Total newbie, bitcoin or litecoin most longterm profitable? safest bet?

[totalacedude]

Hi Guys

3rd attempt at posting due to laptop deleting the bloody thing on catching back buttons  

I am exited to be here (they say flattery gets you everywhere  )

I have a friend that has a water turbine with about 8kw of power that I can utilize onsite. (something about feed in tarrifs and doesn't get paid more if he sends it back to the grid! lucky him!)

so it hits me.... use the power and bit mine!

im looking to mine either bitcoins or litecoins but once I buy the hardware I can no longer retreat  

with the power 'kw' (and cash) available I am looking at buying :-
 5 x Antminer T9 - 12.5 TH/S (or s9 as T9 is not available) = approx. 55 TH/S = 9.67 BTC mined per yr (at current hash time etc)
or
 6 x Antminer L3+ 504MH/s = approx. 3000MH/s = 4800 LTC mined per yr (at current hash time etc)


both coins seem to have pros and cons

BITCOIN
Pros
well known
a lot of idiot guides to refer to
a stable currency seeming to be upward bound.

Cons
hash time is circa 5 weeks per coin (using above H/W)
will have to use a pool (cuts into payments)

LITECOIN
Pros
Smaller hash time (but smaller payments)
can go it alone (no pools)

cons
trends seem to show a low average LTC - $

can anyone give me their thoughts on which to go for... ?!?

looking at litecoin calculator online I had a small wee, todays rate would yield $70k per yr lolol
I have done some research and I want to play it safe on returns, even though BTC is high right now if it drops it seems you have a lot more to loose vs Lite coin.
 Lets do some very crude workings out.
BTC are currently $1300 a block it seems to be going up and up (lets hope it does) but lets air on the side of caution and looking at history im going to base my blocks on $700 seems fair?
again the same with litecoin, its at a whopping $15 right now but if I want to be cautious for payback I am going for lowest average of $2.5 per block, the trends seem to show an average of maybe $3-4 average lowest.
so...
BITCOIN  my equiptment  = 9.67 mined per yr @$700 = $6769 = £5229 vs £9788 at todays actual BTC rate ! (minus pooling fees etc)
LITECOIN my equiptment = 4800 mined per yr @$2.5  =$12000 = £9271 vs £55000 todays rate hahahahahah I wish  

So my thoughts are I could poss earn more with Bitcoin, but litecoin seems a safer bet but smaller payout.

what type of e currency did you guys go for?
what type of e currency would you go for at present time?
same with equiptment, whats the best,  fastest etc etc? (I hear the s9 runs hot.. bloody hot, why im after t9's)
whats the recommended processing power for main program that drives miners? would an old server be ok?
what kind of internet speed do I need?  3mb enough?
will the miners work if the pc and miners are cut offline?

Any input from you guys will be gladly taken. if you have any thoughts what so ever im all ears

a tech question now.
miners Ethernet connection is it advisable to use a separate network from miners to mining pc, then home network to mining pc for internet access! I only ask because I want to keep them unseen by hackers etc.

cheers for any help guys.

happy mining  

ian

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[Unacceptable]

Dude go with vid cards & mine GPU only coins,lots to chose from & faster return than ASIC crap.

And 3 year warranty on most PC hardware,ASICS=90-180 days...............  

BTW,I use old dual core PCs with PCIE slots & 4 gig old ram (all free),just need vid cards & powersupplies new  

Uh,if you have an average firewall no one will hack you........and bandwidth usage is minimal

[totalacedude]

Hey,

Cheers for the quick reply...

I thought gpu mining was a lot slower than the units im looking into.

the Antminer L3+ is  504MH/s

ive got setious power (kw) that I can use I want to maximize dosh out of it... I don't mind the outlay!

[MohBTC]

From a Newbie to A Newbie follow the GPU advice. ASIC miners (for now) only implement SHA256 and Scrypt, the two hashing algorithms used for Bitcoin and Litecoin. These two markets are pretty well saturated with mining farms in countries with cheap electricity. For a starter you can buy a few GPUs ( if you have the money ) and mine the newer coins which use different hashing algos. The main pro is that GPUs can be configured to mine any new algo ( provided there is an available SW miner) so you can chase the most profitable coins. At the end of the day, if you got sick of mining, you still can sell your GPUs to the general public.

[totalacedude]

Hey,
cheers for the info, Yea its something I hadn't thought of... maybe worth a look. tbh my aim is to by (or cobble a rig together) and set it up and leave it running I wont be fannying about changing between (unless it becomes stupidly profitable to do so)

what kind of speeds can you get out of GPU mining? and what would you say is the next best newer coin to look into?

cheers

[philipma1957]

Hey,
cheers for the info, Yea its something I hadn't thought of... maybe worth a look. tbh my aim is to by (or cobble a rig together) and set it up and leave it running I wont be fannying about changing between (unless it becomes stupidly profitable to do so)

what kind of speeds can you get out of GPU mining? and what would you say is the next best newer coin to look into?

cheers

Ahhh a newbie with free power.

Okay  pc's built with gpu's  can mine ETH or ZEC or SKlein and a few others.

point the pc at nicehash it directly converts the coin into BTC and you are owning the most stable coin.

Here are 2 of my pc rigs one has 2 cards one has 4 cards    they mine 1700-1800h of zec  which is about 11-12 usd
this is about 900 watts of power
if you have 8000 watts and use 6300 of that or 7 six card rigs  you could be earning 80 usd per day

[totalacedude]

hahaha 
well that gobsmacked the fook out of me... im so way in over my head....

Right this isn't the easiest thing I thought it would be.... my original plan was to buy some LTC miners and leave un attended, but this has opened my eye totally. (yea just one eye. only cos im in too deep and the other eye is under the surface lol) 
so what would I need to buy if I went down the GPU / CPU path? more importunately im guessing its a lot more complicated...
do you have to keep hopping form currency to currency or is there a best of the bunch?
how do you work out the hash rate of GPUs etc etc
all very noob questions I know lol

thanks

[Inicnat]

Altcoins are better to mine nowadays. It's faster.

[MohBTC]

hahaha  
well that gobsmacked the fook out of me... im so way in over my head....

Right this isn't the easiest thing I thought it would be.... my original plan was to buy some LTC miners and leave un attended, but this has opened my eye totally. (yea just one eye. only cos im in too deep and the other eye is under the surface lol)  
so what would I need to buy if I went down the GPU / CPU path? more importunately im guessing its a lot more complicated...
do you have to keep hopping form currency to currency or is there a best of the bunch?
how do you work out the hash rate of GPUs etc etc
all very noob questions I know lol

thanks

If you don't want to bother yourself with too much details ( Sorry but some details are unavoidable ) you can buy a decent ready-made GPU mining rig for $4k or something like that. I guess that is comparable to the price of the ASIC miners you were planning to buy. Many of them come pre-configured and you just need to add your payout address. If you want to build your own rig, it can end up being cheaper and at least for me it is a nice learning experience if you like computer stuff. There is a ton of youtube videos that walk you through the details of building a rig.

[fanatic26]

you can buy a decent ready-made GPU mining rig for $4k or something like that.

a 6 card mining rig can be had for around $1400-1600 new, this is a crazy price.

If you dont want to mess around with building them yourself id say take a look at the PandaMiner. You pay a small premium for not having to do any of the manual labor yourself. They are an all in one altcoin rig that from what I have seen is a bit more stable than the standard home built altcoin rig. There are some threads on the forum that show this miner and its capabilities in great detail.

[philipma1957]

op   I have a series of threads in this section dating back to april last year

yeah  spend the hour to read them  you will see a  how 1 card rig grew

link to thread 1

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1429151.0

Link to thread 2

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1429151.0

link to thread 3

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1799555.0


link to thread 4

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1877588.0


there is a lot of info and you can see a lot of people are will willing to help each other.


yeah  I am diverse   I mine bitcoin direct  and 3 other coins.

I push  pc/gpus at you because real companies with decent warranties  sell them.

vs some very spotty asic builders.

lots of links in those four threads.  Shoot me a pm or two while you are at it if you don't understand something

[totalacedude]

Wow  Thanks guys!

Really wasn't expecting so much help and response.

Right, its not that I want to sit on my fat ar#e and do nothing , I like the idea of do it yourself, I am an engineer by trade. built many a pc.. you know my main put off for the cpu and gpu route is cooling. ive seen so many graphics cards fans fail, its like a never ending circle, the big plus about the asic system for me is just 2 fans.... me likes that a lot... (its always bloody fans that fail )

What kind of graphics card is best? I have already looked and the r9-290 is popular, but in the uk its about £300 yes I have a bit of cash but I still would like most bang for my buck (both buying hardware and hashing).
these 6 card systems you can make for circa $1600 what components are you using?
if i was to build my own, would it be better to use 3 x 4 card systems instead of 2 x 6 card (less heat per cm3)
if i was to build my own what difference will a decent cpu make? can I mine that too? what mainboard / processor you think i should go for? and the most important the GPU!
I just had a look at the panda miner £2300 just seems to much for the power it delivers!

@Philip lol had a heart attack when i saw the pages.... im working away atm so ill be reading that over the next few days... its that or eat eat eat lol. (thanks for the links) ill have a read and ask some less noob questions once digested.

[RentGPU]

Wow  Thanks guys!

Really wasn't expecting so much help and response.

Right, its not that I want to sit on my fat ar#e and do nothing , I like the idea of do it yourself, I am an engineer by trade. built many a pc.. you know my main put off for the cpu and gpu route is cooling. ive seen so many graphics cards fans fail, its like a never ending circle, the big plus about the asic system for me is just 2 fans.... me likes that a lot... (its always bloody fans that fail )

What kind of graphics card is best? I have already looked and the r9-290 is popular, but in the uk its about £300 yes I have a bit of cash but I still would like most bang for my buck (both buying hardware and hashing).
these 6 card systems you can make for circa $1600 what components are you using?
if i was to build my own, would it be better to use 3 x 4 card systems instead of 2 x 6 card (less heat per cm3)
if i was to build my own what difference will a decent cpu make? can I mine that too? what mainboard / processor you think i should go for? and the most important the GPU!
I just had a look at the panda miner £2300 just seems to much for the power it delivers!

@Philip lol had a heart attack when i saw the pages.... im working away atm so ill be reading that over the next few days... its that or eat eat eat lol. (thanks for the links) ill have a read and ask some less noob questions once digested.

Even with free power asics are big risk , you must know that asic builders and sellers don't care for thier users they only care for profits , if you buy thier asic now with x h/s speed , you can expect them tomorrow to release the 2x h/s asic if they find it more profitable to do , and you will be left with a brand new old machine have no other use and no one will be interested in buying it from you , gpu mining is far safer even with free power gpu mining is better than asics , go ahead man build some gpu rigs forget about those priceless asics.

[philipma1957]

Wow  Thanks guys!

Really wasn't expecting so much help and response.

Right, its not that I want to sit on my fat ar#e and do nothing , I like the idea of do it yourself, I am an engineer by trade. built many a pc.. you know my main put off for the cpu and gpu route is cooling. ive seen so many graphics cards fans fail, its like a never ending circle, the big plus about the asic system for me is just 2 fans.... me likes that a lot... (its always bloody fans that fail )

What kind of graphics card is best? I have already looked and the r9-290 is popular, but in the uk its about £300 yes I have a bit of cash but I still would like most bang for my buck (both buying hardware and hashing).
these 6 card systems you can make for circa $1600 what components are you using?
if i was to build my own, would it be better to use 3 x 4 card systems instead of 2 x 6 card (less heat per cm3)
if i was to build my own what difference will a decent cpu make? can I mine that too? what mainboard / processor you think i should go for? and the most important the GPU!
I just had a look at the panda miner £2300 just seems to much for the power it delivers!

@Philip lol had a heart attack when i saw the pages.... im working away atm so ill be reading that over the next few days... its that or eat eat eat lol. (thanks for the links) ill have a read and ask some less noob questions once digested.

there is a great piece of software smOS I will give you that link


with him it is amd cards

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1541084.0

but you can avoid windows completely

it would auto run rigs easy

you have the free power so don't rush  read the threads come back with questions as to what cards to get. etc


I had 5 of these at one time they were okay for eth mining

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PowerColor-PCI-E-Dragon-Single-Graphics/dp/B01N40WSHO/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8

that is a uk link

[Elder III]

Your new best friend is this website --- www.whattomine.com --- you can use their profit calculators for dozens of different altcoins.  NiceHash is a very easy to use, set and forget mining GUI that would be very recommended to start out with.

AMD Rx 470 4GB is probably the fastest ROI for mining Ethereum and NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB is probably the fastest ROI for mining ZCash. < Those are the two most popular altcoins, but there are others worth mining too. In any case, Nicehash will pay you in Bitcoins and will auto switch to the most profitable mining all on it's own.

[Unacceptable]

Well,I get old PCs for free,sort through em & keep any mobo's with 16X PCIE slots (long slots).Most are single slot with maybe 1 or 2 1X PCIE (the small slots).

Most that do have at least a dual core CPU (more than enough for mining) & I put 4 gigs of RAM on the mobo (less is problematic for some reason).

Don't even need a PC case!!! I use little rubber pads for A/C systems something like these but I get generic from HVAC supply house for 30 cents each.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-A-C-Pump-Vibration-Pads-Dampener-2x2x7-8-Wagner-MP2E-Air-Conditioner-Isolation-/311848744580?hash=item489ba23684:g:ACMAAOSwARZXmA6R

I put several of em under the mobo to keep it off the surface so no shorts & helps a little in cooling.

If you can build your own PC,doing a small "farm" can be easy,cept for the software,Win7 works ok,but most are using Unbuntu,a linux type OS,for large mining rigs (3 or more cards per mobo).

I haven't had any luck using it myself,just a hardware guy 

I use Claymore's miner,easy & set & forget.

[shaninium]

Wow  Thanks guys!

Really wasn't expecting so much help and response.

Right, its not that I want to sit on my fat ar#e and do nothing , I like the idea of do it yourself, I am an engineer by trade. built many a pc.. you know my main put off for the cpu and gpu route is cooling. ive seen so many graphics cards fans fail, its like a never ending circle, the big plus about the asic system for me is just 2 fans.... me likes that a lot... (its always bloody fans that fail )

What kind of graphics card is best? I have already looked and the r9-290 is popular, but in the uk its about £300 yes I have a bit of cash but I still would like most bang for my buck (both buying hardware and hashing).
these 6 card systems you can make for circa $1600 what components are you using?
if i was to build my own, would it be better to use 3 x 4 card systems instead of 2 x 6 card (less heat per cm3)
if i was to build my own what difference will a decent cpu make? can I mine that too? what mainboard / processor you think i should go for? and the most important the GPU!
I just had a look at the panda miner £2300 just seems to much for the power it delivers!

@Philip lol had a heart attack when i saw the pages.... im working away atm so ill be reading that over the next few days... its that or eat eat eat lol. (thanks for the links) ill have a read and ask some less noob questions once digested.

Dude, a little warning, gpu mining is going to change bigtime in the next few months, firstly new amd card is coming out within 2 months called the vega it will prob blow away anything used to mine eth etc at the moment in efficiency and speed, that will send the difficulty up massively and undervalue the rx 470 , 480 range meaning you could buy them a lot cheaper in 2 months. Also by november its possible eth will switch to pos which means u wont be able to mine it with cards anymore. So imagine every single eth miner now having to switch to another gpu coin like zcash or monero. Their difficulty will skyrocket then which could increase their price, but not necessarily, so just thought id let you know, with free power you should be right but you may wannna wait 2 months to see what happens with vegas specs and cheaper outlaw on your rx470/480s. Or just avoid gpu mining completly , which id do, your a little late to the game for a gpu mining investment. Even if you make roi wat then? youll have outdated cards, and a overcrowded gpu mining global hashrate on every other gpu coin. Vega and eth pos could be the end of profitable gpu mining profitability next year..

[Unacceptable]

Wow  Thanks guys!

Really wasn't expecting so much help and response.

Right, its not that I want to sit on my fat ar#e and do nothing , I like the idea of do it yourself, I am an engineer by trade. built many a pc.. you know my main put off for the cpu and gpu route is cooling. ive seen so many graphics cards fans fail, its like a never ending circle, the big plus about the asic system for me is just 2 fans.... me likes that a lot... (its always bloody fans that fail )

What kind of graphics card is best? I have already looked and the r9-290 is popular, but in the uk its about £300 yes I have a bit of cash but I still would like most bang for my buck (both buying hardware and hashing).
these 6 card systems you can make for circa $1600 what components are you using?
if i was to build my own, would it be better to use 3 x 4 card systems instead of 2 x 6 card (less heat per cm3)
if i was to build my own what difference will a decent cpu make? can I mine that too? what mainboard / processor you think i should go for? and the most important the GPU!
I just had a look at the panda miner £2300 just seems to much for the power it delivers!

@Philip lol had a heart attack when i saw the pages.... im working away atm so ill be reading that over the next few days... its that or eat eat eat lol. (thanks for the links) ill have a read and ask some less noob questions once digested.

Dude, a little warning, gpu mining is going to change bigtime in the next few months, firstly new amd card is coming out within 2 months called the vega it will prob blow away anything used to mine eth etc at the moment in efficiency and speed, that will send the difficulty up massively and undervalue the rx 470 , 480 range meaning you could buy them a lot cheaper in 2 months. Also by november its possible eth will switch to pos which means u wont be able to mine it with cards anymore. So imagine every single eth miner now having to switch to another gpu coin like zcash or monero. Their difficulty will skyrocket then which could increase their price, but not necessarily, so just thought id let you know, with free power you should be right but you may wannna wait 2 months to see what happens with vegas specs and cheaper outlaw on your rx470/480s. Or just avoid gpu mining completly , which id do, your a little late to the game for a gpu mining investment. Even if you make roi wat then? youll have outdated cards, and a overcrowded gpu mining global hashrate on every other gpu coin. Vega and eth pos could be the end of profitable gpu mining profitability next year..

Dude,the new AMD cards weren't soo much faster that the older cards (300 $400 series) are THAT far outdated..........still better resale value than ASICs after one year..........

No matter if eth mining is over,GPU will still be better than any ASIC miner profit wise,cause ALL ASIC coins diff will keep rising forever by those makers of ASICs,not by "the people" 

GPU coins diff rise mostly by "the people" buying more cards,not as bad IMO.....at least "we" have a chance 

[totalacedude]

Guys,

Thanks for all the info so far, im going to sit back a bit while I read through all the pages of info given...

another quick question though.

Do these rigs need a lot of tinkering and attention lavishing on them once up and running?  as my main problem is they will be remote from my home (30 miles +) and I also work away for weeks on end. is there problems that you know of that keep arising etc etc.
I know a pc once set up can run and run.... but I keep hearing stories about overheating... In the UK its never that warm plus I have a 30,000 btu air conditioner I will hook up to ensure coolness  

Once ive read through everything im sure ill have a lot more questions

fook its just information overload atm and my brain hurts lol  

cheers  guys

[Unacceptable]

Guys,

Thanks for all the info so far, im going to sit back a bit while I read through all the pages of info given...

another quick question though.

Do these rigs need a lot of tinkering and attention lavishing on them once up and running?  as my main problem is they will be remote from my home (30 miles +) and I also work away for weeks on end. is there problems that you know of that keep arising etc etc.
I know a pc once set up can run and run.... but I keep hearing stories about overheating... In the UK its never that warm plus I have a 30,000 btu air conditioner I will hook up to ensure coolness  

Once ive read through everything im sure ill have a lot more questions

fook its just information overload atm and my brain hurts lol  

cheers  guys

The newer 300 & 400 series AMD cards are pretty much set & forget for me,I run 1 or 2 cards on each rig.5 cards total.

I can turn my monitor off as soon as I start my mining software to save power & the old monitor.

You can set up Teamviewer to remote in & restart or tweak as needed  

My 7970 though was a pain,every week it would lock up no matter drivers or watever,wierd.But mine are in my PC room so I just reboot & done.

Just watch them for an hour or so & set fan speed to keep your cards around 60c.No hotter than 70c is my limit.

Don't forget...get your wallets on a PC/laptop that does not surf the net (still connected to internet but no browser=no virus's)...that way no virus's can steal your coins.Only need about 200-320 gig for 10 different coin wallets.

And make copies of your dat files or keystroke file for Eth & keep them on several flashdrives or HDDs,I have had those drives go bad & without those files you will lose your wallet & coins that were in them

[arielbit]

i wanna see your water turbine..

[totalacedude]

 
hahah its not mine, a mates...

Next time im there ill take a few pics. im sure he will let me. its a nice small setup hes just a lucky Bstard lol

[arielbit]

hahah its not mine, a mates...

Next time im there ill take a few pics. im sure he will let me. its a nice small setup hes just a lucky Bstard lol

and maybe we can make a new thread about  water turbines...maybe some of us, including me can learn about those turbine setups, and what kind of stream is good enough to generate substantial amount of energy....got a lot of questions going on in my head.

[philipma1957]

hahah its not mine, a mates...

Next time im there ill take a few pics. im sure he will let me. its a nice small setup hes just a lucky Bstard lol

and maybe we can make a new thread about  water turbines...maybe some of us, including me can learn about those turbine setups, and what kind of stream is good enough to generate substantial amount of energy....got a lot of questions going on in my head.

Yeah I want to see about the water power.

I am rebuilding the solar array layout in may to prep for the summer power rate

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1369207.0

op when I got into the solar array deal  I was geared towards using the s-9 and r-4 from bitmaintech  and the gear broke a lot.

I am looking forward to running  more gpu gear then planned this year.

[arielbit]

hahah its not mine, a mates...

Next time im there ill take a few pics. im sure he will let me. its a nice small setup hes just a lucky Bstard lol

and maybe we can make a new thread about  water turbines...maybe some of us, including me can learn about those turbine setups, and what kind of stream is good enough to generate substantial amount of energy....got a lot of questions going on in my head.

Yeah I want to see about the water power.

I am rebuilding the solar array layout in may to prep for the summer power rate

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1369207.0

op when I got into the solar array deal  I was geared towards using the s-9 and r-4 from bitmaintech  and the gear broke a lot.

I am looking forward to running  more gpu gear then planned this year.

i've seen your solar power thread..batteries and inverter regulates voltage output while mechanical power generation requires constant speed like 1800 rpm...water stream speed is not always constant...if charging batteries and inverter will be used to regulate voltage for water power it would be a much more expensive setup.

[totalacedude]

Hey that's some impressive solar setup..

puts my meesley 4kw to shame   lol even if it does have 4kw/h of batteries connected to it http://www.powervault.co.uk which stores excess unsed power which would be sent to grid and releases it when theres a demand.

@arielbit, mechanical systems don't need to be constant use a normal 3 phase motor connected to an inverter with an  'active front end' and a small controller (I bet an arduino would work), that's what I work with massive inverters 3-12Mw currently offshore on 6Mw inverters but work on siemens 3.6mW wind turbines, solar farms (3-10Mw) 'yes even in the uk hahahah! and hydro electric power stations (denorwig 'electric mountain') and even small chp plants burning woodchip with only 45kw power lol...

that's another passion of mine renewable energy.... hence why if I see wasted power I want to do something with it.... bit of hashing I believe

back to my hashing.

I have decided to take the plunge and have a go. 2 x cards ordered from scan computers @£166 each not a bad price. if I don't like it or it doesn't work then ill just sell them, if I get the bug ill just buy more

I have ordered 6 x riser cards, at only £24 for 6 ' the decent ones with 4 caps etc' and my spare pc motherboard is nooooo good what so ever for this job! so I might as well look for a decent card. ive looked at the ASRock Z97 Anniversary and the one with 6 pci-e is like rocking horse shit to find in uk. Anyone know of a decent motherboard I can get my hands on? im not that arsed if I use 4 gpu's per motherboard any good board at a decent price (or even that I can get hold of)

Im going to use Ubuntu, any reccomendations for this?, what to stay away from etc... what size hdd do I need? etc etc....

My thoughts are to ask as many questions before buying stuff so I don't have to buy twice. once I have the hardware then the floodgates of questions will start...lol

cheers guys  

[VoskCoin]

Wow  Thanks guys!

Really wasn't expecting so much help and response.

Right, its not that I want to sit on my fat ar#e and do nothing , I like the idea of do it yourself, I am an engineer by trade. built many a pc.. you know my main put off for the cpu and gpu route is cooling. ive seen so many graphics cards fans fail, its like a never ending circle, the big plus about the asic system for me is just 2 fans.... me likes that a lot... (its always bloody fans that fail )

What kind of graphics card is best? I have already looked and the r9-290 is popular, but in the uk its about £300 yes I have a bit of cash but I still would like most bang for my buck (both buying hardware and hashing).
these 6 card systems you can make for circa $1600 what components are you using?
if i was to build my own, would it be better to use 3 x 4 card systems instead of 2 x 6 card (less heat per cm3)
if i was to build my own what difference will a decent cpu make? can I mine that too? what mainboard / processor you think i should go for? and the most important the GPU!
I just had a look at the panda miner £2300 just seems to much for the power it delivers!

@Philip lol had a heart attack when i saw the pages.... im working away atm so ill be reading that over the next few days... its that or eat eat eat lol. (thanks for the links) ill have a read and ask some less noob questions once digested.

Dude, a little warning, gpu mining is going to change bigtime in the next few months, firstly new amd card is coming out within 2 months called the vega it will prob blow away anything used to mine eth etc at the moment in efficiency and speed, that will send the difficulty up massively and undervalue the rx 470 , 480 range meaning you could buy them a lot cheaper in 2 months. Also by november its possible eth will switch to pos which means u wont be able to mine it with cards anymore. So imagine every single eth miner now having to switch to another gpu coin like zcash or monero. Their difficulty will skyrocket then which could increase their price, but not necessarily, so just thought id let you know, with free power you should be right but you may wannna wait 2 months to see what happens with vegas specs and cheaper outlaw on your rx470/480s. Or just avoid gpu mining completly , which id do, your a little late to the game for a gpu mining investment. Even if you make roi wat then? youll have outdated cards, and a overcrowded gpu mining global hashrate on every other gpu coin. Vega and eth pos could be the end of profitable gpu mining profitability next year..

Has anyone gotten their hands on a vega and tested to this point / could you direct me to any extensive threads on the card?

[RentGPU]

Vega is still no yet released , i saw some test videos it seems like a monster card should do great results on mining specialy it's new memory type you can add a memory to the card from ram or sdd as i understand , anyways i think it will not be cheap so not everyone can build a pure vega rigs, but it will change alot in the game.

[arielbit]

@arielbit, mechanical systems don't need to be constant use a normal 3 phase motor connected to an inverter with an  'active front end' and a small controller (I bet an arduino would work), that's what I work with massive inverters 3-12Mw currently offshore on 6Mw inverters but work on siemens 3.6mW wind turbines, solar farms (3-10Mw) 'yes even in the uk hahahah! and hydro electric power stations (denorwig 'electric mountain') and even small chp plants burning woodchip with only 45kw power lol...

that's another passion of mine renewable energy.... hence why if I see wasted power I want to do something with it.... bit of hashing I believe

gonna have a few reads about the info you've given me...I wanted to acquire a land with a stream going through it so one day I can have a mini hydro power plant too (yeah keep dreaming hehe  ).

that's an excellent passion..crypto needs more miners with renewable energy. in my eyes miners with renewable energy are one of the upper/higher class of miners like people who can mod cards to become more efficient and people who can develop miner software.

imagine bitcointalk in the future have a new section "renewable energy section" hehe anyway..good luck mining cryptos, with renewable energy I'm pretty sure you'll have a new kind passion coming to you (crypto mining).

[totalacedude]

Hahaha,

Power and energy I may know a deal on.... crypto a big fat '0' at the min, my goal is to turn some of the waste energy into cash but that dream is fading as I read more and more into the pitfalls etc of mining. This looks like it could become a hobby as its fascinating the shit out of me right now... and because of that ive ordered parts for a 2 gpu setup mainly just to learning, then maybe get a few gpu rigs up and mining.

Heres my conundrum and the million dollar question.

After a long convo with my friend who owns the power/location it seems I can only have a small corner of space, approx. 1 rack of dexian bolt together shelving maybe 2 at a push. He is not keen on pc's approach as he thinks they would attract attention of the people that occasionally come around and ASIC wouldn't as just 1 pc and the rest are noisey silver boxes no one recognizes, he is worried about theft and prefers the blank box solution, but honestly I don't.... If I was to set up messy pc's with gpus every where im sure he would have kittens. 

heres my question guys. as I have a lot to learn...

my thinking is this. Buy 6 x ANTMINERS L3+ and leave at his location, mine LTE and use profits (if any) to buy pc equipment and gpu mine later.
this addresses 3 issues. 1 my fussy mate and 2 my lack of knowledge (gives me time to play on a smaller GPU rig) and 3. there is a possible other location I can access to put pc's to gpu mine but that wont happen for at least a year. (a CHP plant mainly wanting the heat! electricity is a by product!!!!)

I don't want to jump in balls deep with antminers, as I really don't like the idea of buying something that just does 1 job (and I also have no control), but I feel I am being pushed that way. My main concern is will I even come close brake even with the cost of equipment in this late stage of mining LTC with ASIC. I don't want to spend £10k on Miners to be £6k out of pocket due to getting sweet fook all back. That's not the case though is it? if it all went to shit id just have to mine a lot longer to recoup the costs, right?

If all works out and I get some cash back does anyone think GPU mining will even be viable in a years time?  as if im forced down the antminer route now I wont have the cash till its all paid off. circa when ever 

I cant wait to get home and GPU mine lol  (i am maxing out the internet here with pages and pages of altcoin mining info )
If all works out well i could be mining using GPU at the next location (he has 10's of KW's spare) using any profits for Antminers at the Hydro place to fund the latter.... but tbh just breaking even would be nice!


off line wallets? how much space do i need on HDD?
with GPU mining does a SSD HDD even make any difference?
can you mine GPU if there is an internet loss of connection for a short time?
whats your guys average use for internet bandwith ? (vs your capacity (#rate)
is windows or Linux better?

so whats your thoughts on it all guys?

Cheers guys

[arielbit]

if you are worried about theft you should go with pc case which you can pad lock (or mod it so you can lock it)..you can use chains, chain that pc so nobody can pick it up and animals can't damage it...i've seen modified case for gpu mining here in mining section of the forum that can accommodate maybe 6 gpus.

you can't go wrong with free electricity...start with one rig, number of cards depends on how many you can put in there.

off line wallets? how much space do i need on HDD?
with GPU mining does a SSD HDD even make any difference?
can you mine GPU if there is an internet loss of connection for a short time?
whats your guys average use for internet bandwith ? (vs your capacity (#rate)
is windows or Linux better?

off line wallets?.. you can mine directly to exchange like poloniex, you can mine to a wallet address even if its not connected to internet, coins will be there after it synced when it goes online.

SSD or HDD does not affect gpu mining...I'm still using 80gb sata HDD here.

mining software typically/normally resumes after the internet connection goes back online.

mining does not consume a lot of bandwidth...the lowest ISP bandwidth I've used in mining is 3mbps and i think even with about 512 kbps bandwidth you can still mine..

I'm using windows and I'm okay...Linux users here will tell you they are okay too....so just setup what would be comfortable to you..mining is a journey, you can change things to cater your needs later.

[mattbellme]

Is it safe to store wallet dat files online as a backup?  Hackers could only access it with the wallet key phrase right?