AMD HD 6790 quickest return on investment?

[rainyn]

Going by the information at http://bitminer.info/  I noticed that the AMD HD 6790 appears to be the card whose investment one could recoup the fastest.  This is 72.91 break-even days - just over 2 months.

But in Maximum PC's July issue, in the article "Attack of the $150 GPUs," (I scanned it in and uploaded it here) the 6790 was billed as playing second fiddle to the ever-so-slightly-higher-priced 6850 with this conclusion: "In the end, [the 6970] offers decent enough performance in its class, but bear in mind, for just a few bucks more, you can pick up an HD 6850."

It says that the 6790 is derived from the Barts GPU used in the 6850, but with a big chunk disabled (READ: disabled at the factory).  The 6790 and 6850 both have the same number of transistors (1.7B) but the 6850 has 960 stream processors while the 6970 only has 800.  ROPS are cut in half on the 6970 from the 6850's 32.

To compensate for this, they bumped up the core voltage and speed, making a second power cord to the 6970 necessary (the 6850 only uses 1).  Now at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison the Mh/s for the 6790 is listed as 220 while that of the 6850 averages 236.6 (from a low of 171 to a overclocked high of 301.4).  Since the single entry on that chart for the 6970 states the card was overclocked by 140Mhz above the factory default of 860 Mhz, it is safe to assume one would get lesser results from a typical retail card, let's say 195 Mh/s. 

I don't know what "simple maths" kristopher did over at http://bitminer.info/ but I'm sure they're accurate as long as his data is accurate.  Taking the only entry from the Mining Hardware Comparison Chart and using it to base the rest of his data on is fine - it's the only data there - but in this case it is misleading.

I don't think the 6970 is a very good card to buy for mining based on what I've seen thus far.  If anyone around here is using these cards, please update the Chart so we can have more data on them.

[rainyn]

One 5830 will actually pay itself off in 2 weeks.

The 5830 averages 286 Mh/s in a survey of 20 of the entries on the Hardware Mining Comparison Chart.
The 5850 averages 236 Mh/s in a survey of about the same number of entries (can't remember now).  That is an incredible difference!

I guess it can be attributed to the fact that the GPU used in the 5830 is the same one used in the 5870.

Right now Amazon has a 5830 for $154 and a 5850 for $161.  Very small diff in price, but big diff in Mh/s.

[Leon]

Load up 10x of em and profit ez.

[Leon]

Load up 10x of em and profit ez.

Yes, we talked about buying a hundred. lmao

Holy shit!

[rainyn]

One 5830 will actually pay itself off in 2 weeks.

Hmm, I'd like to know how this is possible at an average of 286 Mh/s.  That will generate only 1.3BTC/week (that's every 7 days).  To generate enough money to pay off the card ($130) it would take you about 7 weeks.  Maybe this used to be possible, but it's not anymore 

Let's say I purchased 3 of these things (enough to populate one motherboard), well that would theoretically do the job 3x as fast...

So we're making 3.9BTC/week.  At this rate one could pay off one card every 2.3 weeks.

I think that means since the days when a HD 8350 could pay itself off in 2 weeks, the difficulty has roughly trippled.

[bitebitebite]

One 5830 will actually pay itself off in 2 weeks.

Hmm, I'd like to know how this is possible at an average of 286 Mh/s

 Yea, its not even close. With difficulty changes and electricity it's going to take months

[Wuked]

I purchased 3 x 5850s at £100 each about a month ago, and I've already paid them off with my setup in a month at https://mineco.in

[bobbybit]

I purchased 3 x 5850s at £100 each about a month ago, and I've already paid them off with my setup in a month at https://mineco.in

those 5830s are the boss

[ellipsis]

It will never pay itself off unless you pay ~$63 for the card.

[Wuked]

Depends what price you can buy at?

[bitebitebite]

That guy just said they did....

 He also said he bought them a month ago, when difficulty was much lower

[Morebitcoinsplease]

The difficulty can always go back down >.>

It could in theory but highly unlikely with all the publicity and rave about making money from your GPU. Also people still keep buying up 6990's the instant they are in stock which only tells me more and more people mining or adding more to their existing miners.

[Jaime Frontero]

One 5830 will actually pay itself off in 2 weeks.

The 5830 averages 286 Mh/s in a survey of 20 of the entries on the Hardware Mining Comparison Chart.
The 5850 averages 236 Mh/s in a survey of about the same number of entries (can't remember now).  That is an incredible difference!

I guess it can be attributed to the fact that the GPU used in the 5830 is the same one used in the 5870.

Right now Amazon has a 5830 for $154 and a 5850 for $161.  Very small diff in price, but big diff in Mh/s.

you'll want to start by using actual comparison numbers.

a 5850 at 236 Mh/sec?  ummm... no.  i don't actually believe they'll go that slow.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

[Bart31]

I tweaked my Asus HD5850 just a little, now doing 345 Mhash/sec with guiminer, win7 32 bits, latest Catalist software from Ati on OpenCL.

[Supercrit]

One 5830 will actually pay itself off in 2 weeks.

The 5830 averages 286 Mh/s in a survey of 20 of the entries on the Hardware Mining Comparison Chart.
The 5850 averages 236 Mh/s in a survey of about the same number of entries (can't remember now).  That is an incredible difference!

I guess it can be attributed to the fact that the GPU used in the 5830 is the same one used in the 5870.

Right now Amazon has a 5830 for $154 and a 5850 for $161.  Very small diff in price, but big diff in Mh/s.

5850 has 1440 shaders at 725mhz, 5830 has 1120 at 800mhz, how a 5830 can go that much faster?
I guess you read it wrong, 286 for 5830 and 326 for 5850

man, 5830 almost became mythical for being good for mining, but no, it's not faster than 5850 and the latter will stomp it any day at same or slightly lower clock.

Edit: a 5770 with 800 shaders can do 200mh/s and 1440 shaders does 236 is hardly believable.

[rainyn]

I guess you read it wrong, 286 for 5830 and 326 for 5850

man, 5830 almost became mythical for being good for mining, but no, it's not faster than 5850 and the latter will stomp it any day at same or slightly lower clock.

Edit: a 5770 with 800 shaders can do 200mh/s and 1440 shaders does 236 is hardly believable.

I didn't exactly read it wrong, I was just being lazy.  I took a survey of the 20 lowest-scored 5850s, not realizing there were 10 more beyond that.  The average of all 30 5850 scores (which maxed out at 410 for an OC'd card) resulted in an average rate of 318.2 Mh/s

Based on the available data of 24 entries, the 5830 has an average hash rate of 290 Mh/s  That is not much less than the average 5850 rate.  But then again, the price of the 5850 is just like its hash rate - just a bit more than the 5830. 

Regarding the 5770, I don't think we've been talking about that one in this thread.  Did you mean the 6790?

[Supercrit]

I guess you read it wrong, 286 for 5830 and 326 for 5850

man, 5830 almost became mythical for being good for mining, but no, it's not faster than 5850 and the latter will stomp it any day at same or slightly lower clock.

Edit: a 5770 with 800 shaders can do 200mh/s and 1440 shaders does 236 is hardly believable.

I didn't exactly read it wrong, I was just being lazy.  I took a survey of the 20 lowest-scored 5850s, not realizing there were 10 more beyond that.  The average of all 30 5850 scores (which maxed out at 410 for an OC'd card) resulted in an average rate of 318.2 Mh/s

Based on the available data of 24 entries, the 5830 has an average hash rate of 290 Mh/s  That is not much less than the average 5850 rate.  But then again, the price of the 5850 is just like its hash rate - just a bit more than the 5830. 

Regarding the 5770, I don't think we've been talking about that one in this thread.  Did you mean the 6790?

Well, about 5830 being stomped by 5850, mostly because it gets seriously crushed by 5850 in gaming, but in mining it's a bit different.

5770, 6770 and 6790 all has the same number of shaders, all 800, and 5770/6770 are basically the same thing, while 6790 uses a cut down version of 6850/70 core, but again, their hash rate should be similar.

It just happens that I have a 5770 currently running at 200+ mh/s, so seeing that the 1440 shader 5850 does 230ish totally makes me perplexed.

[rainyn]

It just happens that I have a 5770 currently running at 200+ mh/s, so seeing that the 1440 shader 5850 does 230ish totally makes me perplexed.

I corrected that figure in the post right before the one you wrote (above).

[geckogroove]

I tweaked my Asus HD5850 just a little, now doing 345 Mhash/sec with guiminer, win7 32 bits, latest Catalist software from Ati on OpenCL.

my 5850 runs 280mhs stock, windows 7 64bit guiminer opencl

[rainyn]

I tweaked my Asus HD5850 just a little, now doing 345 Mhash/sec with guiminer, win7 32 bits, latest Catalist software from Ati on OpenCL.

my 5850 runs 280mhs stock, windows 7 64bit guiminer opencl

Yeah, the disparity between hash rates on the same cards is kind of perplexing.  I see a difference of more or less 100 Mh/s between the lowest rate and the highest rate in some cards.  Some cards are genuinely better than others within the same generation (better silicone) allowing for better overclocks while some bitcoin miners are more experienced with bitcoin mining and/or hardware/software setup.