The price of bitcoins at present is ~$600.
What do you think: Is it more profitable to mine a viable altcoin ( ETC, XMR...) and then exchange them for bitcoins or invest in an S9 and mine bitcoins?
this may be moved from btc to alt coin.
I suggest both but with a lot of caveats .
An s-9 costs about 1800 to 2000 to be fully set up
A solid 4 card 100mh eth card build is about 1500
I have a four card build it does about 97mh and pulls about 600 watts.
right now it is better then an s-9 but shit happens in crypto coin
so one of each is okay to do as you are more diverse that way
many ways to do builds.
here is an open case 4 card build does about 96 mh to 101 mh power used about 600 watts
this was about
4 x 250= 1000 for the cards
1 x 130= 130 for the psu
1 x 80= 80 for the m2 ssd
1 x 130= 130 for the mobo
2 x 35 = 70 for the ram
1 x ? = ? for windows 7 pro
1 x 40 = 40 for open case mount
1 x 150= 150 for cpu
total cost = 1600
my thread with a lot of info
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1429151.0 you may not need a lot to start as you may have gear in your house
the rigs stats at the pool