Getting feet wet - SOLO ONLY hardware list

[mrhobbeys]

I already asked which pool to join anyone object to what has been recommended or it just doesn't matter much.

Also is the HD 6450 no good for mining?

[1715570626]

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[1715570626]

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[sturle]

Seriously bro, Solo Mining with anything less than 10 GH /s is a waste of time.

Solo mining is more profitable than pooled mining, and hashrate has absolutely nothing to do with it.  Solo mining only means higher variance, and low hashrate means variance may be a bit high for some.  My 13 Mhash/s 5450 fanless PCI card has paid for itself and the computer many times by mining solo since december last year.  Often takes a while between blocks now, but I can wait.  (Last block in May.)

[mintymark]

> Solo mining is more profitable than pooled mining, and hashrate has absolutely nothing to do with it.

You might think so but consider this. If it takes you a year month , on average to generate a block, and 5 years months exceptionally,  you will be generating this block when the difficulty has gone up significantly to what it was when you started. This does NOT average out. Now if you were in a pool, (and the pool was honest and fair etc) you get returens within the period of difficulty change. That is the criteria, and that is in fact where statements like "Dont consider solo mining unless you have a combined power of more than 10GH" come from. I agree with this by the way. Of course its depressing when you find your machine found the block for a pool, but thats how it goes. There is still considerable luck in pooled mining, like when the pool  finds 2 blocks one after the other...

[P4man]

Seriously bro, Solo Mining with anything less than 10 GH /s is a waste of time.

Solo mining is more profitable than pooled mining, and hashrate has absolutely nothing to do with it.  Solo mining only means higher variance, and low hashrate means variance may be a bit high for some.  My 13 Mhash/s 5450 fanless PCI card has paid for itself and the computer many times by mining solo since december last year.  Often takes a while between blocks now, but I can wait.  (Last block in May.)

And have you seen whats happened since december and may? Hint:
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin.png

With the current difficulty it will take you on average 6459 days before you find your next block. Yes, almost 20 years.

[jasond1979]

Whats wrong with just joining a pool, there are even pools that you don't have to pay any admin fees to.   If you really feel lucky just go to Vegas and put everything on red.
Better odds then going it yourself with the system that you have.
Jason

[nmat]

Solo mining is more profitable than pooled mining, and hashrate has absolutely nothing to do with it.  Solo mining only means higher variance, and low hashrate means variance may be a bit high for some.  My 13 Mhash/s 5450 fanless PCI card has paid for itself and the computer many times by mining solo since december last year.  Often takes a while between blocks now, but I can wait.  (Last block in May.)

This is the most misleading comment in the thread. Have you looked at difficulty changes since May? You will probably never find another Bitcoin block with that card. You will earn money if you turn if off (or join a pool, if you don't pay for electricity).

[bigewok]

Bit pool is where it is at. Better to do it in a group vs going dumb luck method in my opinion.

[sturle]

> Solo mining is more profitable than pooled mining, and hashrate has absolutely nothing to do with it.
You might think so but consider this. If it takes you a year month , on average to generate a block, and 5 years months exceptionally,  you will be generating this block when the difficulty has gone up significantly to what it was when you started. This does NOT average out.

Yes, it does.  Do the math.  Difficulty is irrelevant.  Difficulty only changes the average time between blocks in solo mining or price per share in pooled mining.  The effect is the same.  The chance of finding a block is just a bit higher with lower difficulty.

Statistics is often non-intuitive, but this shouldn't be.  When solo mining your average income for a given hashrate is proportional to the difficulty.  When pool mining your average income for a given hashrate is also proportional to the difficulty.  For the exact same reason.  This is true for any period, and when the change happens or the direction (higher or lower) doesn't matter.  It happens at the same time for everyone.

[sturle]

And have you seen whats happened since december and may? Hint:
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin.png

With the current difficulty it will take you on average 6459 days before you find your next block. Yes, almost 20 years.

So what?  It will take even longer to get 50 + fees BTC when mining in a pool.  I may actually get the 50.something in the lifetime of the card.  With pooled mining I am certain not to.  My average income from this card will be higher than in a pool.  In reality it will probably be 0 from now, if the difficulty stays up, but it can also be any multiple of 50 (or 25, 12.5, etc) + fees.  If I used this in a pool, I'd get something like 2.82 BTC a year.  I'll rather invest my 2.82 coins in a 1 to 17 chance to win 50 + some.  A nice, anonymous virgin block just for myself.  :-)

[sturle]

This is the most misleading comment in the thread. Have you looked at difficulty changes since May? You will probably never find another Bitcoin block with that card. You will earn money if you turn if off (or join a pool, if you don't pay for electricity).

The card uses 19W.  About 0.7 Mhash/s per watt isn't very good, but not terrible either.  166 kWh/year for a 1:17 chance to win 50.fees bitcoins at current difficulty is not bad.  The power isn't free (I don't pay for it, but I care about it), but the alternative to mining is an electrical oven.  I don't care that much about 2.82 BTC a year either, providing no pool downtime or difficulty changes, but I would care about a anonymous virgin block of 50 + fees.

[nmat]

The card uses 19W.  About 0.7 Mhash/s per watt isn't very good, but not terrible either.  166 kWh/year for a 1:17 chance to win 50.fees bitcoins at current difficulty is not bad.  The power isn't free (I don't pay for it, but I care about it), but the alternative to mining is an electrical oven.  I don't care that much about 2.82 BTC a year either, providing no pool downtime or difficulty changes, but I would care about a anonymous virgin block of 50 + fees.

Good luck with that then. Next year we will have the 7000 series and probably FPGAs/ASICs so your 20 years will become 100 years and then 1000 years and you still won't have any coins.

[mrhobbeys]

Interesting points, but I think still having a machine running solo specifically for the variance is a good thing because if I hit I suddenly can afford to buy some new hardware that I would not otherwise have. And if you read before I am a gambler ;-) I used to play online poker for a living now I am doing actual working and looking for a new way “out”.

As an update what I thought was  a 5870 turned out to be a dead card so now I have my 6450 mining on this computer @ 28.5 Mhash/s on a pool. It is the best working machine I have atm so I am thinking of putting this solo and switching all the others to a pool. Right now I am paying $0.08 per KWh and according to my power management software I am using 5.40 KWh per day….. I also have a Quadro 3xxx that is PCIe that may be dead. Worth using if it is not?

[freakaccident12]

In my honest opinion it is cheaper to buy bc than to farm them on a single machine.  My gaming rig eats more power than I can farm and the house gets hot.

[P4man]

Interesting points, but I think still having a machine running solo specifically for the variance is a good thing because if I hit I suddenly can afford to buy some new hardware that I would not otherwise have. And if you read before I am a gambler ;-) I used to play online poker for a living now I am doing actual working and looking for a new way “out”.

As an update what I thought was  a 5870 turned out to be a dead card so now I have my 6450 mining on this computer @ 28.5 Mhash/s on a pool. It is the best working machine I have atm so I am thinking of putting this solo and switching all the others to a pool. Right now I am paying $0.08 per KWh and according to my power management software I am using 5.40 KWh per day….. I also have a Quadro 3xxx that is PCIe that may be dead. Worth using if it is not?

Its not profitable if you count all 225W of the machine (ie, if you otherwise turn the machine off).
Power cost per 24h: 0.43 USD
Revenue per day: 0.09 USD
      ... less power costs: -0.35 USD

See for yourself here:
http://bitcoinx.com/profit/index.php

Dont bother with the quadro either.
There are only a few cards out there where its even possible to be profitable, that is basically 5770s, 58x0, 59x0, 68x0 and 69x0 cards. Even with those cards its tough to make a profit, with anything else, forget it.

[bigewok]

6 Rigs + a leaf blower to keep them cool... now that's what I call mining

[bronan]

If i read this well its simply in no way profitable to run a miner either if it runs on a pool nor as solo miner
As for the site given it seem to me giving incorrect values for germany and netherlands those prices are pure based on the energy itself but we pay transport costs and new energy tax and also a monthly tax which is not calculated by that site in total my energy per Kwh is 0.44 euro cents.
So if i am reading it right in no way this bitcoin mining can be profitable for me, even if i bought a enormous system with 3 x 6990 cards into it ( which i never can afford).
It simply would never cover the costs of the system and the needed electra which such system eats is like 1200 Kwh or something similar

[P4man]

If i read this well its simply in no way profitable to run a miner either if it runs on a pool nor as solo miner
As for the site given it seem to me giving incorrect values for germany and netherlands those prices are pure based on the energy itself but we pay transport costs and new energy tax and also a monthly tax which is not calculated by that site in total my energy per Kwh is 0.44 euro cents.
So if i am reading it right in no way this bitcoin mining can be profitable for me, even if i bought a enormous system with 3 x 6990 cards into it ( which i never can afford).
It simply would never cover the costs of the system and the needed electra which such system eats is like 1200 Kwh or something similar

If one card isnt profitable, 10x cards wont be either.

And indeed, with such energy prices, its likely never  profitable for you with GPUs. There might be brief windows of opportunity where it is profitable, when bitcoin price spikes and global hashrate and difficulty havent caught up yet, but in the grand scheme of things, nop. Unless you want mine with FPGA's. These have vastly lower energy cost per MH but are rather expensive to buy making it a somewhat risky or longer term investment.

[OnyxCorp]

About how often do you get bitcoins with pool mining and how do you do it? I still am waiting for all my blocks to download so I'm not sure how the whole thing works :/

[P4man]

If i read this well its simply in no way profitable to run a miner either if it runs on a pool nor as solo miner
As for the site given it seem to me giving incorrect values for germany and netherlands those prices are pure based on the energy itself but we pay transport costs and new energy tax and also a monthly tax which is not calculated by that site in total my energy per Kwh is 0.44 euro cents.
So if i am reading it right in no way this bitcoin mining can be profitable for me, even if i bought a enormous system with 3 x 6990 cards into it ( which i never can afford).
It simply would never cover the costs of the system and the needed electra which such system eats is like 1200 Kwh or something similar

BTW, I just checked your energy prices. Natural gas is cheap. 3-4x cheaper per KwH. Invest in a generator and produce your own energy .

[P4man]

About how often do you get bitcoins with pool mining and how do you do it? I still am waiting for all my blocks to download so I'm not sure how the whole thing works :/

Depends how big the pool is. In a large pool, you can get payouts like every hour or so (although the first payout may take a day, because of the needed confirmations). In a smaller pool it can take days or weeks depending on luck, but obviously the payouts are bigger.

As for how to do it, just put in your wallet address in the pool's config page. If you are having trouble, Id suggest bitminter, its a pool with their own mining app, extremely easy to use (and fast too):
https://bitminter.com/
But its a small pool, so it can take a while.