Is it time to shut down 1st Gen ASICs?

[xstr8guy]

So has anyone done the math recently to determine if it's time to shutdown our 1st Gen Avalon, ASICMiner and Butterfly Labs ASICs?  I haven't, I'm too lazy, lol.

I have an 8 Blade ASICMiner, 3 BFL Singles and 70 USB's running in my garage and it will soon be to warm to run them without air conditioning.  That was some stylin' gear six months ago, lol!  My house is already stuffed full with 2nd Gen gear and the air conditioning situation prevents me from bringing the old stuff inside.  Those Singles are like blowdryers!

I had a quick peek at eBay and it's obvious that the good old days have passed where you could make some good money from reselling this junk. But it's better than dumping them in the trash, I guess.   But if the 1st Gen ASICs are still profitable to run, I may keep them for another month.  But then again, how much profit is the ~280GHs from this gear going to earn in a month?  Is it even worth it?

[1714891581]

1714891581

[sgravina]

I just worked this out yesterday.  My gen 1 Avalon is making about $3 per day using $0.18 per kWatt electricity.

[Kenshin]

I just worked this out yesterday.  My gen 1 Avalon is making about $3 per day using $0.18 per kWatt electricity.

So I guess it is still profitable to use 1st Gen ASICs. 

[fractalbc]

http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/ says a bfl 50 makes money through july at .30/kwhr.  Same with a erupter usb. 

An erupter will make 8 dollars before it no longer pays for its electricity.  That suggests that if your main interest was money and you can sell the erupter for more than 8 dollars after expenses then that would be a better deal.

I should sell my erupters but it's too much like hard work.

[raskul]

The 130nm gear, I reckon will have maximum 2-3 months left before it's eating more electricity than it's mining in coin.
That's 3 months maximum at current difficulty rising rate, if a heapload of rigs are switched on at the end of this month (example - KnC ship out the Neptune), my own 130nm is getting powered off, or sent to a datacentre to mine for charity.

I think we are already seeing power-downs, with this phase of difficulty, it's been steadily rising at ~20% for the past few months, but not this month.

[HellDiverUK]

I powered down and sold my ASICMiner stuff last month.  I still have Gen2 Avalon hardware running, but it's getting very close to going too.  Sucking 350W for 100GH. 

Right now, I'm making more with 1.5MH of GPUs than I am with 180GH of ASICs. 

[Skaterdiejosh]

Yeah you kinda missed the boat I sold all my 1st generation crap on eBay about a month ago and actually did vary good made 3,000 dollars back !!! If you mine bitcoin you have to keep a close eye on eBay auctions prices !! Thats the only way You can make ROI and be able to stay in the game and buy more hardware...

[raskul]

I powered down and sold my ASICMiner stuff last month.  I still have Gen2 Avalon hardware running, but it's getting very close to going too.  Sucking 350W for 100GH. 

Right now, I'm making more with 1.5MH of GPUs than I am with 180GH of ASICs. 

I'd say, you sold at exactly the right time.

[smith88]

I powered down and sold my ASICMiner stuff last month.  I still have Gen2 Avalon hardware running, but it's getting very close to going too.  Sucking 350W for 100GH. 

Right now, I'm making more with 1.5MH of GPUs than I am with 180GH of ASICs. 

Ironic isn't it?  I have the same.  Making more on scrypt than asic.

[Skaterdiejosh]

Yeah sale the avalon 2 ASAP !!

[nybbler905]

Yeah you kinda missed the boat I sold all my 1st generation crap on eBay about a month ago and actually did vary good made 3,000 dollars back !!! If you mine bitcoin you have to keep a close eye on eBay auctions prices !! Thats the only way You can make ROI and be able to stay in the game and buy more hardware...

I've started on eBay to get my mining hardware so that is sooooo true!!
Recently AntMiners are going for less than 80 USD a pop and dropping ( U1 not modded ) and with my current set up i'm under 6GHash/sec Sha mining and it's either dump more USBs at it to try and get 10X mining speed to keep it viable for another year or sell it while the erupters/Ants are still worth close to what I paid for them ( or wait until they are useless and sell them for what I paid like some Icarus boards seem to be selling for on eBay ).

To conclude, it all depends on 3 factors per individual, BTC income VS power cost VS hash rate.

If the hash rate is too low, check to see how much of the new tech you can buy with selling off the old ( and potential power savings and increase of hash/same hash ).  I still have 2 old Nvidia cards I won't let go of that can mine but only since they can be ' backup ' video cards for my systems ( 8600GT and a 8400GT PCIe x 16 ' compatable ' ).  Not every miner out there can say they bypassed the power costs by going green tech ( solar/wind/battery + inverter ) to have the ' actual power ' cost the cable modem.  

Every miner out there will have to ask themselves " is it worth this power cost to get this much coin per month in this much space " at some point.

[Skaterdiejosh]

I would sale all that shit on eBay even the litecoin PC miner !! Get gridseed miners there like 200$ each right now 300-400 kh/s at like 25 watts !! I have only mined bitcoin but im about to get me a 10 pack of gridseed miners just to help pay the power bill on all my Antminer S1 hardware ..  Even though I have a pretty bad feeling litecoin difficulty about to start to go to the moon...  LoL

[lucaspm98]

I'm buying the stuff here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=500967.0

As long as I have unlimited hosting space and free electricity, even 1st gen asics can still be profitable.

[ManeBjorn]

You can always have your miner mine other alt coins that are more profitable and trade them for bitcoin on the exchanges.  That will keep it making money much longer.
I recently updated the firmware on my Gen 1 Avalon and now I am getting 84 gh/s instead of 72 gh/s.
There is still lots you can do with them.

[-ck]

35c/kWh, mine are long gone...

[EasyQuest]

35c/kWh, mine are long gone...

My rates are 0.09c/kwh but I powered my 4x BFL 60 GH/s and sold on ebay before they became worthless.

Profite was high compare to electricity cost but my main investment is on LTC mining

[lightfoot]

Not yet by far; my 60gh units are still making more than their electricity input.

I've also been working on a concept: The units generate a lot of heat and pull a lot of power, but the usage is not linear. If you reduce the power to the chips and reduce the clock speeds, then the heat output will go *WAY* down, at the cost of 5-8gh of performance.

Thus there is a horizon coming up where "is the last 6-8gh worth the extra 50-100 watts of power?" That might be the spot to hit, then you get to run with less electricity, less cooling (going to be important in the summer) and so forth.

It was bound to happen, time to turn the red giant into a nice cool little red dwarf.

C

[melmo]

Not yet by far; my 60gh units are still making more than their electricity input.

I've also been working on a concept: The units generate a lot of heat and pull a lot of power, but the usage is not linear. If you reduce the power to the chips and reduce the clock speeds, then the heat output will go *WAY* down, at the cost of 5-8gh of performance.

Thus there is a horizon coming up where "is the last 6-8gh worth the extra 50-100 watts of power?" That might be the spot to hit, then you get to run with less electricity, less cooling (going to be important in the summer) and so forth.

It was bound to happen, time to turn the red giant into a nice cool little red dwarf.

C

Which first gen machine are you running?  I was thinking the same thing, underclock it and see how much the power usage drops.  Although it's probably more profitable to just sell it off on eBay or Craigslist.

[wpgdeez]

Just some food for thought ... if the price goes up the unit remains profitable. Sometimes it is worth it to mine at a loss and hold, if lady luck is on your side you will end up ahead. Mining is a nice anonymous way to obtain BTC. My electricity cost is how I pay for my investment rather than cash to an exchange to buy BTC from my bank.

[lightfoot]

Which first gen machine are you running?  I was thinking the same thing, underclock it and see how much the power usage drops.  Although it's probably more profitable to just sell it off on eBay or Craigslist.

BFL Singles and nitro jalapenos. They might be second generation, I don't know. But nice little boxes no doubt.

The real fun would be to replace the chips with a Monarch chip. Yes I am thinking about this... :-)

C