Is it worth it?

[Xephan]

I'd be real fortunate to be a gamer in 1 year when all the super mining computers of today are worth far more as gaming computers, but they are all being sold on the cheap to pay for mining rig upgrades.

A lot of super mining rigs are not set up for cross-fire and by next year, they might not be worth much for gaming purposes compared to just buying a pair of the newest cards.

[mountainminer]

I think I'm past the point where I want to invest $1,000 or more into a mining rig. However, I've been planning to build a new PC for a while anyway, and mining could help offset the cost of a few components in the short term. The computer I'm on now could use an upgrade from this Radeon 4600 series card too. It scores pretty low on the Windows Experience Index.

So I'm still looking at some cards, but it's probably a good thing I was broke this week. Otherwise I may have spent unwisely.

For anyone looking to get in cheap without trolling endlessly for 5830 and 5850, here's a half decent deal on XFX 5770 for $110 at Tiger Direct. Ends today.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5316156&CatId=3669

I did just possibly find a nice deal on a 5970 though... 

[saubryn]

I've done a lot of reading and calculating, and I think it's too late to get in on mining if you're planning on buying a new computer to do it, and running that computer 24/7 when you otherwise wouldn't have done so.

Personally, I already have a computer that has a good ATI graphics card (only one card though ) and that computer is already on 24/7 for other reasons.  So I'm using a tiny, tiny bit more power by having the graphics card spun up all the time, but not that much.   For me, bitcoin mining is just a way to make a machine I already had earn a bit of money. 

Is there any way you could cut the cost of that machine you're thinking of building?  If it's just for Bitcoin then you don't need anything fancy, just two bare-bones rigs with the bulk of the cost going to the GPUs?

[mountainminer]

Agreed. If I were going to build a rig solely for mining, I'd get a cheap motherboard and used cards, put it in a milk crate, etc... The $1,000 rig was using a much nicer mobo, SSD and high end power supply. That way I'm getting the components I wanted for my next build instead of just a mining rig.

My computer is on 24/7 much of the time. If I put another card in this one, I'll probably have to upgrade the power supply though. And if I'm gonna buy a new power supply, I might as well just start building a new rig.