Help me pick a mining pool

[ArmoredDragon]

I started mining bitcoins for the first time back in January, and based on my research I had made the determination that eligius would be my best choice. Right now my mining works like this: A radeon 5750 and a 7850, both overclocked, on two separate machines, with a combined hash rate of roughly 550Mh/s. I didn't buy these cards for mining, rather they are cards for gaming that I already had, so I figured I would experiment with mining, and so far I like the results. However lately I keep running into this:

https://i.imgur.com/SqxRI0V.png

Naturally, I'm not getting anywhere if my client can't actually participate in the mining process. I did research on p2pool and I heard something about variance being no good. My statistics page here doesn't seem to indicate that I am doing that well on eligius though:

http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/userstats.php/1MxuKm4jdpGqpUSJRE45gbanGsePEkRJnq

Many of the dips are from suspending the mining while I play games, but I haven't played any games at all in the last two weeks. My network works fine (I am a network engineer btw) as I do regular SLA testing (hobby of mine) and there are no ISP connectivity issues indicated by that, nor do I notice any downtime from any other sites.

I realize that it is basically impossible to accurately predict how much you'll actually be able to mine. However, is there at least any statistic gathering anywhere that will give me an idea if I'll get better results from another pool?

[Newar]

I realize that it is basically impossible to accurately predict how much you'll actually be able to mine. However, is there at least any statistic gathering anywhere that will give me an idea if I'll get better results from another pool?

I guess that's why it's called "luck".


It depends what you are looking for? My choice was for pools that pay tx fees and do merged mining. Others have a protocol they prefer, want a pool near to them or are looking for an API. Some info here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

[martynw2000]

I'm currently on a PPLNS pool, which basically means I get paid a percentage of each block based on how many shares I contribute over a 24h period. This works well for me, because all my mining machines are in constant operation 24/7.

If you're not mining all the time, then for you it might be better to be on a PPS pool where you are paid per share. Good ones to try are 50BTC, Deepbit and BTC Guild. At the current difficulty, with 500mhps you might get $130 a month if you mine continuously. Less if you take breaks for gaming etc. I guess you have to weigh that up against how much you pay for power.

I think 50BTC have one of the best rates for PPS at the moment.

Hope that helps

[docjunior]

I am very happy with BitMinter, with the exception that hash rates seem to fluctuate a little bit, and they (as everyone else) have experienced some short DDOS attacks, but downtime seems to be minutes, not hours or days.

[jorov]

Try Slush.
If you have any concerns or doubts, you may also try Slush

[ajas]

A point to consider would be to chose a mining pool that is not too large.

One essential idea is that bitcoin mining is decentralised so that nobody
has the power to compromize the blockchain. This was the reasoning for
me to chose a 'small' mining pool.

[ArmoredDragon]

I'm currently on a PPLNS pool, which basically means I get paid a percentage of each block based on how many shares I contribute over a 24h period. This works well for me, because all my mining machines are in constant operation 24/7.

If you're not mining all the time, then for you it might be better to be on a PPS pool where you are paid per share. Good ones to try are 50BTC, Deepbit and BTC Guild. At the current difficulty, with 500mhps you might get $130 a month if you mine continuously. Less if you take breaks for gaming etc. I guess you have to weigh that up against how much you pay for power.

I think 50BTC have one of the best rates for PPS at the moment.

Hope that helps

I run on nuclear here, it's roughly 10 cents per KW/h. That would average out to about $14 per month with the power my GPU's consume, except realistically it is hitting about $5 per month. I use SRP m-power so I can easily determine what I am paying at any given moment, and the price difference while mining vs sitting idle is barely even observable.

[martynw2000]

Well in that case, set your machine to mine whenever you're not gaming, and earn some cash. With the BTC price rising all the time, and it seems like you have low overheads, you shouldn't go wrong. As I said before though, if you're not mining all the time, PPS (pay per share) is probably the way to go.

[ArmoredDragon]

I do have a machine that never stops mining (which is my server rig that also hosts my NAS.) My main rig (which has 60% of the Mh/s) mines probably 90% of the time, that remaining 10% is while I am playing games. Some games such as league of legends allow me to mine and play at the same time as they aren't very compute intensive (but are memory intensive - so basically the miner and the game use different parts of the GPU.)

What is the advantage of 50btc over eligius?

[Aahzman]

Just decide via "One potato, two potato..." aka the Leslie Winkle Scientific Methodology.

[dragon2nd]

I started mining bitcoins for the first time back in January, and based on my research I had made the determination that eligius would be my best choice. Right now my mining works like this: A radeon 5750 and a 7850, both overclocked, on two separate machines, with a combined hash rate of roughly 550Mh/s. I didn't buy these cards for mining, rather they are cards for gaming that I already had, so I figured I would experiment with mining, and so far I like the results. However lately I keep running into this:

https://i.imgur.com/SqxRI0V.png

Naturally, I'm not getting anywhere if my client can't actually participate in the mining process. I did research on p2pool and I heard something about variance being no good. My statistics page here doesn't seem to indicate that I am doing that well on eligius though:

http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/userstats.php/1MxuKm4jdpGqpUSJRE45gbanGsePEkRJnq

Many of the dips are from suspending the mining while I play games, but I haven't played any games at all in the last two weeks. My network works fine (I am a network engineer btw) as I do regular SLA testing (hobby of mine) and there are no ISP connectivity issues indicated by that, nor do I notice any downtime from any other sites.

I realize that it is basically impossible to accurately predict how much you'll actually be able to mine. However, is there at least any statistic gathering anywhere that will give me an idea if I'll get better results from another pool?

slush's is the best. http://mining.bitcoin.cz

[martynw2000]

What is the advantage of 50btc over eligius?

I don't know what rates Eligius are paying, but last time I looked these were the rates per share:

50BTC = 0.00000316
Deepbit = 0.00000293
BTC Guild = 0.00000310

[workin_machine]

i am mining in http://eclipsemc.com and satisfied with it.

DGM or PPS payment

PPS rate is 0.00000310 /sh

[baad]

Hi,

Can anyone tell the experiences with MT.RED?

Thanks.

[ArmoredDragon]

What is the advantage of 50btc over eligius?

I don't know what rates Eligius are paying, but last time I looked these were the rates per share:

50BTC = 0.00000316
Deepbit = 0.00000293
BTC Guild = 0.00000310

How do you find these? I just tried slush and I am already getting a much higher (estimated) payout than with eligius. A problem I had with eligius other than the communication failure was frequently getting a bunch of rejected shares. I'm curious what slush's is currently at.

[WeTradeCoins]

Another option you should consider is start mining LTCs and simply trade them for BitCoins on an exchange market like btc-e.com

If you looking for a promising LTC mining pool happily check ours at www.WeMineLTC.com

[ArmoredDragon]

I'm looking at possibly CPU mining with LTC. How much income could I see at a hash rate of 100Kh/s?

[Lodbrok]

The first pool I saw was deepbit and that is the one I got recommended.  Is this decision correct?

[Gator-hex]

Use PPS not any other scam payment system

50BTC and BitMinter are my recommendations.

[phrozenspite]

Slush's is a good one.  the bitparking merged mining pool http://mmpool.bitparking.com/pool has a pretty high PPS rate and offers other currencies for added income.  Mtred is cool, but they've had some issues with withdrawals recently https://mtred.com/.

I agree that now is a good time for alt coin mining(litecoin, ppc)  You can double your mining income potentially and they do allow GPU mining as well if you have a decent card.
check profitability here http://dustcoin.com/mining.  I recommend using Coinotron as a pool for LTC and PPC https://coinotron.com/coinotron/AccountServlet?action=home
And then you withdraw alt currencies to a site like https://vircurex.com/welcome/index?referral_id=794-7116 (referral gives you lower fees too), or BTC-E and exchange for BTC.