Sorry to burst your bubble but...

[Meatball]

I'm seeing a lot of posts on the boards and chatter on IRC from people that just really don't understand what's going on with Bitcoins.  While we don't mind helping folks out, after a while it get's to be a bit tedious to answer the same questions, over and over.  Sorry to burst your bubble, but...

Bitcoins are not a 'Get rich quick' scheme - There was a short window a few months back where you could make a lot of money off of Bitcoins and payback times for hardware was in the month range, but that's long gone now and will likely never come back.  Payback for hardware costs is probably now in the 4-6 month range and will continue to get worse.  Can you still make money?  Certainly, but you need to do some research and be smart about things.

AMD/Nvidia/[Insert Vendor Name Here] doesn't give a flying rat fart about the Bitcoin mining community - All these posts where people say, "I can't find any AMD card, AMD must know they're missing a huge opportunity and they'll make more cards!" are just silly.  No, they won't make more cards and they don't care.  We are small potatoes, a blip in their earnings.  In Q1 of 2011 AMD sold 19 million cards, and in Q2 they sold another 16 million.  Yes, we buy lot's of cards, but we're such a tiny part of their market that they're not going to change they way the operate because of us.  As I'm writing this, the current network is clocking in at 11.13 TH.  Just for arguments sake, let's assume that's all made up of GPU's with a conservative hashing rate of 200 MH/s.  That's about 55,650 cards.  (Someone correct my math if it's wrong, 11.13 TH / 220 MH | 11130000000000 / 200000000).  IF my math isn't off, then yeah...they sell that many cards every 7 hours.  We're a rounding error

Yes, someone knows what the answer to your problem is and it probably already been answered - Before you hit submit on that new post, did you take a few seconds to do some searches on the forums?  How about and another few seconds to do a google on your problem?  More often than not, you're not the first person that's run into the issue.  You may notice a lot of the old timers don't respond to questions or come across snippy when they do.  It's because after you answer the same question 20 times you just get sick of it.  Spend half a minute searching before you post and you'll save countless hours of other people having to read a new post on a topic that's already been discussed.

No, you don't deserve technical support/updates for free software - People seem to get awfully upset that their favorite miner hasn't gotten some bug fix, feature or upgrade you want.  Well, guess what, you get what you pay for.  You are using free software that the developer has spent their free time developing with no expected payback.  They've already given you something great for free and you should be appreciative of that.  If you really want whatever change you wanted in the first place, you have a few options.  Send the developer a decent donation (which you should do anyways if you use anything for more than a few weeks) and hope that motivates them.  You could switch to a different piece of software.  Or write one yourself (and prepare yourself for demanding users that want X, Y and Z now!).  Posting a rant that something should be added is one sure fire way to actually motivate the developer to work on something else.

Just because something worked for one person, doesn't mean it will work for you - Every setup is different and no matter what you read in posts, you need to tweak and play around with your own system to find the optimal settings/setup for your mixture of hardware/software.  

Free electricity isn't - Unless you have a solar farm or wind turbine in your back yard, there is no 'free' electricity.  Someone is paying for it.  Whether it's your parents, your workplace, or your school.  Yeah, you can probably get away with a card or two without asking and noone notice, even though it's basically stealing.  Anything more than that and someone going to notice the power bill going up.  My electric bills have gone up about $100 for every 3 GH or so I'm running, and I have a great power rate of .08 cents/kwh.  Don't be stupid, get permission or don't do it.  It's not worth losing a job over a few extra bitcoins a month.  Oh, and if you're trying to find software that will hide/obfuscate the miner process on any machines, then yeah, you already know what you're doing is wrong.  Bitcoin already has enough PR problems, you guys need to stop crapping in the pool we all need to swim in.

And finally, don't trust or listen anyone on the boards, myself included - Listen, there's a _ton_ of information out there on Bitcoins in the way of wiki's, news posts/articles and these forums.  Google 'bitcoin' and almost 16 million results come back.  While there's no way to predict the future of bitcoins, there's just no excuse for you to lose money in your bitcoin endeavors because of poor decisions.  Anyone that puts in a little bit of time and effort to do some research can make smart, informed decisions on whether they want to mine, buy BTC through exchanges, or just avoid the whole thing altogether.  Bitcoins can be a fun, and maybe even profitable, learning experience.  You'll be doing yourself (and your wallet) a favor for every minute you spend researching and learning about Bitcoins.

Anyone else have any other 'bubble bursters'?

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[MiningBuddy]

Great points.

I would like to remind newer users how the search function works on this forum:

The search bar always searches in the context on the page you used it on. If you use it in a thread, it searches just that thread; if you use it in a sub-forum, it searches just that sub-forum, etc.

[johnj]

AMD/Nvidia/[Insert Vendor Name Here] doesn't give a flying rat fart about the Bitcoin mining community - All these posts where people say, "I can't find any AMD card, AMD must know they're missing a huge opportunity and they'll make more cards!" are just silly.  No, they won't make more cards and they don't care.  We are small potatoes, a blip in their earnings.  In Q1 of 2011 AMD sold 19 million cards, and in Q2 they sold another 16 million.  Yes, we buy lot's of cards, but we're such a tiny part of their market that they're not going to change they way the operate because of us.  As I'm writing this, the current network is clocking in at 11.13 TH.  Just for arguments sake, let's assume that's all made up of GPU's with a conservative hashing rate of 200 MH/s.  That's about 55,650 cards.  (Someone correct my math if it's wrong, 11.13 TH / 220 MH | 11130000000000 / 200000000).  IF my math isn't off, then yeah...they sell that many cards every 7 hours.  We're a rounding error

No one has suggested that AMD is going to 'change the way they operate because of [bitcoin]'. Before bitcoin, the GPU market was X.  Now its X+B.  B wasn't there before... now it is.    Plus this B market will gobble up 10x of the highest card.  This B market has also increased the resale of AMD cards.  It'd be silly to flat-out ignore B.

[Meatball]

No one has suggested that AMD is going to 'change the way they operate because of [bitcoin]'. Before bitcoin, the GPU market was X.  Now its X+B.  B wasn't there before... now it is.    Plus this B market will gobble up 10x of the highest card.  This B market has also increased the resale of AMD cards.  It'd be silly to flat-out ignore B.

It's pretty easy to ignore the sale of 50,000 cards when you're talking about 6 month sales of 35 million...

[johnj]

It's pretty easy to ignore the sale of 50,000 cards...

Really?  The people at AMD getting paid millions to ensure each little % of the market is just going to 'ignore' 50k+ cards? .....why?

[Lord F(r)og]

Great points.

I would like to remind newer users how the search function works on this forum:

The search bar always searches in the context on the page you used it on. If you use it in a thread, it searches just that thread; if you use it in a sub-forum, it searches just that sub-forum, etc.

and when using ["issue"] (without []) you can search specific terms... helps a lot when setting up whatever without posting any question! Give it a try and play around with wording. Imagine how your issue has been worded.

[gusti]

nice intro all newbies (and some no-newbies too) should read
good luck on that, anyway !

[bcpokey]

I'm seeing a lot of posts on the boards and chatter on IRC from people that just really don't understand what's going on with Bitcoins.  While we don't mind helping folks out, after a while it get's to be a bit tedious to answer the same questions, over and over.  Sorry to burst your bubble, but...

<snip>

Great post, I rarely concur with everything anyone says, but this is about as close as it comes.

It's pretty easy to ignore the sale of 50,000 cards...

Really?  The people at AMD getting paid millions to ensure each little % of the market is just going to 'ignore' 50k+ cards? .....why?

We've already had this conversation, and I've explained it in detail. So I'll add one final point, if you don't expect them to change their development process for bitcoin, then you can only mean for them to aggressively market to miners. This also costs millions of dollars, to tap into a relatively non-expanding market, which essentially doesn't matter. If the OPs numbers are right, 50,000 / 35,000,000 = 0.14%. That's using 200MHash/second as your card rate, which is assuming miners are buying 5770s, $100 cards (or an average of about $5million of influx). Not to mention this assumes that 100% of all cards mining were purchased new specifically for mining (and not used). Assuming every miner bought the most expensive possible AMD card generating the most money for AMD, a 6990, which gets about 800MHash/sec (generous), 13THash = 16,250 6990s, or 11Million dollars at retail rates. Now assume AMD spends 5 million dollars to promote bitcoin and AMD cards for mining, it doubles the bitcoin market, to 16,250 more 6990s, AMD has now lost money, as unless they have a 50% markup, the 11million dollars is not returning 5million directly to AMD. They have also now doubled the hash rate and/or difficulty (to 26Thash and 3.4million respectively) causing huge resistance to mining in the future and likely a huge drop off of people interested in mining.

How about you answer why? they would do this then?

[johnj]

... if you don't expect them to change their development process for bitcoin, then you can only mean for them to aggressively market to miners....

Nope.  Just haven't got any reasoning on why they'd *ignore* the B market.

Not big enough to completely overhaul their design process for miners?  I agree.

Not big enough to aggressively market to miners?  Sure.

So small they make more money flat-out ignoring it?

AMD CEO: Hows our marketshare?

AMD Marketshareguy:  It's at X!

AMD CEO:  How about that B market?  It popped up out of nowhere... do we still have it?

AMD Marketshareguy: Nah, its too small, who gives a fuck amirite?

AMD CEO:  HELP WANTED - We need a new marketshareguy.


----------

Now if you're asking what I personally imagine is happening...

AMD Marketshareguy: We've got an intern making $25/yr looking at ways to secure and grow this small market.

[bcpokey]

... if you don't expect them to change their development process for bitcoin, then you can only mean for them to aggressively market to miners....

Nope.  Just haven't got any reasoning on why they'd *ignore* the B market.

Not big enough to completely overhaul their design process for miners?  I agree.

Not big enough to aggressively market to miners?  Sure.

So small they make more money flat-out ignoring it?

AMD CEO: Hows our marketshare?

AMD Marketshareguy:  It's at X!

AMD CEO:  How about that B market?  It popped up out of nowhere... do we still have it?

AMD Marketshareguy: Nah, its too small, who gives a fuck amirite?

AMD CEO:  HELP WANTED - We need a new marketshareguy.


----------

Now if you're asking what I personally imagine is happening...

AMD Marketshareguy: We've got an intern making $25/yr looking at ways to secure and grow this small market.

Very caustic response, let me ask you then, at what point do you consider B market large or small enough to be the line for AMD CEO to start firing AMD Marketshareguy? If I buy an AMD Radeon 5570 to use as a doorstop because my windy door keeps blowing closed and locking me out, do I get my own $25/yr(?) intern working to figure out how to secure and expand my market? What if I have 5 doors? 10? 100? If I'm ignored I might buy a $2 doorstop or a rock I found on the ground and they'd lose my valuable market right?

Either business is rational and chases statistically significant markets, or they're desperate money fiends that will go after anything that has a dollar to wave at them like a strung out crackwhore. You're free to decide for yourself which you find the most logical.

[titbb]

It's pretty easy to ignore the sale of 50,000 cards...

Really?  The people at AMD getting paid millions to ensure each little % of the market is just going to 'ignore' 50k+ cards? .....why?

ATI/ AMD cards are primarely made for gaming!

So they will take the architecture thats mostly suited for that! If that architecture turns out to be SHIT for Bitcoin (aka nvidias cards) then so be it!

You REALLY think they will think about that kind of stuff and/ or let it change their mind?

NO! They get paid millions to come up with the best/ fastest architecture! Not who has the fastest bitcoin mining card.

[ElectricMucus]

AMD will do nothing about bitcoin mining. They can't

In about a year we will probably look back at the whacky idea of GPU mining and perceive it as naive as CPU mining is perceived now.
Yeah there will be no 16yo getting to run guiminer after a CS:S session and those people investing in rigs now will probably curl up their toes then. But that's live.

inb4 fpgas are too expensive and are the only other option

[johnj]

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If I buy an AMD Radeon 5570 to use as a doorstop because my windy door keeps blowing closed and locking me out, do I get my own $25/yr(?) intern working to figure out how to secure and expand my market? What if I have 5 doors? 10? 100? If I'm ignored I might buy a $2 doorstop or a rock I found on the ground and they'd lose my valuable market right?

When the AMD-Doorstop market gets to be 50k+ doorstops....

[bcpokey]

----------

If I buy an AMD Radeon 5570 to use as a doorstop because my windy door keeps blowing closed and locking me out, do I get my own $25/yr(?) intern working to figure out how to secure and expand my market? What if I have 5 doors? 10? 100? If I'm ignored I might buy a $2 doorstop or a rock I found on the ground and they'd lose my valuable market right?

When the AMD-Doorstop market gets to be 50k+ doorstops....

Ah, how lucky! Bitcoin just happens be exactly at the precise cut-off line! Ah, how fortunate for bitcoin that it reached the totally non-arbitrary and well reasoned out boundary for consideration. I'm sure there is a reason for that number, and not nothing of course. Seems fortune has smiled on your argument, good day to you sir.

[johnj]

Ah, how lucky! Bitcoin just happens be exactly at the precise cut-off line! Ah, how fortunate for bitcoin that it reached the totally non-arbitrary and well reasoned out boundary for consideration. I'm sure there is a reason for that number, and not nothing of course. Seems fortune has smiled on your argument, good day to you sir.

Oh i think I've found the problem.  I have no idea what AMD is doing.  I was just sharing my opinion... not dictating the truth of the AMD universe.

If I were AMDMarketshareguy , I'd pay some intern $25k/yr to see how I could squeeze more money out of that market.  If that intern figures out how to sell at least an extra 166 cards at $150 each, he has already paid for his salary.  If that intern figures out how to sell an extra 500 cards at $150 each, that's 75k, I've made an extra 50k. But.... i'm not the AMDmarketshareguy.

[Mistafreeze]

No, he hasn't. That $150 isn't pure profit. Marketing, development, manufacturing, and labor costs come out of that. At 50,000 cards, we are nothing to them.

[NetTecture]

No, he hasn't. That $150 isn't pure profit. Marketing, development, manufacturing, and labor costs come out of that. At 50,000 cards, we are nothing to them.

I would not say that. We are worth ramping up the production of the 6990 series or the 7xxx equivalent because "the market for the high end card is larger than pure gamers".

And that is it. Someone changing the monthly number of highest end cards that is being produced because there is additional demand.

[bcpokey]

No, he hasn't. That $150 isn't pure profit. Marketing, development, manufacturing, and labor costs come out of that. At 50,000 cards, we are nothing to them.

I would not say that. We are worth ramping up the production of the 6990 series or the 7xxx equivalent because "the market for the high end card is larger than pure gamers".

And that is it. Someone changing the monthly number of highest end cards that is being produced because there is additional demand.

6990s are a terrible purchase for mining, at sub $1 / Mhash in some cases. Why would they ramp up production of the 6990? Even as an already limited release speciality item, it's still in stock in some places, since there isn't enough demand to sell it out, because most people realize what a bad buy it is for mining (except for density). And again, due to economy of scale, I'm not even sure that the super high end cards are more profitable than the midrange cards, where most of the sales are made.

[BkkCoins]

I'm sure AMD isn't even making anywhere close to those figures on the cards.
First, they license out to other manufacturers. Then those companies don't even make close to those figures so there's no way they'd be paying licenses for much.

eg.
Newegg sells 5830 for $130, profit ? who knows, maybe guess $30, shpg $10.
Sapphire sells to Newegg @ $90
Production costs guess maybe $30, who knows
Marketing costs maybe $10
Overhead and development, guess $10
Profit maybe $40
Now what portion of that $40 will they pay license fees to AMD?
My wildass guess is maybe $10.

So use a figure more like that when you're calculating how much money mining is worth to AMD and whether they should alter there "model" to increase sales here.

[KarlSpaat]

Just one little question. AMDs cards are the only ones which are good for mining. So without any competitors, why should they notice us?

We will buy their cards or don't mine...