DO NOT BUY GPUs to mine! You will not get your money back!

[roflplatypus]

http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/   my two cents

[philips]

Look at all the fortune tellers battling it out. IF you asked someone a few years ago if Bitcoin will go to $250 almost everyone would have said NO. LOL Just keep mining fellas and stop arguing.

When btc price per block was 50BTC, remember ? Last days to 25BTC per block and everyone was in panic that mining will be unprofitable. My biggest mistake was that i don't buy cards then..  
Just keep mining.

Yep, I remember. I even shutdown the rigs and refused an occasion I had to buy cheap two 7970. Arghhh...
There were similar threads back then, backed up with figures and assumptions, GPU mining is dead !

Well, it will be...probably...eventually...and most likely buying a bunch of 10 cards right now is not the smartest move.
But hey, I just bought another 7970

[GodHatesFigs]

The OP is completely right. Buying GPUs is far too risky now for the vast majority of miners hoping to break even, let alone profit.

[mgio]

Look at all the fortune tellers battling it out. IF you asked someone a few years ago if Bitcoin will go to $250 almost everyone would have said NO. LOL Just keep mining fellas and stop arguing.

Bitcoin isn't at $250 right now. It's not even half that. It wasn't even at 250 for a couple of hours.

Don't mine because you expect bitcoins to go up. Just buy bitcoins instead.

[Schrankwand]

Look at all the fortune tellers battling it out. IF you asked someone a few years ago if Bitcoin will go to $250 almost everyone would have said NO. LOL Just keep mining fellas and stop arguing.

Bitcoin isn't at $250 right now. It's not even half that. It wasn't even at 250 for a couple of hours.

Don't mine because you expect bitcoins to go up. Just buy bitcoins instead.

Lets say I buy a 7970 for 400$ now.

It mines at 700mh/s. We have a price of 110 and in one year, Bitcoin goes to 200.  Profitability declines by 60% or more.
You have 727 dollars when investing, ~ 1500 after one year of mining and not selling bitcoins.

[SlyFoxy12]

The OP is completely right. Buying GPUs is far too risky now for the vast majority of miners hoping to break even, let alone profit.

All economy is risk, if money was a sure thing we'd all be raking it in, OP makes assumptions and the ASIC market isn't really proven, there's so many uncertainties as the like of BFL haven't got many of their units out so far and people are still gambling on them being stable units, part of me things when it comes to BFL they are serious issues in the stability due to overheating of their products hence the case changes for the smaller models let alone their higher end products.

[eroxors]

http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/   my two cents

TL/DR but ^this. Also cards have resale value and game codes....

[GodHatesFigs]

The OP is completely right. Buying GPUs is far too risky now for the vast majority of miners hoping to break even, let alone profit.

All economy is risk, if money was a sure thing we'd all be raking it in, OP makes assumptions and the ASIC market isn't really proven, there's so many uncertainties as the like of BFL haven't got many of their units out so far and people are still gambling on them being stable units, part of me things when it comes to BFL they are serious issues in the stability due to overheating of their products hence the case changes for the smaller models let alone their higher end products.

Of course; it's just that the rewards aren't worth the risk anymore for GPUs.

[philips]

Come on guys, this is the same old story over and over, don't do this, don't do that...for how many threads now since last year?

Take the risk, don't take the risk, whatever.

Better wait until GPU mining IS dead and open a I've told you so thread.

[mgio]

I 100% agree with the original poster.

But people seem to want to buy GPUs anyways, so good luck.


I think there is kind of a gold rush mentality presently.

Like the people who are spending $30k+ on pre-order Avalon ASICs. Or block eruptor USBs.

They will never make their money back. Yet they still buy.

Even if you add 400TH/s to the network right now and keep the price like right now, these people WILL make their money back. Unless you decide to enter a huge number of 500GH/s miners, they will.

Do the damn calculations, guys.

Put 50 million, which is adding 4 times the whole network strength, put the timeframe in and see what happens.

How do you figure this?

I'm putting in 50 million for the difficulty, and assuming a GPU that does 750MH/s and costs $300. I put 250W power consumption and the default of 0.15 cents/KWh. I used $115 for the btc rate. Let's see that device will break even... NEVER according to the calculator. You lose money just running it.
Even if your electricity is free, it will still take a year to pay for itself, and in a year the difficulty will be more like 500 million, not 50 million.

[mgio]

Look at all the fortune tellers battling it out. IF you asked someone a few years ago if Bitcoin will go to $250 almost everyone would have said NO. LOL Just keep mining fellas and stop arguing.

Bitcoin isn't at $250 right now. It's not even half that. It wasn't even at 250 for a couple of hours.

Don't mine because you expect bitcoins to go up. Just buy bitcoins instead.

Lets say I buy a 7970 for 400$ now.

It mines at 700mh/s. We have a price of 110 and in one year, Bitcoin goes to 200.  Profitability declines by 60% or more.
You have 727 dollars when investing, ~ 1500 after one year of mining and not selling bitcoins.

Your problem is your profitability is going to decline by waaaay more that 60%. More like 98% or so.
You need to take into account:
- The 600 65GH/s Avalon machines that will be shipping in batch 2 any day now
- The 600 65GH/s machines from Avalon batch 3.
- The 200 TH/s that ASICMiner says they will add in the next 2-3 months
- The 60,000 plus Butterfly Labs pre-orders, which should add another 200-300 TH.
- The hundreds of thousands of Avalon discrete 282 MH/s chips that are being sold.

Difficulty will easily be in the hundreds of millions in the next 6 months.

[mgio]

LOL at OP.  I guess we are now assuming that these video cards are going to be worth $0 in 3 months?  And the 2-4 games they come with CERTAINLY can't be sold for ~$20 each.  /rolleyes.

I acknowledged early on in this thread (I know, TL;DR) that they have resale value. I would argue that you still may not make a profit. You keep laughing and buying them GPUs, but don't say I didn't warn you. Do you seriously expect the hash rate to flatten out going forward after averaging a 17% increase every two weeks over the last 3 months? 

My turn around time for profit, not including selling the free games that come with the cards, and not including the resale of the cards themselves for 80% of their value, AND not including Bitcoin going up in price, is 2.5 months. How can I possibly NOT profit?

Because when GPU mining becomes unproftable, everyone will dump their used GPUs and you are not going to get 80% of what you paid for them.

Second, you don't have 2.5 months. Difficulty will double in the next month or so. Even if you take a very conservative approach and figure it only continues to go up 15% every 2 weeks as it has been, you still won't realize a ROI in anywhere near 2.5 months.

The only chance you can break even is if you sell your GPU now, buy bitcoins instead, and pray for them to go up in value.

With 1200 65GH/s Avalon machines on their way, not including ASICMiner and BFL machines, you are going to be in trouble.

[favelle75]

Because when GPU mining becomes unproftable, everyone will dump their used GPUs and you are not going to get 80% of what you paid for them.

Yes....I will. I have been building and selling gaming and office computers for about 6 years now. I will EASILY make 100% of my money back on each and every GPU.  And my electricity is 6.7 cents/KWh. My GPU miners are VERY pofitable...thanks.

[mgio]

Because when GPU mining becomes unproftable, everyone will dump their used GPUs and you are not going to get 80% of what you paid for them.

Yes....I will. I have been building and selling gaming and office computers for about 6 years now. I will EASILY make 100% of my money back on each and every GPU.  And my electricity is 6.7 cents/KWh. My GPU miners are VERY pofitable...thanks.

Yes but you've never had to deal with thousands of others all selling the same GPU on ebay before.

If you already have the GPUs, well then by all means, keep on mining. You should be able to cover the cost of your electricity for some more time and you'll get free heat in the winter. If you don't already own the GPUs though, don't buy them, you'll never recover their cost.

Avalon batch 2 started shipping today if you haven't heard.

[favelle75]

I don't sell on ebay, I sell locally.  I honestly can't see that many people being into mining in my city, LOL. Especially since I ask most of my friends and they've never even heard of it.

[zvs]

Look at all the fortune tellers battling it out. IF you asked someone a few years ago if Bitcoin will go to $250 almost everyone would have said NO. LOL Just keep mining fellas and stop arguing.

Bitcoin isn't at $250 right now. It's not even half that. It wasn't even at 250 for a couple of hours.

Don't mine because you expect bitcoins to go up. Just buy bitcoins instead.

Lets say I buy a 7970 for 400$ now.

It mines at 700mh/s. We have a price of 110 and in one year, Bitcoin goes to 200.  Profitability declines by 60% or more.
You have 727 dollars when investing, ~ 1500 after one year of mining and not selling bitcoins.

Your problem is your profitability is going to decline by waaaay more that 60%. More like 98% or so.
You need to take into account:
- The 600 65GH/s Avalon machines that will be shipping in batch 2 any day now
- The 600 65GH/s machines from Avalon batch 3.
- The 200 TH/s that ASICMiner says they will add in the next 2-3 months
- The 60,000 plus Butterfly Labs pre-orders, which should add another 200-300 TH.
- The hundreds of thousands of Avalon discrete 282 MH/s chips that are being sold.

Difficulty will easily be in the hundreds of millions in the next 6 months.

7970's would be one of the worst cards to buy purely for mining as well... if you're going to game with it also, sure.

Otherwise you're purchasing a card that's going to decline in value (absolute $) more than any other card out there over the next few months

[FloridaBear]

Thanks for the discussion, everyone. This has been an interesting thread. While we're talking about profitability, I will use this soapbox to try to dissuade people from buying the ASICMINER USB miners. If you think you are going to make a profit with those, I believe you are sadly mistaken. I think they will make about 1 BTC over their useful life. Granted, there may be other reasons to buy them (they're cute). ASICMINER blades are also questionable due to their high prices, but at least you can get them NOW while difficulty is still relatively low. Those have a much better chance of breaking even than the USB devices.

Disclaimer: I own ASICMINER shares LOL

[buddrulez]

7970's would be one of the worst cards to buy purely for mining as well... if you're going to game with it also, sure.

Otherwise you're purchasing a card that's going to decline in value (absolute $) more than any other card out there over the next few months

Are you jusy saying that because of the 8*** series cards coming out or?

[wrenchmonkey]

Thanks for the discussion, everyone. This has been an interesting thread. While we're talking about profitability, I will use this soapbox to try to dissuade people from buying the ASICMINER USB miners. If you think you are going to make a profit with those, I believe you are sadly mistaken. I think they will make about 1 BTC over their useful life. Granted, there may be other reasons to buy them (they're cute). ASICMINER blades are also questionable due to their high prices, but at least you can get them NOW while difficulty is still relatively low. Those have a much better chance of breaking even than the USB devices.

Disclaimer: I own ASICMINER shares LOL

LMAO! Agreed! Those devices are 2BTC each, and will NEVER break even. There are a few group buys that have been put together to order 100 at a time, and it's all novelty buyers, or complete idiots who cannot do math.

Luckily, most of the imbeciles and novelty buyers trying to organize group buys on these things are about 200 units shy of a 300 unit minimum order. Good luck with that, ASICMINER. 

You think GPUs are a bad investment? The ASIC USB sticks are 1000 times worse. Not only will they never break even, they also have ZERO resale value/utility outside of Bitcoin mining. The only way they're gonna sell many unless they drop the price to .25BTC or less.

[FloridaBear]

Fees are currently ~4% of rewards. I did not include them at this time. However, since BTC block rewards will not halve for nearly 4 years, I expect fees to stay at 4%. On the flipside, I also neglect pool fees (and some pools do not even distribute fees to miners).

I misread the stat. In the article, it says "Fees are up to 4%..." Looking at the actual numbers, fees are closer to 1% on average.