Don't focus on GPU panic. Focus on efficiency.

[bearsworth]

If you are new to GPU mining here is my advice to you.

Do not pay high prices for GPUs with the promise of great returns.
Do figure out how to stack discounts when buying online.
Do not buy anything on ebay unless it is truly a great deal.
Do consider buying a good PSU.
Do buy hardware when people panic sell.
Do not fear buying used, but always buy newer models from companies where warranty transfers such as Evga.
Do your research on the best models to purchase.
Do not sell your coins after the panic. Sell during the rush.
Do optimize your miners. This will pay off in the long run.
Do expect a long ROI at around 150 days minimum. This is not a get rich quick scheme unless you were mining in May/ June. Be willing to learn how to trade coins to maximize profit.
Zcash is your friend.

For science I purchased a bunch of GPUs in June to add to my existing arsenal. These rigs are 75%+ paid off already. If I can do it, so can you. Any questions feel free to ask.

[Xazax310]

For the PSU, I would add that only buy GOLD/PLAT/Titanium rates PSUs, these are going to be running 24/7 you want quality and efficient powersupplies

[bearsworth]

For the PSU, I would add that only buy GOLD/PLAT/Titanium rates PSUs, these are going to be running 24/7 you want quality and efficient powersupplies

Good point. I recommend gold as a minimum. The cheapest way to power lots of rigs is to buy a small psu paired with an hp server psu. I personally have Corsair and Evga. Both  have been too nice to me. They send me back new PSUs anytime I've had issues.

[Xazax310]

EVGA PSU are nice and a bit cheaper but they annoying me greatly with them only have 6+2/6 PIN GPU connectors for thier 1000/1300w PSU it makes hard if you have cards with dual 8 Pins or just multiple 8-pin cards. I'd recommend Corsair 1000w RMX or Antec 1300w HCP.

[bearsworth]

EVGA PSU are nice and a bit cheaper but they annoying me greatly with them only have 6+2/6 PIN GPU connectors for thier 1000/1300w PSU it makes hard if you have cards with dual 8 Pins or just multiple 8-pin cards. I'd recommend Corsair 1000w RMX or Antec 1300w HCP.

I have this thermaltake titanium PSU that also fails with the 6+2. The rm1000x is a godsend as it does have a bunch of two 6+2 pin. To compensate, you can find some 8 pin to 2 6+2, but they can be pricey. I think they can go for around $3 per.

[leowonderful]

Reddit's sub Buildapcsales is a great place to find cheap GPUs and the people there are extremely knowledgeable about discounts on various websites and figure out ways to maximize cash back from multiple sites; for example today there were prebuilts with i5 7400s, RX 480 8GBs and 8GB DDR4 for $500. I bought one just to scrap the GPU and sold the rest of the parts for a nice amount. Communities are great places to start bargain hunting.

[nostrakhan]

Reddit's sub Buildapcsales is a great place to find cheap GPUs and the people there are extremely knowledgeable about discounts on various websites and figure out ways to maximize cash back from multiple sites; for example today there were prebuilts with i5 7400s, RX 480 8GBs and 8GB DDR4 for $500. I bought one just to scrap the GPU and sold the rest of the parts for a nice amount. Communities are great places to start bargain hunting.

Nice!  thanks for sharing that.

[Za1n]

Well this list is a generally pretty good list of tips but I do think you shouldn't be so certain in some of your statements.

For one your "If I can do it, so can you" statement is a bit misleading as you started in June and had three relatively good months of profit. Newcomers to mining are entering at the beginning of a rapid deterioration in profitability coupled with hardware prices still selling for a premium, this includes used equipment as well. Claiming users may need to wait up to 150 days (which is actually a quite good time for ROI) is also a bit misleading as the number is likely double that if not longer for the reasons I just mentioned.

Everything else though I agree with for the most part and can be applied to existing miners. I just don't think we should be encouraging new miners to invest so much at this point in time as the future is quite uncertain and once ROI projections get out to a year or more it really is questionable if they will ever recoup their investment.

[bearsworth]

Well this list is a generally pretty good list of tips but I do think you shouldn't be so certain in some of your statements.

For one your "If I can do it, so can you" statement is a bit misleading as you started in June and had three relatively good months of profit. Newcomers to mining are entering at the beginning of a rapid deterioration in profitability coupled with hardware prices still selling for a premium, this includes used equipment as well. Claiming users may need to wait up to 150 days (which is actually a quite good time for ROI) is also a bit misleading as the number is likely double that if not longer for the reasons I just mentioned.

Everything else though I agree with for the most part and can be applied to existing miners. I just don't think we should be encouraging new miners to invest so much at this point in time as the future is quite uncertain and once ROI projections get out to a year or more it really is questionable if they will ever recoup their investment.

I can see what you are saying. Regarding your first point, if you ignored all the gpu mining is not profitable in November December, January February, March and held on those were even better months to mine with the difficulty much lower. My main intention was to counter all the FUD with the "gpu mining is dead". Also most people want ROi in 2 months. I'm trying to set a baseline minimum. At current rate it might take even 200 days but I think there is another rally about to occur.

I think we should encourage others to try but not throw everything in. Risk only what you can risk.

[QuintLeo]

EVGA PSU are nice and a bit cheaper but they annoying me greatly with them only have 6+2/6 PIN GPU connectors for thier 1000/1300w PSU it makes hard if you have cards with dual 8 Pins or just multiple 8-pin cards. I'd recommend Corsair 1000w RMX or Antec 1300w HCP.

 EVGA G2 1300 have 8 GPU connectors in stock form - all 6+2 - and if you get some extra of their "2 GPU connector" cables they can get to 12.

 Dunno where you are getting that "they only have 6 connectors" thing from, unless you think the PS end of the cables is the same as the GPU end (they are NOT).

[boo50]

actually you even don't need to pair PSU, just buy PICO Psu for mobo and ssd(hdd) and connect it to server psu.
HP 2450w platinums are great, for hi-end rigs like 8*1080ti I personally use delta dps 2980w platinum, but they are so loud, what I've modified them with one bid 2amp 120mm delta fan

[Bitcollector]

If you are new to GPU mining here is my advice to you.

Do not pay high prices for GPUs with the promise of great returns.
Do figure out how to stack discounts when buying online.
Do not buy anything on ebay unless it is truly a great deal.
Do consider buying a good PSU.
Do buy hardware when people panic sell.
Do not fear buying used, but always buy newer models from companies where warranty transfers such as Evga.
Do your research on the best models to purchase.
Do not sell your coins after the panic. Sell during the rush.
Do optimize your miners. This will pay off in the long run.
Do expect a long ROI at around 150 days minimum. This is not a get rich quick scheme unless you were mining in May/ June. Be willing to learn how to trade coins to maximize profit.
Zcash is your friend.

For science I purchased a bunch of GPUs in June to add to my existing arsenal. These rigs are 75%+ paid off already. If I can do it, so can you. Any questions feel free to ask.

I have to come back and read this post frequently. Too much to memorize in one sitting.

Great post.

[QuintLeo]

I can see what you are saying. Regarding your first point, if you ignored all the gpu mining is not profitable in November December, January February, March

 GPU mining WAS profitable in all of those months - if you had low enough electric costs.

 There is nothing inherently wrong with buying via eBay - Newegg in particular sometimes offers better deals there than on their own website (though you can sometimes browbeat them into MATCHING the deals via their own website via their "price match" policy).


 ZEC is only one option - I spent a few MONTHS making quite a bit more (about DOUBLE at some points) on the Nvidia 10xx based part of my farm working "merge folding" of Curecoin and FoldingCoin than those cards would have made on ZCash.
 There have been other times that they made more on other stuff like DGB-Groetsl or DGB-Skein and GameCoin, or even the ZCash spinoffs like ZEN.

 Don't lock yourself into a single coin and refuse to consider anything else.


 The profitability in June, July, and August was quite a bit higher than now - you're NOT going to see GPU rigs 75% paid off over the NEXT 3 months unless we see another major price spike - but if you are willing to tolerate much longer payoff timeframes AND have cheap enough electric, you'll pay off EVENTUALLY.

[shawn995]

The person who want PSU then for a PSU I would like to prefer  plat, gold and titanium rates psu these are a quality and branded and also a big profit is that it is efficient power supplies.

[lunobird]

Is staking coins more profitable than mining coins at the moment? dollar for dollar?

Seems like at the moment I am getting much better returns staking coins compared to mining coins.  This is assuming you put in at least $2000 to stake to see some daily staking coins.

[astark052970]

Although the days of ROI in three months are behind us it's still a great time to be a hardware enthusiast/gamer. In the past I would usually stick to boards that are one or two steps down from the top but in today's world you can get a board like a 1080 Ti and have it mine enough to bring the cost down to a reasonable level. It's looking like it probably won't ROI... but it might. It's also looking like it will make 20-30% of the purchase price in the first few months giving you a nice discount on a sweet board.

[mettalmag]

If you are new to GPU mining here is my advice to you.

Do not pay high prices for GPUs with the promise of great returns.
Do figure out how to stack discounts when buying online.
Do not buy anything on ebay unless it is truly a great deal.
Do consider buying a good PSU.
Do buy hardware when people panic sell.
Do not fear buying used, but always buy newer models from companies where warranty transfers such as Evga.
Do your research on the best models to purchase.
Do not sell your coins after the panic. Sell during the rush.
Do optimize your miners. This will pay off in the long run.
Do expect a long ROI at around 150 days minimum. This is not a get rich quick scheme unless you were mining in May/ June. Be willing to learn how to trade coins to maximize profit.
Zcash is your friend.

For science I purchased a bunch of GPUs in June to add to my existing arsenal. These rigs are 75%+ paid off already. If I can do it, so can you. Any questions feel free to ask.

the hardest part for me here is trading, I know I can maximise my mining profits with trading, but for years I learned nothing except buy high sell low... so I'm just sticking to mining, since the CPU, since my fx5200 was making profit on slush's, since S1 released.. So except trading for me it's never give up game

[ahmedjamal1998]

For the PSU, I would add that only buy GOLD/PLAT/Titanium rates PSUs, these are going to be running 24/7 you want quality and efficient powersupplies

That's one of the most important things in mining rigs that I see a lot of people don't care about and regret it later.
PSUs is the MOST important thing in the whole process. It's what powers up the whole thing and it's gonna working all the time so people should take it more seriously and anything lower than gold is a no no.

Here is a friend of mine who didn't listen to me when I warned him several times that he should get a better one.
The cables were of such a poor quality that they started melting before the whole thing blew up.



Believe me it hurts a lot seeing your money just gone.

Anyway thank god no kids or anyone was around when this happened. But it's a lesson to learn. Don't play with electricity ever.

[lunobird]

For the PSU, I would add that only buy GOLD/PLAT/Titanium rates PSUs, these are going to be running 24/7 you want quality and efficient powersupplies

That's one of the most important things in mining rigs that I see a lot of people don't care about and regret it later.
PSUs is the MOST important thing in the whole process. It's what powers up the whole thing and it's gonna working all the time so people should take it more seriously and anything lower than gold is a no no.

Here is a friend of mine who didn't listen to me when I warned him several times that he should get a better one.
The cables were of such a poor quality that they started melting before the whole thing blew up.



Believe me it hurts a lot seeing your money just gone.

Anyway thank god no kids or anyone was around when this happened. But it's a lesson to learn. Don't play with electricity ever.

wow glad that house didn't burn down,  That's a huge risk with mining is the potential fire hazards, Glad the floor wasn't carpet,  I removed my carpet and installed porceline tiles

[jmigdlc99]

For the PSU, I would add that only buy GOLD/PLAT/Titanium rates PSUs, these are going to be running 24/7 you want quality and efficient powersupplies

That's one of the most important things in mining rigs that I see a lot of people don't care about and regret it later.
PSUs is the MOST important thing in the whole process. It's what powers up the whole thing and it's gonna working all the time so people should take it more seriously and anything lower than gold is a no no.

Here is a friend of mine who didn't listen to me when I warned him several times that he should get a better one.
The cables were of such a poor quality that they started melting before the whole thing blew up.

Believe me it hurts a lot seeing your money just gone.

Anyway thank god no kids or anyone was around when this happened. But it's a lesson to learn. Don't play with electricity ever.

Woah. I feel bad for the owner. Are all the GPUs dead or just the ones that are black?

Actually, is that mining rig actually setup to run in the bathroom? Seems like bathroom tiles to me. If yes, maybe that could have been the reason why your rig blew up too. Maybe some water splashed into your PSU while you were taking a bath. Lol.