Newbie Comp Sci Graduate from the UK

[silverzx]

Hello everyone!

I can't believe I didn't read up on BitCoins three years ago when someone mentioned them to me in University! It seems I missed a great opportunity! My friend paid $9 a piece only three years ago! Lucky bugger!

I have a fairly "ok" spec PC (i5 2500k, decent AMD card, 8GB DDR3, SSD etc) and would like to run some mining software in the background when it's turned on. Admittedly it's not an AMAZING spec computer but it's certainly up to date.

I've read about and think as I'm running Windows I'd use a GUI based miner.

I've also read that actually mining BitCoins with a GPU is hard work.

I've been advised to consider looking into FeatherCoins and LiteCoins. Would that be advisable as getting a start/feel for the whole mining / cryptocurrency theory?

I look forward to meeting you guys and hopefully I'll be around for the foreseeable future!

All the best,

Mr T.

[PenAndPaper]

If your ATI is something around 5850 or better then you may try to mine litecoins for example, just to see how mining works and get a feeling of the whole cryptocurrency thing.

[kwest]

To choose which coin to mine (if you are after profitability compared to bitcoin), look at wheretomine.com and sort by "Profitability (vs mining BTC)".
Then you can sell them for BTC on cryptsy.com.. or if you believe in the altcoin - hold it. Although with bitcoin getting so much press lately, I'd rather hold BTC at this time. Maybe 90% BTC / 10% other coins.

[silverzx]

My PC spec is:

GPU: XFX Core Edition Radeon HD 7850 AMD Graphics Card - 2GB
CPU: Intel i5 2500K @ Stock (4.5GHz OC was unstable)
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Non-ECC, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V
MOBO: ASUS P8Z68-V LX Z68
HDD: 2TB Samsung Sata II HDD, 128GB OCZ Sata III SSD
PSU: Tagan 530W EasyCon
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Should be good enough for some casual mining!

Thanks for the websites to look at, theres so money it can be confusing which are the good ones!