New user

[Tsukene]

Greetings everyone

I posted earlier but the forums would not allow me to post. (Said I had recently posted when I did not)

Anyways, I'm new here been lurking for awhile and decided to create an account. I am a digital currency enthusiast and actively trying to figure out the best way to get into bitcoins and litecoins. I am considering building a cost effective mining rig and looking for any help or guides to do so. Any tips would be appreciated.

Feels good to have an account and posting now. Any questions for me feel free to ask.


Regards

[bitcoindigi]

welcome & have fun here 

[grandfinale]

welcome to the forum.

it has everything and anything about bitcoin, make sure if you have any questions to just ask the forum or use the search bar

[Rassah]

I am considering building a cost effective mining rig and looking for any help or guides to do so. Any tips would be appreciated.

Expect to spend at least $2,500 just to start (don't bother with GPU any more), wait at least 2 to 3 months before you actually get your rig, Google Bitcoin Mining Calculator to get estimates on how much you'll make, and use at least 1.5 times the current difficulty to figure out how much you'll make by the time you actually get your rig.

You can use this to get an idea for hardware specs out there.

[Tsukene]

I am considering building a cost effective mining rig and looking for any help or guides to do so. Any tips would be appreciated.

Expect to spend at least $2,500 just to start (don't bother with GPU any more), wait at least 2 to 3 months before you actually get your rig, Google Bitcoin Mining Calculator to get estimates on how much you'll make, and use at least 1.5 times the current difficulty to figure out how much you'll make by the time you actually get your rig.

You can use this to get an idea for hardware specs out there.

Why not bother with GPU's? Are you suggesting focusing on ASIC?

[Rassah]

I am considering building a cost effective mining rig and looking for any help or guides to do so. Any tips would be appreciated.

Expect to spend at least $2,500 just to start (don't bother with GPU any more), wait at least 2 to 3 months before you actually get your rig, Google Bitcoin Mining Calculator to get estimates on how much you'll make, and use at least 1.5 times the current difficulty to figure out how much you'll make by the time you actually get your rig.

You can use this to get an idea for hardware specs out there.

Why not bother with GPU's? Are you suggesting focusing on ASIC?

Yes. GPUs are no longer profitable. For example, I have two 5830's, supposedly the most energy efficient mining cards out there. I can do 600MHash/s and burn about $45 a month in electricity (it's about $0.10 per watt or kilowatt or whatever here). If I check on http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator and enter my 600MHash/s mining power, I see that I can mine about $27.88 per month worth at the current difficulty and exchange rate. That's considerably lower than $45 I pay for electricity, and doesn't even include the initial cost of buying those cards (which I have paid off a long time ago). This tells me that, at present, I am much better off just buying bitcoin directly, or possibly trying to buy an ASIC, though I haven't looked into the efficiencies of those too closely.

[Tsukene]

I am considering building a cost effective mining rig and looking for any help or guides to do so. Any tips would be appreciated.

Expect to spend at least $2,500 just to start (don't bother with GPU any more), wait at least 2 to 3 months before you actually get your rig, Google Bitcoin Mining Calculator to get estimates on how much you'll make, and use at least 1.5 times the current difficulty to figure out how much you'll make by the time you actually get your rig.

You can use this to get an idea for hardware specs out there.

Why not bother with GPU's? Are you suggesting focusing on ASIC?

Yes. GPUs are no longer profitable. For example, I have two 5830's, supposedly the most energy efficient mining cards out there. I can do 600MHash/s and burn about $45 a month in electricity (it's about $0.10 per watt or kilowatt or whatever here). If I check on http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator and enter my 600MHash/s mining power, I see that I can mine about $27.88 per month worth at the current difficulty and exchange rate. That's considerably lower than $45 I pay for electricity, and doesn't even include the initial cost of buying those cards (which I have paid off a long time ago). This tells me that, at present, I am much better off just buying bitcoin directly, or possibly trying to buy an ASIC, though I haven't looked into the efficiencies of those too closely.

Rassah thanks for the tips! I will look into this, does anyone have any suggestions on ASIC information or current companies selling asic boxes (besides bfl)

[timwizard]

Mining can be really disheartening because of the expertise needed - not just for the technical setup, but for planning to beat the low (probably negative) returns (when electricity is taken into account).

You can buy a mining "bond" that pays you as if you had a certain hashrate. Check out Bitfunder and the ASIC.MINER assets there. Probably  a much higher payoff and easier to learn the ins-and-outs than mining, IMO.

[Varicon]

If you want to get into mining for fun, I would recommend the 1BTC clock errupter as it is a low investment to get into the mining fun.

https://www.btcguild.com/index.php?page=store

[miningatnight]

Welcome i am a new user to!

Turning some of my gaming computers into miners on the side.

[PeterB]

Welcome!

[ak69]

I'm in process of selling off my video cards, and grabbing a few block errupters.  Power cost is killing me on the video cards, least with the usb sticks, my power bill wont be through the roof and I'll still have some bitcoins to mess with.

Smarter idea would be to just buy bitcoins and sit on them with the money you would pay for a rig though.

[Kluge]

I am considering building a cost effective mining rig and looking for any help or guides to do so. Any tips would be appreciated.

Expect to spend at least $2,500 just to start (don't bother with GPU any more), wait at least 2 to 3 months before you actually get your rig, Google Bitcoin Mining Calculator to get estimates on how much you'll make, and use at least 1.5 times the current difficulty to figure out how much you'll make by the time you actually get your rig.

You can use this to get an idea for hardware specs out there.

Rassah, you're still living in like, 4 months ago. 

Use 2.5x current difficulty and expect it to increase 50% per month after. Still a good while to go before things start to level off.

[Rassah]

...use at least 1.5 times the current difficulty to figure out how much you'll make by the time you actually get your rig.

Rassah, you're still living in like, 4 months ago. 

Use 2.5x current difficulty and expect it to increase 50% per month after

I didn't want to scare the newbie 

[jibeqoo]

I would highly recommend GPU alt currency mining. My rig costs 2k and gets 0.15 BTC per day (ish), so it seems pretty good. Also, unlike ASICS, GPUs and mobos and such actually have resale value because they are multipurpose. Check out coinminingrigs.com for more info.

[Rassah]

I would highly recommend GPU alt currency mining. My rig costs 2k and gets 0.15 BTC per day (ish), so it seems pretty good. Also, unlike ASICS, GPUs and mobos and such actually have resale value because they are multipurpose. Check out coinminingrigs.com for more info.

0.15 BTC * 30 days = 4.5BTC per month
Assuming $100 per BTC, that's $450 per month
I don't know what your electric cost is, but I can't imagine it being lower than $50 for such a rig, so profit is about $400 a month

$2,000 / $400 = 5 months until you just pay off your rig and start earning some money.

If this alt-coin difficulty goes up by 25% to 50%, that's another 1 to 2 months to wait.

If the value of the altcoin goes up by some percent, then it's a toss-up between paying off your rig and start making a profit earlier, or making a profit right away by having bought $2,000 worth of this currency directly, instead of mining it.

For example, if this alt currency goes up 10% every month, you'll pay off your rig in 4 months, and have a ~$600 profit at the end of month 5.

If you had just bought $2,000 of that currency directly, at the end of 5 months it would have been worth ~$930, meaning you would have made $300 more just by buying instead of mining.

Point is, this whole thing takes a lot of guessing, research, and planning. Plus, Bitcoin value continued to grow considerably over the last two years, due to actual adoption by the market, and thus the profits still stayed up despite more and more miners adding their hashing power. I just can't see alt coins growing is value for very long, since they don't offer any benefits over what Bitcoin provides (i.e. I only expect them to grow due to miner adoption, not the economy as a whole), while at the same time there is A LOT of freed up GPU power moving into it from Bitcoin miners that were replaced by ASICs. So, I think investing in an alt-coin miner is extremely risky right now, because I don't believe it will stay profitable for very long.

[Threader]

Welcome aboard!   I have been lurking around these forums since Jan 2013. Should of registered then but better late than never. Lots of great information here and hope you enjoy contributing.