At what point are you making a profit through mining?

[Immanuel]

Assuming you have a computer of standard power usage and such, at what generation rate (khashes) would be the minimum to be considered making a profit? Also, assume this is a part of the pooled effort.

[davout]

Depends on too much variables to be relevant I think.

You have to take into account the exchange value of a coin, the price of electricity, the state of the network (how much computing power is competing with yours for generation) etc.

[BitLex]

need it simple?
check your power-consumption and the current btc-price,
calculate what each kW/h costs ya in btc.

if you're able to generate more, your in profit,
at least for now, noone can tell where price/difficulty will be heading.

[mpkomara]

from what i've heard on irc, there is at least one user who can turn a profit when the ratio of Current Difficulty:price of USD/BTC is anywhere under 800,000.  Currently that ratio is at 12,252/.019 = 64,484.

[davout]

from what i've heard on irc, there is at least one user who can turn a profit when the ratio of Current Difficulty:price of USD/BTC is anywhere under 800,000.  Currently that ratio is at 12,252/.019 = 64,484.

If one can, everyone can.
Hoarded coins are irrelevant to the initial question

[MoonShadow]

from what i've heard on irc, there is at least one user who can turn a profit when the ratio of Current Difficulty:price of USD/BTC is anywhere under 800,000.  Currently that ratio is at 12,252/.019 = 64,484.

Not unless he's stealing his power somehow, or simply stealing clocktime.  That is easy enough to do if he is the admin of a pool of zombies, or just installed the client on his employer's computer systems.

[ArtForz]

Not unless he's stealing his power somehow, or simply stealing clocktime.  That is easy enough to do if he is the admin of a pool of zombies, or just installed the client on his employer's computer systems.

Math fail much?
OCed HD5970 = 625Mh/s at 325W
625Mh/s @ 12252 difficulty is 23.5h/block
23.5h * 0.325kW = 7.64kWh per block
7.64kWh @ $0.10/kWh = $0.764
1 block @ $0.19/BTC = $9.50
yeah, *totally impossible* how it could be still profitable at current price and < 12.5x current difficulty.
And of course theres NO places with even cheaper power. No sir! Must be evil zombie herders!

[TTBit]

I am working on a generation calculator which takes the network growth into consideration: www.taters.net/btcgc It is static right now, I will collect data and make it dynamic.

cost of a 5970 at $500 USD generating 0.625 ghash/sec
coins at 0.19
current network size of 95 ghash/sec
network growth 15.23% per 1000 blocks

it would take over 50,000 blocks to pay for the 5970.

[Immanuel]

My computer consumes around 300 watts full power. I have made 3 BTC in the past 36 hours with my computer on the whole time. Am I making a profit?

[BitLex]

hard to say,
we don't know what you have to pay for 10.8kW/h

[davout]

That calculation is pretty pointless anyway, they don't take in account how the value of a BTC will evolve.
Also it doesn't take in account that maybe in a year the 5970 will be used for... gaming =)

[Immanuel]

I pay 10 cents per Kilowatt hour. Well, my parents do...

[BitLex]

when your parents do, you make profit anyway. 

so you pay half a coin per kW/h,
consumed 10.8kW/h
0.5x10.8= 5.4btc so far
you "earned" 3btc, so you made a loss.

not to mention that you paid for hardware, but also may use that system otherwise.

[Immanuel]

Thanks. Bah, well the value of the BTC generated will increase nonetheless?

[Timo Y]

Assuming you have a computer of standard power usage and such, at what generation rate (khashes) would be the minimum to be considered making a profit? Also, assume this is a part of the pooled effort.

If I wanted to, I could make a profit at ANY khash because my electricity is already included in my rent, and I must always own a laptop anyhow, Bitcoin or no Bitcoin.

Still can't be bothered with mining though, because constant fan noise is a little irritating and not worth earning a handful of bitcents.

[kiba]

I am hard to hearing. So I don't hear fan noise.

[MoonShadow]

Not unless he's stealing his power somehow, or simply stealing clocktime.  That is easy enough to do if he is the admin of a pool of zombies, or just installed the client on his employer's computer systems.

Math fail much?

Not often, no.  I was speaking of the total cost, of which the cost of power is a small chunk for most, and negligible for others.  Hardware is the bigger issue anyway.  Certainly there are those who will have to use electric to heat their space regardless, so for them power is irrelevant.  If you have to pay for the hardware anyway, fine.  Otherwise, the additional costs of a $500 dollar gaming graphics card is a deal killer.  There is no way that you are making a straight profit on your setup, at least not based on current coin values.  As a future speculative gamble, perhaps, but not a concurrently profitable venture.  Feel free to prove otherwise, as I would love to know how you are justifying the resources that you have been putting into this.

[bfever]

If you just follow ArtForz math, it is easy to calculate how long it will take to pay for the 500$ for the 5970:

• one block is about 8.5$ profit  (50 BTC = 9.5$  - 1$ electricity costs)
• 8.5$ * 60 blocks = 510 $
• 60 blocks will take on average 60 days at current difficulty

So you can pay back the investment in 2 months, now if that isn't a good return on investment, I don't know...

I can understand why the network is growing so fast: IT IS PROFITABLE if you have up-to-date GPU available at current BTC prices.

[teknohog]

Still can't be bothered with mining though, because constant fan noise is a little irritating and not worth earning a handful of bitcents.

Meet my fanless miner:

http://iki.fi/teknohog/hardware/nanite/

I plan to add another fanless GPU to this system. For example a HD5750 has about double my current hash rate, so it would triple the overall rate. This needs some power supply upgrades as well, but that can also remain fanless.

Actually, this is not strictly fanless. I have added a large and slow fan to be on the safe side. I cannot normally hear it under the slight noise of laptop hard drives.

[Anonymous]

It would be a good blog idea for someone to recommend the current sweet spot for bitcoin mining rigs. People would donate bitcoins to such a blog.