Should I buy an ASIC miner?

[p4xil]

i still think it is a scam.

[FlyIIV]

And i believe there will be some cpu-only coins on the Market soon. Even if the Yacoin is a scam right now ;-)

[mjc]

BTW to the notion that they will be worthless, bah.  

I did the math, it's a little rough but basically on:

At 2 PH, which will take us a year or more (probably much more) to get to just based on manufacturing of the AISC devices,
a 50 GH unit will earn $2.70 per month per $1 of BTC Value.

If 1 PH then double that number

If 500 TH double the previous number

So if BTC is at $100 and you are mining at 50 GH
500 TH = $1080 / month
1 PH = $540 / month
2 PH = $270 / month

If you order now, even though you have to wat you will still likely get it before the total network hash rate reaches, 1 PH.  That means you reach your ROI in 5 months.

If BTC Doubles you half that time and if BTC Halves then the time doubles.

My assessments of 2 PH being so far off is based on the fact that Avalon in all three batches might put 100 TH into the market, and BFL looks to be putting about <150 TH based on public acknowledgment of orders in a Google doc, for which I cannot find the link.  It was on the BFL forums a while back.

That said the worse case put out by one individual was that there will be 450 TH added every month.
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/1459-estimated-future-network-hash-rate.html

If that were the case then, the 150 TH of current orders by BFL, let's double that assuming not everyone has posted their order, or even triple it to 450 TH.  It should only take BFL to 1 month to deliver all these, yet they claim it will take months.  So if it takes months to deliver 450 TH ( say three months ) It will take 1 year to reach 2 PH, but that's if BFL continues to manufacture at break neck speeds.

There are just so many variables, really anything is possible.  It is a risk but for those that have taken it thus far, well heck we don't know yet.

[gooseta]

Would it be better to buy another 7970 and Crossfire? Would I hit 1000Mh/s with this setup?

[pocoqoco]

buy a GPU, at least you can sell that again without any trouble later on

[cschroeder23]

i've seen a couple of fpga miners on ebay... are those even worth it?

[bujiraso]

All the calculators I look at show -- at current difficulty! -- a pitiful return on a BFL 5Gh/s miner.
This blows my mind. By the time I would get one, I doubt it would ever profit.

[Geez]

I have a theory:

The reason why it takes so long for these companies to ship the mining hardware is because they are using it themselves. Why would anyone sell a machine for $2500 that can print $200 per day? That doesn't make any sense. I think with the money that the customers are sending them they are actually building the ASICs and use them for some months until they are not profitable anymore and then they ship them.

[nairb131]

Anyone that has the money and wants to get into BTC should get an ASIC. Even if the difficulty is 100 fold it will still make you some money. If you want to use GPU's then you should get into litecoins since you can actually make something there.

[tkone]

dont buy from butterfly labs, its just not worth it, it seems the only time they would ever send anybody anything is when its not profitable anymore, they probly just hashing away for aslong as possible before they send anyone anything

[Geez]

dont buy from butterfly labs, its just not worth it, it seems the only time they would ever send anybody anything is when its not profitable anymore, they probly just hashing away for aslong as possible before they send anyone anything

Even Avalon seems weird to me. They offer a 60GH machine for 75 BTC. If they just used the hardware themselves they would have that money in less than a month. This whole thing doesn't make sense to me...

[zero2one]

I like to order ASICminer. How should I go about doing this?

[josh_nc]

From all I've read about ASICMINER and their shares purchases, I found there's something that just does not add up. It has a ponzi smell to it... I decided to stay away. Read as much as you can first and watch for math that does not quite add up...

[josh_nc]

i still think it is a scam.

I agree and I am definitely not getting involved with them.

[RoyalCoin]

It's too late to even consider ordering one now. You missed the boat by about a year

[glowkeeper]

Order one from a reputable company that delivers on time.

And who would that be?

[jomay]

How much power would a 5gh/s box draw? I factored in a conservative 4Gh/s, 250W draw, and $0.30/Mw (£.19 per kwh) and it gives me a profit of $152 per week, whereas my 7970 rig draws about 500 watts and produces 645Mh/s avg, which is just $1.40 a week 0_o

Ok, this might be slightly besides the OP's question, but still: your 7970 shouldn't draw that much power! It should draw maybe 250W max? The motherboard + CPU is usually around 60-70W if the CPU idles and won't go above 150-200W on full CPU load. So in total you'd be at 320W. I'm running 4x7950 + Celeron + i7 3930k on two PSUs (gold efficiency) and I measure a mere 850 Watt from the wall socket if the CPUs idle. It was always <1000W even without optimisations. I'm only hitting 1KW if I mine YACoin on an overclocked i7 3930k as well.

A few other remarks:
overclocking increases MH/s but at the expense of a (much) higher power draw and possibly higher wear. It might not be worth it to go too high.
The power supply unit's efficiency is crucial and pays off quite quickly. A PSU with an efficiency of 90% vs. 80% makes a difference of 35-50W for you. This adds up to 5-7$/month. A multi-GPU configuration requires a good PSU anyways and the step up to Gold or Platinum standard can be viable if you plan on running it 5 months or more.

[mjc]

All the calculators I look at show -- at current difficulty! -- a pitiful return on a BFL 5Gh/s miner.
This blows my mind. By the time I would get one, I doubt it would ever profit.

I'm not sure what calculator your using, but I currently mine at 2.4 GH and I'm making about $300 to $400 a month at the current difficulty.  I would love to have a 5 GH unit right now.  Not so sure about 6 months from now, but by then I hope to have my 180 GH running.