Depends on your hardware and your power cost - for me right now the ONLY cards I have that are more profitable on XMR than ZEC are my GTX 750 Ti cards - and that's only because they are in XP gaming systems and nothing but XMR is AVAILABLE for them to mine.

 The links in Wolf0's XMR CPU miner thread were dead last time I checked, though I DID ask him to look into that and he might have gotten them fixed sometime this week.
 He has also stated in the Claymore XMR GPU miner thead that he doesn't think there's much if any code improvement possible for XMR for the RX series.


 Last comment I saw from Claymore about his ZEC miner was a "10% more improvement" estimate with no context on what specific card(s) he was talking about - but mostly likely the RX series.

 They're willing to front you 50%?

 VERY generous for the cryptocoin mining industry, which has traditionally been "FULL payment in advance".

No, I'm saying that the connection the Laptop will use to share it's internet connection via the Ethernet port will probably be assigned 192.168.0.1 and that therefore anything using that Ethernet port to connect to the Internet VIA the laptop would have to be on the 192.168.0.x subnet

 You keep ASSuming that all miners "purchase" all of their gear to mine with, as opposed to the LARGE number of us that already had EXISTING gear we put (or put BACK) into Mining service once something came up it was profitable on.

 This is just as applicable to NVidia as to AMD, though NVidia has rarely been competative on mining vs AMD and there is a lot less "older" NVidia gear around used for mining with as a result. (in my case, 2x GTX 960, 3 x GTX 950, and 2 x GTX 750 Ti on the NVidia side as opposed to 5 x HD 7750, 2 x 7870, and a 7850 on the AMD side - but I'm probably a rarity in having comparable numbers of GPU on each side when the current ETH/ETC/XMR/ZEC/etc period of profitability began).


 On the other hand, NVidia's "new GPU architecture with each generation" was nothing more than a minor rehash and usually a "more cores on the top end" change, the only REAL difference is they "officially" changed their silicon on their various 28nm generations - with similar performance gains (small and mostly due to faster memory being available) vs the contemporary AMD generations. Their only BIG change during the GPU mining years has been the move to 14/16nm with Pascal vs the previous generations - they just did a better job HIDING that fact vs AMD's "rebranding" on THEIR GCN 28nm generations.
 AMD's move to GCN vs the older Terrascale was a much bigger change in architecture than anything NVidia in that period prior to Maxwell.

 I never did understand why NVidia labeled the 750 as the same generation as the older 7xx stuff - by rights it should have been the GTX 940.
 On the other hand, AMD should have changed their generation numbers when they moved to GCN, instead of having quite a few of their 7xxx series be Terrascale and the rest GCN.


 BTW - I make my entire living from mining, if that's not "real" then you have a really wierd definition of "real".



 I'm fully aware of the GPU bust from a couple years back - I had quite a bit of gear left over from mining Litecoin and X11 days, but instead of selling it off I just started using it for what I'd ORIGINALLY bought most of it for prior to my ever hearing of Bitcoin much less Litecoin. I "did my research" back THEN when I was part of that history.

On a completely different subject - the CureCoin forum is no longer accessable with Chrome, *apparently* due to it's use of an outdated encryption protocal (probably RC4 that was CRACKED a while back).

 Is the 1080 capable of being overclocked as much as the 1070?

 I do concede some of those overclocks (on ALL of the cards) are fairly extreme - but that doesn't negate my point about "real data from real folding".

Most LINUX-based miner software assumes the use of Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, or one of the derivatives like XUbuntu.

 After ASIC took over Scrypt mining, GPU mining quickly became UNprofitable on ANY coin unless you had very low electric costs - and marginal even then.

 The next few months is probably going to be a slow slide into that range - I don't see ANY reason for ZEC pricing to ever climb as more than a "pump and dump" spike, ETH has too many issues to see a serious climb before they go POS, and I don't see any fundamental reason for any other Altcoin to make any significant price climb for the medium term, much less the long term.




 NVidia isn't significantly better on the CURRENT miners to AMD on either a hash/watt or a hash/$ basis - still looses by a little on hash/$ and you have to lock yourself into NiceHash to even manage "close" right now.
 

 280/280x/290/290x and 3xx equivilents will go unprofitable at pretty much the same time - they all show VERY close numbers on hash/watt.


 At CURRENT numbers, NVidia 10xx and AMD RX rigs should stay profitable 'till almost exactly the same point - but future miner upgrades will possibly change that, and it depends on the coin as well - though basket balancing will keep the profitability close on all of the currently mineable coins 'till ETH goes POS, then it'll be a scramble for a bit then a new much lower profitability balance will happen.



 Anyone talking about a 2 month ROI though is either insane, or (more likely) COUNTING on selling off the used rigs or at least the GPUs from them to achieve ROI once they're done mining on them.

 Keep in mind though - a rig that is sellable as a GAMING rig needs a good CPU in it - something most mining rigs don't bother with.
 A good gaming rig also needs a bigger HD/SSD (FORGET about using a USB pen drive on a GAMING rig) and more RAM than most mining rigs bother with, but mining rigs TEND to be closer on those factors.

 Gaming rigs also need cases - many or most mining rigs don't bother, but that's not all that hard to "fix".

 S7 is still profitable if your electric cost is low enough.

 S5 and older probably need free electric to be profitable at this point.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vcVoSVtamcoGj5sFfvKF_XlvuviWWveJIg_iZ8U2bf0/pub?output=html#

Much more accurate info using REAL folding of REAL units than the benchmark, which only tests specific aspects of folding one at a time.

Depending on WHICH benchmark aspect you look at, the Nano should be directly competative to the GTX 1070 on performance - but in real folding work it's quite a bit worse.


 Also, the COST of those 1080s is what I was talking about - energy efficiency is going to be pretty much a tossup either way, but paying more than 50% more for the cards for perhaps a 20% PPD improvement is NOT cost effective.


 Try finding a 1080 in an ITX form factor short card like the Gigabyte (I build 3 card rigs, but due to limitations of available motherboards I need a short card to allow for decent cooling of all 3 cards).
 I supposed I COULD use 2x 1080 and a single 1070 though, so that point is a strawman argument to a degree.


 The Titan X Pascal is also less cost-effective, though it earns enough more in bonus PPD it might be better on a PPD/watt basis.
 It is NOT cost effective on a PPD/$ basis even vs the 1080, much less the 1070.


 980 ti aren't worth buying any more, unless you can get a used one fairly cheap.
 Dunno why you included THAT in your comparison - that IS a strawman argument.



 I don't do riser rigs - have had too many issues with the bloody things back in the days I DID use them.

 2 x 3 card no riser rigs aren't much more expensive IF at all than a single 6 x riser rig - you can use smaller much less expensive PS (cost per watt on a PS is pretty much even for quality Gold rated supplies 'till you hit the 1000 watt ballpark, at which point it starts climbing pretty fast), you DO take a hit on the HD/SSD/Pen Drive + RAM + CPU doubling up, but you might make that up on the LOW COST very common motherboards for 3 slots vs the rather HIGH price very limited selection of motherboards that can handle 6, and you DEFINITELY make up some on not needing risers.

 It's also a lot easier to get a 3 card rig to work in the first place, though once you get a rig to work at all it's not hard to "clone" it if you're running Ubuntu/Xubuntu - would be trivial if Ubuntu/XUbuntu used LILO instead of that PITA Grub bootloader with it's usage of that stupid majorly irritating UID garbage instead of standard drive designations.

 Non-riser machines also tend to be more reliable, and if you have a riser rig go down you lose ALL of the production from it vs. half if you have 2 x non-riser machines and one goes down.

For me ZEC profitability (and ETH and the rest of the backet) has dropped enough on my 1070s that I'm starting to shift them back over to their INTENDED work.

 Not exactly unanticipated - I'm more supprised that ZEC has stayed as HIGH as it has as long as it has.


 [edit] and of course a couple days later ZEC pumps back up again (for a short while most likely) [/edit]

 And as someone that's actually worked with the code, would YOU say there is much room for improvement for the RX series over the current code?

 3 different miners, not one.

 There is also quite a bit of competition in XMR miners, and Genoil beats Claymore on ETH in some cases.

I kept all the cards I used for Litecoin mining, as I had not originally bought them for that purpose.
Still have most of them (one died) but they're all mining ZEC right now (the 7870s and 7850 did mine ETH for a while).

It WAS nice having their mining work pay for the cards I had already bought and then a few more. 8-)

*Hopes for pods in (late) January, but suspect that's a bit too ambitious*

 Do keep in mind that a lot of us have EXISTING hardware on hand we'd like to mine more efficiently with, and don't see any reason to toss out working hardware just to spend $$$ on new stuff.
 There are also the SMALL miners that can't afford to casually just "buy a new card".


 Also keep in mind that AMD in particular had *3 generations* of "new" stuff that was no more than a bios refresh + slightly faster RAM with NO CHANGE TO THE ACTUAL GPU for most of the cards in the "new" line.
 (HD 7750/7770/78xx/79xx series, R5/7/9 2xx series, R5/7/9 3xx series - each generation only added 1 or 2 actual NEW gpu chips, usually at the top-end of the new line).

 Some of the R9 3xx series IS STILL IN PRODUCTION as AMD hasn't released their RX 4xx series replacements yet - which makes cards like the HD 7970 and 7950 arguably still current, and DEFINITELY the HD 7990.
 They also haven't released replacements for the bottom-end cards, so my HD 7750 is arguably still a CURRENT GPU (not one a miner should go out to buy, but since I have them on hand already no point in not USING them and achieving even MORE profit past the ROI they managed years ago).


 As far as the GPU goes, my HD 7870 is in actual FACT only one generation behind current, even if it's OFFICIALLY 4 generations old and 3-4 years out of production - and my R9 290s blow away ANY RX SERIES CARD that has been released to date on hashrate on pretty much ANY coin despite having been "dropped years ago".

 *waves*

 Majority of MY ZEC mining is with GTX 1070s, by a fairly wide margin - but that's looking likely to shift over the next week or less as "basket" profitability has dropped across the board making their ORIGINAL intended reason to exist competative on profitability.

I'll probably still leave the older 2GB and smaller cards on ZEC though.

---

 I have HD 7750s and HD 7870s running v9.1

 Doesn't work worth beans on the older Terascale stuff though, very poor hashrates at best.

---

 I've found over the years that the BRAND tends to have more to do with reliability than the GPU maker.

You're also talking ANCIENT history - EVGA has gotten a lot better since the pre-GTX days, though I still don't equate them to Gigabyte or MSI, much less Sapphire.

---

 The majority of cards I have had actually DIE have been HIS AMD cards.

 The issue hasn't been the chipset - the issue is the CHEAP SLEEVE BEARING FANS they use on most of their cards.

 I have yet to have  NVidia card actually die.

 I have had quite a few cards out of machines that got so long in the tooth that I ended up retiring them even though they still worked - some of them were of brands that don't even exist any more.

 He's already stated there is still some room for improvement - just not BIG ones like the previous versions.

 


 ZEC profitability has taken a major hit due to the continuing price drop - but folks move over to ETH and drag it's profitability down from increase in difficulty, so they're staying close depending on your specific setup and power cost.

 It's "the basket" effect, been there for a couple weeks or so to a noticeable degree.


 Profitability on both has been dropping enough I'm starting to shift my 1070 rigs over to their original intended purpose, as the profitability on THAT is now getting very close.



 I'm going to be curious to see how Ryzen does on XMR - current AMD CPUs don't seem to do very well per core.

 Not quite identical, but partly so.

 The R9 series had slightly faster RAM by default, and some upgraded to the BIOS.
 The actual GPU chip appears to have been identical in these specific cases though except perhaps for markings ON the chip.

 If you want good space heaters, you have to go to the HD 7990, the R9 295x, or in a pinch the R9 290 and R9 290x cards.

 9-)

None of the above.

 I seriously doubt there is any significant gain to be made via "alleged optimisation" for the RX series cards.


 I'm not opposed to him working on an update - but those that think "ZEC optimisations" will apply to XMR are pie in the sky dreamers, XMR is a lot closer to ETH than to ZEC.