Bitcoin Forum

I'm really interested in Bitcoin and I was wondering if it's still profitable to join a mining pool?

I mean, I don't have that much money to spend at the moment and I was wondering how long would I need to mine in association with a reputable mining pool to earn just 1 bitcoin?

Hi, I started mining a few months ago at around 1GHash 3x 333MHash usb dongles. Currently with BTC guild that is seeing about 0.01BTC every 7-10 days. the dongles cost me around 0.2BTC each couple months ago.
I think it'd be more profitable to start mining an altcoin such as Litecoin or Primecoin if you already have some decent graphics cards.

I haven't tried any other ones for Bitcoins but BTC Guild also mine Namecoin at the same time. There are a few others that mine others such as IXC and DEV coin as well.

Have a look at the site: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools
it's a good starting point to judge what pool would suit you, or at least where to start

Mining bitcoins is very much a secondary means now (for me). Most comes from link revenue, market trades and stock holdings.

Hope this helps

My graphics card is a little old, it is a Nvidia GTX 295, is it worth it? should I mine solo or with a pool?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10541.0  <-- topic on same graphics card as you

unless you got plenty of ASIC miners running into 100's GHashs, there is no real point mining bitcoin solo anymore. Pool is the best way to get anything now for most.

With that Graphics card though, even on a pool, you will not reap much rewards. In all honesty, i would say with your current hardware, probably start mining an Altcoins :) Primecoin, Litecoin and Goldcoins are some relativly easy alternatives.. you can then use an exchange to trade these for Bitcoins

You will never solo mine a bitcoin since your card would have to solve an entire block and then you would generate 25 bitcoins at all once. Graphics cards are way to slow at current difficulty to solo mine, so if you want to get involved with bitcoin, then join a pool.

Is it worth mining bitcoins with a video card? Simply put, no. But it could be fun and is a great way to learn how to use a pool, send and receive bitcoins etc. You could also buy a few of these ASIC Miners (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CUJT7TO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00CUJT7TO&linkCode=as2&tag=googads33-20) and start a little bitcoin farm. Each of these miners roughly has the power of 1 video card in terms of mining bitcoins. Will you make money off them at current USD/BTC conversions? No. But once again it is a good introduction to bitcoins.

Btcguild is good. Or u can try solo mining :)

I like Triple Mining because they have low fees, referral bonuses and weekly jackpots. Check out the link in my sig.

Using BTCGuild here too :)

I think Btcguild and eligius are pretty popular.

Using bitminter, dont like all those complicated miners, just a simple Java client.

BTCGuild is the best....

I don't get your question, but anyway, your profitable should be the same in the long run if you join mining pool or not. I am assuming the pool don't charge you anything...

Its up to you, you can also try solo mining if you wanna win big!!

BTC guild, have good DDOS protection and less to no downtime...

I am using BTCGuild also, tried other smaller pool but got DDOS and massive downtime..

What hardware do you have?

BTC P2Pool for payments direct to wallet, no registration and no risk of the site being hacked!

pool.play4.co.uk:9332
play4.co.uk

BTCguild is the best.... 100% up time...

My advise is also BTCguild like everyone else..

Choose a pool that give out incentives, usually very small pool.. look at the pool section...

You can try middlepool.com. The profitability is higher then if you mine Bitcoin directly, of course it also depends on what your mining rig is..