Is "casual" mining still sustainable? Is buying a new rig stupid?

[geek-trader]

Hello, all.  I'd like to get the opinion of this forum.

If I were to spend $700 on a mining rig and get 600 MH/s out of it, and get it online in a week from today, would it pay for itself eventually?

The mining calculators say no, because they assume the difficulty will forever go up.  But the difficulty has to stop and level off at some point, right?  At some point, new miners will stop coming in, or current miners leaving, or shutting down part of their rigs will match new miners coming in.  Right?

I suppose the $ value of BTC could shoot up, and that would definitely help.  It could also go down.

Is it just stupid to buy a $700 new rig now?  I just want to break even, without factoring in selling the used hardware later.

BTW, I currently run 1 5830 at 300 MH/s.  But that was easy, I just stuck a new 5830 in my existing computer.  I'm proposing buying a whole new rig.  And the $700 comes from what I specced out at NewEgg.  Closed case system.  I can't have TOO much fan noise and hardware just sitting out.

Thanks for your opinion.

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[1713271098]

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[jackjack]

If I were to spend $700 on a mining rig and get 600 MH/s out of it, and get it online in a week from today, would it pay for itself eventually?

600 Mhps? Really?
Think again: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_rig

[Rob P.]

You're asking if difficulty will eventually level off because "new miners will stop coming in" and you're asking if you should start mining?
Yea, that's why the difficulty is going to keep going.

I would not spend $700 on a new rig right now, unless that $700 is going to net you a minimum of 1GHash.  You should be able to get a 600Mhash rig for under $400 right now, so 1.2Ghash for $800.

[bcpokey]

No one knows the future. The current forecast for paying off a rig at $1/MHash is about 6 months. This expects both difficulty and price to remain constant though. Either could change at any time.

I would suggest building more efficiently though if you worry about a rig paying itself off, < $1/MHash is bad efficiency, and makes it less likely to pay itself off.

[geek-trader]

If I were to spend $700 on a mining rig and get 600 MH/s out of it, and get it online in a week from today, would it pay for itself eventually?

600 Mhps? Really?
Think again: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_rig

Thanks for that link, it looks like I can go cheaper than $700

[mike678]

You're asking if difficulty will eventually level off because "new miners will stop coming in" and you're asking if you should start mining?
Yea, that's why the difficulty is going to keep going.

I would not spend $700 on a new rig right now, unless that $700 is going to net you a minimum of 1GHash.  You should be able to get a 600Mhash rig for under $400 right now, so 1.2Ghash for $800.

I'm curious how you would build a rig for under 400 dollars and get 600 megahash. Considering the 5830 is at 130. I did a quick calc and I'm just a little higher then $400 for 600 megahash and that's before shipping.

[geek-trader]

Using the link provided by jackjack, I specced out a 600 MH/s system on NewEgg / Amazon, with a case, for $592, shipped.

That's under the magic $1 per MH/s

[jackjack]

I'm glad it helped
You can now spend $100 to help Bitcoin economy

[geek-trader]

I'm glad it helped
You can now spend $100 to help Bitcoin economy

If gambling sites that take BTC count as the "Bitcoin economy", I'm half way there since Monday.   

[JuanPabloCuervo]

Hello, all.  I'd like to get the opinion of this forum.

If I were to spend $700 on a mining rig and get 600 MH/s out of it, and get it online in a week from today, would it pay for itself eventually?

The mining calculators say no,
At some point, new miners will stop coming in...,

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=30536.0

[geek-trader]

Hello, all.  I'd like to get the opinion of this forum.

If I were to spend $700 on a mining rig and get 600 MH/s out of it, and get it online in a week from today, would it pay for itself eventually?

The mining calculators say no,
At some point, new miners will stop coming in...,

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=30536.0

You think I should try to hunt down some 6990's ? I don't have that kind of cash.

[Dargo]

I'm in the "you can't know for sure" camp on this question, mainly due to uncertainty in BTC price. One thing that makes it tough to build right now is that the GPU market is really lean. There don't seem to be many exciting cost effective options out there atm. Nothing like 5830s for $109 or 5850s for $150, or 5870s for $190.
  

[mike678]

I'm in the "you can't know for sure" camp on this question, mainly due to uncertainty in BTC price. One thing that makes it tough to build right now is that the GPU market is really lean. There don't seem to be many exciting cost effective options out there atm. Nothing like 5830s for $109 or 5850s for $150, or 5870s for $190.
  

That's why if you want to buy a machine you wait till you find some deal like that Don't be impulsive and buy the first item you can.

[Cluster2k]

If I were to spend $700 on a mining rig and get 600 MH/s out of it, and get it online in a week from today, would it pay for itself eventually?

Depends on your power costs.  That PC would recover its costs within 6 to 12 months.  You've also got to count on bitcoin's price dropping below $10 in your calculations.  Depending on your climate the extra heat generated may be welcome in winter, but cause even more power consumption in summer.  It's the hidden cost of cooling that most miners never take into account.

Many people once hoped that bitcoin's value would continue to go up with difficulty, yet for the past several difficulty increases this has proved to be the exact opposite.  Price goes down with increased difficulty.  As difficulty goes up the hype of getting rich by running your GPU flat out disappears, and with it the interest of new people to keep the whole thing going.

[mike678]

Price goes down with increased difficulty.

I honestly don't think that's true. Non miners could care less where the difficulty is. The reason the price dropped from 30 to its current is because of a lack of faith in its value. This is due to several hacking incidents not to a rising difficulty.

[geek-trader]

If I were to spend $700 on a mining rig and get 600 MH/s out of it, and get it online in a week from today, would it pay for itself eventually?

Depends on your power costs.  That PC would recover its costs within 6 to 12 months.  You've also got to count on bitcoin's price dropping below $10 in your calculations.  Depending on your climate the extra heat generated may be welcome in winter, but cause even more power consumption in summer.  It's the hidden cost of cooling that most miners never take into account.

Many people once hoped that bitcoin's value would continue to go up with difficulty, yet for the past several difficulty increases this has proved to be the exact opposite.  Price goes down with increased difficulty.  As difficulty goes up the hype of getting rich by running your GPU flat out disappears, and with it the interest of new people to keep the whole thing going.

I'm in San Diego, by the beach, so no air conditioning, we just have a window fan.  The Pacific Ocean is the world biggest air conditioner and it's about 200 yards away. 

So - high California power cost, but no additional cooling costs.

[Rob P.]

You're asking if difficulty will eventually level off because "new miners will stop coming in" and you're asking if you should start mining?
Yea, that's why the difficulty is going to keep going.

I would not spend $700 on a new rig right now, unless that $700 is going to net you a minimum of 1GHash.  You should be able to get a 600Mhash rig for under $400 right now, so 1.2Ghash for $800.

I'm curious how you would build a rig for under 400 dollars and get 600 megahash. Considering the 5830 is at 130. I did a quick calc and I'm just a little higher then $400 for 600 megahash and that's before shipping.

2 x 5830s: $260
1 AMD Sempron: $40
2 GB RAM: $20
MSI 870-G45 AM3: $75
Coolmax 750W PSU:  $68
Total:  $463, Total MHash:  626 (could probably squeeze more)

So, just over $400 as you said, but also over 600 MHash.  Could probably go with a slightly cheaper MoBo.

[geek-trader]

You're asking if difficulty will eventually level off because "new miners will stop coming in" and you're asking if you should start mining?
Yea, that's why the difficulty is going to keep going.

I would not spend $700 on a new rig right now, unless that $700 is going to net you a minimum of 1GHash.  You should be able to get a 600Mhash rig for under $400 right now, so 1.2Ghash for $800.

I'm curious how you would build a rig for under 400 dollars and get 600 megahash. Considering the 5830 is at 130. I did a quick calc and I'm just a little higher then $400 for 600 megahash and that's before shipping.

2 x 5830s: $260
1 AMD Sempron: $40
2 GB RAM: $20
MSI 870-G45 AM3: $75
Coolmax 750W PSU:  $68
Total:  $463, Total MHash:  626 (could probably squeeze more)

So, just over $400 as you said, but also over 600 MHash.  Could probably go with a slightly cheaper MoBo.

I basically just bought that, plus a case and 2 case fans for $592 shipped from NewEgg.  $540 before tax and shipping.

[grod]

I, for one, would be ecstatic if my 2x5830 rig returned anywhere near $500 over the next 4 months.   I started mining at $8/btc and under 500k difficulty.  I lucked out and received a bit over $300 since that time.  Most of that in the first 7 days.  I recycled some old hardware so I consider my cost to be $207 for 5830s shipped and $55 for a 750 watt PSU, leaving the rest to pay for $.046/kwhr power.

All I can say is "good luck" and here's hoping!

[Desolator]

You're asking if difficulty will eventually level off because "new miners will stop coming in" and you're asking if you should start mining?
Yea, that's why the difficulty is going to keep going.

I would not spend $700 on a new rig right now, unless that $700 is going to net you a minimum of 1GHash.  You should be able to get a 600Mhash rig for under $400 right now, so 1.2Ghash for $800.

I'm curious how you would build a rig for under 400 dollars and get 600 megahash. Considering the 5830 is at 130. I did a quick calc and I'm just a little higher then $400 for 600 megahash and that's before shipping.

2 x 5830s: $260
1 AMD Sempron: $40
2 GB RAM: $20
MSI 870-G45 AM3: $75
Coolmax 750W PSU:  $68
Total:  $463, Total MHash:  626 (could probably squeeze more)

So, just over $400 as you said, but also over 600 MHash.  Could probably go with a slightly cheaper MoBo.

I basically just bought that, plus a case and 2 case fans for $592 shipped from NewEgg.  $540 before tax and shipping.

I wouldn't recommend that much cheaper of a board.  It's pretty minimal and it's going to be taking a lot more heat punishment than normal.  If you don't want to fry your board in a year, ECS and Foxconn and all those crappy ones are out.  I'd go with an ASUS with solid capacitors across the whole board or an MSI military class II board with solid caps across the entire board.  Those can take some serious heat because they have ceramic outsides and non-liquid insides.  Basically any board you get that's worse than that one would be saving $5-10 and totally not be worth the significantly reduced lifetime.

By the way, you forgot some sort of case or case-like object, the hard drive, and at least temporary optical drive to install the OS in that build...and the OS lol.  Linux is a pain to set up and I've done it twice but who doesn't have windows XP licenses laying around?  I've got like 40 activations worth cuz I recycle and refurb and repair computers And they haven't cared about the "non-transferrable" part of XP licenses since 2007 when they stopped selling them.