Mining bitcoin to pay server power bill

[mgiammarco]

Hello,
I am obviously new to bitcoin, but I have this idea:

I have some server in a test lab that run virtual machines and must be on 24/24.

If I understand correctly usually people mine bitcoin with GPU.

So I think: I can add a gpu to each server, use the cpu to run virtual machines, use gpu to run bitcoin so I can pay power bill selling the bitcoins generated.

Is it possible?

Thanks,
Mario

[pinkpanther]

Well, what's the price for one kW/h? If your electricity is for free, it might pay off after a few months. Please search 'bitcoin mining calculator' for an exact calculation.

[DarkHyudrA]

A single GPU dont have good hash power, and making VMs to have multiples access to the same GPU is a bad idea.
1 CPU for multiples GPUs, not 1 GPU for mutiples CPUs.

[Stephen Gornick]

If I understand correctly usually people mine bitcoin with GPU.

Nowadays the only ones who are doing so profitably on GPUs are those with the high-end cards tuned to be easy on the power consumption and are paying below about $0.10 per kWh for electricity.

This excludes much of the Western world, with the exception of some regions with cheap electricity due to proximity to hydro or subsidies, etc.

The GPU miners that are still profitable will only continue with the benefit for a matter of weeks (maybe many weeks, but still measured in weeks) before ASICs ship, which will cause the difficulty to rise to such a level that it completely obliterates all profitability for GPU mining.

[mgiammarco]

Thank you for all replies!

I would like to rewrite my idea because english is not my native language and so I suppose I was not very clear.

My idea is (numbers are invented):

a) server for my purpose = 50 $ bill for power;
b) server for my purpose with a gpu/cpu/asic/whatelse added for mining 200$ bill for power.

But mining gives me money so if I get more than 200-50=150$ from mining I am better to do B instead of A.

So I do not ask you for a precise calculus; I ask only if you think it is possible to cover A costs using B configuration.

Thanks again,
Mario

[DannyHamilton]

Thank you for all replies!

I would like to rewrite my idea because english is not my native language and so I suppose I was not very clear.

My idea is (numbers are invented):

a) server for my purpose = 50 $ bill for power;
b) server for my purpose with a gpu/cpu/asic/whatelse added for mining 200$ bill for power.

But mining gives me money so if I get more than 200-50=150$ from mining I am better to do B instead of A.

So I do not ask you for a precise calculus; I ask only if you think it is possible to cover A costs using B configuration.

Thanks again,
Mario

That will depend on how much you pay per kilowatt hour (kWh) or per megajoule.
It will also depend on what kind of GPU you will use in the server.

If you pay more than 0.0082 BTC (convert to your local currency) per kilowatt hour, or more than 0.0023 BTC (convert to your local currency) per megajoule, then you will probably find that you will pay more for electricity than you will earn mining Bitcoin no matter what GPU you use.  The earnings won't compensate more than the additional electric cost.

If you pay less than the numbers I quoted above, then you might be able to offset the costs a bit, but it will depend on how much less you pay, and what GPU you install.

[DarkHyudrA]

It takes a long time to break even when mining.(Break even in this case is when all the money you invested has been paid off by the money you earned trough mining: Price of the parts + Bills over the months - Money earned trough mining = 0).
I'm saying about break even because you said that will buy the GPU/ASIC.
A better idea would be invest in BTC, you know, buy now and wait the prices to go up, then sell.

[electricityBill]

If I understand correctly usually people mine bitcoin with GPU.

Nowadays the only ones who are doing so profitably on GPUs are those with the high-end cards tuned to be easy on the power consumption and are paying below about $0.10 per kWh for electricity.

This excludes much of the Western world, with the exception of some regions with cheap electricity due to proximity to hydro or subsidies, etc.

The GPU miners that are still profitable will only continue with the benefit for a matter of weeks (maybe many weeks, but still measured in weeks) before ASICs ship, which will cause the difficulty to rise to such a level that it completely obliterates all profitability for GPU mining.

Adding to existing comments, I would suggest you wait for material proof of Butterfly Lab's ASICs. I'm optimistic, but I wouldn't bet a business on it. Failing that, there are some very good threads on here on FPGAs, which are probably the most viable alternative in terms of power consumption v.s. mining output (eg., http://www.ztex.de is proven and popular.)