how are you going to power the 8 GPU? as that would require a 2000W+ PSU, are you going to combine PSU?
If he's using 5830's he can probably get by with a 1600W PSU. Each 5830 adds 120W (actual measured power draw, at the wall socket). |
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I've just recently got into Bitcoins and I am very intrigued to say the least. I called up an old friend from college (he writes for The Economist) to see if he had heard about Bitcoins and I was surprised to hear that he and a few of his colleagues have already been researching about Bitcoins for a story. He said they were going pretty in-depth into how the currency works (the proof-of-work distributed computing, Satoshi Nakamoto's paper, etc) as well as the case for an anonymous currency. But the real juicy bit is this: it's going into the print edition! No idea if it will be on the front page but he did say it was feature length so it is highly probable that it could be. I'm aware of his current deadline, but to prevent the Bitcoin market from getting even more sporadic than it is I won't be publicly revealing the edition it is being published in.
If you guys want to throw me some BTC for the tip, my address is in the signature.
Cheers
I read bitcoin article on their website a few days ago. Seems like you are posting this a little late. Unless you were referring to them putting it in the print edition. |
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Yeah, actually it's kind of shady for that conflict of interest to exist. But i'll repeat that was wrong initially, and there is so far no evidence of him doing anything wrong. It was my own mistake.
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I edited my own post. It turns out that that guy starting up the mining co. had posted two identical threads. One in econ > marketplace, and one in econ > marketplace > selling.
When I checked in the morning I looked in the 2nd thread, not realizing there were two of them, so I thought my posts had been edited. I still do think it's a little iffy for the mod to be running an exchange, but until there is evidence of him deleting posts or something else nefarious I wouldn't worry too much about it.
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Yeah I don't understand what power supply would allow you to plug the wrong cable into the wrong place. Modular PSU's wouldn't let that happen, pretty sure it's fake.
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Bumping so we see both threads.
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I will post the #'s again.
40 Gh/s = 154 5830 GPU's
154 GPUs, 5 GPUs per system = 31 systems
System Build Costs
mobo $130.00
PCIe extenders $21.00
ram $25.00
PSU $180.00
case $40.00
hdd $20.00
DVD $20.00
cpu $80.00
Fans $20.00
Total Without GPU's: $536
Total with GPU's: $1,336.00
Times 31 systems = $41,416.00
Other issues:
- 29 kilowatts of electricity used, and heat that needs to be cooled. Does the OP know how to set up wiring and cooling for this level of power and not burn down the property?
- OP doesn't know how to spec a power supply (thought that getting a 1000W PSU instead of a 1200W PSU would use 17% less electricity. This was discussed in OP's other thread)
- Cost of hardware is already over what the OP is trying to raise
- OP claims plan b is more profitable than mining, so why not just go straight to plan B?
- It's going to be more like $45k - $50k to get up and running
- By the time the OP is up and running difficulty will have increased 3-4 times. Assuming $15 BTC, and 30% difficulty jumps (which isn't guaranteed, or even that likely) electricity would cost more than the money earned from mining after about 10-14 days.
- The case pointed out by the OP doesn't fit 5 GPU's, doubtful that many can be cooled in that case.
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Why were my posts in this thread deleted? I had a back and forth exchange with the OP pointing out flaws in his business plan. I log in this morning and all those posts are gone. Is someone trying to censor anything realistic, possibly negative news? That's just lame.
EDIT: Nm. Looks like there are two posts with identical names, posted at similar times.
one in Econ -> marketplace > selling
and one in econ > marketplace
My bad.
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Yeah I am leaving this pool because it's too unstable. I don't like logging in and every few hours the stats say my hashrate is zero or some other weird stuff is going on with the stats. It doesn't instill confidence that you are somehow still counting my contributions and just now reporting on it properly.
Yeah, you're right. Leave the pool because the stats are jerky sometimes. Never mind that other pools' stats don't even come close to Eligius' ones. Not only is it jerky but it's making me less money than other pools for the same hashing power. |
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Is there a point to these questions?
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How would the online gambling work for US residents? Didn't they just do a huge crackdown on online gambling recently, and freeze a ton of accounts? Wouldn't using bitcoin for gambling just draw more negative attention?
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I agree, I simply stated that as a realistic scenario. Plus if difficulty slows it means the BTC's value is staying too low for it to be profitable for most people, which doesn't bode well for someone starting a $50K mining operation. The OP, or any potential investor, has to take both price and difficulty into consideration. And since those two factors sort of feedback on each other it is pretty hard to do. His original calculations were far too optimistic. Mine as well is not as pessimistic as some fairly realistic scenarios (difficulty continues uppping, but at a slower rate, while price steadily falls to or below $7 / BTC).
The only people who might have a good case for jumping in big now are those who live where electricity is < $0.08/kwh, and who can cool a big setup cheaply. Other guys will dump their hardware cheap once the BTC price no longer pays back electricity required to produce. The people with cheap power will buy that hardware cheap and produce bitcoins cheap. So that is also a potential scenario where difficulty would still continue to increase (I still think it would increase slower in this scenario as well. After the next jump I think the increases might be lower than 30%).
My guess is the difficulty WILL continue to rise until the electrical cost to produce BTC about meets the value of BTC in meatspace currency. Luckily the OP is on the cheaper side of things in terms of global electric costs (but still higher than the US average of $0.10/kwh).
And he still hasn't addressed the ownership in case the venture fails. Do investors get paid back through the sale of the hardware? And why would he still choose risky mining over Plan B if Plan B is more profitable?
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That last crest is news about the bitcoin heists and malware. I doubt that's going to bring money into the system.
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I think the harder mining gets, the higher the value of BitCoins is going to rise.. I don't think it'll go back down to single digits unless theres something can threaten the bitcoin economy.
There is no bitcoin economy. Only speculation that there might be one later on. As mining stops growing in the next 2-3 months, the influx of miners will slow. Miners are a huge part of the new money and attention coming into bitcoin, and that's a big part of what has caused price rises. Thus the price jumps could potentially stabilize. At that point the growth will go back to being very slow as bitcoin tries to establish a role for itself in the world. If it stops growing it will devalue because it's not big enough as an economy to sustain itself. There are plenty of bitcoins in existence right now. More than anyone could need. You can't sell them all for the current market price, no one would want that many because you can't really do much with them. I could be totally wrong though. Just laying out some possibilities. |
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At the current difficulty will be very hard to see bitcoins under $10, with the next jump it will be impossible.
1. Difficulty doesn't determine price. 2. If the network continues growing (and it will since there is still profit to be had) mining revenue will soon approach electricity cost. Everyone will want to dump their hardware and bitcoins to get out of this unprofitable business which will drive the cost lower. Not a prediction, just a counter-scenario to what you describe is "impossible". This could be theoretically countered by an influx of new money seeking to buy bitcoins, but I'm not sure what would cause that since most of the attention Bitcoin has been getting has been negative. |
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Also, in my city the actual electricity bill ends up being about 2x higher than the $/kwh rate that is advertised. This is because you pay for taxes, flat fees, and then "delivery fees". My electricity supply is only $0.11/kwh, but my overall bill is more than double that.
Have you taken that into account? What the overall monthly electricity bill would be after all fees, surcharges, taxes, etc?
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I can't tell if your post is a joke, or a scam or if you simply haven't thought it through.
How can the computers you described only cost $900? Even if you had all the other parts and only needed to buy the 160 5830's needed to reach 40GH/s, you'd spend about $180 per GPU. One hundred sixty Radeon 5830's at $180 a piece. I suppose that's about the going rate for that card right now, if you could even find them for sale. Now you need to assemble all the other parts for 32 systems: Athlon II X4's, 4gb ram, DVD drive (pointless for mining), cases, motherboards, 1200W power supplies, fans, and PCIe riser cables. The case you linked to won't hold 5 GPU's without mods. Add $ for that, even if it's just shelves to prop up the cards.
Parts:
mobo $130.00
PCIe extenders $30.00
ram $25.00
PSU $180.00
case $40.00
hdd $20.00
DVD $20.00
cpu $80.00
Fans $20.00
Total: $545 without video cards
Total with video cards @$160 each: $1345
x40 = $43,040.00 just for the machines alone.
Good luck getting all those parts and the video cards, for that price in under a month. The price of a bitcoin has already fallen from $20 to $15 and it's only been a day since you made this thread. Counting on the price to stay steady is crazy with something as a volatile as bitcoins. The difficulty will adjust more than every 14 days. More like every 8-10 days. At that rate the difficulty will have already increased AT LEAST 3 more times between now and when you finally get up and running (this assumes you are able to raise money and get your operation up and running at an above average speed). So by the first week that you are up and mining, electricity will already be 87% of your revenue (assuming bitcoins are still $15 at that time, which could go either way). After your 10th day of mining electricity jumps to %135 of your revenue. From then on out who knows what happens. People will begin to drop out of mining so you drop out so you might put your operations on pause or just keep mining with the expectation that you might lose money for a while while you wait for people to drop out.
Also consider that 40x of these rigs, is going to put out about 29,000W of heat. I'm basing that of actual measured power draw from my own system with 2 5830's, extrapolated to 5 cards. That's 115W/sqf, which is in datacenter territory. You should research what spec of AC you actually need to cool off this kind of heat. And be careful to not use more than 80% of the max amperage for each electrical circuit.
Good luck finding investors who will invest in a plan where the #'s already exceed your planned costs, and that will begin to lose money after about 10 days of getting the operation up and running, and only get worse from there, or stay near a barely break even point. Then how are you going to deal with liquidating your "company" when you go under? I'm assuming you're going to either start an internet gaming center or sell the PC's.
If your plan B were more profitable than mining why would you not just jump straight to plan B? I'm guessing it's because you expect a bunch of strangers online to pay for your hardware so you can actually do "Plan B". But if Plan B is as well thought out as Plan A, you should assume there will be a high probability of that plan failing within the first 45 days. Would the cash from liquidating the hardware be split evenly among the bondholders? Or do you for some reason get the privilege of keeping the hardware and/or cash and leaving the suckers, i mean, investors, high and dry?
Note: i assumed 260Mh/s per 5830. I guess if you overclock you could get more than that, but you'd also be using more electricity and generating more heat so that would only at best buy you about another week of operating before you start losing money.
I will point out most of the costs you mentioned to add are minor. Also, I am paying less than you have indicated for motherboard, case, extender cables, and I am going with a 1 kW PSU instead of the 1200 W, which also decreases electricity requirements per computer by 17%, which will make a big difference. This reduces the electricity cost over 11 weeks by $2,365.44. This allows an increase in cost per computer of 2365.44/40*4=$236.54, since there are 40 computers and 3/4 of the initial cost is recovered from salvage value. The cost of graphics cards did increase since my original calculation, so $1000-1100 is a more realistic figure for cost per machine, which still indicates a greater profit when compared to my original calculation with a 1 kW PSU. With regard to cooling, I plan on building a ducting system with large fans that direct heat out the window. Additionally, I will be installing a 12000, 18000, or 24000 BTU window A/C unit for $250-$450 to cool a 350 sqft space. Plus, there is A/C already in the building. What calculation did you use to come up with 17%? I'm guessing you used the following logic: "A 1000W PSU uses 200W less than a 1200W. 200W is 16.7% of 1200W, so we will use 17% less electricity." That's not how it works. I will let you do your own research about that and figure out why 17% is wrong. If anything you will use very slightly more power by dropping to a 1000W PSU. Dropping to 1000W might be better in the long run because it would help you recoup costs faster, but it will definitely NOT help you on your electricity bills. My calculation for the PSU was practically a best case scenario for your power use, and I also did you a favor of using real power usage #'s I took from similar hardware. 29kW of electricity use and heat output is what you are going to be dealing with. I don't know how many BTU's you need to cool that. Please do your research on what kind of airflow and BTU ratings you need to cool such a setup for the given size before you try that out. Why would you buy DVD drives to mine? If you need them for plan B, why not wait until you get to plan B before buying them. Is it because you know that the mining has no chance to begin with? You will be chasing diminishing profits, and the major thing you overlooked is that by the time your systems are up and running the difficulty will already have increased 3-4 times. I based my previous figures on an estimate of 30% increases every ~10 days. 3 increases by the time OP first starts to mine, a month from now. The first increase after he starts will have him losing money (assuming a $15 BTC). I'm not saying that will happen, but that's a very realistic scenario. The BTC value could go up and make your venture worthwhile, but it could go down just as easily. The difficulty will certainly continue to rise, maybe a little slower, maybe a little faster. If an investor believed he/she were going to make money by investing in you they would essentially be banking on a rise of the BTC's value. If that's the case, they may as well put their money into the BTC RIGHT NOW, and get a 1 month head start on the scenario of investing in you (due to the lag it would take for you to collect investments and get everything up and running). There is just so much that's not thought out. You still assume that you will be able to find the 5830's in the quantities you need, that you'll be able to put 5 GPU's into each system (where the case you linked to doesn't have the slots for this, you'd have to get creative), and that they would run cool enough. You claim to be able to get better prices on some of the components than what newegg is selling them for. Is there really a 5 PCIe slot mobo that has the correct slot spacing that would allow you to only require 3 riser cables per system, and that costs less than $130, that you can acquire 32 - 40 of? Are you sure about all of that. I'm not saying it's not possible, but from the looking around that I did when seeing if building new mining rigs would be worthwhile I didn't find anything cheaper that would allow the 5xGPU that you are aiming for. I'm sure it's out there though if one looks hard enough. I'll reiterate that the plan you propose is pretty risky for investors and no one with any sense would invest significantly in this scheme given your highly optimistic calculations; incorrect assumptions about power use = incorrect assumptions where else, risk of difficulty increasing to the point that you never turn a profit (and start losing money daily after 10 - 15 days due to electricity being more expensive than BTC earned), and risk of the BTC being worthless against the dollar in the future. |
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