Should I invest in a mining rig?

[hunk]

Hello everyone...
I found out about bitcoins about a week ago,and have been thinking of setting up a mining rig...
I was just wondering whether or not it is affordable to do so,at this point,or if I should just buy bitcoins instead....

The reason I was thinking of getting into mining is that I wanted to buy a new desktop computer anyway,and I figured that I would be happy if it would be able to at least pay for itself....

What I want to know is how many blocks I should expect to get every month,and whether those blocks would be enough to pay for my electric bill or not...
The current exchange rate for Euros is at about 6.5 per coin so that means 325E.

And the prices per kWh are the following

0 – 800 kWh   0,05400
801 – 1000 kWh   0,06860
1001 – 1200 kWh   0,07100
1201 – 1600 kWh   0,07270
1601 – 2000 kWh   0,07270
> 2000 kWh           0,08174

Assuming that I don't use up more than 1200 kWh per month my bill would be about 70E plus taxes and the like....So let's round it up to 100 Euros...

Also,how fast does the difficulty rise,and how long should I expect to last,until I spend more than what I'm making?

Thank you for your help,and hope I can become a bitcoin miner myself...

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[Nilarium]

its late to invest ,imo.

[kjj]

Yup.  Go for it.  You've managed to ignore all of the dozens of other threads asking this same question, plus all of the wiki pages, guides, calculators, spreadsheets and other utilities that could help you make a ration decision.  Based on this, and because I'm sick of doing simple math for people, I feel that you have the true believer spirit that is necessary to be a successful miner.

[Mousepotato]

its late to invest ,imo.

Because the BTC exchange rate is fixed and will never change, so he'll never recoup any money he invests in hardware today

[hunk]

Yup.  Go for it.  You've managed to ignore all of the dozens of other threads asking this same question, plus all of the wiki pages, guides, calculators, spreadsheets and other utilities that could help you make a ration decision.  Based on this, and because I'm sick of doing simple math for people, I feel that you have the true believer spirit that is necessary to be a successful miner.

I did not ignore the other threads,and have actually read the entire wiki...
The reason I posted,was to get feedback on what my rig should be,if I decided to build it,and to get an estimate of the mhash/s I would be able to get with various cards...Since I can't find an accurate measurement,and there seem to be a lot of mining programs available that might be optimised for certain types of cards...

And if you re-read my post,you'll see that I didn't ask anyone to do any math for me,I simply posted what my reality was...
Or would you prefer I didn't write what my power consumption was,so that when you reply,you can say you can't answer because you don't know how much my ellectric bill would be...
I guess the 3 page thread on how much a kWh costs around the world is simply for fun...

But I suppose being sarcastic,and condescending is part of being an early adopter...Cheers...

its late to invest ,imo.

Because the BTC exchange rate is fixed and will never change, so he'll never recoup any money he invests in hardware today

Exactly my thoughts...Although I can't imagine how much higher the rate might go...
But if I can recoup my expenses in electric and hardware,I would be more than happy..I realize that I'm too late to make a fortune of bitcoins,but having a computer on 24/7 that can pay for itself and then after 6 months,or whenever I'm forced out of the race,I'll still have a relatively new computer I can use.

If I wanted to get rich,and was mad enough,I'd get a 10.000E loan and invest in a farm...But that is not my goal,and is not within my possibilities now...

[kjj]

I'm hardly an early adopter, joining up 9 whole days ago.  What made me sarcastic and condescending (not to mention bitter) was answering this exact same question about 30 times.

If we assume the difficulty will grow by 30% every 2 weeks (both of these estimates are very conservative, by the way), 700 Mhash/sec worth of hashing power will probably find about 1.95 blocks between now and the end of time.

You'll have to plug in what you think a bitcoin will be worth to find out if this is a good idea or not.

You'll need to scale that to the GPU you are planning to buy.  If, for example, you get a 5850, you can expect about 300 Mhash/sec out of it, so it would earn about 1.95 * (300/700) = 0.835 * 50 = 41 BTC.  Even that estimate is probably very high.

[Chucksta]

I'd say to anyone not to bother going into mining unless you already have the equipment or can get it extremely cheaply, as in pretty close to free.

It will take a good while to recoup any money invested in a rig, unless the BTC price increases a hell of a lot compared to the increases in difficulty to mine the BTC.

The thing is you cannot tell for sure what will happen with the BTC price or the difficulty level.

Basically at this moment BTC price looks very healthy, but future difficulty levels looks bloody awful for mining.

GPU is the important bit as far as gear is concerned... especially the Radeon HD 5850... this seems to be the best

The rest of the gear, keep it cheap, and keep it cool, and make sure you have the power

Mining s/w ... phoenix is the bong

[acamus]

At this point just don't buy anything other than a used video card or as many as your mobo(s)/ps(s) can handle. the dead weight loss of buying the other components isn't really worth it until we see more with these new prices and difficulties, imo. You can mine using a pci 1x btw. Good luck

[Dobrodav]

Well, you can think of bitcoin like about share of stock - cos their numbers is limited, if you believe in the future rise of bitcoin - you can mine even if current difficulty/price dont seems so good. And if you did not believe - you should not.

[JJG]

Well, you can think of bitcoin like about share of stock - cos their numbers is limited, if you believe in the future rise of bitcoin - you can mine even if current difficulty/price dont seems so good. And if you did not believe - you should not.

We've been over this a hundred times already.

If you're going to bank on the value of bitcoin rising in order to make your mining profitable, you're still doing it wrong.

If you really, truly believe that bitcoin value is going up: buy bitcoins directly and skip the hardware part. Don't like the risk? Spend half as much on bitcoins as you would on hardware.

The whole idea of relying on rising exchange rates to make your mining hardware profitable as opposed to buying directly is ludicrous, but won't go away.

Disclaimer: I don't believe bitcoin values will continue rising forever.

[xenon481]

its late to invest ,imo.

Because the BTC exchange rate is fixed and will never change, so he'll never recoup any money he invests in hardware today

If you expect the exchange rate to increase, then it is more profitable to use the money that you would have spent on hardware to instead purchase BTC. If you already have hardware, then if the cost of electricity per BTC is less than the exchange rate, then it *may* be more profitable to mine. If you have excess hardware then it may be more profitable to sell the hardware to purchase BTC.

[Dobrodav]

Well, it is right. If you expect rising of BTC  you can just buy it without  all that mess with hardware. But if you have some doubts - buy equipment. At least you can sell it in case of emergency, without hard linking to bitcoin destiny.

[hunk]

Let's see if I can reply to all of your posts...

I'm hardly an early adopter, joining up 9 whole days ago.  What made me sarcastic and condescending (not to mention bitter) was answering this exact same question about 30 times.

If we assume the difficulty will grow by 30% every 2 weeks (both of these estimates are very conservative, by the way), 700 Mhash/sec worth of hashing power will probably find about 1.95 blocks between now and the end of time.

You'll have to plug in what you think a bitcoin will be worth to find out if this is a good idea or not.

You'll need to scale that to the GPU you are planning to buy.  If, for example, you get a 5850, you can expect about 300 Mhash/sec out of it, so it would earn about 1.95 * (300/700) = 0.835 * 50 = 41 BTC.  Even that estimate is probably very high.

See that is what I was looking for...Some data on what Mhash/s I could get out of various cards...And I couldn't find any place,with a list of cards and their respective perfomance...

I'd say to anyone not to bother going into mining unless you already have the equipment or can get it extremely cheaply, as in pretty close to free.

It will take a good while to recoup any money invested in a rig, unless the BTC price increases a hell of a lot compared to the increases in difficulty to mine the BTC.

The thing is you cannot tell for sure what will happen with the BTC price or the difficulty level.

Basically at this moment BTC price looks very healthy, but future difficulty levels looks bloody awful for mining.

GPU is the important bit as far as gear is concerned... especially the Radeon HD 5850... this seems to be the best

The rest of the gear, keep it cheap, and keep it cool, and make sure you have the power

Mining s/w ... phoenix is the bong

I don't really mind recouping my expenses for hardware anytime soon,if ever...It would be great if I could do it,but what I would want is to be able to pay for my electric bill,and possibly get 1 or 2 bitcoins spare to keep...
As I said before I wanted to get a new computer anyway,and although I wasn't planning on getting one with 4 GPUS,I was thinking about it,to make it a repsectable mining rig for a few months...
If the only important part is the GPU does that mean I can get away with using my old P4,by simply getting a new GPU?I've seen someone using a P4 at the "Post a picture of your rig" thread but I'm not sure if it is sufficient..

Well, you can think of bitcoin like about share of stock - cos their numbers is limited, if you believe in the future rise of bitcoin - you can mine even if current difficulty/price dont seems so good. And if you did not believe - you should not.

I can understand your logic,but I cannot do that,because I will not be able to pay my increased electric bill if I don't sell some or all of the bitcoins I make,and hold on to them in hopes of selling them after a year or so at a better rate.

[LMGTFY]

...
See that is what I was looking for...Some data on what Mhash/s I could get out of various cards...And I couldn't find any place,with a list of cards and their respective perfomance...
...

There's a list on the wiki. There have been some complaints about its up-to-dateness recently, I think, but it should be a good starting point.

[kjj]

I'm hardly an early adopter, joining up 9 whole days ago.  What made me sarcastic and condescending (not to mention bitter) was answering this exact same question about 30 times.

If we assume the difficulty will grow by 30% every 2 weeks (both of these estimates are very conservative, by the way), 700 Mhash/sec worth of hashing power will probably find about 1.95 blocks between now and the end of time.

You'll have to plug in what you think a bitcoin will be worth to find out if this is a good idea or not.

You'll need to scale that to the GPU you are planning to buy.  If, for example, you get a 5850, you can expect about 300 Mhash/sec out of it, so it would earn about 1.95 * (300/700) = 0.835 * 50 = 41 BTC.  Even that estimate is probably very high.

See that is what I was looking for...Some data on what Mhash/s I could get out of various cards...And I couldn't find any place,with a list of cards and their respective perfomance...

bitcoin.org -> Wiki / Help -> Mining -> Mining hardware comparison

[w128]

As I said before I wanted to get a new computer anyway,and although I wasn't planning on getting one with 4 GPUS,I was thinking about it,to make it a repsectable mining rig for a few months...
If the only important part is the GPU does that mean I can get away with using my old P4,by simply getting a new GPU?I've seen someone using a P4 at the "Post a picture of your rig" thread but I'm not sure if it is sufficient..

That P4 is going to be a huge bottleneck relative to your GPUs. However, a very nice, modern motherboard and CPU can be had for $200-300 if you want to come fully into this decade =)

[hunk]

As I said before I wanted to get a new computer anyway,and although I wasn't planning on getting one with 4 GPUS,I was thinking about it,to make it a repsectable mining rig for a few months...
If the only important part is the GPU does that mean I can get away with using my old P4,by simply getting a new GPU?I've seen someone using a P4 at the "Post a picture of your rig" thread but I'm not sure if it is sufficient..

That P4 is going to be a huge bottleneck relative to your GPUs. However, a very nice, modern motherboard and CPU can be had for $200-300 if you want to come fully into this decade =)

LOOL...yeah well,that's why I asked about my P4...I'm a packrat and I've held onto my P4,but haven't used it in over 3 or 4 years,since I haven't bother replacing it's PSU...
The reason I'm stuck in the 00's desktop scene,is I've switched to laptops since I tend to do freelance work as an editor,and I need to be able to carry my work with me,and do on-the-fly changes.
One job in particular was about 300 km away from home,and I drove there.I was able to capture the footage the night it was shot,and preview it to make sure we had everything we needed.And also show the client some rushes.
Hence the need to get a new desktop as well...Although it's great to be able to carry a laptop around and always be ready to work,it doesn't always lend itself to working at home...
And rendering high-def video is demanding...


P.S. I also have an old P3 at 1GHZ and a P2 at 300MHZ stashed away...Still trying to find out what to do with them,besides recycling...

P.S. 2 About 10 days ago,I set up a brand new i5 desktop for my sister,and I wish I had known about bitcoins then...I went with an nVidia GPU because it was at a great discount,and then I read that nVidia performs slower than ATI in mining...Not that I could persuade my sister to mine with her new rig,but it would have been nice anyway..

[Gameover]

I'm hardly an early adopter, joining up 9 whole days ago.  What made me sarcastic and condescending (not to mention bitter) was answering this exact same question about 30 times.

If we assume the difficulty will grow by 30% every 2 weeks (both of these estimates are very conservative, by the way), 700 Mhash/sec worth of hashing power will probably find about 1.95 blocks between now and the end of time.

You'll have to plug in what you think a bitcoin will be worth to find out if this is a good idea or not.

You'll need to scale that to the GPU you are planning to buy.  If, for example, you get a 5850, you can expect about 300 Mhash/sec out of it, so it would earn about 1.95 * (300/700) = 0.835 * 50 = 41 BTC.  Even that estimate is probably very high.

For 700Mhash w/ 30% difficulty increases I get about 70 BTC.  Of which 60 are gained in the first 70 days.  Even at difficulty increases of 0% the cost of a machine will take 40-60 days to recoup, and the cost of only adding graphics cards about 10 days, the thing is in either case the profit is so small and risk so high its not worth it IMO.

[rograz]

Mining vs simply buying bitcoin is not as simple as just comparing the cost of the rig vs buying bitcoins for the total cost of the rig. What you are actually investing when you buy hardware for mining is actually only the loss in terms of resale value of the gear + electricity cost. Just because you are willing to spend 1000$ on hardware that could realistically be resold for in worst case 60-70% if it was new if you for some reason has to sell it in the near future, doesn't mean the same person is willing to risk 1000$ buying BTC that could halve in value overnight. What it ends up being is a high risk investment vs a lower risk one, potential for gain when picking the high risk route is ofc much greater but so are the risks.

If you want to start comparing mining vs buying coins with equal factor of risk you would need to compare buying mining hardware for a lot more than what you would invest in BTC, but then we have the whole argument about if/when mining doesnt generate any profits at all but that's a completely different matter. Just consider x$ invested into BTC  should not be valued the same way as x$ invested into mining gear. 

[JJG]

...
. Just because you are willing to spend 1000$ on hardware that could realistically be resold for in worst case 60-70% if it was new if you for some reason has to sell it in the near future, doesn't mean the same person is willing to risk 1000$ buying BTC that could halve in value overnight. What it ends up being is a high risk investment vs a lower risk one, potential for gain when picking the high risk route is ofc much greater but so are the risks.

If you want to start comparing mining vs buying coins with equal factor of risk you would need to compare buying mining hardware for a lot more than what you would invest in BTC, but then we have the whole argument about if/when mining doesnt generate any profits at all but that's a completely different matter. Just consider x$ invested into BTC  should not be valued the same way as x$ invested into mining gear. 

Definitely shouldn't.

If you think your hardware would depreciate by 30-40%, then only spend 30-40% of your hardware cost on bitcoins and run the analysis again.

[max in montreal]

What made me sarcastic and condescending (not to mention bitter) was answering this exact same question about 30 times.

If we assume the difficulty will grow by 30% every 2 weeks (both of these estimates are very conservative, by the way), 700 Mhash/sec worth of hashing power will probably find about 1.95 blocks between now and the end of time.

You'll have to plug in what you think a bitcoin will be worth to find out if this is a good idea or not.

You'll need to scale that to the GPU you are planning to buy.  If, for example, you get a 5850, you can expect about 300 Mhash/sec out of it, so it would earn about 1.95 * (300/700) = 0.835 * 50 = 41 BTC.  Even that estimate is probably very high.

Why do you have to answer?

[kjj]

What made me sarcastic and condescending (not to mention bitter) was answering this exact same question about 30 times.

If we assume the difficulty will grow by 30% every 2 weeks (both of these estimates are very conservative, by the way), 700 Mhash/sec worth of hashing power will probably find about 1.95 blocks between now and the end of time.

You'll have to plug in what you think a bitcoin will be worth to find out if this is a good idea or not.

You'll need to scale that to the GPU you are planning to buy.  If, for example, you get a 5850, you can expect about 300 Mhash/sec out of it, so it would earn about 1.95 * (300/700) = 0.835 * 50 = 41 BTC.  Even that estimate is probably very high.

Why do you have to answer?

Because I'm helpful.

[yunk3r]

so here is the way i figure it. Since you were already planning to get build a new computer in the first place adding a couple hundred dollars worth of graphics cards is not going to add the price of the system too much. Also if you were planning on playing games with this computer because the more gpu power you put into this computer the better the games with play, and the more btc you will mine. Also from personal experience i bought a second 5870 for my pc to play games, and mine, and it has paid its self off already. So i would say build you computer and throw a couple of high end gpus into.

[hunk]

so here is the way i figure it. Since you were already planning to get build a new computer in the first place adding a couple hundred dollars worth of graphics cards is not going to add the price of the system too much. Also if you were planning on playing games with this computer because the more gpu power you put into this computer the better the games with play, and the more btc you will mine. Also from personal experience i bought a second 5870 for my pc to play games, and mine, and it has paid its self off already. So i would say build you computer and throw a couple of high end gpus into.

That was my thought as well...
The biggest problem here would be that I could afford to get a good machine to work on and pay in cash since I will be coming into some money this week,but adding the extra cost of say 3 more GPU's,would make it impossible to buy in cash,and I would have to resort to installments.
That was the reason I wanted to see if getting into bitcoin was worth the extra purchases now.Otherwise I could hold off on the 2nd GPU for a little while till I have the extra cash.
Also,I don't really game that much anyway,and when I do,I tend to play older games that I might have missed when they first came out.