Has the train left the station?

[JohnCoiner]

As I am actively researching and weighing the cost/benefit ratio of alt currencies I can't help but wonder have I missed the train? Is it too late to make a reasonable profit from mining?

From the information I've gathered thus far, the mining community has had an affect on the rising cost of GPUs, and we're beginning to see hardware manufactures creating products specifically for mining.

So, with all that said I'll ask my questions in a straight forward way: Is GPU mining still a viable option? Can the benefits still out weigh the costs?

I've pieced together a modest rig over the past year. I was never in a hurry to buy any of the parts and got by with what I had until I found a part at a great price. Here is what I currently own.

ASUS Maximus V Gene
i5 3570K (Stock Clock)
Vertex 4 128GB
Seasonic SS-760XP2 760W

In total I've spent around $660. All I lack is a GPU, but with the price hikes IDK if investing in one now would be worth it.

[Yellowhill]

I have actually been thinking about the same thing. I have started mining LiteCoin, but it is painfully slow and the cost/benefit does not seem to be worth it (electric bills etc)...I currently get like 170 khash/s

[guybrushthreepwood]

I have actually been thinking about the same thing. I have started mining LiteCoin, but it is painfully slow and the cost/benefit does not seem to be worth it (electric bills etc)...I currently get like 170 khash/s

Don't mine any of the big currencies like BTC or LTC. Mine an up and coming or small one and then trade your coins for LTC or BTC or whatever. You're not going to make any money by mining Bitcoin or Litecoin on a small rig.

[imamanandyou]

ASUS Maximus V Gene
i5 3570K (Stock Clock)
Vertex 4 128GB
Seasonic SS-760XP2 760W

In total I've spent around $660. All I lack is a GPU, but with the price hikes IDK if investing in one now would be worth it.

Save money on GPU, it is most important, CPU, HDD can be much cheaper.

[BitCoinDream]

As I am actively researching and weighing the cost/benefit ratio of alt currencies I can't help but wonder have I missed the train? Is it too late to make a reasonable profit from mining?

From the information I've gathered thus far, the mining community has had an affect on the rising cost of GPUs, and we're beginning to see hardware manufactures creating products specifically for mining.

So, with all that said I'll ask my questions in a straight forward way: Is GPU mining still a viable option? Can the benefits still out weigh the costs?

I've pieced together a modest rig over the past year. I was never in a hurry to buy any of the parts and got by with what I had until I found a part at a great price. Here is what I currently own.

ASUS Maximus V Gene
i5 3570K (Stock Clock)
Vertex 4 128GB
Seasonic SS-760XP2 760W

In total I've spent around $660. All I lack is a GPU, but with the price hikes IDK if investing in one now would be worth it.

The train has started to run, but has not yet left the station. Rather than mining, concentrate on BTC based development. Till 2015 end, that will dominate the BTC world.

[quantumf]

ASUS Maximus V Gene
i5 3570K (Stock Clock)
Vertex 4 128GB
Seasonic SS-760XP2 760W

In total I've spent around $660. All I lack is a GPU, but with the price hikes IDK if investing in one now would be worth it.

As the other poster indicated, when it comes to GPU mining rigs, the CPU is irrelevant. A celeron will do the job. You'll want a motherboard which can handle 2+ GPU's, and a solid PSU. A GPU sucks around 200W, depending on the card, so a 760W can probably handle two GPU's comfortably, but not three. So you may want to consider restarting your quest

As for the train leaving the station, maybe. A 1 mh/s system will probably earn just under $10 a day at the moment, if you're mining the alt-currencies (not LTC), so maybe $300 a month (this is not considering electricity costs). That will pay off your equipment fairly quickly, so it seems a reasonably good investment still. Admittedly, these returns are around half what they were 4-6 weeks ago. I don't think anyone really knows what's going to happen, though. Those daily rates could go up, they could go down. Today they're more than they were yesterday, but less than they were a week ago.

[jonanon]

I've dabbled with mining but for me just buying BTC and trading between alts is a better option. Hardware costs and increasing competition is making mining very marginal. If mining is really want you want to do then you will need to invest a lot and will still have no guaranteed returns.

[karanveer]

I have been mining litecoins for a month now with a 1.8 mh/s system. As far as I have learnt to make good money now you need to put in lots in the start and get yourself an asic miner. Its never too late. 

[Dudecoin]

You can always follow the pump and dump crowd. Mine the new coins and dump when they get on an exchange. Not sure how far this is profitable though...

[guybrushthreepwood]

You can always follow the pump and dump crowd. Mine the new coins and dump when they get on an exchange. Not sure how far this is profitable though...

It's continually profitable as long as people keep creating coins and trading them for others.

[zx42o]

There is no train Neo

[Duucnl]

Just wait for new altcoins

[vvchr]

I just hopped on the moving train a couple of days ago, but to say i actually invested in me - bought myself a new gaming rig with power for altcoin mining.
So i made the rig with 8g ram, 6-core AMD FX 6300, FX990 motherboard, instead of the purposed low-cost mining products
As with games and with mining the GPU is important, so i really did go through all pros/cons of nvidia-amd .. different graphic cards for performance/price and so far only the R9 290 standed out as performance in gaming and mining and price.
I get easily to 880kh/s which is enough for me at the moment to get a feeling of the coin market(mine something for trade and such), but i do it when i'm not at home .. as the reference cooler sounds like a vacuum cleaner in order to cooldown the video to ~80 degrees, and when i'm at home and not gaming i just lower the intensity, engine/memory and fan to sustainable levels and mine with 650-700khash
So with this setup i mine coins for about 8$/day, power cost of less than 1$ - so there is a profit, and boy this setup performs awesome
If i do good at the market, i may invest more in hardware but for now i plan to buy a second card if i collect the cash via mining - so i'm going slow pace.
And also if the market crashes - i still have the hardware and it still resellable at 2/3 of the price - so not a high risk

[Dial595]

cryptocoins are still in their birthstage.
buyin some btc and other coins will still be profitable on longtime

[kennyone]

dood

[highmarkent]

I just started a month ago and spent some money on a dedicated rig and re-vamped my existing one.  I consider this a hobby/science project.  I run around 4M hashrate and use one to mine LTC and the other will be mining DOGE as of this morning. I figure that I will be able to pay for all of my equipment shortly, >90 days, and I can always sell it off as new people are coming in to mining every day.  Evidenced by the lack of graphics cards especially mining type cards. 

I am thinking about putting together a third dedicated rig based on the R9 270X, which are available right now.  For around $1k, I can get a three gpu mining rig running about 1200 to 1250 Khs.  I have the cards already as I was dinking around with a friend's system and will put them to use mining DOGE and then watching what the new flavor of the month is and trading those in for BTC or LTC. 

I think there is money to be made, but I see that you have to pay close attention to the trends that are happening and stay ahead of the curve.

Good luck all.

[sroberson]

I also consider this a hobby and don't expect to get rich by any means.  At most I hope to learn and enjoy being a part of this new frontier.  We are in the early stages of cryptocurrencies and there is a lot more to come.  But the most bandied opinion is that if you want to just make money, don't mine.  Trade.  If you're interested in the hobby aspect, however, then mine anything other than btc.  If you mine, say DOGE, you can get thousands in a day, depending on your mining rig.  I have a milk-crate rig with 3 top-level GPUs in there for a combined rate of 2.6 Mh/s.  I also mine at a pool, instead of solo mining so I can get quicker payouts rather than having to wait to find a block, myself.

Regarding trading, you just need to get some money into BTC.  ( I used coinbase.com), then you can move it to accounts at the various exchanges- btc-e, cryptsy, etc.  You CAN make money there.  For example, in the last week DOGE was trading for 0.00000029 BTC.  Now, of course that's only worth $0.000232.  But today, DOGE is worth 0.00000044 BTC.  That's a 51% return in less than a week.

Have fun!