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

[KaydenC]

I think it's better to buy Gtx1060 6gb. They are more efficient than polaris and is able to mine more algos. Total cost of ownership is lower and it is not affected to the DAG size increases. Also easier to resell to gamers as nvidia is more popular.

[BennyT]

But if you're mining purely for ROI, it was never a good time to drop cash on GPU's and build a rig. UNLESS you use hindsight and realize it was always a good time to mine crypto. Mine the coins, build the networks and support a new financial technology that hopefully won't end up being controlled by greedy fraudsters.

If I didn't believe the coins aren't going up in value, I wouldn't mine the coins. ROI in a volatile market doesn't make sense.

[Chan8]

I would recommend you keep them, there are plenty of other alt coins to mine after ETH, also ETH POS will not be in November, nor this calender yr as everyone thought.
so you have plenty of time to mine ETH.
i'm still keeping my AMD cards, but trying to clear some ONLY because I'm trying to make room for other miners/asics. but if you have the space, I would mine with whatever you can get your hands on.

NOW the question is, whats going on with this ethereum TIME BOMB? anybody have any updates?

Have they postponed then? I haven't followed ETH news lately. My understanding was that beginning August/September 1 out of 100 blocks would be mined with POS no?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRQg_lHEKl4
recent dev meeting..

i'm just very curious about this difficulty bomb. no mention for us hobbyist miners.

[h311m4n]

I think it's better to buy Gtx1060 6gb. They are more efficient than polaris and is able to mine more algos. Total cost of ownership is lower and it is not affected to the DAG size increases. Also easier to resell to gamers as nvidia is more popular.

I don't really agree with that statement, unless you have like 1 rig and you absolutely want to get another with the current shortage, 1060s are not to way to go, or any nVidia for that matter. They just cost too much. I understand the appeal, but if you do some basic ROI calculations, they don't make too much sense. The crypto world is still super volatile, so IMO being able to ROI as fast as possible is pretty important.

The cheapest 1060 6Gb I can find is around 300-310$ (over here in CH).

Say you buy 7 or 8 of them to have a consistency (same batch means same memory etc.) you're looking at spending roughly 2100 to 2300$. Just a simple whattomine, even if not 100% accurate, gives me this for the most popular coins:

equihash ~ 317$ a months with ZEC => it would currently take 7 to 8 months to ROI on that rig, just for the graphic cards
ethash ~ 280$ (ETC) 383$ (ETH) => anywhere between 6 to 10 months

And I'm not counting the 400-500$ you'll need to build the rig itself.

I may be wrong with my reasoning but it just doesn't add up to me. I'd rather preorder some 570 for around 200$ and wait a bit to get them than fall in the nVidia craze by telling myself they'll have a better resell value. People seem to forget that if everyone floods the market with used 1060s or 1070s, they won't be worth much more than AMD cards...

[CarlOrff]

It is too late to invest in AMD GPUs for ETH mining.
You can buy nVidia GPUs.
ETH mining will be still available for ever : Turing complete is impossible with PoS "mining".

[gwestcot]

There are actually a bunch of new Ethash coins to mine and I think DBIX is more profitable to mine than ETH, ETC, etc. I am not saying that AMD is the best to go for right now since I'm loading up on 1080 TI's but you can still mine profitably right now. People got all mixed up with the rise in price and thought that would continue forever but really its just returning to normal profit levels. 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.

[CarlOrff]

... 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.

I'm ok with that but this not the best advice in this way.
The best advice in this way is to buy some some coins with the RIG money and hold them.

You have not to confuse the ROI RIG and the price increase of the coins you mine. If you think the value of the coin will increase, it is more better to buy this coin with the money you not spend to buy a RIG.
Make some simulations with historical prices :-).

[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...

[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.

[dandreark1]

i tell you what, go fuck yourself, that's best thing you can do, and similar noobs like you tooo
all i can can see is profitable unprofitable, roi, ad so on, round and round
no interest in technologiest, no interset in anything just tell me right hihere right now
how to build cash mashine doing money from thin air,
so again GTFO...

I'd love to beat the hell out of this kid.

Personally man I'd go with what they said above ^, cancel that order and try to find the best deal on nvidia chipset cards and you'll be much better off. Hash-wise, and re-sell.. The pro's of nvidia heavily outweigh Amd right now.

Goodluck to you

[dandreark1]

... 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.

I'm ok with that but this not the best advice in this way.
The best advice in this way is to buy some some coins with the RIG money and hold them.

You have not to confuse the ROI RIG and the price increase of the coins you mine. If you think the value of the coin will increase, it is more better to buy this coin with the money you not spend to buy a RIG.
Make some simulations with historical prices :-).

I have tend to disagree with parts of these statements.. rig in cash, hoarding coins, and selling obviously could be very profitable - if done the right way - all about everyones personal goals..

If you think the value of a coin will increase, is it better to buy it with money you would've spent on a rig?...is it though?..

I've ran multiple strategies with different setups, literal and hypothetical.. MEETING and passing my ROI if approached correctly. And based on WHEN you got in, it has been more profitable to run my current strat. versus buying my desired coin.

[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.

I'm ok with that but this not the best advice in this way.
The best advice in this way is to buy some some coins with the RIG money and hold them.

You have not to confuse the ROI RIG and the price increase of the coins you mine. If you think the value of the coin will increase, it is more better to buy this coin with the money you not spend to buy a RIG.
Make some simulations with historical prices :-).

I have tend to disagree with parts of these statements.. rig in cash, hoarding coins, and selling obviously could be very profitable - if done the right way - all about everyones personal goals..

If you think the value of a coin will increase, is it better to buy it with money you would've spent on a rig?...is it though?..

I've ran multiple strategies with different setups, literal and hypothetical.. MEETING and passing my ROI if approached correctly. And based on WHEN you got in, it has been more profitable to run my current strat. versus buying my desired coin.

Well you could potentially make more money investing rather than mining but mining is fairly safe as long as your rig is paid off. I am not really buying into this sky is falling attitude that is going around but definitely AMD is lagging behind Nvidia as of right now. Ethereum is becoming less and less profitable to mine due to difficulty and the ice age. Also Nvidia cards are far more adaptable as far as which coins you can mine profitably which is a big plus. The resale value of the 1080 TI's will be there for 2 years regardless of the crypto market so it seems like a no brainer to me. To each their own of course.

[pchampn]

Man...so much negative energy on this post! OP...how soon will you be able to get your rig up and running? If you are fine with not getting immediate returns, then I will highly recommend building your rig and start mining and hold on to mined coins.

Let me share my experience from 2014, I mined Monero (XMR) for about 5 months in summer (using 1x R9 290X+ 2x R9 280X) and finally quit around Thanksgiving because the XMR price was shit. However, I held on to those coins and finally sold them last September, when we had a big XMR spike and recovered the money I paid for my gaming PC (~$2k)! Had I kept on mining during 2015 - early 2017, I would have made much more, as many of my friends did mining ETH. But hindsight is 20-20. Anyways, what I have learned from that experience is that always think about the long game and price of cryptocurrency (if it is any good) will rise eventually and you need to be patient.

Good luck!

[vx0713]

Man...so much negative energy on this post! OP...how soon will you be able to get your rig up and running? If you are fine with not getting immediate returns, then I will highly recommend building your rig and start mining and hold on to mined coins.

Let me share my experience from 2014, I mined Monero (XMR) for about 5 months in summer (using 1x R9 290X+ 2x R9 280X) and finally quit around Thanksgiving because the XMR price was shit. However, I held on to those coins and finally sold them last September, when we had a big XMR spike and recovered the money I paid for my gaming PC (~$2k)! Had I kept on mining during 2015 - early 2017, I would have made much more, as many of my friends did mining ETH. But hindsight is 20-20. Anyways, what I have learned from that experience is that always think about the long game and price of cryptocurrency (if it is any good) will rise eventually and you need to be patient.

Good luck!

Thank you for your input!

Well the GPUs I ordered are coming in one by one, so who knows? According to the online store, I will get the last two of the five by august 10.  Anyway I'm already mining with my 5 nVidia cards now (2x 1070 and 2x 1060).

I'm not expecting immediate returns, but it's true that I'm making this investment from my credit card (although with a 0% interest for 12 months, IE: $1200 = $100/month for 12 months). I made my calculations back in mid june when I decided to go for the mining, and back then I calculated a ROI of about 4 months, since ETH was around $350. Right now I'm hoping for a ROI of 8 to 10 months just to have a good sleep after and then I can play the long game, hold on to coins without a worry and such.

My problem however is not with the mining itself, but with the future of these RX580 as mining cards. A 30% hash rate drop was already announced for AMD cards, and it's still under a question mark if AMD will (or can) do something about it. There is also the question if like in 6 months or so ETH will be profitable to mine (in general, not just with AMD GPUs) due to difficulty increase . If it wont be profitable, then I will regret not going the nVidia way, since those cards seem to perform better at other cryptos.

[dandreark1]

... 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.

I'm ok with that but this not the best advice in this way.
The best advice in this way is to buy some some coins with the RIG money and hold them.

You have not to confuse the ROI RIG and the price increase of the coins you mine. If you think the value of the coin will increase, it is more better to buy this coin with the money you not spend to buy a RIG.
Make some simulations with historical prices :-).

I have tend to disagree with parts of these statements.. rig in cash, hoarding coins, and selling obviously could be very profitable - if done the right way - all about everyones personal goals..

If you think the value of a coin will increase, is it better to buy it with money you would've spent on a rig?...is it though?..

I've ran multiple strategies with different setups, literal and hypothetical.. MEETING and passing my ROI if approached correctly. And based on WHEN you got in, it has been more profitable to run my current strat. versus buying my desired coin.

Well you could potentially make more money investing rather than mining but mining is fairly safe as long as your rig is paid off. I am not really buying into this sky is falling attitude that is going around but definitely AMD is lagging behind Nvidia as of right now. Ethereum is becoming less and less profitable to mine due to difficulty and the ice age. Also Nvidia cards are far more adaptable as far as which coins you can mine profitably which is a big plus. The resale value of the 1080 TI's will be there for 2 years regardless of the crypto market so it seems like a no brainer to me. To each their own of course.

The investing in proper coins is a timing scenario, while miners - not immediately concerned with face value, in my opinion, mining is a long haul operation people should go into with a strategy for if x happens I can do y or z to mitigate that, and so on.. But I agree man to each their own.

Hate to participate in the negativity - but don't bring that bullshit around here when someones just looking for help. This isn't reddit.
We were all beginners at one point.

[kopija]

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.

[gwestcot]

Anyways, as far as alternatives there is ETC, UBIQ, EXP, DAXX, and DBIX. Between all of these some should remain profitable to mine even should ethereum switch to a POS/POW system or become unprofitable. You can still do AMD but my recommendation is to go with 1080 TI's if you have the money to invest in an expensive rig.

[Chan8]

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!

[dandreark1]

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.

When you say gimmick/it wont happen at all.. you think it won't ever go to PoS? ..Why? .. I read the article as just another delay  .. that link itself should have a thread of it's own ha. I had no idea about that ..no complaints here lol

[dadesu]

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...