Beginners' mining setups?

[pangaea]

So fellow newbies, what are you mining with?

I have a dedicated single computer running 24/7 and here's it's specs:
-450 watt PSU
-AMD Sempron 145 CPU
-ATI 5850 graphics card
-1 GB ddr2 RAM
-windows xp x32
-16 GB solid state drive
-$45 micro-atx mobo

Basically I just got a graphics card with a cheap motherboard and CPU, but already had everything else in my spare parts bin. It currently gets about 300 mh/s, and I may eventually consider adding a second graphics card via a pcie 1 to pcie 16 adapter.

[tminer]

what is ur earnings per day?

[strideynet]

Stop immediately. Buy jalapeño ASIC from butterflylabs.
If u include elec bills You are most likely losing money!

[Graet]

nice beginners setup - just a bit late to the party 
unfortunately miners earnings will halve in just over 2 weeks
soon after that ASIC hardware will be arriving that will make difficulty skyrocket and gpus be worse than useless to mine on unless you want to mine for fun and dont have any power costs

[AndrewBUD]

nice beginners setup - just a bit late to the party 
unfortunately miners earnings will halve in just over 2 weeks
soon after that ASIC hardware will be arriving that will make difficulty skyrocket and gpus be worse than useless to mine on unless you want to mine for fun and dont have any power costs

Do you think difficulty is going to cut in half in 1 day when the first 25 btc block is mined?

[stevegee58]

nice beginners setup - just a bit late to the party 
unfortunately miners earnings will halve in just over 2 weeks
soon after that ASIC hardware will be arriving that will make difficulty skyrocket and gpus be worse than useless to mine on unless you want to mine for fun and dont have any power costs

Do you think difficulty is going to cut in half in 1 day when the first 25 btc block is mined?

I guess all our questions will be answered in just a few weeks.

[AndrewBUD]

Yeah I guess so....

[Graet]

difficulty adjusts ever 2 weeks
it cannot be "cut in half in one day"
what can happen though is network hashrate drop by half if all the suddenly not viable miners turn off their rigs

but no-one has experienced the reward halving of a blockchain based cryptocurreny before, really all anyone can go on is best guess

it will be an interesting ride over the next few months for those that can take it 

[stevegee58]

it will be an interesting ride over the next few months for those that can take it 

Oh, I can take it since this is really just a hobby for me.  My little bankroll of 30 BTC gives me a warm feeling every time I see it. 

[raubaut]

I'll be beginning with a BFL ASIC.   

[riskyshift]

difficulty adjusts ever 2 weeks
it cannot be "cut in half in one day"
what can happen though is network hashrate drop by half if all the suddenly not viable miners turn off their rigs

but no-one has experienced the reward halving of a blockchain based cryptocurreny before, really all anyone can go on is best guess

it will be an interesting ride over the next few months for those that can take it 

What exactly happens if a part proportion of the network suddenly stops hashing? Isn't the difficultly recalculated every 2000 blocks, which would take a lot longer than 2 weeks if the network was suddenly reduced to 10% of its current hashing power for example? Or am I misunderstanding how it works?

[Graet]

difficulty adjusts ever 2 weeks
it cannot be "cut in half in one day"
what can happen though is network hashrate drop by half if all the suddenly not viable miners turn off their rigs

but no-one has experienced the reward halving of a blockchain based cryptocurreny before, really all anyone can go on is best guess

it will be an interesting ride over the next few months for those that can take it 

What exactly happens if a part proportion of the network suddenly stops hashing? Isn't the difficultly recalculated every 2000 blocks, which would take a lot longer than 2 weeks if the network was suddenly reduced to 10% of its current hashing power for example? Or am I misunderstanding how it works?

difficulty is retargeted every 2016 blocks (roughly 2 weeks)
and if network hashrate dropped substantially blocks would (on average) take longer to solve thus make the 2016 take more than 2 weeks
I think you pretty much get it

[AndrewBUD]

I thought it could only move so many percent per change, is that true?

[girafon]

So fellow newbies, what are you mining with?

I have a dedicated single computer running 24/7 and here's it's specs:
-450 watt PSU
-AMD Sempron 145 CPU
-ATI 5850 graphics card
-1 GB ddr2 RAM
-windows xp x32
-16 GB solid state drive
-$45 micro-atx mobo

Basically I just got a graphics card with a cheap motherboard and CPU, but already had everything else in my spare parts bin. It currently gets about 300 mh/s, and I may eventually consider adding a second graphics card via a pcie 1 to pcie 16 adapter.

Before you buy any hardware dedicated to bitcoin mining, i'd suggest you seriously do the maths, for your environment (electricity costs per kW/h, real (measured) hardware consumption, current bitcoin incomes, at current reward, your preferred pool daily btc incomes from your average hashrate), then do the same with upcoming halved reward (occuring at 210 000 bitcoin block, moving from 50+fees btc per block to 25+fees).

Then, if you're pretty sure you still earn something (including exchange fees, varying exchange rate and so on) why not ..

But .. as others said (forget the scammed ASICs pre-orderers, for now this (sadly? ) really looks like a successful scam from a few guys), GPU mining may be part of the past.

You could still also have a look at FPGA mining (basically they are more energy efficient, reducing your running costs), but ... same idea here: really small profits, if profits at all....

[mcgravier]

hey, guys, don't forget, that there are bitcoin clones like litecoin or ppcoin (second one is very interesting IMHO). Maybe when reward halves, you should look into "alternative cryptocurriencies" board?

[deepceleron]

So fellow newbies, what are you mining with?

I have a dedicated single computer running 24/7 and here's it's specs:
-450 watt PSU
-AMD Sempron 145 CPU
-ATI 5850 graphics card
-1 GB ddr2 RAM
-windows xp x32
-16 GB solid state drive
-$45 micro-atx mobo

Basically I just got a graphics card with a cheap motherboard and CPU, but already had everything else in my spare parts bin. It currently gets about 300 mh/s, and I may eventually consider adding a second graphics card via a pcie 1 to pcie 16 adapter.

Pretty basic good config, but it is underperforming, you might want to check this thread to see how others have extracted closer to 400Mhash/s out of 5850s.

[Gabi]

Nice setup, but the next month ASIC will arrive and will make it pretty much useless...

[AndrewBUD]

Nice setup, but the next month ASIC will arrive and will make it pretty much useless...

You hope......

[tminer]

Nice setup, but the next month ASIC will arrive and will make it pretty much useless...

they are saying this for a long time!!!. lets wait and see.

[DiCE1904]

hey, guys, don't forget, that there are bitcoin clones like litecoin or ppcoin (second one is very interesting IMHO). Maybe when reward halves, you should look into "alternative cryptocurriencies" board?

Isnt ppcoin prone to asic mining if they come out? 
I would move to Litecoin with your GPU IF asics do come out.