigs and sell off the majority to buy 1070s

but Im pre ordering shit, if i cant get it within a week or two weeks Im good , no one knows what will happen to  prices in two months.

so do you, grow some balls take a risk or not

Thanks for your insight. I will take it under advisement.

Meanwhile, Mr Frog, I agree with you. I think that is the way it is. But I think the key to this is keeping current. Making sure hardware is up to date etc. Its very difficult to predict what way things are going to go, but like you said, there's money there for the taking.

As far as selling off cards when they get older, that's an important factor, most definitely. However, once a card is paid off, after costs if its still making money, its worth hanging onto. For example, if a card is paid off, and you go to a return of $50 per month, its still 50 more than you had last month. Profit is profit.

Hey not saying that there is no good guys around here telling the things how they are really. Of course there is.
If we are a community and we want to grow. It is good to start by helping each other. That is all I wanted to say.

Now saying that it is too late in the game is an other false statement. Who knows ? Do you have a cristal ball ? What if...
And finally let me remind you that you've been noob too.

Im talking about buying cards at 250 and selling for $400 not old cards

right now its a sellers market so i you can get cards for nomal prices you can make far more selling gear than farming with it.  The use that doubled money to build a small or large farm at  half the.price you would have before if you had just used them for mining outright.

i.e get 50 cards for $250 each , sell 30 of them for $400 or more, then basically build the  reamining cards into rigs basically for free

Not into it. But that seems a very good advise Marvell.

wth did i say it was too late to get in the game per se?  The risk now is like 5 to 6 times greater to get into the game only becuase of the price of hardware it takes 2 to 3 times as long to recoup the price of. your gear and that time frame is getting longer day by day as the large farms expand on cheap hardware contracts.

There are easier ways to make money now than mining , which was not  the case three or four months ago.  Remeber if you pay $500 for a card that retails for $250 , six months from now if you want to sell it you will have to sell it for $200 so u have to make up nearly $300 per card to recoup your investment.

easy math

i did that last time back in 2013 the cycle repeats itself, sols all my basically new 280 ans 290s for pretty much double what I paid for right before the big crash and still was. able to keep a small fully paid for farm.

I saw this comming in march and bought up all the 570 and 580s i could find , around 50 cards , sling them now at double what i paid for.  If not for vega comming out soon and my intrest in buying antminer l3 plus rigs I would preorder more cards to sell, but like I said im wary of pre orders, look at the panda miner fiasco

lauging my butt  off at the fools who got burned on those, at least they got thier money back but I warned them to rather  build thier own rigs with readily available 470 and 480 at the time , now they lost money and dont have any hardware to show for it.

just look at gpus and mining rig hardware as a comodity that you can make money off if ur timing is. right and you make smart decisions and u will profit.

Oh yeah there's plenty of easier ways to make money! No doubt about that. There's other investments that have higher yield.

So why am I looking into mining now?

Well let's just put aside things like it being late in the game, hashrate drops etc etc. I am an architect first and foremost. I love my job, I'm financially stable from it. I also have a few other investments that give me constant dividends, even if they're not much, they are a nice little bit of additional income. Aside from my love of architecture and my other investments, I have a huge interest in markets based around technology. One of my investments, for example, is in the 3d printing industry. I do some 3d printing work on the side too, and its a hobby with some minor profits, but nothing major.

To me, this is a bit of an experiment at this stage. Its a small cost to me to see how it goes. It doesn't require 24/7 attention, and to me, its worth a gamble.

If it works out, great. If it doesn't, well at least I gave it a go.

If its money and time you can affors to lose then yeah dive in but only buy rx serise cards to sell

nvidi gtx 1070 and possibky the retail vega cards are better for mining

There's some early reports on the Vega cards that they're not great. I think its worth hanging on for the nvidia 20 series.