[Poll] BFL

[stick_theman]

$0

ASIC is too specialized.  It will only be good at mining bitcoins.  Moore's Law, the new generation of ASIC will wipe out the old ASIC so there is an incentive to race to the top...  if you don't make back your investment income in time, the hardware will be rendered useless.

At least for GPU, you can use it on your computer, sell it on ebay to other gamers and join Coinlabs (and others tbd).

[crazyates]

$0

ASIC is too specialized.  It will only be good at mining bitcoins.  Moore's Law, the new generation of ASIC will wipe out the old ASIC so there is an incentive to race to the top...  if you don't make back your investment income in time, the hardware will be rendered useless.

At least for GPU, you can use it on your computer, sell it on ebay to other gamers and join Coinlabs (and others tbd).

So you're not buying ASICs because the ASICs that come out after these will be faster (by how much, I wonder?). So by that logic, I shouldn't buy a new CPU, because the CPUs in 6-12 months will be faster than the one I can buy today....

"Useless" and "outdated" are two different things. My brother's "gaming computer" from 2008 with its e8400 C2D, DDR2 ram, and Geforce 9800GTX may be be "outdated" by being several generations old, but it's not "useless" as it still playses Assassin's Creed and Skyrim just fine (which is all he wants it to do).

We buy what we have available, and we continue to mine on it until it's no longer profitable.

[stick_theman]

So you're not buying ASICs because the ASICs that come out after these will be faster (by how much, I wonder?). So by that logic, I shouldn't buy a new CPU, because the CPUs in 6-12 months will be faster than the one I can buy today....

"Useless" and "outdated" are two different things. My brother's "gaming computer" from 2008 with its e8400 C2D, DDR2 ram, and Geforce 9800GTX may be be "outdated" by being several generations old, but it's not "useless" as it still playses Assassin's Creed and Skyrim just fine (which is all he wants it to do).

We buy what we have available, and we continue to mine on it until it's no longer profitable.

I just don't like the idea that we have to throw away our hardware after a couple months.  If we have other alternative use of ASIC other than mining, then I will definitely take a serious look.

[crazyates]

So you're not buying ASICs because the ASICs that come out after these will be faster (by how much, I wonder?). So by that logic, I shouldn't buy a new CPU, because the CPUs in 6-12 months will be faster than the one I can buy today....

"Useless" and "outdated" are two different things. My brother's "gaming computer" from 2008 with its e8400 C2D, DDR2 ram, and Geforce 9800GTX may be be "outdated" by being several generations old, but it's not "useless" as it still playses Assassin's Creed and Skyrim just fine (which is all he wants it to do).

We buy what we have available, and we continue to mine on it until it's no longer profitable.

I just don't like the idea that we have to throw away our hardware after a couple months.  If we have other alternative use of ASIC other than mining, then I will definitely take a serious look.

Who said you're going to have to "throw your hardware away"? The ASICs for preorder now will generate an acceptable amount of BTC for quite a while. Unless the price of Bitcoins drop to nothing, then they will be profitable for a LONG time. The jump from 1st gen ASICs to 2nd gen ASICS is not NEARLY as big as the jump from FPGAs -> ASICs.

2nd, the whole POINT of having an ASIC is that it is specialized for bitmining, and nothing else. You can't have a double SHA ASIC *designed to mine bitcoin* and have it be used for alternative purposes. You can't be mad at Creative or Realtek and never buy their products again because the ASIC in their sound card can't be used as a Wifi card. Sure GPUs can play games, convert movies, AND mine, but the price you pay for all that diversity is the gimped speeds.

[jojo69]

oh man, just imagine if AMD busted some demonic firmware for the 8970 though...

 

[niko]

Zero. Since it's not an option in the poll, I chose >100,000. I am seriously considering buying an ASIC miner, but not from BFL.

[Raize]

This poll is deceptive at best.