Average payout with 5 GH/s + Slush's Pool

[bonsai99]

If you are really desperate for an ASIC Miner you can get one of Butteryfly Labs ASICS on Ebay for $500 or so it consumes 50 watts and can pay for itself in 25 days or so.

[jamesgarfield]

oh...well that makes me sad about BFL's shipping times. and avalons are too expensive

what are your recommendations for joining bitcoin mining as a beginner?
im looking for something cheap and effective miner that can net me atleast $25/day (.2 BTC right now). So should i build a GPU miner, buy an ASIC off ebay, or maybe an FPGA?

FPGA's you can buy though there less effective. Try and get Asics already out there. I saw a USB one which did 300mh/s and is available now. (on this forum in a thread somewhere)... you would need 13 so 26btc.

how exactly does one use an FPGA? I saw the ultra low cost DIY fpga post (by rph), but theres no explanation. I would be fine with doing my own DIY fpga if it keeps costs down, but i cant find any tutorials/examples w/ a place to buy parts.

I agree

[BTCoder]

Your prob only gonna get a few $ a week with that setup.