Is it worth it?

[TKHatch]

If the price of a Bitcoin remains around $14 then is it worth buying a mining rig?

What I am thinking...

I was going to build two mining machines costing in total £2'500 (or around $4'100).
The builds' consist of six 6970s so I would be aiming to achieve a combined hash rate of around 2400 mhash/s .

My electric is charged at 12 pence (around 20 cents) per kilowatt hour.
My six GPUs will use around 200 Watts each. So that's 1.2kWh for them, plus, say another 0.2kWh for the two machines.

So that gives me a total of 1.4kWh. So now it's just a case of multiplying the amount of kilowatt hours by the amount I pay for my electric.

1.4 x 0.12 = 0.168

That means I'll be paying around 17 pence an hour, that's £4.08 a day, £28.56 a week and around £114.24 a month.

So considering my hash rate I should earn around £420 (or $700) a month on average.

That leaves me with an estimated £300 a month profit. It would take 8 months just to pay back my start-up costs.

Is it worth going ahead and buying the components or would you say that with the price of electric where I live it isn't worth it.

I suppose what I am really asking is, are these sort of margins acceptable and if you had access to the money would you go ahead with the above plan?

Please help I can't decide.

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[SHlFT]

I would.

You would be making money in the long run.
And even more if the prices goes up.

[nmat]

In my humble opinion, anything that requires more than 2/3 months to pay the initial investment is not worth it. Difficulty is increasing which will extend those 8 months indefinitely.

Also: the 7000 series should be out soon and your hardware will become outdated.

PS: here's a calculator that estimates difficulty to help you with your choice: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=26751.0

[Matas]

I'd say it's not worth it, try robbing a ATM!

[TKHatch]

And even more if the prices goes up.

That argument works both ways. But by the very nature of Bitcoin the price should certainly go up.

In my humble opinion, anything that requires more than 2/3 months to pay the initial investment isn't not worth it. Difficulty is increasing which will extend those 8 months indefinitely.

Also: the 7000 series should be out soon and your hardware will become outdated.

PS: here's a calculator that estimates difficulty to help you with your choice: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=26751.0

That's what I was thinking. If it takes over 8 months to pay off then is it worth it. Considering when I do start taking profit it won't be much.
Maybe I should wait for the 7000 series, but to be honest they would have to use 50watts a piece to make them profitable in my part of the world.
If the hash rate increases it would just be cancelled out by a rise in difficulty due to blocks being completed quicker across the network.

So realistically, unless electric comes down in price or Bitcoins increase in value, this isn't a valid investment opportunity really is it?

[rotrott]

The thing that burned me was the difficulty increases.  You can't make you calculations based on a static difficulty.  It's going to rise and rise at an somewhat unknown rate (based on hardware availability, bitcoin value and interest level/hype).

That being said, it's an interesting piece of technology and fun to be involved with.  If you're making the decision based purely on monetary gain, it's an investment like anything else.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

[nmat]

If the hash rate increases it would just be cancelled out by a rise in difficulty due to blocks being completed quicker across the network.

So realistically, unless electric comes down in price or Bitcoins increase in value, this isn't a valid investment opportunity really is it?

This sums up very well what I think about mining:



We are the donkey and the carrot is a bitcoin network. We can try to get a faster donkey, but the carrot will always be ahead.

My point is the network always corrects itself. This correction may not be sudden (there are periods of higher profitability than others), but in the long term it evens out. That being said, maybe you can take a few bites at the carrot, but you won't catch it

[alemaaltevinden]

Well, you got a rig then so if you would use the rig later for something else I think it is a good investement.

[Xephan]

If the price of a Bitcoin remains around $14 then is it worth buying a mining rig?

No. The only time when it's sensible is if you take less than 2~3 months to recoup. After that, difficulty would likely increase to the point where you will lose money mining unless electricity is free, or BTC shoots up in value.

I arrived at that conclusion while calculating if I should just put together a few 6 GPU sets. This was further reinforced by others who arrived at similar conclusions when taking into account increasing difficulty.

On top of difficulty increases, I also took into account USD devaluation, it's been on the slide for many months relative to my local currency so makes it even less attractive to invest in a full rig.

Adding one or two GPU to an existing system however may be worthwhile.

[alemaaltevinden]

Did your calculation include fees?

[Xephan]

Did your calculation include fees?

If you meant fees incurred to convert BTC to USD to my local currency, yes. It was part of the forex calculation accounting for likely declining USD value. Basically for my electrical costs, it would take 3 months at constant btc value, difficulty and forex to break even. But since it doesn't, even if only difficulty goes up by an average of 4.5% every week, I'd never break even because electrical costs will definitely go up in the next 24 months.

[dbishop]

It's cheaper to buy bitcoins directly at this difficulty/price combination unless you get free electricity.

[Ringmasta]

I don't think dedicated mining rigs are currently profitable.  Using your existing gaming machine to mine in your downtime would be the best bet, really.

[Elder III]

If the price of a Bitcoin remains around $14 then is it worth buying a mining rig?

What I am thinking...

I was going to build two mining machines costing in total £2'500 (or around $4'100).
The builds' consist of six 6970s so I would be aiming to achieve a combined hash rate of around 2400 mhash/s .

My electric is charged at 12 pence (around 20 cents) per kilowatt hour.
My six GPUs will use around 200 Watts each. So that's 1.2kWh for them, plus, say another 0.2kWh for the two machines.

So that gives me a total of 1.4kWh. So now it's just a case of multiplying the amount of kilowatt hours by the amount I pay for my electric.

1.4 x 0.12 = 0.168

That means I'll be paying around 17 pence an hour, that's £4.08 a day, £28.56 a week and around £114.24 a month.

So considering my hash rate I should earn around £420 (or $700) a month on average.

That leaves me with an estimated £300 a month profit. It would take 8 months just to pay back my start-up costs.

Is it worth going ahead and buying the components or would you say that with the price of electric where I live it isn't worth it.

I suppose what I am really asking is, are these sort of margins acceptable and if you had access to the money would you go ahead with the above plan?

Please help I can't decide.

Well with the initial startup costs and the electricity rates you have to pay it wouldn't be that wise of a decision imo.

On the other hand, if you can minimize your initial investment and get a nice $/mhash ratio then it's worth considering.  -  I am in the process of assembling an economical mining rig at a cost of approx. $725 with an output of 1125 or more Mhash.... that's a little better ratio than what you are looking at + my electricity is less than 11 cents/kwh.  I won't get rich, and my hourly wage for all of it will be lucky to hit $5/hr but I view it as a hobby as much as anything.

[Ringmasta]

That's a good price.  If I may ask, what are you looking at that's going to give that kind of hash output for that little?  I can't seem to find cards that have anywhere near that output:price ratio.

[TKHatch]

Did your calculation include fees?

No I didn't take fees into account 

I am in the process of assembling an economical mining rig at a cost of approx. $725 with an output of 1125 or more Mhash.

What hardware?

I view it as a hobby as much as anything.

A hobby? But there's not much to do once it's all set up.



I think what I am going to do is wait for the 7000 series cards to come out then reassess the situation.

[k9quaint]

I think mining rigs are still viable. Unless Bitcoin goes the way of Esperanto...

[Elder III]

5x 6770s @ 225 Mhash each - I managed to find a nice deal on a MSI 890FXA-GD70 mobo and a quintet of 6770s for just over $650 all together. The rest of the cost went to a 750 watt PSU and a cheapo CPU.... 1 GB RAM & CPU cooler came out of my spare parts box(es). I realize 215m/hash may be a more realistic outcome, but I am more than happy to tweak the snot out of each and every one of them.   Hardware is my hobby, as well as part time job, so I'm happy to mess with these as much as necessary to get the performance I want.

[BidBitcoins]

I'd be real fortunate to be a gamer in 1 year when all the super mining computers of today are worth far more as gaming computers, but they are all being sold on the cheap to pay for mining rig upgrades.

[jayfitt]

IMHO, it's not worth it.

You need to include the difficulty increases in your calculations. Your 8 months could easily stretch into 20 with the current rate of difficulty increases. Most people are making the assumption that BTC will increase in price with difficulty, but so far the price has remained the same.

The only way I see mining being profitable in the long run is having low/no electricity costs and/or BTC value to increase. alot.