Bitcoin Forum

Hey all, I was just wondering if anyone knew of a good GPU for BTC mining for the cost of around $200 - $300.
I am a gamer, but I figure when I am not gaming I could do some mining.
I am a laptop user, but I am planning to build a PC this tax season to save some money for upgrades later on.
The current setup I am looking to build uses a GTX 7770, but I heard Nvidia's were not too great when it comes to btc mining. (ltc mining is a different story though apparently, but btc pays off more)

Anyway's, any pointers in the right direction would be appreciated.

Cheers!

For $250 you can get a AMD 7970 on eBay. Mine LTC of FTC instead of bitcoins. It's more profitable and then you can always convert it to bitcoins.

Interestingly http://dustcoin.com/ (http://dustcoin.com/) currently says that LTC or FTC are not more profitable to mine right now...

First, if you want to mine BTC with GPU you can forget about it, with $200 you can buy pretty good low hash rate ASIC....

Use http://www.multipool.us/ to determine profitability. This site gives you profit in comparison to BTC.

Re read the main post, I am a gamer, I can't game with an ASIC can I?
Also I don't have that much money extra to blow to afford an ASIC and a gpu.

Then buy your self gaming gpu and enjoy, and don't bother with btc mining.
You can't mine btc with gpu any more.

sure you can

if you have free electricity, why not?

for under $200, get a 7950


or wait!  i'll sell you my 6990 for $225

or i have some 7850s... or some 7790s..

No sense in buying now, like I said I need to wait till after tax season

shame, that 7870 tahiti LE on newegg for $130 after rebate is essentially the same thing as a 7950..

You should get 7950 or if you can find it for less than 300$ R9 280X.

U should get ASIC for BTC mining, any ASIC would be better then GPU 1000x...

a 7950 is pretty good hashing rate, mines getting 400+KH/s on scrypt and 400+MH/s on sha-256

or you could order some usb asic miners, each go for around $35 each, and do 330MH/s

Go ASIC please, even USB erupter is more efficient then GPU and you don't need motherboard, memory etc...

Why not do CPU mining instead?

I have 2x Radeon 7950s in my gaming rig and I don't mine with them because difficulty is too high for it to be worth it (vs Electricity costs). Realistically the only way to make money at this point is to go big with ASICs and even then it's a pretty big risk.

The problem is, even with ASIC people are not making money.. those that make the most money is purchase Bitcoin and did nothing...

Used 7970 should be best for your budget.... but please don't use it on BTC.... gaming is better :)

I believe the best miners would be CPU mining... :)

Get a CPU rig and mine some primecoins.

The best GPU for mining at your price point is the AMD Radeon HD7950. It has the best combination of price/hash rate/power consumption. It is also very good for gaming. If you find a "newer" R-280 for the same price, that's probably better.

There are 2 advisable tweaks: 1) undervolt; 2) download a particular modified .bin for extra hash rate.

Regarding Nvidia, they are inferior at mining either bitcoins or litecoins/alt-coins. You also get more  btc if you mine litecoins or other scrypt alts, instead of directly mining bitcoins

I think 7970 is better for power efficiency..

7950 is overrated, R9 290 is better!!!...

Do anyone manage to get a hold of a R9 290? What`s the hashrate on that?
The 290X pretty much sucks compared to the 280X.

you should get about 850 hash for R9 290. Seems like they are best for power efficiency..

290x is the best choice, although its abit pricey but we will see some promotion on thanksgiving..

R9 290 seems to be better then R290x in term of power efficiency, now lets just wait for the price to drop a little before we invest some..

For $200, the best GPU that you can get is used 7970. otherwise go for R9 280 when it comes out...

Price is everything. The 280X is half the price of a 290X, and the 290X just hash around 100kh/s more. Not worth it in any way.

Mine a scrypt coin then, you could make $4 a day at the moment, minus electric that is.

Yeah, but usually when it is new, the price is high. It will drop once in a while and some crazy promotion brings the most expansive card to really cheap.. so I am waiting too

newegg always have good promotion, what if they come out with buy 2 free 1 promotion :)...