Raspberry Pi for GPU mining

[Squrk]

Hello,

I have a Raspberry Pi and I was just wondering the feasibility of running a rig off a Pi. As I understand it GPU mining rigs don't require much RAM or use many CPU cycles. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of doing this?
I am sure this is more than possible, just wanted to see if anyone had any success.

[Bitsino]

I think the fact that the VideoCore 4 GPU doesn't support OpenCL would make this highly unlikely. You could develop your own tools that use shaders to emulate some of the OpenCL functionality, but I opine that the time and energy investment would be much larger than the payout.

You'd be better off putting some time into Freelancer.com and investing that money into a couple of decent GPUs. Or you could send money off to some company promising ASIC hardware if you believe in that garbage.

Just my 0.02฿,
Bitsino

[Stephen Gornick]

You'd be better off putting some time into Freelancer.com and investing that money into a couple of decent GPUs.

By chance, have you had a chance to look at the current hashing level? If not, pleast take a look.



Do you happen to notice something over on the right side?

That is telling us that a lot of mining capacity is getting powered down.

Allow me to share a little secret with you.   Those aren't FPGAs (e.g., BFL singles) shutting down -- because the bitcoins earned by those is still greater than the cost of electricity.    Those that are dropping out are those mining with GPUs.  The current profitability chart shows that anyone mining on GPU and paying about $0.10 per kWh or more is losing money with every hash. (i.e., you are paying over spot rate for those coins.)

This is the result of the halving of the mining block reward subsidy that occurred at the end of November.  

As soon as the first ASICs from the multiple manufacturer currently racing to be the first start going online, then not even $0.10 per kWh will help the GPU miner, even one with "a couple of decent GPUs".

[Squrk]

I have read about ASIC units but to me it sounds like they could be shipped anywhere between tomorrow and July 2013. I don't even think I would be going for a couple GPU's just using the one I have at hand. I just wanted to give it a go.

"I think the fact that the VideoCore 4 GPU doesn't support OpenCL would make this highly unlikely" are you saying because the onboard video card doesn't support openCL I am basically screwed?

I don't think I was planning on running a "profit" but doesn't that assume I find bitcoins worth the same at the price the exchange puts on it.

[Bitsino]

Stephen Gornick  hit the nail on the head here--the cost to purchase Bitcoins on the market is lower than the cost of generating them at today's electricity rates. Unless you have free electricity and don't care about GPU wear and tear, it's probably a safer bet just to buy Bitcoins.

Cheers,
Bitsino

[Bendur]

Raspberry Pi mining is an interesting idea, but i don't think it would be feasible anymore. If gpu mining is no longer profitable, then Pi mining is definitely not going to be profitable.

[OCTech]

It would be a good low power starting point for asics/fpga's, as you could keep adding to it as you get more. That's my plan

[Ofloo]

Even if it would generate 100kHash just saying something not sayint could mine 100khash, it worth a go not to mine bitcoins but scrypt type coins, ..

my R290 can do 700kHash per second, but it uses what 300W without the cpu and all the other crap in my computer, .. if you would be able to do 100kHash with pi and you buy 7.

7 x 40euro = 280 euro still less then my videocard, .. and 7 x 5W = 35 W way less then my videocard, hel even if it does 50kHash it's worth it, i'm just saying don't write it off just yet, first find out how much the gpu will be able to do, i guess it has to be something cause it's able to play 1080p !

But hey I'm no expert, I'm just wondering.

[Ritual]

And can a Pi do Scrypt that easily? How would you set it up? Genuinely interested in this idea...

[Ofloo]

i don't know either as i said i'm no expert, .. i just think people shouldn't dismiss it just because it's only a pi !

But hey, here's a guy running cuda on pi so it should be possible to do gpu calculations ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AncXFEgqb_s

however it is true that there is no opencl support atm, but that doesn't mean it is not possible, .. only that you don't have anything to go on for the moment, that you'll probably need to develop something of your own.