Best startup rig for new miners?

[Jakharbor]

So I feel like I'm the guy who is walking into a party AFTER all of the alcohol has been drank. I just recently learned about cryptocurrencies within the past month but I have become slightly obsessed already. I have done some research and know the basics but still have some general questions someone may be able to help out with

So far my best deduction is that CPU/GPU mining of bitcoins has become cost-ineffective, thus requiring ASIC mining hardware. These are not only very expensive but also rare (meaning I can't just buy one at Wal-Mart  ).

Naturally the alternative is to look towards other altcoins such as the Litecoin which I have read some good things about.

Would you all recommend just going ahead and buying an ASIC or look to hardware alternatives or other altcoins...

I am pretty torn on this whole thing so any relevant information is appreciated

[ryokubaka]

The investment risk for buying an ASIC is insanely high, especially considering the rapid advancement in technology.  Depending on the hashing power. an ASIC miner will likely lose its value over time.  You definitely need to calculate your net bitcoin over time with any given machine taking into consideration the difficulty changes.

With that said, if you have a lot of expendable money you're willing to risk and you are able to find one of the multi TH/s miners on hand, I would do it.  The problem is finding one that isn't a preorder and is not marked up insanely high.

[Jakharbor]

I guess my main question is how many GH/s am I going to need in order to compete in the bitcoin world?

I just saw a Block Erupter Cube for 0.6BTC that said it could do 30GH/s. I'm assuming that may not be even close to enough at this point in bitcoin mining.

[anarcat]

Mining bitcoins is probably not going to be worth your while.

First off - you have to question your motives for getting involved with the whole cryptocurrency project in the first place. If it is to get rich hoarding bitcoins well you will probably fail unless you are rich already, even if you were rich and wanted to spend a lot of money on mining hardware there is no guarantee you will get your investment back.

Intoxicated on catnip I got high on the whole cryptocraze when bitcoins were peaking at 1K, consulting some mining calculators I figured I could make over 900$ a month mining altcoins, and although I was smart enough to realize the whole thing was likely a bubble I still drove to the big box computer super store and purchased 3 Radeon R9-270s and hooked them into a shiny new motherboard placed on a milk crate and proceeded to watch the motherboard melt into the milk crate. I should of known better but I didn't want to wait until I got the risers etc to do it properly and I think there was just too much heat for it to cope. Now I am mining on my regular computer with one card and I built a lite weight mining rig with the other two cards and I can do about 1250KH Scrypt. I've been able to get a modest return thus far but realize that the whole thing is not likely to be easy money. If you can't build your own computer then you will need to learn. All in all, I could of definitely made more $ doing web development programming or anything else, but it has been a fun and fascinating exploration into the concept of money.

First off you have to realize that all money only has value because humans think that it does, bitcoins are real only because humans as a species consider them to be real, cats on the other hand don't need paper or digital currencies, they just eat other living creatures. The same can be said about dollars, yuan or any other medium of exchange or store of value.

But if you want to participate in this bitcoin community and explore the human psychology of creating currencies, social manipulation, marketing as the various Altcoins attempt to splash into existence, get listed on cryptsy and people turn their electricity and expensive processors into little virtual bit configurations that may have value, then you should go at it. Obviously building my mining rig was kind of a rite of passage that now allows me to feel like I'm creating value by logging into various pools and watching as my electric bill goes up and so does my balance of coins.

If I were to give myself advice at this point I'd of kept with my original plan to build a computer with a nice processor vs. the cheap single core and RAM that I ended up with to cut costs. And then see it as a means of paying for your computer because if I'm lucky that is all that I'm ever likely to get out of this aside from being able to participate in the creation of new cryptocurrencies such as catcoins.

Really though, people take bitcoin somewhat seriously now, but all money is something of a imaginary creation, it's just kind of fun to see people on the internet start creating their own currencies and the whole social dynamics behind it so enjoy.

[infinitybo]

The first impression is the most important  however you can still "CPU/GPU" mining some alternative coins.

[now2ai8]

Initial cost is going to be pricey.  It will cost around $500-$600 for around 600-700 khash/sec for a mining pc.  If you do the math, you are looking at $10-15 a day.  Now if you already have a PC that is no more than 4 years old, you can add a and radeon card for $300-$400, provided you have a quality 450 watt power supply.  If not, add $40 bucks for an upgraded power supply. 

[Jakharbor]

I can afford to spend about $1000-1500 at the most for a decent setup. I have seen some really great custom builds on the inter-webs.

thinking an ASIC would be the best investment at this point, considering I pretty much only use this computer for going online.

I mean at this point in the game why would anyone spend more than 6 or 7 hundred dollars on a PC setup when you can easily get a USB ASIC rig for the same price and get way better speeds.

[Jakharbor]

so after much thought and internal debate Ive decided that mining any kind of coin is not only going to be very complicated, it is going to be a total waste of money and time.
So my alternative is to look at cryptocurrency trading through coins-e.

I have had so many issues just trying to get the software to work properly and have been spending more time removing viruses/malware than I have spent mining a single coin.

The only coins Ive received so far have been from coin faucets lol

I don't think I have the patience to keep on trying to figure out my software problem

[Bitcorev]

Great question.  How does the concept of having a larger computer doing the mining like the fella in, I think, Iceland, who built this computer that cools from the outside air and all he seems to be doing is mining Bitcoin.  Mining with a GPU doesn't seem like anyone will get very far is your computer is not going to be fast enough, or heat up and not work as fast as a big computer.  Does the whole concept of mining make sense anymore? Just asking, I really don't know.  I imagine for Bitcoin it may be rough but how about the other crypto-currencies?

[Mivexil]

I can afford to spend about $1000-1500 at the most for a decent setup. I have seen some really great custom builds on the inter-webs.

thinking an ASIC would be the best investment at this point, considering I pretty much only use this computer for going online.

I mean at this point in the game why would anyone spend more than 6 or 7 hundred dollars on a PC setup when you can easily get a USB ASIC rig for the same price and get way better speeds.

A $700 USB ASIC mining rig won't get you far. If you use it to mine Bitcoins, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose.

Buying a $700 Radeon, however, lets you mine Scrypt coins, and if you choose a good card (and a good coin), you can get a pretty decent profit.

[sepirocth77]

i would go with 2 radeon r9 270 and mine alt coins, right now there is much profitability in mining doge coins

you can also buy asic miners for bitcoin but they are too expensive, theres def more money to be made mining alt coins

[undeadbitcoiner]

I can afford to spend about $1000-1500 at the most for a decent setup. I have seen some really great custom builds on the inter-webs.

thinking an ASIC would be the best investment at this point, considering I pretty much only use this computer for going online.

I mean at this point in the game why would anyone spend more than 6 or 7 hundred dollars on a PC setup when you can easily get a USB ASIC rig for the same price and get way better speeds.

According to your Investment dont even think about mining Bitcoin, You must go to altcoins with todays price you can easily make 30-50$ with your investment if you move to GPUs and prepare a good config.

Good Luck

[sony11]

Bitcoin uses sha256 for mining which is dominated by ASICs. With your budget you wouldn't be able to compete. Most alt coins use scrypt for mining. Scrypt mining is done on gpus and is still profitable. The best gpus for mining are high end radeon cards (7950/7970/280x/290/290x). But currently prices are inflated and they are getting very obscure. The most available and reasonably priced card atm is the radeon r9 270x. They cost about 200 bucks will get about 400KH/s each. Profitability depends on what coin you mine. Doge is pretty profitable atm.

[Raist]

A $700 USB ASIC mining rig won't get you far. If you use it to mine Bitcoins, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose.

Buying a $700 Radeon, however, lets you mine Scrypt coins, and if you choose a good card (and a good coin), you can get a pretty decent profit.
[/quote]

Recently a lot of ASIC miners appeared on chinese |ebay| called taobao. Used 200g unit is about 3k usd. Usb units are now about 50 usd and I think will cost around common usb storage card soon. Looking on new asic units wich are coming on market in early decades of 2014 I've understood that it is too late to join this party. Also if you buy mining card at least you can sell it afterwards or play the games))). So my decision is moving towards several good radeons till it's coining cats and dogs.

[infinitybo]

Effectively @OP there is a startup for new miners for example CEX.

[Jakharbor]

very good advice you guys. I already have the DOGEcoin.qt client and have been receiving some free DOGEs on faucets... but that will never amount to anything useful.

Im going to look into getting a script rig together rather than a SHA256 ASIC rig.

Anyone else out there mining DOGE coin with their setup?? I was wondering what the usual payout was for you if you were?

[Joey Blaze]

great info for noobs here thanks!

[Randallphoto]

I've been mining in the auto-switching scrypt pools that will automatically switch between alt coins that are most profitable and then auto-convert to bitcoin. I started on Monday and have made about .06 BTC with a Radeon 6870 and Radeon R9-290x. Though it hasn't been running all day since I use the same computer for some photo/video editing and gaming too. When I'm not at the computer it's mining though. I've been using middlecoin.com

Still thinking of picking up another R9-290x or three My board has quad x16 PCIe slots