Pool or on your own for a newbie?

[garbonzo607]

Should you enter a pool or hash on your own for a newbie with an ASIC miner? Is the bitcoin amount comparable, more, or less? Is Slush's pool good? Are all pools the same pretty much or some better than others?

Thanks!

[lazydna]

Should you enter a pool or hash on your own for a newbie with an ASIC miner? Is the bitcoin amount comparable, more, or less? Is Slush's pool good? Are all pools the same pretty much or some better than others?

Thanks!

pool is better, more consistent returns for small fee.

how does a newbie get an ASIC? which type?

[Feathercoin]

I do it on my own

[Bitcoin Trader]

I used a pool back in the day

[garbonzo607]

Should you enter a pool or hash on your own for a newbie with an ASIC miner? Is the bitcoin amount comparable, more, or less? Is Slush's pool good? Are all pools the same pretty much or some better than others?

Thanks!

pool is better, more consistent returns for small fee.

how does a newbie get an ASIC? which type?

Butterfly. I had the money and read up a bit on bitcoin (plus from what I knew about it before).

[garbonzo607]

I do it on my own

What bitcoin rig do you use?

[DannyHamilton]

Should you enter a pool or hash on your own for a newbie with an ASIC miner? Is the bitcoin amount comparable, more, or less? Is Slush's pool good? Are all pools the same pretty much or some better than others?

Thanks!

The answer to your question may depend on several factors, but probably the most important piece of information needed to provide a reasonable answer is what sort of hash rate are you getting with your ASIC?

[garbonzo607]

Should you enter a pool or hash on your own for a newbie with an ASIC miner? Is the bitcoin amount comparable, more, or less? Is Slush's pool good? Are all pools the same pretty much or some better than others?

Thanks!

The answer to your question may depend on several factors, but probably the most important piece of information needed to provide a reasonable answer is what sort of hash rate are you getting with your ASIC?

Hmm, I might be receiving a 8 GH/s at first, but I want to get a 50 - 60 GH/s one. I have it on preorder. But I have the 8 GH/s one shipping to me now.

[J35st3r]

Hmm, I might be receiving a 8 GH/s at first, but I want to get a 50 - 60 GH/s one. I have it on preorder. But I have the 8 GH/s one shipping to me now.

Definitely use a pool with 8GH/s. For the 50GH/s you would mine an average of one block a month. Up to you whether you take that risk, but also beware orphaned blocks. I'm watching this thread for a reply to a question about configuration needed to reduce orphans https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=238089.0

[DannyHamilton]

Should you enter a pool or hash on your own for a newbie with an ASIC miner? Is the bitcoin amount comparable, more, or less? Is Slush's pool good? Are all pools the same pretty much or some better than others?

Thanks!

The answer to your question may depend on several factors, but probably the most important piece of information needed to provide a reasonable answer is what sort of hash rate are you getting with your ASIC?

Hmm, I might be receiving a 8 GH/s at first, but I want to get a 50 - 60 GH/s one. I have it on preorder. But I have the 8 GH/s one shipping to me now.

The calculator I used suggested that at current difficulty factor of 19339258.2724 you'd average a block every 4 months.  Now you could get lucky and get a block in less than 4 months, but you'd be just as likely to get unlucky and not find a block for over 8 months. Meanwhile, as time rolls on difficulty will likely increase, so by the time 8 months rolls around, you might not be looking at an average of 8 months per block and with a bit of bad luck could go over 16 months before solving one.  At that rate, you may not find more than 2 or three blocks before the block reward is cut in half from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC.

If that is risk you can tolerate, you can consider solo mining with 8 GH/s at least until you see the difficulty get high enough to discourage you, but most people would prefer the steady reliable income of about 6.32 BTC per month than the small chance of 25 BTC in less than 4 months and otherwise 0 bitcoins for longer.

[garbonzo607]

Should you enter a pool or hash on your own for a newbie with an ASIC miner? Is the bitcoin amount comparable, more, or less? Is Slush's pool good? Are all pools the same pretty much or some better than others?

Thanks!

The answer to your question may depend on several factors, but probably the most important piece of information needed to provide a reasonable answer is what sort of hash rate are you getting with your ASIC?

Hmm, I might be receiving a 8 GH/s at first, but I want to get a 50 - 60 GH/s one. I have it on preorder. But I have the 8 GH/s one shipping to me now.

The calculator I used suggested that at current difficulty factor of 19339258.2724 you'd average a block every 4 months.  Now you could get lucky and get a block in less than 4 months, but you'd be just as likely to get unlucky and not find a block for over 8 months. Meanwhile, as time rolls on difficulty will likely increase, so by the time 8 months rolls around, you might not be looking at an average of 8 months per block and with a bit of bad luck could go over 16 months before solving one.  At that rate, you may not find more than 2 or three blocks before the block reward is cut in half from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC.

If that is risk you can tolerate, you can consider solo mining with 8 GH/s at least until you see the difficulty get high enough to discourage you, but most people would prefer the steady reliable income of about 6.32 BTC per month than the small chance of 25 BTC in less than 4 months and otherwise 0 bitcoins for longer.

Yeah, I would stick with a pool for the 8 GH/s, but what about the 60 GH/s?

[garbonzo607]

Hmm, I might be receiving a 8 GH/s at first, but I want to get a 50 - 60 GH/s one. I have it on preorder. But I have the 8 GH/s one shipping to me now.

Definitely use a pool with 8GH/s. For the 50GH/s you would mine an average of one block a month. Up to you whether you take that risk, but also beware orphaned blocks. I'm watching this thread for a reply to a question about configuration needed to reduce orphans https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=238089.0

So the risk would be mainly in the orphaned blocks, yes? Orphaned meaning they are worthless even though you took your time on it?

[robert5]

pool is better

[DannyHamilton]

Yeah, I would stick with a pool for the 8 GH/s, but what about the 60 GH/s?

That'll depend on how soon you manage to acquire 60 GH/s and what the difficulty is by then.

At today's difficulty, that should get you approximately a block every 16 days.  In that case I might be willing to accept the risk of coming up short in exchange for the possibility of coming out ahead.

You'll want to keep an eye in the difficulty and be ready to switch to pool mining if it increases to much.  Perhaps have a pre-determined point that you decide will be the value forcing a switch to pooled mining (anything over 36690000 is going to push your 60 GH/s out the more than a month per block on average).  Perhaps if any two month period goes by and you haven't found at least 2 blocks, then maybe its time to switch to pooled mining.  Personally if the difficulty was over 36690000 when I received a 60 GH/s miner, I probably wouldn't even attempt solo mining and would go straight to pooled mining.

[DannyHamilton]

So the risk would be mainly in the orphaned blocks, yes? Orphaned meaning they are worthless even though you took your time on it?

That would be one risk. Another would be variance in the time between blocks that you solve. The fact that the "average" with 60 GH/s is currently 1 block every 16 days doesn't guarantee that you'll actually get a block that regularly.  You could be zero blocks for 48 days by which time the difficulty could have already increased on you 4 times (wouldn't that be unlucky?).  You could also be 3 blocks in 21 days and have the difficult only have increased twice by then (now that would be lucky).

If you are pooled mining, none of that matters as much, since you'll get paid for the work your miner does regardless of whether it ever solves a block.  Unfortunately, by reducing the risk of being unlucky and coming out behind the average, pooled mining also reduces the potential profits of being lucky and coming out ahead of the average as well.

[legitnick]

I use Pools still to this day. Plenty of great ones out there, wemineltc.com is a good one if your into LTC.

[stas]

pool

[Jowbob]

pool

[legitnick]

Pool's are a lot more easier, and overall simpler to use.

[garbonzo607]

What's the best pool for bitcoins you guys recommend, or do they all have pros and cons?