About Mining, ASICs and stuff

[isma1990]

Hello all, newbie here. I've been a few months tinkering with this whole bitcoin stuff since I discovered it and it's awesome. I also started mining and since I wanted to renew my PC I got a Radeon 7870 to try out mining.

I've been mining for a while now at around 400 MH/s (440 overclocked) and then discovered the FPGA and ASIC. But I also wonder, is it worth spending cash on an ASIC? All I see is people complaining about BFL being a scam but some ASICs seem to be out there working and mining which is confusing. Should I spend money on ASICs, get more GPUs or look for a FPGA?

Also, I know I shouldn't do solo mining but if I did, how do I know if I've found coins? Does a message appear on the console of the miner or does it simply appear in my wallet?

[oolongtes1369]

If you are rich and have spare money, go for it.
Just remember the top 1 investing rule: don't go all-in.

People here are going to tell you to go or not to go, they have their own reasons, afterall it's about making money. Use your own judgement.

[oolongtes1369]

Also you will never find any block with that hash power, join a pool.

[CryptoMaster]

Considering the huge waitlist there must be for BFL, I don't think it is wise to order right now.

Personally I'd mine on GPUs/FPGA's, and then when (and if) the ASICs are in stock and not in an unpredictable waitlist, go ASIC.

Otherwise you're risking that the ASIC that now has a good profit is about as good as your current GPU when it reaches you, or that there are newer much better generations out there. Or both

[ghibly79]

Personally I'd wait and see how fast difficulty adjustments will go when first big ASIC's batches will be shipped. And maybe I'll consider investing in Asicminer rather than risk myself. But that's just me, pretty new myself though I did read a lot already.

[isma1990]

I don't know much about the specifics of hardware needed to mine, but the best cards yield around 500-700 MH/s. Building a 5GH/s rig with those costs quite an awful bit of cash. To see that BTL sell that amount with much much less wattage and at only 300 bucks seems a bit fishy. They haven't shipped anything yet right?

[CryptoMaster]

I don't know much about the specifics of hardware needed to mine, but the best cards yield around 500-700 MH/s. Building a 5GH/s rig with those costs quite an awful bit of cash. To see that BTL sell that amount with much much less wattage and at only 300 bucks seems a bit fishy. They haven't shipped anything yet right?

Apparently to a very few chosen ones, lucky people, e-famous people, press and stuff.

Other than that I don't believe it's exactly a scam, but they're having trouble mass-producing them, they're also probably holding a good amount of ASICS for mining themselves, and with this waitlist nobody knows when it's going to reach you.