5830 was best $/GH in 2011-2012 (I was buying them 2nd hand off ebay for £60/$90)
7850 was best W/GH in 2012 (2x were as powerful as a 7970, but used way less power, and I was picking them up new for £120/$180)
7990 was just the best at everything in 2013, especially the 2nd Ed. with 2x8 Pin power, and it's still faster than anything R9 in 2014!
I'll agree with #1. Don't know too many people who really went all out with the 7850, as its density wasn't that great. And the 7990 was more of a niche market. Most people I know of were using 7950 or 7970.
And compared to
this and
this it looks like GPU mining was a much less profitable in 2011-2012. $1-$2 a day for bitcoin mining with 5970 against $4 for current litecoin mining with 7970 and even more for DOGE and other multipool’s shitcoins. Besides, 5970 was expensive like hell.
It's all about price. As dropt said, more people have their eye on cryptos right now. Back in 2011, no one was giving BTC a second glance. Most people thought BTC had risen to it's peak, and died already.
April 2013 happened and people got wind of cryptos and mining "free money". People wanted a piece of the pie, got greedy and now here we are. What most of them fail to understand is that the people who are "bitcoin rich" didn't do it by buying a crap tonne of hardware and selling the coins off as they were mined. They did it by mining intelligently and holding onto the coins they produced.
Mining crypto's was never a get rich quick type of deal, it's only become that once the average tech user got wind of it. It is no longer a group of people aligned with libertarian/voluntaryism ideologies. It is now rife with speculation and people who want to get rich quick.
BTC, LTC, Doge, and other cryptos are designed to be currency, not an investment. For anyone new to BTC, they need to understand this simple fact that has huge implications.
But this is not making any sense here. The point is: there are too little GPU miners or/and there is too high litecoin price, so mining is too gainful compared with 2011-2012 situation. I mean, 7970 pays itself for 3 months and it looks like a great investment. And you tell this is because there are too many miners around.
Am I missed something?
And I wonder if litecoin price will drop until we'll have $1 profit per day from 7970 or AMD will produce another ton of 7970 and difficulty will doing up?
No, you're not missing something. Buying a 7950 and mining LTC today will earn you more per day than a 7950 in 2012 mining BTC. There's nothing wrong with that.
To me, what this high price means is that eventually, we'll reach a point where the difficulty catches up to the crypto price. Then, GPU prices will go back down to normal. Try finding a place that has 280x in stock, for a decent price. It does not happen. Either you can find 2-4 that only cost an arm and a leg, or you an buy up to 6 that cost your firstborn.
To give you a little history, those smarter than me discovered that the difficulty was dependent on the crypto price, at least in regards to BTC and it's massive fluctuations over the past few years. When the price is high, people want in. When the price is increasing, more people want in. How do they do this? Buy LTC, or buy GPUs. Right now, because you can earn back your investment in such a short time, people are buying GPUs, which is causing this shortage.
You won't see a 3 month return investment forever. Eventually, the difficulty and price will level out. Where that is, I don't know. I always thought a 6-8 month return time was way more sustainable, but that's just me.
