Switching off my GPUs, tears in my eyes

[matt4054]

I bought about 20x 7950/70 early this year just to mine bitcoins.

Everyone was calling me stupid, crazy... ASICs are gonna take over, they said.

I knew they were right, but I knew they were wrong.

Ironically, it is a BFL ad on Slashdot that brought my attention to the rising BTC price early February.

I bought many, many GPUs in the new and 2nd hand market in just 2 weeks (no pun intended), and soon I was mining bitcoins at the "crazy" rate of 8.5 GHS, at a difficulty of 3 million (yes, that's about 50 times lower than current diff).

I had ROI on all my purchase in just 4 month instead of the 9 expected month in my initial plan. Moreover, smart investments in stock markets allowed me to turn the profits into much, much more BTCs in the end.

Maybe I could have been just as fine by buying BTC instead of GPUs, but the fact is that GPUs are resellable even after a total crash of crypto-currencies, so the risk taken was less than buying pure BTC.

Also, of course, I could have bought BTC early Feb at 28$ and sold off just before Apr 10 at 250, but of course that is the time-machine thing. I can't say I regret not taking this move, in hindsight.

So I switched from BTC mining to scrypt, mostly LTC mining in the last few months, after the first ASIC wave. It was nice until the moment when profitability dropped to zero for me, at about 0.20$/KWh. After a couple of weeks mining at loss, the late price drop of LTC gave the final blow to unplug the rigs, and it saddens me

Although I used the profits of my 8.5 GH/s GPU power to reinvest up to my current 550+ GH/s ASIC hash power (already hashing for me, not labcoin style lol), which I hope was a clever move (time will tell), I kind of liked the direct touch with the mining rigs. Now most of my hashrate is spread out between friends' locations, group buys, virtual mining etc. and I only have about 10% of my hashrate physically at home.

tl;dr: buying GPUs in February wasn't that stupid after all. Buying GPUs now would be stupid, check BitFury, CoinCraft, CoinTerra etc. (avoid BFL of course, unless you trust them for some reason) if you want to enter the race -- good luck and be careful.

Cheers

[1714882228]

1714882228

[1714882228]

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[1714882228]

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[Bitweasil]

So... how much are you selling those 7970s for?   I'm buying at $250/card for reference designs with the single blower.

[zackclark70]

for the right price I would rent some script hash power from you ( give me a pm if your interested )

[matt4054]

for the right price I would rent some script hash power from you ( give me a pm if your interested )

The problem is I don't think there is any way to make profits currently at 0.24 USD/KWh (corrected price). That is why is consider selling the hardware. I will follow up here, watch this topic. Thanks for your interest

[Wipeout2097]

At what voltage do you run the cards? I can't really be sure, but I'd bet one can run 7950's at 0.95V (down from 1.188) and still get around 90% of the scrypt hashrate, for 65% of power usage.

[matt4054]

At what voltage do you run the cards? I can't really be sure, but I'd bet one can run 7950's at 0.95V (down from 1.188) and still get around 90% of the scrypt hashrate, for 65% of power usage.

I knew about that kind of tweaking, but I haven't tried it. I did tweak, however, lower the core and mem clocks, up to the G-spot where I would get the best kHs/kWh, and keeping all temps between 65-75°C without too much cooling.

If you (the forum in general and those who PM'd me) manage to get profits out of my hardware, I'll be happy to post an inventory soon

I will also post pictures of the rigs here.

[bobsag3]

for the right price I would rent some script hash power from you ( give me a pm if your interested )

The problem is I don't think there is any way to make profits currently at 0.24 USD/KWh (corrected price). That is why is consider selling the hardware. I will follow up here, watch this topic. Thanks for your interest

Holy shit thats high.
I pay .061 if im above 25kw usage (getting close!)

[matt4054]

Holy shit thats high.
I pay .061 if im above 25kw usage (getting close!)

Yes... on the other hand, the electric CO2 energy footprint in Switzerland is close to zero because it's mostly hydraulic power (the mountains help a lot) and about 30-35% nuclear, and 5-10% wind/solar. Although the latter is to be shut down within 20 years due to the concerns after Fukushima, solar and wind power are currently explored and deployed on a small scale to compensate, etc. All this has a cost and is partly subsidised in some way by the utilities price.

So I guess my hashpower (about 10 Mhash/s scrypt) will need to be a power refugee somewhere else

[matt4054]

For those interested, here are a couple of pictures, some of my retired GPU rigs.

Sorry for the blurry pics, I was in a hurry

[Keldel]

You could still be running them for litecoin if you had cheaper electricity! :/

[endriuska]

[Salazarian]

+1


Was an interesting story Especially for a veteran GPU-MINER :.)

[YipYip]

I bought about 20x 7950/70 early this year just to mine bitcoins.

Everyone was calling me stupid, crazy... ASICs are gonna take over, they said.

I knew they were right, but I knew they were wrong.

Ironically, it is a BFL ad on Slashdot that brought my attention to the rising BTC price early February.

I bought many, many GPUs in the new and 2nd hand market in just 2 weeks (no pun intended), and soon I was mining bitcoins at the "crazy" rate of 8.5 GHS, at a difficulty of 3 million (yes, that's about 50 times lower than current diff).

I had ROI on all my purchase in just 4 month instead of the 9 expected month in my initial plan. Moreover, smart investments in stock markets allowed me to turn the profits into much, much more BTCs in the end.

Maybe I could have been just as fine by buying BTC instead of GPUs, but the fact is that GPUs are resellable even after a total crash of crypto-currencies, so the risk taken was less than buying pure BTC.

Also, of course, I could have bought BTC early Feb at 28$ and sold off just before Apr 10 at 250, but of course that is the time-machine thing. I can't say I regret not taking this move, in hindsight.

So I switched from BTC mining to scrypt, mostly LTC mining in the last few months, after the first ASIC wave. It was nice until the moment when profitability dropped to zero for me, at about 0.20$/KWh. After a couple of weeks mining at loss, the late price drop of LTC gave the final blow to unplug the rigs, and it saddens me

Although I used the profits of my 8.5 GH/s GPU power to reinvest up to my current 550+ GH/s ASIC hash power (already hashing for me, not labcoin style lol), which I hope was a clever move (time will tell), I kind of liked the direct touch with the mining rigs. Now most of my hashrate is spread out between friends' locations, group buys, virtual mining etc. and I only have about 10% of my hashrate physically at home.

tl;dr: buying GPUs in February wasn't that stupid after all. Buying GPUs now would be stupid, check BitFury, CoinCraft, CoinTerra etc. (avoid BFL of course, unless you trust them for some reason) if you want to enter the race -- good luck and be careful.

Cheers

This is crypto only the tough survive 

[Samir_H]

I bought about 20x 7950/70 early this year just to mine bitcoins.

Can you tell total amount you spent on GPU rigs just to see how much they lost on velue.

And don't be sad, you didn't lost money like some fresh comers

[fattypig]

I bought about 20x 7950/70 early this year just to mine bitcoins.

Everyone was calling me stupid, crazy... ASICs are gonna take over, they said.

I knew they were right, but I knew they were wrong.

Ironically, it is a BFL ad on Slashdot that brought my attention to the rising BTC price early February.

I bought many, many GPUs in the new and 2nd hand market in just 2 weeks (no pun intended), and soon I was mining bitcoins at the "crazy" rate of 8.5 GHS, at a difficulty of 3 million (yes, that's about 50 times lower than current diff).

I had ROI on all my purchase in just 4 month instead of the 9 expected month in my initial plan. Moreover, smart investments in stock markets allowed me to turn the profits into much, much more BTCs in the end.

Maybe I could have been just as fine by buying BTC instead of GPUs, but the fact is that GPUs are resellable even after a total crash of crypto-currencies, so the risk taken was less than buying pure BTC.

Also, of course, I could have bought BTC early Feb at 28$ and sold off just before Apr 10 at 250, but of course that is the time-machine thing. I can't say I regret not taking this move, in hindsight.

So I switched from BTC mining to scrypt, mostly LTC mining in the last few months, after the first ASIC wave. It was nice until the moment when profitability dropped to zero for me, at about 0.20$/KWh. After a couple of weeks mining at loss, the late price drop of LTC gave the final blow to unplug the rigs, and it saddens me

Although I used the profits of my 8.5 GH/s GPU power to reinvest up to my current 550+ GH/s ASIC hash power (already hashing for me, not labcoin style lol), which I hope was a clever move (time will tell), I kind of liked the direct touch with the mining rigs. Now most of my hashrate is spread out between friends' locations, group buys, virtual mining etc. and I only have about 10% of my hashrate physically at home.

tl;dr: buying GPUs in February wasn't that stupid after all. Buying GPUs now would be stupid, check BitFury, CoinCraft, CoinTerra etc. (avoid BFL of course, unless you trust them for some reason) if you want to enter the race -- good luck and be careful.

Cheers

Nice move, many people still haven't recover their money from the recent asic and usb eruptors orders.

[Eternity]

Tough to recover in these conditions

[Nemo1024]

Solo-mining GrandCoin and Diamond the last month or so was often more profitable than LTC/FTC (http://www.coinchoose.com/), but I too am on the verge of switching off the GPU rigs.
My BEs can last until diff hits 4,500,000,000 (23x from today's) at my current electricity costs, though.

[fattypig]

Solo-mining GrandCoin and Diamond the last month or so was often more profitable than LTC/FTC (http://www.coinchoose.com/), but I too am on the verge of switching off the GPU rigs.
My BEs can last until diff hits 4,500,000,000 (23x from today's) at my current electricity costs, though.

How much is your electricity price per KWH?

[Fiyasko]

This is exactly the kind of post i was waiting to see before i "flipped the switch" on my GPU's
Since im paying .08kw/h, I should be "good" for a littlewhile longer.
I still plan to mine btc at a cost of (unlimited) Fiat to gain some of the Limited bitcoin amount
I'll basically be buying bitcoins with electricity XD

Do you have any good quality XFX 7950's? (non double D)
They are rocksolid cards if you get a good one, I RMA'd mine twice, The third one i got feels immortal
Read a forum post where a guy had like... 40 RMA's of this specific card, But he kept RMAing them because he knew how good they were when Properly checked through QC

[timk225]

That's a shit story, man.  It sounds like the power costs are the only reason you aren't mining LTC?  I'd suggest mining LTC and holding it to see if the price rises.

I just got my power bill for last month.  $193 for 2228 KiloWatt Hours!  That's not just the miners though, thats my main PC, my testing pc, the air conditioners, oven, fans, etc.  My power bill says 6.2 cents per KW, and that bill includes the cost of the taxes and fees in addition to the power itself.

Have you looked into the idea of sneaking a power cord to the neighbors' house and plugging it in somewhere?  Or something like that?  

You situation could be worse, though.  You could be one of these 'tards who bought lots of USB Erupters!  I've been telling people for months to not buy ASICs and no one listens.  ASICs are a dead end, the BTC surge is over.  LiteCoin is the next big thing.  LTC is now where BTC was a year and a half ago.

At least with GPUs, you have a solid asset that can be used or sold for a good price once you get tired of mining or when mining becomes unprofitable.  ASICs can't do that!