Is GPU mining pretty much dead?

[CoinRich813]

I remember first watching the following video when BitCoin was at 7 USD each and thinking, "wow, this guys is banking". Now it seems that the tiny hashing power of even this huge rig is obsolete with the new ASIC miners. I have a little boy that sits on my desk from BFL and it does 60+ Gh. I almost feel like we are eliminating a huge market of 'non-techy' peoples out there. Any thoughts on how this will effect the future of the BitCoin Economy?

[BradleyNielsen]

Hi CoinRich813,

Some believe it is hard to match the power costs when using a GPU to mine right now (Maybe those with Solar Panels?)

I've seen quite a few people turn their GPU miners over to an Alternate Coin, and then sell for BTC and stay ahead of the ASIC curve using that method.

[claygraffix]

I started mining GME about a month ago and got a decent chunk.  I only have 2x 7950's.  It was a risk since there was nowhere to trade it, but now it's traded on Cryptsy.  I sold a tiny bit but still holding most of it. 

Alt-coins def the way to go.  Middlepool worked great for me too, they'll mine the most profitable alt-coin at the time.

[mauritso]

The only way that you can be profitable when mining with a GPU is altcoins, bitcoin is simply not profitable on GPU's anymore.

I use multiminer (a mining program), that program uses coinchoose.com for it's data and to chose the most profitable coin of you configured coins.

[garthanthaclops]

Right now, it looks like the best bet is to take a chance on a new coin while the difficulty is low. It's risky, since you have to hope and pray it gets on an exchange soon (especially with power-hungry GPU mining). Only other options seems to be settling for something like middlepool.

[hayek]

I wouldn't mine bitcoin with gpu. There are other coins out there and the market fluctuates as to which are the best to mine

[jenga]

I think that bitcoin mining will get more and more elitaire, cutting aside anyone who doesn't feel like spending on hardware for this kind of stuff. Any novice in the cryptocurrency world nowadays mines his first 0.1 BTCs in a pool just for fun and then switches to some scrypt altcoin that still isn't ASICs territory.

I guess that if Bitcoin implemented in the first place some sort of scrypt-like algorithm for hashing, things would have been quite different now.

I remember some talking about limiting mining speed for anyone who breaks some threshold but I dont think such a thing is ever going to work

[CoinRich813]

How do I keep ahead of the Altcoin curve? What do you look for when starting to mine and Altcoin?

[marcovaldo]

For bitcoin yes but not for altcoins

[JosephA]

Bear in mind, though, that the altcoins will probably be flooded with GPU hashers and anybody who actually buys a GPU for the purpose of mining them will likely make less than break-even.

Also, there is no way to limit the hashing rate of a particular entity; if you were to try doing so, they'd just find some way to pretend that they are two or more people and thus circumvent the artificial limitation.

[claygraffix]

I just hopped on PiCoin yesterday.  Who knows if it will get popular or if i'm wasting my time.

Difficulty was .0011 when I started and now is .16, which is super low but a huge multiple from where it started.  I don't know the math behind how the difficulties scale or anything yet, but more people have definitely got on it to it looks like.

[Pokerfan]

I have a little boy that sits on my desk from BFL and it does 60+ Gh. I almost feel like we are eliminating a huge market of 'non-techy' peoples out there.

ASICs ARE more friendly for non-techy people than GPUs.

You've said it yourself, just read it again.

I have a little boy that sits on my desk from BFL and it does 60+ Gh.

Compare that to

[honky1492]

With cheap electricity you can mine Altcoins profitable with good GPU

[pontiacg5]

I have free electricity and still pull down ~.025 btc a day with 4 7970s.

I've been mining since near my join date, or near the end of April. I've put down right near 10BTC, so my cards have nearly paid themselves off.

I don't pay for electricity though, and my rig is in a place that don't mind the bitcoin heat on top of summer heat.

I wouldn't invest money in GPUs for alts though, but moving paid for btc rigs to alts makes sense.

[luckyman]

You can mine altcoins with GPUs.

Just not bitcoins or any sha256 based coin.

[pontiacg5]

You can mine altcoins with GPUs.

Just not bitcoins or any sha256 based coin.

I think you said that completely wrong. I am currently mining bitcoins with GPUs.

[nab911]

I quickly moved from BTC to LTC with my very modest rig. I use dustcoin.com to monitor the profitability of each (with a grain of salt) but have pretty much stuck with it. Use the exchanges to make up for the difference.

[eXclusiveOR]

as long as no ASICs for the scrypt based coins exist GPU mining will remain relatively profitable for these, given that their value is high enough when exchanged and you don't live in an area where electricity is expensive.

i also thought about letting my GPU work on different and new altcoins all the time. there are lots of altcoins out there and obviously 99% of them (or more) are an attempt by someone to make money with premined coins. but in early stages of such coins you can get a lot of them and the idea is that amongst all of them there might be a single one that becomes nearly as successful as bitcoin in some (far?) future. so the 1000 coins you could get very easily at some point might be a good investment.
but then again i am probably too lazy to do that, especially as there are really sooo many coins out there...

as suggested already in this thread you can also use something like Middlecoin which will dynamically pick the best coin to mine and automatically exchange it to BTC for you. in any case i believe this is more profitable than using your GPU directly for bitcoin mining where it would have to compete with ASICs. however, if electricity costs for you aren't ridiculously low it is most probably still not worth it. you might also consider to mine a specific altcoin you think might become successful in the future (right now litecoin, novacoin and bitbar are looking good on cryptsy) and just keep it for now, hoping for an increase of its value at some time.

[aelpop]

if u mean bitcoin gpu mining then yes, its dead

[Voidlord]

Yes, Nowaday, Bitcoin GPU mining is dead.
-except you dont pay the large amount of watts,
-except you mine and you keep your bitcoin ten years as a good bottle of Clos-vougeot.