Spent a long afternoon with my Air Compressor

[AngelusWebDesign]

For those that are curious, almost my entire GPU stock is 58XX series. The most efficient GPUs available for mining, in case you didn't know. My setups, however, leave a lot of room for improvement. My electricity rate is average, at 0.088 per kWh.

This statement about "most efficient" is not actually true, but it's interesting to hear from people who are shutting down and throwing in the towel, and why, and so on.

Ok, would you care to enlighten us all on what the most efficient GPU is?

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[superfastkyle]

Its actually an underclocked 7970. You can run them at about 0.95v at 550m/h. They use about 120 watts each. 5970 are awesome as well but your best case looking at 600m/h and about 190 watts

For those that are curious, almost my entire GPU stock is 58XX series. The most efficient GPUs available for mining, in case you didn't know. My setups, however, leave a lot of room for improvement. My electricity rate is average, at 0.088 per kWh.

This statement about "most efficient" is not actually true, but it's interesting to hear from people who are shutting down and throwing in the towel, and why, and so on.

Ok, would you care to enlighten us all on what the most efficient GPU is?

[superfastkyle]

also check out the thread on re-oiling gpu fans... it works about 90% of the time. Drill a hole about 3 mm off center and drip some 3 in 1 lube in there

[Ghostofkobra]

Probably not the best example...  Did you notice the Net Profit line?  Or the 15 year payoff? 

It's not ideal compared to what we are used to, but a 15 year payoff is 6.7% annually. This is considered to be a good investment in the non-bitcoin world. If you found such a good investment, you could ride it infinitely with a 4% Safe withdrawl rate.

Bitcoin people kind of have their heads up their asses when it comes to what a normal return is.

Wow, this is impressive.
I can send that money away to a bank for 5.5% annual interest with only 1 year lockdown of the cash.

If a bank promised me 6.7% if i invested my money with them for 15 years i would laugh them in the face.

There are a few places, in the real world, where you get 7+% for less than 15 years of lockdown

Taking a chance and buying an asic that might be worth 0  and generate 0 USD, 7 or 9 or 14 years into the future is just not an option.

/GoK

[HDSolar]

Probably not the best example...  Did you notice the Net Profit line?  Or the 15 year payoff? 

It's not ideal compared to what we are used to, but a 15 year payoff is 6.7% annually. This is considered to be a good investment in the non-bitcoin world. If you found such a good investment, you could ride it infinitely with a 4% Safe withdrawl rate.

Bitcoin people kind of have their heads up their asses when it comes to what a normal return is.

Wow, this is impressive.
I can send that money away to a bank for 5.5% annual interest with only 1 year lockdown of the cash.

If a bank promised me 6.7% if i invested my money with them for 15 years i would laugh them in the face.

There are a few places, in the real world, where you get 7+% for less than 15 years of lockdown

Taking a chance and buying an asic that might be worth 0  and generate 0 USD, 7 or 9 or 14 years into the future is just not an option.

/GoK

Well as they say nothing ventured nothing gained so we will need to see what happens when ASICs hit. 

[AngelusWebDesign]

Its actually an underclocked 7970. You can run them at about 0.95v at 550m/h. They use about 120 watts each. 5970 are awesome as well but your best case looking at 600m/h and about 190 watts

For those that are curious, almost my entire GPU stock is 58XX series. The most efficient GPUs available for mining, in case you didn't know. My setups, however, leave a lot of room for improvement. My electricity rate is average, at 0.088 per kWh.

This statement about "most efficient" is not actually true, but it's interesting to hear from people who are shutting down and throwing in the towel, and why, and so on.

Ok, would you care to enlighten us all on what the most efficient GPU is?

Well, I wasn't talking about underclocking.

But even so, I have my serious doubts that an underclocked 7970 is more efficient than an underclocked 5970.
Your claim doesn't even make sense. The 7970 has more "extras" for gaming that would certainly draw a bit of power, regardless of how fast you're running the card (via the Voltage setting).

Your claim would have to be independently verified before I would believe it.

[superfastkyle]

those numbers were verified with a killawatt now it has been months since I did it so my memory may be off +/- 10 watts but I remember that 7970 was much more efficient. It is more efficient because it is only 28nm process which needs less power. If you are looking for efficiency your not going to leave it running at stock clocks or volts

Its actually an underclocked 7970. You can run them at about 0.95v at 550m/h. They use about 120 watts each. 5970 are awesome as well but your best case looking at 600m/h and about 190 watts

For those that are curious, almost my entire GPU stock is 58XX series. The most efficient GPUs available for mining, in case you didn't know. My setups, however, leave a lot of room for improvement. My electricity rate is average, at 0.088 per kWh.

This statement about "most efficient" is not actually true, but it's interesting to hear from people who are shutting down and throwing in the towel, and why, and so on.

Ok, would you care to enlighten us all on what the most efficient GPU is?

Well, I wasn't talking about underclocking.

But even so, I have my serious doubts that an underclocked 7970 is more efficient than an underclocked 5970.
Your claim doesn't even make sense. The 7970 has more "extras" for gaming that would certainly draw a bit of power, regardless of how fast you're running the card (via the Voltage setting).

Your claim would have to be independently verified before I would believe it.

[bcpokey]

Probably not the best example...  Did you notice the Net Profit line?  Or the 15 year payoff? 

It's not ideal compared to what we are used to, but a 15 year payoff is 6.7% annually. This is considered to be a good investment in the non-bitcoin world. If you found such a good investment, you could ride it infinitely with a 4% Safe withdrawl rate.

Bitcoin people kind of have their heads up their asses when it comes to what a normal return is.

Wow, this is impressive.
I can send that money away to a bank for 5.5% annual interest with only 1 year lockdown of the cash.

If a bank promised me 6.7% if i invested my money with them for 15 years i would laugh them in the face.

There are a few places, in the real world, where you get 7+% for less than 15 years of lockdown

Taking a chance and buying an asic that might be worth 0  and generate 0 USD, 7 or 9 or 14 years into the future is just not an option.

/GoK

What bank offers 5.5% interest rate for 1 year lockdown? I'm honestly curious, as I have money that needs investing.

[AngelusWebDesign]

Probably not the best example...  Did you notice the Net Profit line?  Or the 15 year payoff? 

It's not ideal compared to what we are used to, but a 15 year payoff is 6.7% annually. This is considered to be a good investment in the non-bitcoin world. If you found such a good investment, you could ride it infinitely with a 4% Safe withdrawl rate.

Bitcoin people kind of have their heads up their asses when it comes to what a normal return is.

Wow, this is impressive.
I can send that money away to a bank for 5.5% annual interest with only 1 year lockdown of the cash.

If a bank promised me 6.7% if i invested my money with them for 15 years i would laugh them in the face.

There are a few places, in the real world, where you get 7+% for less than 15 years of lockdown

Taking a chance and buying an asic that might be worth 0  and generate 0 USD, 7 or 9 or 14 years into the future is just not an option.

/GoK

What bank offers 5.5% interest rate for 1 year lockdown? I'm honestly curious, as I have money that needs investing.

Actually, it's not a 1-year lockdown. It's a 15-year lockdown.

5.5% APR would be impressive for a 1-year CD in 2012.

However...

CDs are backed by the FDIC. CDs are considered "cash" in the realm of investments, and the lowest risk one can have in a portfolio (except maybe physical gold bullion!)

Bitcoin mining would be more like Penny Stocks -- extremely volatile, and in the highest risk category in one's portfolio.

So to get a reward comparable to CASH, while taking a risk comparable to HIGH RISK STOCKS -- it just doesn't add up for me and many others.

[rograz]

You are not the only one, been doing the same with some of me less efficient rigs. Decided to keep my 2 best ones running as long as they generate some kind of profit (free heating and it's like -15C here now :p). Luckily since I've been running my cards undervolted for almost a year now, I've not had a single fan die out of 20 cards since they barely spin up when each card pulls only 75-80W. 

[jjiimm_64]

those numbers were verified with a killawatt now it has been months since I did it so my memory may be off +/- 10 watts but I remember that 7970 was much more efficient. It is more efficient because it is only 28nm process which needs less power. If you are looking for efficiency your not going to leave it running at stock clocks or volts

Its actually an underclocked 7970. You can run them at about 0.95v at 550m/h. They use about 120 watts each. 5970 are awesome as well but your best case looking at 600m/h and about 190 watts

For those that are curious, almost my entire GPU stock is 58XX series. The most efficient GPUs available for mining, in case you didn't know. My setups, however, leave a lot of room for improvement. My electricity rate is average, at 0.088 per kWh.

This statement about "most efficient" is not actually true, but it's interesting to hear from people who are shutting down and throwing in the towel, and why, and so on.

Ok, would you care to enlighten us all on what the most efficient GPU is?

Well, I wasn't talking about underclocking.

But even so, I have my serious doubts that an underclocked 7970 is more efficient than an underclocked 5970.
Your claim doesn't even make sense. The 7970 has more "extras" for gaming that would certainly draw a bit of power, regardless of how fast you're running the card (via the Voltage setting).

Your claim would have to be independently verified before I would believe it.

I am going to have to back up the 7970 claims. 

clock a 5x7970 rig at  930/780/0.937v  and it pulls about 840w at the wall with 2 SeaSonic 750's. 
--probably less since I have them all on 220 now. also the mobo has all defaults, could probably squeeze another 50 from it if one wanted to.
 
still getting 3.3Mh / watt   5970 and 5870 cant compare.

Code:

cgminer version 2.8.5 - Started: [December 2, 2012, 11:27 am]    Rig:miner17
miner17
(5s):2772.27  (avg): 2772.23 Mh/s  |    H: 112.2  Q:992   A:21803   R:169   HW:68   E:?%   U:37.78/m
TQ:?   ST:0   SS:?   DW:55   NB:65   LW:45712   GF:1   RF:0
Connected to http://pool.coinlab.com:8332 with LP as user ?
Value:
GPU 0:	74.0C	2658RPM 	42% 	116	| 554.3/554.6Mh/s | 	99% |	930Mhz 	780Mhz 	1.17V 	A:4511	R:4	HW:0	U:7.82/m 	I: 9
GPU 1:	74.0C	2159RPM 	36% 	110	| 554.5/554.5Mh/s | 	99% |	930Mhz 	780Mhz 	1.17V 	A:3951	R:153	HW:68	U:6.85/m 	I: 9
GPU 2:	74.0C	2222RPM 	38% 	112	| 555.0/554.5Mh/s | 	99% |	930Mhz 	780Mhz 	1.17V 	A:4484	R:4	HW:0	U:7.77/m 	I: 9
GPU 3:	74.0C	2707RPM 	43% 	117	| 553.7/554.1Mh/s | 	99% |	930Mhz 	780Mhz 	1.17V 	A:4399	R:6	HW:0	U:7.62/m 	I: 9
GPU 4:	74.0C	1639RPM 	32% 	106	| 554.8/554.5Mh/s | 	99% |	930Mhz 	780Mhz 	1.17V 	A:4458	R:2	HW:0	U:7.72/m 	I: 9

Back on topic.
I have not shut any rigs down, although i did downvolt everything cause I pay about 0.125c for power.
after elec profit about 30bucks a day with 47.5G.

I have 2 months or so worth of loyalty points at coinlab, will be running them very soon.  Hoping coinlab gets the HPC work going so I can keep the farm running.

Preordered some asics, bummer they didnt come in before the reward halving.

[Meatball]

I shut one of my machines down the other day and was shocked at all the dust that had built up over two months.  Insane...

[Raize]

I like reading these posts from the folks like myself that were around buying up 5850s before the June 2011 "hoarding". I've actually been considering shutting down my 8 GPUs and parting them off into gaming computers for friends and family (and their kids). They've more than paid themselves off, that's for sure.

[AngelusWebDesign]

How much is a 7970, and when could you possibly have bought them? They haven't been out that long.

Do you hope to recoup this very recent investment?  A $500 card depreciates much more in 6 months than a $200 or $150 card.

I personally haven't added to my GPU collection since August 2011.

Keeping a mining operation going is one thing. Going in for new cards? For some time now, that's been a bad idea -- especially with the Great Halving and FPGA/ASICs on the horizon.

[jjiimm_64]

How much is a 7970, and when could you possibly have bought them? They haven't been out that long.

Do you hope to recoup this very recent investment?  A $500 card depreciates much more in 6 months than a $200 or $150 card.

I personally haven't added to my GPU collection since August 2011.

Keeping a mining operation going is one thing. Going in for new cards? For some time now, that's been a bad idea -- especially with the Great Halving and FPGA/ASICs on the horizon.

I have been building my 7970 rigs all year, the rig I showed has been running 24/7 since ... ithink january. downloaded the beta driver in mid january

[superfastkyle]

whats your power setup with that? you have to be pulling close to 100 amps right? I assume this isn't residential? Most homes only have 100 or 150amp mains

I have not shut any rigs down, although i did downvolt everything cause I pay about 0.125c for power.
after elec profit about 30bucks a day with 47.5G.

[jjiimm_64]

whats your power setup with that? you have to be pulling close to 100 amps right? I assume this isn't residential? Most homes only have 100 or 150amp mains

I have not shut any rigs down, although i did downvolt everything cause I pay about 0.125c for power.
after elec profit about 30bucks a day with 47.5G.

I can honestly say that I have kept my main breaker 'warm' throughout the year.

Most homes in our area have 200 amp service.

[Fjordbit]

1 year CDs are at about 1.1%, 5 year CDs are at best 1.8%. I know that there are temporarily good interest rates to be had in Australia, but here in America I don't know where you think you're getting such a good rate.

6.7% on an item that has an lifetime warrantee like the BFL SC is all profit because of the capital that is stored in the machine itself, which can be sold at a future date. Saying that it's not profit is like saying a landlord isn't making a profit on the rental property they purchased. It might sound right to a layperson but is makes no sense in the financial world.

Basically everyone who responded to me proved my point: they don't know anything about the realities of finance and what a person can reasonably expect from an investment. Let's just assume that ROI is as low as 50% per year. That means you could open an account with $1000 in it and in 19 years have $2.2 million. But people don't retire on $1000 tucked away once when they are 46. It takes years of saving $1000 or more every month to build up a retirement account you can live on.

But this thinking is an epidemic in our culture and it has lead to people pushing tons of money into the hands of scammers. The only reason we have had this return so far is because we've been operating in an environment with 25% or more monetary inflation but it's been balanced by the exponentially expanding network of people being introduced to bitcoin.

[andrew12]

Why not buy an FPGA or pre-order an ASIC? Yeah, they're expensive, but they're much more efficient than any GPU, and if you pre-order an ASIC you should be able to rack up some cash before the difficulty increases a shit ton.

[Stephen Gornick]

Why not buy an FPGA or pre-order an ASIC?

You probably would want to read this thread first then:

If the foundry keeps up 4 layers a week from now on, it means ASICMINEr should receive the chips just before Christmas, so we could theoretically (hopefully) have something online before the end of the year....hashing the first ASIC mined block ever

then following that:

(~2-3 weeks)
First 6TH/s online
(~2-3 weeks)
Second 6TH/s online
(~0-4 weeks)
50TH/s of chips out
(~2-3 weeks, ~2-5 weeks if location changes)
Part or all of the 50TH/s online