Is this a bad time to invest in AMD GPUs for mining altcoins?

[Cereberus]

No it is not a good time to invest in the RX series. They are only good for ethereum and ethereum price is going down, profitability is going down almost everyday mining Ethereum with these cards. It is better to wait for the new cards from AMD or even further where Nvidia has promised to bring us GDDR6 memory in February 2018. For the moment you cannot ROI before 8-10 months for a RX card considering you get it at retail price, if you get it more expensive forget ROI.

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[gwestcot]

If the price of amd gpu is much better then nvidia I will go on amd.
First many of new 1060 gtx are equip with hyunix memory with very low speed of mining,
for example friend buy cart with max oc memory +450 and max speed on eth 17.5m too slow
Even much better model can reach +900 only have 20m speed.
Same older card with samsung on +900 have about 25m, but now that is too hard to find
I think manofacturers will no longer make gaming card for miners, only special mining cards with 3 month of warranty
will be good for mining...

Well the problem is that you are mining memory intensive ethereum with an Nvidia card. Go with something like LBC, HUSH, ZEC, VTC, MONA, and even obscure stuff like BTX. This will give you the best results with Nvidia cards.

[QuintLeo]

Nvidia 1070 is a good ETH mining card but USUALLY is more profitable on something else.

 I'd be real hesitant about building new rigs using ANYTHING for ETH at this time, if I didn't have very very low electric cost.

 It says a lot that the ETH network hashrate has been pretty much FLAT for about the last week - profitability is down to close the same level it was last summer, which makes it pretty marginal for most folks to mine.

 *IF* the price starts rising again by quite a bit though, it MIGHT pay off.
 If the price keeps SLIDING, it probably won't.

[h311m4n]

You should simply pay for your rig in cash, hold all of the coins you mine, and sell at a later date. This has and always will be the most profitable way to mine.

Hmmm...actually not. The best way is to re-invest what you mined to purchase more gear. I think you're confusing things.

Say you mined 10 ETHs that are now worth 200$. You use 75% of that to build a new rig and 10% to pay your utility costs. The rest you hold or invest in other coins.

You now have 2 rigs, one that paid itself of thanks to cryptos and you now mine twice as fast. You haven't actually lost any money with this. The only risk you have, is your initial investment for your first rig. If ETH crashes to 10$, the 10ETH you've mined will only be worth 100$...

If you buy new rigs with your hard earned cash, you're actually taking more risks and going in this the wrong way...I know it's hard to separate yourself from your hard mined coins, but holding and never using the crypto is dangerous...

There are actually far less risks with buying rigs that have resale value than investing money in crypto in a direct way. Once your rigs are paid off then yes you can reinvest some to buy more rigs and then also hold some coin for later if you believe in the coin. If you are mining it then you should believe in it unless you are simply converting it straight to BTC after mining or using Nicehash. I have always done  that and I have been fairly successful with that sort of strategy. But if you pay in cash it is always much safer than paying for rigs on credit and NEEDING to make a large profit to pay it off. I usually keep 50% of my coins and spend 50% for upgrades. This is augmented by my main salary which allows me to rapidly expand the number of rigs I have. I also am only building 6x 1080 TI rigs and can get 25-30 dollars a day even in this market. I'm going to have upwards of 15 rigs or so by the end of the year so I'm happy with this sort of strategy. I see a few coins that are way undervalued and will continue to mine and hold some of them. To each their own my friend.

If there were 1000 people mining, your hardware would have a nice resell value yes. But with the gazillions of people who started buying gear all over the place and buy off all the cards they can get, even nVidia cards will take a hit on the secondary market once everyone starts to offload them because there are new cards arriving or whatever. It's simple offer and demand. I honestly think all the people building nvidia rigs with cards like the 1080Ti's that cost 700-800$ do not realize this and bet on the fact that if they bought a card for 800, they'll be able to sell it for 700 "because nVidia". This is just a giant gamble you're taking, but in the end these are just GPUs, and like any GPU, they depreciate. I don't bet on resell value at all. I mine, pay off my rigs and take the profit.

Not that I wouldn't want a 1080Ti rig, it must be pretty awesome, but the price of building one...man I'm sorry it just doesn't make sense. I'm doing near to 55$ a day currently with only AMD cards that I never purchased for more than 250$ for some 8GBs. They've all paid off by now (and then some).

By the time I'll pay off one AMD rig, you'll still be mining to pay off yours, even if ZEC goes to 400-500$ which it never really stays at.

I never said anything about taking a credit to buy gear  . I'm not sure you're getting my point. I'm just stating that one should, to the best of his possibilities, reinvest what he's mined to purchase gear. If you want to expand, this is the safest, not the fastest, but the safest way to do it because you're not going to put a hole in your finances. This is part of how investing works.

But yes, like you say, to each their own 

[Ben271286]

Long Term...just think long term!

I dont care about ROI...if I have the power available then i use it! And even if there will come an unprofitable time i would go on with mining...wait for crypto going mainstream.
Totally agree with h311m4n at the investment point! I would not take any credit for this...trade your way up and invest the profit! I invested in Mining gear...i am sure this will pay off...and even not now or in the next month but the time will come! For so long i keep my coins in wallet and hold...The only thing i pay from my active income is the electricity bill...
Just invest what you can afford! And with that build up some passive income! the best way to get started in my opinion.

[Mindin]

I take it you ordered the 8gb videoram version and not the 4gb version. If you actually ordered the latter I would def. cancel the order without a doubt.

There's no problem in using the 4GB version. Unused ram is wasted ram. If you have rx570 or rx580 and paid retail prices, you made a good deal. Mod the bios and start mining ethash coins! Enjoy

After what i've been hearing increased dag will render 4GB version worthless for ETH mining later on this year or thereabout. Then you would have to mine another coin than ETH.

[gwestcot]

You should simply pay for your rig in cash, hold all of the coins you mine, and sell at a later date. This has and always will be the most profitable way to mine.

Hmmm...actually not. The best way is to re-invest what you mined to purchase more gear. I think you're confusing things.

Say you mined 10 ETHs that are now worth 200$. You use 75% of that to build a new rig and 10% to pay your utility costs. The rest you hold or invest in other coins.

You now have 2 rigs, one that paid itself of thanks to cryptos and you now mine twice as fast. You haven't actually lost any money with this. The only risk you have, is your initial investment for your first rig. If ETH crashes to 10$, the 10ETH you've mined will only be worth 100$...

If you buy new rigs with your hard earned cash, you're actually taking more risks and going in this the wrong way...I know it's hard to separate yourself from your hard mined coins, but holding and never using the crypto is dangerous...

There are actually far less risks with buying rigs that have resale value than investing money in crypto in a direct way. Once your rigs are paid off then yes you can reinvest some to buy more rigs and then also hold some coin for later if you believe in the coin. If you are mining it then you should believe in it unless you are simply converting it straight to BTC after mining or using Nicehash. I have always done  that and I have been fairly successful with that sort of strategy. But if you pay in cash it is always much safer than paying for rigs on credit and NEEDING to make a large profit to pay it off. I usually keep 50% of my coins and spend 50% for upgrades. This is augmented by my main salary which allows me to rapidly expand the number of rigs I have. I also am only building 6x 1080 TI rigs and can get 25-30 dollars a day even in this market. I'm going to have upwards of 15 rigs or so by the end of the year so I'm happy with this sort of strategy. I see a few coins that are way undervalued and will continue to mine and hold some of them. To each their own my friend.

If there were 1000 people mining, your hardware would have a nice resell value yes. But with the gazillions of people who started buying gear all over the place and buy off all the cards they can get, even nVidia cards will take a hit on the secondary market once everyone starts to offload them because there are new cards arriving or whatever. It's simple offer and demand. I honestly think all the people building nvidia rigs with cards like the 1080Ti's that cost 700-800$ do not realize this and bet on the fact that if they bought a card for 800, they'll be able to sell it for 700 "because nVidia". This is just a giant gamble you're taking, but in the end these are just GPUs, and like any GPU, they depreciate. I don't bet on resell value at all. I mine, pay off my rigs and take the profit.

Not that I wouldn't want a 1080Ti rig, it must be pretty awesome, but the price of building one...man I'm sorry it just doesn't make sense. I'm doing near to 55$ a day currently with only AMD cards that I never purchased for more than 250$ for some 8GBs. They've all paid off by now (and then some).

By the time I'll pay off one AMD rig, you'll still be mining to pay off yours, even if ZEC goes to 400-500$ which it never really stays at.

I never said anything about taking a credit to buy gear  . I'm not sure you're getting my point. I'm just stating that one should, to the best of his possibilities, reinvest what he's mined to purchase gear. If you want to expand, this is the safest, not the fastest, but the safest way to do it because you're not going to put a hole in your finances. This is part of how investing works.

But yes, like you say, to each their own 

Well Zcash is hardly the most profitable thing to mine with Nvidia cards. Additionally, the 1080 TI's will maintain value because there really are not a lot of miners purchasing them in comparison to the AMD Rx series cards. The 1080 TI's are also pretty much the pinnacle of gaming so yes they will still maintain a fairly high resale value for about 2 years. You don't really count on that but it is a safety measure should the market collapse. I know for a fact that all those Rx series cards would be next to worthless with how many would flood the market under such a circumstance. The other thing is I don't have to worry about paying off my rigs since they are already paid off. I never purchase equipment that I can't pay for in cash/crypto so this eliminates all debt. AMD mining has a fairly good likelihood of coming to a screeching halt while Nvidia cards are better at mining everything other than Ethash.   

[Raziel__]

Just a heads up for those concerned
https://themerkle.com/ethereum-developers-contemplate-delaying-difficulty-bomb-by-another-1-4-years/
POW was a marketing gimmick all along, they are slowly preparing the grounds for admitting it will not happen at all.

Thank you! No one had an answer about my biggest concern, the difficulty bomb. Great find!

Not true at all, they said that they will not delay or defuse the bomb till hardfork, later they will lower or slow down the bomb but they will lower block reward too.

https://youtu.be/hRQg_lHEKl4?t=41m46s

[QuintLeo]

Well Zcash is hardly the most profitable thing to mine with Nvidia cards. Additionally, the 1080 TI's will maintain value because there really are not a lot of miners purchasing them in comparison to the AMD Rx series cards. The 1080 TI's are also pretty much the pinnacle of gaming so yes they will still maintain a fairly high resale value for about 2 years.  

 Probably longer, GTX 980 and 980ti cards are STILL pulling in a pretty good percentage of their original new pricing.

[QuintLeo]

After what i've been hearing increased dag will render 4GB version worthless for ETH mining later on this year or thereabout. Then you would have to mine another coin than ETH.

 Late NEXT year at the earliest, by which point it probably won't matter.

 DAG file is still less than *3* GB at this point, didn't cross the 2GB threshold 'till a few months ago.

[Chan8]

After what i've been hearing increased dag will render 4GB version worthless for ETH mining later on this year or thereabout. Then you would have to mine another coin than ETH.

 Late NEXT year at the earliest, by which point it probably won't matter.

 DAG file is still less than *3* GB at this point, didn't cross the 2GB threshold 'till a few months ago.

Claymore also announced that amd is working on the dag epoch issue for amd cards. Should be fixed with driver update in the "next 2 weeks or so".

Now its up to ETH devs to keep the miners happy!

[vectisitch]

i think future mining on any coin or algo is in the balance at this time. it will depend on the price of btc . it's that simple. asics are coming out left right and centre and the difficulty on all coins is rising fast . so if btc price goes down then profits will drop right down because it will take a long time for the diffs to drop enough