Bitcoin Forum

I currently use guiminer and I'm no hardcore miner as I only have a hd 6870 and a hd 5770 mining for me (about 500mhs). There are so many different pools to mine for, what pool could I profit most from? Does my choice of mining program matter because I don't like dealing with command line.

Also, if I were to build a mining rig (thinking about 3x5770) would it be profitable? As in would it pay for itself + more over time? If so, how long would that take?

Gui miner is fine to use it+trixx is just as good as any other combination feature wise, as far as that question we really can't answer that we'd need to know the draw of the actual mining rig(varries based on psu choice) plus the cost of electrical in your area

Use this: http://tpbitcalc.appspot.com

3x5770 would get you around 600MH/second I think. Check here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

I'd suggest cgminer (https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer)

As for power consumption, get a meter (such as the P3 P4460 Kill a watt) to see how much power your rig consumes _when_ it mines.

Does cgminer go faster than guiminer?

It is a diffrent tool with some built in overclocking features not present in guiminer, however it's possible to use both to reach the same speeds

I use this exact meter, an HD 6870 adds on about ~160 watts when it is mining vs idle(clocked at 985mhz core 300mhz memory).

Personally, I use cgminer, but I like the ability to tweak the command line options quickly.  GUIMiner works just as well.

For pools, I use Ars as my main - they take transaction fees and beyond that all donations are voluntary.  It's SMPPS based on current difficulty. (1/difficulty is payout per work accepted - minimum balance to withdraw is 0.01, minimum auto-payout is 0.5)

My primary failover(not sure if guiminer lets you set failovers?  haven't even checked) is luke-jr's which you connect to with your wallet address, and get payouts any time your balance reaches 0.67btc(I think).  I believe the style of payouts is similar to ars.  I've not yet actually had enough failovers from ars to build up enough for a payout.

If you haven't already, check out https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

As for command lines, once you figure them out, it's easy to make a .bat file(windows) or a shell script(linux) which will run your command line options for you.  Just be careful if you try to overclock on a command line, one misplaced 0 and you'll (at best) force a gpu hardware restart, or (at worst) kill your gpu permanently, and possibly the PCI-E slot it was connected to.

Would also have to know how much you spent on the the rest of the rig itself.

Well, Intensity isn't exactly an OC feature per se! It's more like Intel speed step in that, it allows the GPU to run full tilt. Where as, a lower intensity would hash a little "lighter" on the GPU!
But, yes! CGminer is one of the best/fastest miners out there!

i find cgminer not only faster, but it also creates less stale shares
i have tested both on multiple machines

I'm using guiminer and on triple mining pool. But, I'm only at about 10mhash/s.

I would think it would be higher as I'm using an alienware with a geforce GT 335M.

I am out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sand and on a satellite. Does the bandwidth play any role?

Thanks!

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

No entry for 335m, but you're above the 330m and below the 350m so looks right

Mobile cards in general are a bad idea for mining.  Nvidia is also a bad idea.

Thanks for the quick reply. Looks like I am about right according to the chart. Not really planning on mining much (if any at all) just passing the time and playing.

Free power here, maybe I should get a dedicated miner...