Bitcoin Forum

Hi getting a new computer to mine with what you think, thanks


VIBOX ZETA-FS AMD FX QUAD CORE ATI HD 6450 500GB 4GB RAM

An ATI card, a powerful one. Like 5870/5970/6970/6990/7970
(more than one maybe)

Or a FPGA (more than one maybe)

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

The 6450 is listed at a pathetic 27 MH/s

That's just as bad as most NVIDIA cards :(

If it is just for mining, I would suggest getting a much cheaper cpu (sempron maybe?), the smallest cheapest hard drive you can get (even a flash drive could work), buying less ram (you don't really need more than 2 GB), and spending much more on the gpu (because that is what will be doing all the work).

buying a used HD 5000 series off of ebay is probably the best way to go, preferably one of the higher numbers, e.g. 5770, 5850, 5870, or 5970.

Short answer: No.

The HD6450 will hash at 27Mhps. At the current difficulty of 1508589 it will mine 0.02BTC, or $0.09, per day (that's 9 CENTS per day).

That computer will use ~150W while operating. At an average cost of $0.11/kWh, the electricity cost will be (150W x 24h / 1000 * $0.11/kWh) $0.40 per day. That's 40 CENTS per day.

If you mine with this PC, you will be LOSING 31 CENTS (mining income 9 cents, minus electricity cost of 40 cents) per day. You would be further ahead of you leave it turned off!  :-\

To BREAK EVEN, you would need a card that can hash at least 120Mhps. A 5770 does 200Mhps; a 5830 does 300Mhps; a 5870 does 400Mhps.

Check out this online BTC calculator to run different scenarios: http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php (http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php)

Yeah, a 6450 will not work. Try getting a 5830, 5850, or 5870 reference model design, so you can overclock it.

It seems like many people are recommending AMD based GPU's; is it still recommended if you're using Linux? As far as I know, the support for AMD is mediocre compared with Nvidia.

Yes, AMD is still recommended because AMD cards can mine 2-4x faster than a similarly-priced NVIDIA card.

Plus many miner programs are built for AMD and not NVIDIA cards.

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

This is only true if you personally pay for your electricity.

Is it "OK"? Sure, go for it, you won't break anything.
Is it optimal? Not even close.

I'd say 27 MH/s is FAR from "OK"

What's wrong with 27 MH/s?

It won't even pay for the electricity needed.  Even if you aren't paying for the electricity, someone is.

It doesn't matter whether or not it will pay for the electricity needed - that isn't what I'm saying.

I'm not going to argue morality and whether or not you should waste resources for your own personal gain, etc. etc. - what I'm saying is, it's perfectly acceptable to mine with the OP's card at 27 MH/s if the OP is trying to acquire BTC at any rate at all, without regard for his or his parents or his neighbor's or whomever's electricity bill.

I think it does matter - that is what I'm saying.

Why does it matter? I fail to understand your contention.

With paid electricity, you lose money.  That doesn't qualify as an "OK" miner IMO.

With free electricity, it is a really slow miner that is likely not worth the time it takes to configure the mining software. So, still not an "OK" miner.

What, in your opinion, would not be an "OK" miner?

I do agree with you that mining won't "hurt" this computer. Although high load on a low-end (or even high-end) card is going to cut into the card's life.

We've covered this - it doesn't matter, we're assuming electricity that is not paid for by the OP.

Grabbing a driver for the card and guiminer takes all of 15 minutes. This is irrelevant.

An Intel card that cannot mine - perhaps you could argue that a >3MH/s miner isn't "OK" - anything else is fair game.
I guess - not more so than any other use would, though.

To cut this short, it's perfectly fine to mine with a shitty card - "not okay" means that you cannot, in my eyes.

I have to agree. However I still think that you can't make much money from mining at 27 MHash/s.

Why are you assming electricity doesn't matter? The OP doesn't mention electricity. Not sure where you think he says it is free.

He said he got this to mine with. This is the worst mining system I think I've seen that still has a graphics card.

He also doesnt mention the power supply which is very important for a dedicated miner.

OK, you made your point, now let him do what he wants.

I would invest in FPGA.