Bitcoin Forum

Does anyone know what would be the best Grafics Card for mining with the lowest costs on energy?

dont bother ASICs will come out soon and will eat all the coins

Well he always could mine some scrypt chains  ;)

Have a look at these charts:
https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

I personally use Sapphire HD 7950 OC.
For Non-Scrypt coins, consider undervolting memory - that will save electricity. You only need core for SHA-256.

Thanks!

What about purchasing an ASIC shipment confirmation from eBay?

By 7950OC, -- the new card -- people mean Tahiti Pro2, it is the latest revision of the Tahiti chip, it will be marketed in October as some HD8850 OEM ;-)

Yes the chip is very cool, but the board has 180W or 200W power limit, so not much more computing power can be gained, I can not go over 1200MHz :(

And do not forget to boot with the S switch turned on, as the BIOS it loads when it is off is insane - it locks the Vcc at 1.25V, which is too high for that chip and when you do any tuning on scrypt, the internal protection will shut the card down not to burn it.

Run at the lowest possible Vcc and the best cooling you can get.

AMD 7950 by far, very cool and energy efficient

Thanks!

It is NOT worth it to buy hardware. Once ASICs take over the market, all the current BTC GPU miners will hop on over to scrypt. The difficulty will skyrocket, and you'll be completely and utterly fucked. Just spend the money to buy bitcoins directly through coinbase or something.

Yes, that is also what I believe. Today butterfly started shiping its first units. You should get on the mining wagon as soon as you can, within a month it is going to be over with mining.

We are in the twilight of GPU mining, but it's up to you to decide if it is worth it to you at this point.

You may want to take a look at the new Radeon 7790 too.  It isn't going to do as much per card as the 7950 (maybe around 300MH/s overclocked) but it is relatively cheap and seems very power efficient.

Well he always could mine some scrypt chains 

I am using 7970's with about 750kh/s with bfgminer.  I get about 3 - 3.1 mh/s scrypt mining on a 4 card machine.
I am not sure of the power but I estimate it to be about 1200 watts for just the cards.  I know I can't run 2 machines on 1
20 amp breaker. 

One question would be, is it be able to get even on GPU mining or even make profit what comes to hardware investment and electricity. Like are you guys able to make profit with your hardware currently?

I have just ordered parts to build some mining rigs (7950s and 7970s). With the obscene electricity prices here in Australia (approx $0.30 / KWH) and the cost of the hardware I will be running at a loss. The ultimate hope of the investment is that the price of LTC rises over the next 12 months. If it LTC prices stay the same I basically break even (maybe lose 10% of investment). If LTC prices rise from current position I make money. If LTC prices drop I lose money. As with all investments it is a gamble, but I would personally say an investment in crypto currencies is at the risky end of the investment spectrum.

You should really think about future and see if it will be profitable anytime soon to mine with GPU

No, you mean the SECOND version of HD7950. It uses a new chip revision introduced just recently. Anyway, it can be run in very inefficient way if you have locked voltage at a high level (as one of the BIOSes on my card has).

I am using some rad cooling and it takes 188W from power outlet (230V~) at 1175MHz, 1175MHz RAM at SHA-256, 623MHa/s. Not entirely a new record... just a shadow of things to come either in October or later...

Cheap. Pretty cheap. That's a better deal than I have and I have an extra special price with discounts, because I am a large consumer... were I a company, the electricity costs would be a multiple of what you quote. Don't complain. If running a generator on unsubsidized petrol doesn't make cheaper electric power tha what you get from the network, you are still getting a good deal.

Looking into purchasing two 7970's for a LTC mining rig myself.  Any suggestions on brands?  Are you guys running them "underwater" or simply keeping them air cooled?  If so, does it help with the hash rate?  Is it worth the additional expense for the blocks? Does this help with energy efficiency?

The cost of a water block alone can be 30-50% that of the card. So it's more effective to buy another card.

As far as temperature vs. consumption goes, you can save up to 30W on a card by going with temperature down from 80°C to 50°C.

As for the 7970 cards, it needs to be a new model with a new BIOS, that is the most important thing, because basically the silicon has been updated twice, the last time in April 2013, and the BIOS too. A simple thing: check the BIOS version, the new cards do not have any alternative BIOSes, and run much cooler.

Use the lowest possible voltage on a card, on reference cards such as Sapphire, the second BIOS - when the button is pushed to ON position is the good one, that allows you to do things right. Basically the card you want ends in OC or something like that. Don't buy stale cards made in early 2012 for example :)

 - Thanks for the response Bagpipe!

lol I love how any thread for questions about mining.

There is always some n00b idiot who says "get asic, don't GPU mine"

Because they do not realize there are other coins to mine lmfao