BTC Mining

[vgster]

So, I'm wondering. I've recently partaken in the act of Mining. I've started 2 days ago almost exactly. I've made 0.00864792 BTC. It that a decent amount? Is there a more efficient way to mine? Thanks in advance.
Edit: I have an XFX Radeon HD 7750. At about 50 - 60~ Mhash/s.

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[DiCE1904]

So, I'm wondering. I've recently partaken in the act of Mining. I've started 2 days ago almost exactly. I've made 0.00864792 BTC. It that a decent amount? Is there a more efficient way to mine? Thanks in advance.
Edit: I have an XFX Radeon HD 7750. At about 50 - 60~ Mhash/s.

more efficient way right now is still FPGAs until or IF ASICs really come out

is the 0.00864792 BTC worth your cost in electricity?

[mitty]

Your miner must not be configured correctly if you're only getting 50-60 MHash/s with a Radeon 7750.  That card should get ~120 MH/s according to this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

As for "is that a decent amount", the value of BTC in terms of USD most commonly referenced is the last trading price at MtGox: https://mtgox.com

Multiple your BTC by the last price and that's about how many US dollars worth of BTC you've mined.

I'm going to estimate it's not worth it to mine with one 7750, but that depends on your electricity cost; if you have cheap or free electricity it will be profitable to mine on anything. (assuming the hardware was already purchased for some other purpose like playing games)

Find out how many watts your computer uses while mining (it's probably around 100-200, depending on the other components in your machine), then divide that number 1000 and multiply it by 24.  Then multiply that number by how much your electric company charges per killowatt-hour; this is how much it costs to run your computer for 1 day.  It's worth it to mine if the amount of BTC you can make in 1 day exceeds the amount it costs to run your computer.

Currently the most efficient way to mine is by using an FPGA-based mining device like the BFL Single, Icarus/Lancelot board, x6500, or the Modminer Quad.  These devices are relatively expensive, especially considering the fact that ASIC-based mining devices that are an order of magnitude faster than current devices have been announced.  No one has demonstrated a working ASIC yet; however buying any type of mining hardware right now is a gamble due to the uncertainty of when ASICs will be released.

Good luck!

[JustJake]

I am running 6 video cards at over 350MH/s each.  The electricity for this rig is free for me.  It is worth it to me because I love bitcoin but the time I spend in upkeep is not worth the money (RMAs from 4 burnt out video cards and the rigs crashing every so often) and I don't think I would be breaking even if I was paying for my electricity.  I think I might get getting 1 bitcoin every 3 days.

[vgster]

So, I'm wondering. I've recently partaken in the act of Mining. I've started 2 days ago almost exactly. I've made 0.00864792 BTC. It that a decent amount? Is there a more efficient way to mine? Thanks in advance.
Edit: I have an XFX Radeon HD 7750. At about 50 - 60~ Mhash/s.

more efficient way right now is still FPGAs until or IF ASICs really come out

is the 0.00864792 BTC worth your cost in electricity?

[vgster]

._. Jeez. I've never felt so intimidated. But I haven't built a rig just to mine BTC. I made it to game. And I just do this when I'm not gaming. So since it's not worth it, I guess I'll just have to make BTC by selling things or some sort of currency exchange. 

[mitty]

._. Jeez. I've never felt so intimidated. But I haven't built a rig just to mine BTC. I made it to game. And I just do this when I'm not gaming. So since it's not worth it, I guess I'll just have to make BTC by selling things or some sort of currency exchange.  

It might be worth it.. BTC is trading at almost $20 US which is making GPU mining profitable for more and more people.
Just calculate your electricity cost and if the amount of BTC you can make is higher than what you'll pay to run the computer, it's worth it.

No need to be intimidated.

[Bitsaurus]

A general rule is that unless you're running multicard rigs you're not making bitcoins at a cheaper price than it costs to buy them.  Of course if you have free electricity you're only paying for wear/depreciation on your mining hardware.

The only real point for mining is so you can get your own coins solo mining so they'll be "uncirculated" if you will (since there will be no pool transactions in the history).

If you don't care about that, it's better to just get some $ into MtGox and buy some BTC and hold onto them or use them to buy things.

[Atruk]

._. Jeez. I've never felt so intimidated. But I haven't built a rig just to mine BTC. I made it to game. And I just do this when I'm not gaming. So since it's not worth it, I guess I'll just have to make BTC by selling things or some sort of currency exchange. 

Those two other routes will probably make more bitcoins faster than mining, but it probably wouldn't hurt to keep mining on your gaming computer when it has downtime.

Find a pool that lets you build up a balance in an account with them that you can transfer to your wallet when you cross a threshold like 0.01 BTC (which it seems like you could pass in three days) or let you collect your earnings monthly. It's a tiny amount, but it is passive income and you could get more MH/s out of your card (at least double and maybe triple) if you configured it in a more optimal way. If you can make between .25 and 0.5 bitcoins in a month as passive income, with equipment you already have why not.