What would you buy for $300 - $500

[catch88]

Hey folks. I already play around with BTC here and there and would like to try mining for a hobby and hopefully at least break even.

What would you buy today if you were in my shoes..  USED $300 to $400 MAX

I have never mined before but know a bit about BTC and hobby hacking and my power costs are fairly low

[Starin]

Hey folks. I already play around with BTC here and there and would like to try mining for a hobby and hopefully at least break even.

What would you buy today if you were in my shoes..  USED $300 to $400 MAX

I have never mined before but know a bit about BTC and hobby hacking and my power costs are fairly low

Hey bro, for your bugdet I'd suggest you to buy s5. SP20's are good but it is unlikely you will find them below 400. S5 is the most efficient choice for your budget and electricity cost. But, I think you already understood the idea, home mining is a hoby. Keep that in mind. Btw you will need to buy a 750 or 650 watt psu for an s5.

[QuintLeo]

If your power cost is under 5c/KWH, an S5 or a SP20E is probably worth buying as you have a good probability of managing ROI on it.
The SP20E is a lot more configurable than the S5 and has undervolt support BUILT IN, makes it far easier to set it up to run more efficiently than an S5.
The efficiency of those two units is almost identical at the 1.1 TH/s level, but the SP20E has more headroom to hash faster on the high end while power is cheap and inherently undervolts for better efficiency when difficulty gets high enough to need the efficiency to be profitable.
 In THEORY, you can undervolt an S5 for better efficiency, but this seems to be iffy in the real world, many reports of S5s that won't undervolt much at all and still work, some that do - seems like it MIGHT be hash board version specific but the experimenters haven't determined what the cause is yet on those S5's that won't undervolt reliably.

Otherwise, plan a bigger budget and wait 1-3 months for the "next generation" miners to start showing up.

 And figure on more like $400-$500. There is no supply of new S5s any more, SP20E has been out of production for months, and the used prices took a major spike the last few months.

 Go with AT LEAST a good quality 750Watt PS, gold or better efficiency. 650s are MARGINAL at best on having enough +12V output to handle a S5. You'll want at least a 1000 Watt supply for a SP20E, preferably a 1200-1300, if you plan to run one of those at more than about 1.1TH level.

[mavericklm]

2*s3+ and an 700+ watts psu

after that upgrade to s5

or just wait for s7

[jonnybravo0311]

Hey folks. I already play around with BTC here and there and would like to try mining for a hobby and hopefully at least break even.

What would you buy today if you were in my shoes..  USED $300 to $400 MAX

I have never mined before but know a bit about BTC and hobby hacking and my power costs are fairly low

Define "fairly low" power costs.  Let's say that you could indeed get an S5 and PSU for your $400 budget.  As of right now, that S5 expects to mine 0.01071BTC a day, which at current exchange rates equates to about $2.36 a day.  Even if you had completely free power, and everything stayed exactly as it is now, it would take you just about 169.5 days to make back the $400 you initially invested.

[szenekonzept]

Europecoins!

.

Just a heads up, do not jump in with Altcoins off the bat, many of us have made this mistake and now know better and lost hundreds. Start with Bitcoin and mining like you want then slowly decide if you want to play a little with altcoins.

jep it's not a  beginners game
But with Europecoin you are much more save.
I am the maintainer and run it with my full personal data public.

this level of trust
should be  requirement no1 if choosing an Altcoins.
They are small and still depend on the maintainer, other then Bitcoin.
Its a great game, but don't play with your FOOD

Matthias
http://www.europecoin.eu.org

.

[VirosaGITS]

My eyes hurt with the cheap Altcoin plug.

Okay op so personally i would recommend a S5, but with the BTC price hurting, i would definitively not spend more than 300$ for it. I'd try for 250$ or 300$ shipped, custom included or so.

Also its hard to give you any form of justifiable suggestion unless i/we know your electricity cost rate.

[szenekonzept]

Europecoins!

.

Just a heads up, do not jump in with Altcoins off the bat, many of us have made this mistake and now know better and lost hundreds. Start with Bitcoin and mining like you want then slowly decide if you want to play a little with altcoins.

jep it's not a  beginners game
But with Europecoin you are much more save.
I am the maintainer and run it with my full personal data public.

this level of trust
should be  requirement no1 if choosing an Altcoins.
They are small and still depend on the maintainer, other then Bitcoin.
Its a great game, but don't play with your FOOD

Matthias
http://www.europecoin.eu.org

.

Okay, I am sorry but just stop spamming your coin he is looking for hardware and to mine not to invest in some lousy coin you are promising is good.

oh sorry i see,i totaly missed the point of the thread, sorry for the experience!

Matthias

[RichBC]

I was in the same position as the OP a Month ago. Wanted to experience mining but all of the sensible maths said no chance of ROI. Started anyway with a very cheap S1 and understood the basics. Then S3 & S3+ and did the resistor modification to increase the efficiency. At their best they still just make small amounts of money even with my 15 Cent electricity.

The S3's will now go on ebay as I have an S5 which can still be run at it's rated frequency & voltage and make money. If you get the latest rev of S5 (V1.91) (my choice for your money) it can be undervolted and on my maths will still just make money after Bitcoin halving, so has a little way to run.

I will never ROI on any of the hardware costs but just wanted to experience the ride. I set an objective that the money they make must be more than the electricity cost and am happy to right off the hardware cost or get back what I can on ebay at some point. All hobbies have a cost and this one is no different.  

Rich

[VirosaGITS]

I was in the same position as the OP a Month ago. Wanted to experience mining but all of the sensible maths said no chance of ROI. Started anyway with a very cheap S1 and understood the basics. Then S3 & S3+ and did the resistor modification to increase the efficiency. At their best they still just make small amounts of money even with my 15 Cent electricity.

The S3's will now go on ebay as I have an S5 which can still be run at it's rated frequency & voltage and make money. If you get the latest rev of S5 (V1.91) (my choice for your money) it can be undervolted and on my maths will still just make money after Bitcoin halving, so has a little way to run.

I will never ROI on any of the hardware costs but just wanted to experience the ride. I set an objective that the money they make must be more than the electricity cost and am happy to right off the hardware cost or get back what I can on ebay at some point. All hobbies have a cost and this one is no different.  

Rich

Except thats all at your 0.15/kWh. Just good to keep in mind you can get 3-5cents per kWh electricity where running S1 is still profitable and S3 would be probably best for the $/GH.

But again, still waiting for OP to tell me/us his electricity rate

[RichBC]

Regardless of the electric cost I would probably still go for the S5, particularly as they should be coming down in price with the S7 immanent. Actually it's thanks to mining that I have saved quite a lot of money. During the research I looked into my electricity cost and found that my supplier had a 1 year fixed price at just under 15 Cents, I was paying 21 Cents. We use a lot of electricity here so was worth about $700 a Year to me. 

Rich