+1 for not gouging.

Re-read his post.

He didn't say he could get the 58XX for $60 or $80 cheaper.

But he's right that it would be hard to pay one off ever -- unless a lot of people give up mining, or the BTC goes to $60.

And nobody buys a 58XX for gaming. It's a MINING card plain and simple. And mining is for ONE purpose: profit.

6990s are not worth it. Period.

They are noisy too -- go ahead and google it. I was tempted to buy one used for $600 from someone locally, then I found out they A) run hot and B) run loud.

Oh, and they have a lousy $/MH.

Unless there is a motherboard/PSU drought where you live, skip the 6990.

May I ask, then why buy "gear"?

If it's your 2nd or 3rd rig, you can't exactly call it your gaming machine.

Upgrading your existing video card to something more mining-friendly (even at a loss) is one thing -- but when you're buying/making RIGS, they have one purpose: MINING

And what, pray tell, is mining for, unless to make money?

I don't have a business degree, but I do know that you have to subtract your expenses before you can arrive at a "profit".

What, are some people so giddy about the concept of Free Money that they'll pay for the privilege?

"I'll buy this $200 card, so that I can make FREE MONEY -- $1 out of thin air -- every day!"
-- Kinda silly if you ask me.

To the owners of BitJam --

I'm having serious issues.

Looking at my stats, it's been holding at "228 shares" for SOME TIME now. About 3 days to be exact.

And it says "-28 shares" until payout -- where's my .01 BTC?

Those are the two important issues I have. I expect an answer or I'm going to spread the word that you're scamming people (and I'm obviously going to take the code down from my sites!)

Matthew

Where did you buy (4) 5850 for $150 each?  The Hawaiian dude was selling them for $199 each, with possibility of combined shipping.

I'd be tempted @ $150, so what's your problem?

Why don't you READ my posts, and take issue with the facts, instead of attacking the messenger? I only say what is TRUE. Don't ever assume or put words in my mouth. If something is true, I'll agree with it 100%. Try me.

Matthew

If a person looks at the situation (like MousePotato), does his own analysis, and has logical reasons for jumping in, then go for it.

We're all (more or less) grown-ups; we're big enough to spend our own money and take risks.

I just don't like it when people are taken advantage of -- when they receive deceptive advice (usually from the seller of used video cards), so that they go into an investment with unrealistic expectations ("According to deepbit, you'll make $10/day. So you can plan on $300 a month, or $3600 a year! Heck, that's $36,000 over the next 10 years.")

Such hype and shysterism bothers me.

I also believe he's overpriced.

I ran the numbers for the most tempting of the items, and came up with a 53 day payoff period, best-case scenario (no further difficulty increases after tomorrow morning's)

The 5850 gets 358 MH/s which is 0.37 BTC/day now.

But in about 24 hours, that's going to be cut to 0.244 BTC/day.

Assuming a $17 bitcoin (which is above the current market price), that's $4.15 a day.

But I don't live with Mom, so I have to subtract 4.5 kW/h for electricity, which (@ 8.8c per kWh) equals 0.40.

So I would make $3.75 a day with the card, assuming NO FURTHER DIFFICULTY INCREASES (yeah right!)

53 days to payoff.

That's too much. Maybe if my existing rigs were paid for I'd go for it -- but I gotta pay them off first. I don't want to be too far under water.

Moral of the story: The guy is selling his 5850 for what he paid! Yes, it's in great condition, but it's used! And he's not NewEgg! He's preying on the last remaining (foolish) miners who are actually trying to start out/expand in the current situation where it doesn't make sense to expand.

Personally, I haven't expanded during this last difficulty. This is the first difficulty that I've watched in horror as the total network went up by 50%, yet I didn't contribute to ANY of that. I don't think it's a bunch of individuals -- most of it is probably the Big Boys.

In some ways this Hawaiian is the lucky one. He's getting out before "the stampede" so he might just find a few suckers to pay top dollar for his video cards. In a couple weeks, top dollars *won't be possible*.

Oh, and needless to say, the 6XXX cards are a much worse deal. I picked the best of his cards to run the numbers on.

I hope he doesn't find any suckers. But he probably will.

Matthew

What version of Linux were you using, and how did a hacker "hack" your system?

It doesn't sound very likely to me.

IE isn't available for Linux. 

There aren't many malware programs for Linux either. You basically have "herd immunity" from viruses just by using Linux. (For those who understand the concept "herd immunity")

Are they being DDoS'd?

Or, being hit with tons of traffic because of the last price of BTC?  I haven't been online for several hours (I was, you know, sleeping!)

This is excellent.

All the people stealing electricity from their companies/universities/etc. should be caught -- and the only way for them to be caught is for some publicity about Bitcoin to hit the news.

Whenever a story like this hits the news, it makes more people aware of
A) Bitcoin
and
B) The possibility that machines "at work" are being used for this.

IT managers are going to start checking for this. People will be getting fired. Port 8332 will start getting blocked.

And the URLs of the major pools will be blocked, just like "Myspace" and "Facebook" today.

Look at my sigline.

Any word yet about Tradehill?

 

I thought it was silly to project MONTHLY income. It's downright insane to project YEARLY. Bitcoin might not even BE HERE for a year...

I was wondering the same thing.

Last night, I found a guy selling 5850's for $199 shipped. (All of you are asking -- "WHERE?" lol)

I ran the numbers, and the 5850 (a better card than 5830, of course) gets 358 MH/s which is 0.37 BTC/day now.

But in about 24 hours, that's going to be cut to 0.244 BTC/day.

Assuming a $17 bitcoin, that's $4.15 a day.

But I don't live with Mom, so I have to subtract 4.5 kW/h for electricity, which (@ 8.8c per kWh) equals 0.40.

So I would make $3.75 a day with the card, assuming NO FURTHER DIFFICULTY INCREASES (yeah right!)

53 days to payoff.

That's too much. Maybe if my existing rigs were paid for I'd go for it -- but I gotta pay them off first. I don't want to be too far under water.

Moral of the story: The guy is selling his 5850 for what he paid! Yes, it's in great condition, but it's used! And he's not NewEgg!  He's preying on the last remaining (foolish) miners who are actually trying to start out/expand in the current situation where it doesn't make sense to expand.

I haven't expanded during this last difficulty. This is the first difficulty that I've watched in horror as the total network went up by 50%, yet I didn't contribute to ANY of that. I don't think it's a bunch of individuals -- most of it is probably the Big Boys.

Matthew

I've never used the PCI-->PCIe cables.  But as a matter of fact, I bet few others have either -- Cablesaurus didn't have them even 1 week ago.  So I doubt many people have experience with them.

Generally the problem with PIII computers would be the lack of PCI-E slots. But the CPU could probably handle running a video card, all other things being adequate (PSU, etc.)

Deepbit's estimator says 0.79/day.

HOWEVER --

The difficulty is going to reset in a little over a day. It's going to be a 50% increase, which means you will make 2/3 what you make today, starting Friday at 6:00 AM or so.

Today, Tomorrow: 0.79/day
The 8-10 days after that: 0.521/day

So about 15.64 BTC per month -- but that assumes there are no more difficulty increases for the next 30 days. Which is not likely! It hasn't happened yet (in the post-May-2011 era we're in; namely, since most people found out about Bitcoin)

Then you have to place your bet on how much a BTC will be worth. $15? $10? $30?

One thing to keep in mind -- users of BTC don't feel any need to pay more for a BTC, just because difficulty went up. That's a common fallacy. If anything, higher price will lead to higher difficulty, as greedy miners buy more equipment and make the difficulty go up. That actually makes sense. But the other way around? No.

The same number of BTC will be produced in a week (6/hour, creeping up to 8 or 10/hour after 8 days) whether the "bounty" is divided up by 1000 miners, 1500 miners, or 2000 miners. Adding more miners to the system makes BTC harder to produce, but the same number are produced when all is said and done.

Yes, we happened to have a run-up in price as difficulty rose twice in late May/early June. But that was a coincidence; a product of a manic bubble which spectacularly burst at $32. I haven't seen any $30 BTC for a while. Wish I had!  I'm a miner myself, so I'd love to see $30 BTC. But I'd also like to sprout wings and fly. Neither are likely, unfortunately for me.

If you want to be conservative in your expectations -- or super-optimistic -- that's up to you. All you can do is run the numbers and decide if it's for you or not.

It's called efficiency.

You think every card has the same MH per watt?

Or that every rig uses the same number of watts to achieve a given MH? 

...except I have "money that folds" in my account, and I haven't been taken care of either.

Wow, we DO have a few smart people in this sub-forum!

I must say, you stand out like a sore thumb...