Noob queries: Should I buy a miner, build a rig, or can I use my rig for mining?

[Punkonjunk]

Probably LTC. Coworker of mine makes a couple hundo a month less costs, and I'm still a little awstruck at the whole "make your computer print virtual money" thing. I've been reading stuff for a good ten hours, but I'm having trouble figuring out what'd be most economical in the long run, as there seems to be a lot of screeching about a bubble for bitcoins, which.... would probably bleed onto LTC? Or not. Honestly. I have no idea.

Here is my relevant setup bits:
Video cards, and the APU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150587
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103942
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125418
Mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131797
And 16 gbs of RAM. I run 6 displays, which is why I have the 3 stupid GPUs. I work from home in remote PC repair, and I'm pretty solid on general networking, and malware removal and analysis. None of which is relevant to this bitcoining magic.

What I want to know, is with my rig, would I be able to effectively utilize my two GPUs and my APU, or am I better off just building a rig for mining and throwing it in a closet?
Or alternatively, are these ASIC miners a better bet, in the long run? Can I BUILD an asic miner?

So yep. Hi all, first post. So, so many questions. These are the ones I can't seem to find an answer to, though.

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[Teka]

Probably LTC. Coworker of mine makes a couple hundo a month less costs, and I'm still a little awstruck at the whole "make your computer print virtual money" thing. I've been reading stuff for a good ten hours, but I'm having trouble figuring out what'd be most economical in the long run, as there seems to be a lot of screeching about a bubble for bitcoins, which.... would probably bleed onto LTC? Or not. Honestly. I have no idea.

Here is my relevant setup bits:
Video cards, and the APU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150587
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103942
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125418
Mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131797
And 16 gbs of RAM. I run 6 displays, which is why I have the 3 stupid GPUs. I work from home in remote PC repair, and I'm pretty solid on general networking, and malware removal and analysis. None of which is relevant to this bitcoining magic.

What I want to know, is with my rig, would I be able to effectively utilize my two GPUs and my APU, or am I better off just building a rig for mining and throwing it in a closet?
Or alternatively, are these ASIC miners a better bet, in the long run? Can I BUILD an asic miner?

So yep. Hi all, first post. So, so many questions. These are the ones I can't seem to find an answer to, though.

A 7870 should generate 63.2 litecoins per month at the current difficulty. 63.2 coins at the current price is around $254.99

[vm1990]

its worth doing on your rig and should get a nice little sum from it maybe even enough to make your friend blush as you over take him XD

[ltc_foundry]

Forget about an ASIC. you wont be able to get your hands on one for 6 months, at the very least, if you plunked down $6-7k today, and were willing to task the significant risk of A. never actually seeing your ASIC and B. having the difficulty quintuple and make your ROI asymptotic before you ever got it hashing.


Get 4x 7970 and a 3770k and start mining LTC this week.

Worse comes to worse you have an unreal gaming rig.

[Punkonjunk]

Probably LTC. Coworker of mine makes a couple hundo a month less costs, and I'm still a little awstruck at the whole "make your computer print virtual money" thing. I've been reading stuff for a good ten hours, but I'm having trouble figuring out what'd be most economical in the long run, as there seems to be a lot of screeching about a bubble for bitcoins, which.... would probably bleed onto LTC? Or not. Honestly. I have no idea.

Here is my relevant setup bits:
Video cards, and the APU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150587
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103942
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125418
Mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131797
And 16 gbs of RAM. I run 6 displays, which is why I have the 3 stupid GPUs. I work from home in remote PC repair, and I'm pretty solid on general networking, and malware removal and analysis. None of which is relevant to this bitcoining magic.

What I want to know, is with my rig, would I be able to effectively utilize my two GPUs and my APU, or am I better off just building a rig for mining and throwing it in a closet?
Or alternatively, are these ASIC miners a better bet, in the long run? Can I BUILD an asic miner?

So yep. Hi all, first post. So, so many questions. These are the ones I can't seem to find an answer to, though.

A 7870 should generate 63.2 litecoins per month at the current difficulty. 63.2 coins at the current price is around $254.99

THAT is great to hear! Is it possible to simultaneously utilize my other GPUs, or would I be able to roughly double that were I running two of the same?

[Covux]

Forget about an ASIC. you wont be able to get your hands on one for 6 months, at the very least, if you plunked down $6-7k today, and were willing to task the significant risk of A. never actually seeing your ASIC and B. having the difficulty quintuple and make your ROI asymptotic before you ever got it hashing.


Get 4x 7970 and a 3770k and start mining LTC this week.

Worse comes to worse you have an unreal gaming rig.

What Mobo would be best to fit 4 GPU's

[chanzilla]

I've been wondering if it's still worth building a rig at this point.

[ltc_foundry]

Forget about an ASIC. you wont be able to get your hands on one for 6 months, at the very least, if you plunked down $6-7k today, and were willing to task the significant risk of A. never actually seeing your ASIC and B. having the difficulty quintuple and make your ROI asymptotic before you ever got it hashing.


Get 4x 7970 and a 3770k and start mining LTC this week.

Worse comes to worse you have an unreal gaming rig.

What Mobo would be best to fit 4 GPU's

ASUS Rampage IV Formula; if you have LGA 2011 cpu (and you should for 4x cards, very data hungry)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131808

[glt512]

you could mine on your own rig, but you won't make much unless you have top of the line parts with the right hardware that happens to work the best with mining bitcoins and litecoins. As for investing in a new rig that can do all of this, it's probably too late for bitcoins to actually make a profit off of an investment like that, but litecoins and ppcoins are still thriving in that regard.

[Punkonjunk]

you could mine on your own rig, but you won't make much unless you have top of the line parts with the right hardware that happens to work the best with mining bitcoins and litecoins. As for investing in a new rig that can do all of this, it's probably too late for bitcoins to actually make a profit off of an investment like that, but litecoins and ppcoins are still thriving in that regard.

And LTC are what I'm plannin' on. What I'm having trouble figuring out is if I can use my APU+GPUs, or both my GPUs, to work together, or both independently work for mining, or if just using one is a better bet.

[datguyian]

I'm on a seriously low budget, so here's my config that should end up costing less than $500:

motherboard - MSI 970a - g46 - 80 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130637
cpu - sempron 145 - 40 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888&IsVirtualParent=1
heatsink/fan - 20 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103075
Radeon 6950 - 170 -http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7581172&SRCCODE=WEBGOOPA&cm_mmc_o=mH4CjC7BBTkwCjCV1-CjCE&gclid=COqfqPuMt7YCFQTznAodP0AAUw
memory - 2gb - 20 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231395
power supply - 70 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153168
Case - 20 - haven't completely worked it out, but will end up being some kind of make shift open air box I'll rig together some kind of way
Cooling - ghetto style... box fan!

Probably going to order parts tomorrow. On a calculator I looked at earlier, I'll earn about $270 my first month. If it remains profitable, I'll end up ordering a GPU every couple of weeks and upgrade my PSU and RAM if needed. Because of financial boundaries and stability worries, starting off small. I may end up spending a few bucks more on the video card... after things I"ve read about vision tek, I'm feeling a little uneasy about it. I might spend the extra 150ish to get a 7950, and it would be more profitable. I'm not too concerned about losing a ton of money on the GPU as i'm fairly certain I'll be able to make up the loss by selling them back if I ever get tired of mining, but still have limited funds to support my opening act.

I should also mention I realize that there will be more of a financial burden than profit between electrical costs and purchases, but this is more of a speculative investment and learning experience for me at this point. I see crypto currency hanging around for awhile, however I feel its value and long term success remains to be seen.

[datguyian]

you could mine on your own rig, but you won't make much unless you have top of the line parts with the right hardware that happens to work the best with mining bitcoins and litecoins. As for investing in a new rig that can do all of this, it's probably too late for bitcoins to actually make a profit off of an investment like that, but litecoins and ppcoins are still thriving in that regard.

And LTC are what I'm plannin' on. What I'm having trouble figuring out is if I can use my APU+GPUs, or both my GPUs, to work together, or both independently work for mining, or if just using one is a better bet.

IMO, skimp on your APU/CPU as you see I've done with my rig and go for as much GPU as possible. From what I've read, any kind of APU/CPU mining really isn't worth it at this point, unless you're working with free hardware and electricity.

Also, these links may help give you an idea of the possibilities and profitability:

Hardware comparison - https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison
Mining calculator - http://ltc.kattare.com/calc.php

[Punkonjunk]

the calculator is real helpful, thanks!

It sounds like it's not worth bothering stressing my APU out. From what I've read, that'll make my rig almost unusable while mining, anyhow.

Since I ALSO have a 6670 and 7870 both in ONE system, I want to know if I can use both at once and see an increase in kh/s.

Also, the threadjacking is a little weird, but seems common. I'm guessing all this crazy rising prices is getting a lot of press, and people want to get that post count up so they can post elsewhere. That's prolly what's goin' on here, huh?

EDIT:
Another question I'm having trouble getting a handle on because it's so speculative, but right now, it looks like I could do at least 220 bucks a month worth of LTC on my current hardware. This is very hard to wrap my head around: it feels like printing money. That's LESS the cost of electricity: my profit.

What is predicted to happen to LTC prices going forward, on a 6 month, 1 year, and beyond scale: is there anything to read on this, or news articles regarding this? I'm having trouble finding anything concrete that doesn't sound pulled out of one's ass, and this would be a great question for people desperately seeking to pop that post count up, if they've run into something.

[datguyian]

the calculator is real helpful, thanks!

It sounds like it's not worth bothering stressing my APU out. From what I've read, that'll make my rig almost unusable while mining, anyhow.

Since I ALSO have a 6670 and 7870 both in ONE system, I want to know if I can use both at once and see an increase in kh/s.

Also, the threadjacking is a little weird, but seems common. I'm guessing all this crazy rising prices is getting a lot of press, and people want to get that post count up so they can post elsewhere. That's prolly what's goin' on here, huh?

EDIT:
Another question I'm having trouble getting a handle on because it's so speculative, but right now, it looks like I could do at least 220 bucks a month worth of LTC on my current hardware. This is very hard to wrap my head around: it feels like printing money. That's LESS the cost of electricity: my profit.

What is predicted to happen to LTC prices going forward, on a 6 month, 1 year, and beyond scale: is there anything to read on this, or news articles regarding this? I'm having trouble finding anything concrete that doesn't sound pulled out of one's ass, and this would be a great question for people desperately seeking to pop that post count up, if they've run into something.

I am fairly certain you can mine with both, and from things I've read I think you should be able to control how much processing power is being dedicated to mining in order to keep the video card resources usable while you're simultaneously mining and working on your computer. I honestly have not started mining with my first GPU yet, so I'm not incredibly experienced. What I plan on doing, though, is locating articles pertaining to mining from my specific GPU and looking for the most productive and lucrative way to mine. CGMiner, Reaper and Phoenix seem to be the popular GPU miners that I see a lot. If you don't like command line, there's also GUI miner, but I've heard that going straight to one of the other 3 may be better for various reasons. If you do start mining with your current rig, keep in mind your GPUs will likely be working way harder than they are now, so it would be wise to monitor temperatures. You may also want to make sure you have a quality power supply that will be capable of efficiently handling the increased load.

I can't really give you a solid answer about LTC, but I'll give you my feelings on it. Disclaimer: still a newbie to cryptocoins! But what I'm seeing is several new businesses created accepting bitcoin and often times ONLY bitcoin, as well as several existing businesses adopting bitcoin as a payment option, and a lot of private exchanges. I saw a reference earlier to a NY landlord accepting it for rent, I've seen a few people sell their cars and other big ticket items for BTC, and several new online vendors (or sometimes vendor spinoffs) using bitcoin. This makes me think that BTC, even if it does wind up crashing and burning in the end, will be around for awhile and should remain valuable. From what I've read about LTC, there's no reason why it is a whole lot better or worse than BTC in development terms (anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), but usage is going to be the problem. If mtgox really is picking them up (which it sounds like is the case), I don't necessarily expect a huge immediate spike, or if there is one I would be surprised to see it stabilize at an increase of more than 20%, but could see how this would help it get the attention it needs to be successful. IMHO, BTC value is rising because of usage for transactions. I'm sure there are other reasons, but I would rate that as the #1 reason or close to it. So in summary, I think LTC will either start getting more attention and become more valuable (although I don't see it becoming nearly as valuable as BTC unless BTC crashes and people revert to LTC), or it will fizzle out because there's not enough use for it.

If everyone stopped using the US dollars for whatever reason and you could not make any transactions with it, it would be worthless. I use the same logic for crypto currencies. There will always be various factors and speculations, but what's the real value of something that will buy you nothing?

Once I get my mining rig, my personal plan is to start mining LTC as long as it is profitable, and I'll most likely exchange my LTC for BTC. I might sit on some LTC to see where it goes for awhile, but if I don't start seeing more business flowing through it than pumping and dumping, I'll probably wind up being 70-90% BTC leaving 10-30% it various altcoins out of speculation. LTC and BTC have struck the most interest for me so far, but I'm still keeping an eye on the smaller coins out there.

Sorry... think I rambled a bit there.

[Punkonjunk]

No, not at all! Helpful and eloquent. Any recommendations on GPU temp monitoring, especially for multiple ATI GPUs? Not speedfan. That fucker makes my system go nuts half the time, I've tried it before, and it's a jerk.

Additionally, can anyone point me towards an end-all, noob friendly get started today litecoin mining guide? I've got to run a lot of errands, so I'm letting the client do all that downloadin' it has to do. Naturally I will dig myself when I get back, but I figured I'd slap the post up here in the thread. #bitcoin on freenode has been really helpful for me, too, but it moves REALLY fast. I'm used to irc channels with like a hundred dudes in 'em.

[datguyian]

That is actually on my to do list. I just ordered parts for my first mining rig last night, and I'll definitely be looking for a good overclocking, power monitor and temp monitoring app. I'll let you know what I dig up, should have everything here by Monday or Tuesday at the latest, so I'll hopefully find some good stuff by then.

I keep meaning to check out the IRC channels, just haven't had time yet. As it is, this forum seems to be sucking away 1-2 hours from me a day. 

I've seen some helpful posts for litecoin and bitcoin mining, but a lot of it really comes down to what equipment you'll be mining with. In the respect to getting the most hashes out of your equipment, you really need to research what other miners are doing with the same equipment as you, as the slightest changes to specific settings can make a huge difference. Of course, you want to remember that the slightest differences can also make a huge difference in your power usage, so power efficiency could also be a factor here. Here's a few links I found with some quick google searches on your current equipment:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=122790.0 - this guy posted about the settings he was using with GUIMiner for his 6670.
http://guiminer.org/ - link for GUIMiner's website

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=55038.0 - A thread about CPUMiner for Litecoin. You're likely to use more electricity than it's worth if you use your CPU to mine, but I could be wrong. And I guess if you're like me and you wind up leaving your computer on all night anyway, then your just making part of your currently existing losses back. I'm not sure about your processor in particular or what kind of hash rates you would generate but I would think you could push at least 3 kh/s out of it for a total of 24 if you hash with all cores. Since it's an 8 core, make sure your command line specifies to use 8 threads in the cpuminer command (or how ever many of the cores you want to use). I keep my work laptop mining using all threads during the day while I'm at the office (free electricity for a few kh/s You could say that it is to crypto currency what a 5 gallon water jug is to my fiat currency... few cents a day that will either end up in my xmas budget or in coinstar for my titty bar budget...) I also have a spare VMHost in our datacenter right now, and I would mention that before I had it mining, it was averaging 250 kw/h, and since I've started mining, it's spiked up to 400. So even if you do mine while your computer is normally idle, it's going to pull more electricity than usual and could make an impact on your utility bill.

Another thing worth mentioning, I'm guessing there's some built-in functionality in cpuminer to make it the lowest priority process, because I never rerely have any lag issues when hopping around apps during the day. I'll also take a peak at it here and there, and it's doing 2-3 kH/s per thread while I'm working, compared to the 5-6 it does while I'm doing more idle tasks or have been away from my desk for a bit. I ran a few searches for 6550 but didn't really uncover any particular settings that would boost you along any further (doesn't mean there's not... the more you dig around, the more crap you find on this mining business).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0 - here's a link for cgminer. One of the links I tagged in my last post (https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison#wiki-ATI_AMD_GPUs) showed a few hardware comparison tables, and the last column showed the specific settings the user configured their miner at to achieve those settings. Your 7870 is definitely going to be your money making miner out of the devices you posted. There were two different entries for the 7870, and the second one showed 425 kh/s. He was using cgminer and posted his settings.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117221.0 - consolidated guide for multiple Radeon GPUs, may also have some useful info for you.

http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/03/12/absolute-beginners-guide-to-litecoin-mining/ - Beginner's guide for mining litecoin. You can definitely dive a lot deeper than this article goes, but if you just want to press a few buttons and get your rig mining for how ever many litecoins you might end up with and aren't all that committed to the details, this is a good guide to download the GUI mining software and get it going.

[odolvlobo]

The first thing you can do is to try mining with the computer you have right now. Then, after you understand mining a little better, you can decide if that is how you want to spend your time and money. It's not for everyone. Most people decide that is is not worth it.

[KraXed112]

I made my main and mule rigs both mine. combined 600mhash.

I also ordered a single sc from bfl.

I agree with everyone about the difficulty going up a huge amount before i get my sc. so if you can plunk down something now to mine more efficiently do it.