This is useLESS, as CPU mining of Ethereum is not even close to being profitable.

Not to mention the massive overhead and poor stability anything Windows would inflict on the very SMALL system required to run an ASIC device.
There's ZERO POINT to this concept, and every reason in the world to avoid the concept.

 I would not bet on that. They alienated WAY too many customers and generated WAY too much negative reputation.
 They might be able to bounce back as a self-contained farm, but even THAT looks iffy.

Depends on what you're trying to mine.

 NEITHER will even touch Ethereum, can't address enough RAM.

eBay sellers often get things wrong - of those 3 links you posted, ALL are Gridseed designs NOT LKEtc.

 I HAD forgotten that they had a LTC pool though.

 At least some of the Mega A2 units came with an 1100 watt supply - STILL not enough though, and not real high quality reliable unit.

 I replaced 2 of mine with the Seasonic X1250 - it's a hair longer than the OEM supplies were, but it's a good fit on both the cabling AND the hole for the fan.
 The X1200 Platinum and the Titanium versions of that supply should work just too.

 EVGA 1300 did NOT fit worth beans - cable interference was VERY bad and the fan hold had about 1.5 inches or so of NON-overlap, which would have been problematical for long-term operation when overclocking.



 As of right now I'm tentatively planning on a 3-unit buy initially - depends on how Bitcoin price and Ethereum price goes over the next couple weeks or so....

Any of TheStilt BIOS should work on any "reference" design card - as long as you don't go too low on the undervolt for your specific card.

https://litecointalk.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=eddv3at0lhd0mh6eigv12dfoj7&topic=12830.msg121827#msg121827

 for info on which version is which.

I doubt BW (which is part-owned by LKetc of Dragon miner fame) has any interest in Scrypt - if they DID, they could have been making Scrypt miners years ago, given their close relationship for a long while with Innosilicon.

 I reiterate my comment about "unless you get a near-literal steal on the price".

 OP specified "his dorm" - no WAY he's going to be able to host anything.

 2 month ROI is a thing of the past - I don't anticipate ANYTHING managing that any more, and it's totally unrealistic.

 For that matter, what has managed a 2 month ROI at ANY point in the last 2 years? I can't think of anything offhand, unless you got a near-literal steal on the price....

 No. Where the heck did you come up with THAT insanity?


 I AM somewhat shocked that Avalon anticipates hitting the market that soon - with the lead they handed Bitmain, Bitfury, etc on the 14/16nm full custom generation I didn't expect to see an Avalon member of that generation before end of the year timeframe.


 Let The Competition Begin!

 (hopefully before September when Bitfury gets off it's rear with IT'S new chip, or BW gets their LK-1402 chips into miners and actually starts SELLING some miners).

At your electric cost, don't even bother looking at the S7. It is very marginal on IF it is profitable right now at that electric cost, and WILL be unprofitable long before it can repay it's purchase cost.

 S9 is profitable, even at that electric rate - but it's VERY iffy if you'll make back the purchace price on one at THAT high of electric cost.

 You might be better off looking into the A4 Terminator, as Litecoin pricing has been a lot more stable and profitable consistantly than Bitcoin has been the last year and change and even the introduction of the A4 shouldn't drive Litecoin difficulty up a ton in a hurry.

With the level of political and society instability in Venezuela, the concept of "better life style" doesn't even come CLOSE to fitting.

 Definitely NOT worth the cheap electric cost, especially when you factor in at least a few reports of the government there arbitrarily confiscating Bitcoin mining gear....

The Biostar is the lowest-cost MB on the market today that can handle 4 dual-width cards with no risers.

 There are a few other options - ECS comes immediately to mind - but they're all quite a bit to A TON more expen$ive.


 I WISH there was an AMD option for this sort of thing, Intel MBs tend to be pricy and Intel CPUs tend to be very pricy, even on the low end, vs. comparable AMD gear.

We'll know when Bitmain has more S9s for sale when they make the sale button active.

 I suspect they may be waiting on the next batch of BM1387s to arrive from the foundry.

7950 with at least 2 GB isn't a bad choice for Ethereum mining, especially since they can commonly be had quite cheaply.
The only real diff between the HD79xx/HD78xx series cards and their "R9 2xx" and "R9 3xx" replacements were BIOS updates, the actual GPU chips were often the same (or at most relabled).

 Down side - older, used, dunno how hard of usage cards are a bit higher risk.

I like Ethermine for rig monitoring. Why worry about "monitoring software" when you can just set up to let the POOL monitor for you on one easy-to-read page?

Most GOOD pools have similar capabilities - even P2Pool can manage THAT much.

From what I've seen of Moneraro posted hashrates, 1kh/s is a fairly HIGH number for either a single GPU or a single CPU (they appear to have done a good job of making the coin GPU-resistant).

 Coin can be profitable - *IF* you have cheap-enough electric - but for mining with GPUs Ethereum blows it's profitability out of the water by a wide margin.

 And dust will accumulate in the room, which is a bad thing for those of us with allergy issues.