I Bought 150+ GPUs for Ethereum mining. Think I'm Insane?

[Xazax310]

My mining farm has been in operation in various sizes since mid-2017. I sold off most of my GPU during the end of 2018/2019 reinvesting that money into Crypto(Ethereum/BTC) when it was at it low points of ($100/$3800). I doubled my money with the recent bull run and now I recently acquired 104 RX 470 4GB Nitro+ with a plan on acquiring 52 more for cheap(total of 156). I also purchased 38 P104-100s MSI/Colorful(24 pictured rest are enroute). In addition, I have 13 GTX 1660ti's, while my friend has 20(hosting it for him). Total GPU account will be over 200+ GPUs. Thinking about Documenting my recent mining journey now with these RX470s 4Gbs/P104s. Mind you all I got them all cheaper than usually find. RX470 4GBs for $53 and the P104-100s for $180


Plan for the RX470 4Gbs is 13 GPU Rigs on Windows 10 running Claymore 14.6 soft-modding the timings with as low as power as I can get. Preliminary testing shows each card can get about 30.9mh/s @ 110w~(test with motherboard + CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD/PSU was 145w total from wall). Electric rate is .010c/Kw. The P104-100s with Claymore's new straps allows me to do 43mh/s @ 125w per card. Overall I'm positive about getting back in big time!



Edit: For those interested. Per WTT as of today(June 12 2019)

30.9Mh/s per GPU x 156 RX470s = 4820Mh/s (110w per GPU) 17160w *Estimated*

43Mh/s per GPU x 38 P104-100s = 1634Mh/s (125w per GPU) 4750w *Estimated*

Ethereum combined hashrate = 6454 @ 21910w @.10c/kw *Estimated* = 50K Revenue yearly 31K Income with current prices and difficulty. (YMMV)


ROI time of approx 6 Months(just for the purchase the GPUs). Obviously, this can increase or decrease based on crypto markets price and difficulty.

@Voskcoin you should come down sometime brother!

UPDATE June 26/2019
https://ethermine.org/miners/531E893595875098c10994dF91edF6D886aF6B63/dashboard

The build is up to 3.5Gh/s(Effective 3.7Gh/s Reported). Still in the working out bug phase. I've never had RX470 4GBs before so it's a learning curve with them and there OCs.

Claymore STRAP feature which I was so hoping for to work, has failed for me, as I cannot get all 13 GPUs to run without it crashing. So the 31Mh~ is out the door and currently, I have them BIOs modded with RXBOOST for about 29-29.5mh/s at 75w a GPU(117w~ real). I've reached out to Claymore and he is helping me with this issue, which I greatly appreciate!





UPDATE BUILD IN PROGRESS!




The goods, with more on the way!

[percy_tc]

nice one, u sold it in time.

[Metroid]

for $53 is a bargain, the person who sold will not be happy in few months. all new? but then again, mining is good only if eth price does not rise, if it rises, the money in eth would be many times better.

[Xazax310]

Used, the person I bought them from was a reseller for a Miner who had over 1000 units of them. They are in good condition, he also gave me Extra replacement fans should any be worn.

[Set Ready Go]

Used, the person I bought them from was a reseller for a Miner who had over 1000 units of them. They are in good condition, he also gave me Extra replacement fans should any be worn.

Sweet you got some extra fans aswell!

You struck the goldmine right there man,  sapphire superb gpus! Also price 53 usd per piece is just dirt cheap

[Marvell2]

for $53 is a bargain, the person who sold will not be happy in few months. all new? but then again, mining is good only if eth price does not rise, if it rises, the money in eth would be many times better.

What do u mean they won’t be happy in a few months lo, mining eth is only getting harder with new ASICS coming out and reduced rewards coming

[Metroid]

for $53 is a bargain, the person who sold will not be happy in few months. all new? but then again, mining is good only if eth price does not rise, if it rises, the money in eth would be many times better.

What do u mean they won’t be happy in a few months lo, mining eth is only getting harder with new ASICS coming out and reduced rewards coming

for $53 is not that bad.

[makishart]

That's very cheap dude, i got my rx570 4g for $85 each and rx470 4gb for $75 each in my country. Im still waiting for bitcoin to increase even more because im still not yet get decent money from there.
If the ethereum price doesn't increase and the mining difficulty will be lower than when it was increasing a lot.  

[dragonmike]

Nice price you got there dude. Compensates for the fact you bought soon-to-be obsolete hardware!

Tbh I'd love to expand my mining operation properly. I just lack one thing: a dedicated space to do it. Here in central London, forget about getting anything at a decent price.

[lunobird]

Like what Metroid said. If eth/btc rises you made a mistake and was better off holding coins. If it drops then good thing you hedged by getting mining gear.

Selling coins you get hit with a taxable event. But you offset some of that by getting mining gear. However you now pay taxable income each day you mine. If you held your coins you won't pay double tax like you do with mining or get taxed daily.

This means that if you sold 100 eth and bought mining gear you will have to have that mine back 130 ETH to break even.  Why 30 extra ETH one might ask to break even ? Because of taxable income of 30 percent on average.

My guess is that btc and eth will be higher than now by end of year by 2x. In my opinion I think you made a mistake and sold too soon during what appears to be like the beginning of a long term bull market.

Mining gear should never be worth more than 20 percent of all the coins you hold at a 10 cent electric rate.

Ya and the fact you also got soon to be obsolete hardware at 10 cent electric rate puts you in a risky situation of losing money on a bad trade and topping that off with wasted time baby sitting gpu rigs.

[CLywaTeLb]

I think he is well aware that now is not the time to sell mined coins. Although the low price of the GPU can relax, as the break-even time is close.

Selling coins in a growing market at a profit for hardware or further hodling of coins is a strategic issue.

With so many GPU beasts, in any case, all the time will be on the farm.


A good time to start when the price and difficulties increase for a long time. If the heat does not disturb.

[KryptoKai]

I think people are offloading their ethereum mining gear before they go pos. Mining gear will flood the market around that time so you'll have trouble selling them afterwards

[aundroid]

I think people are offloading their ethereum mining gear before they go pos. Mining gear will flood the market around that time so you'll have trouble selling them afterwards

Like you could only mine eth 

That Ethereum is switching to POS has been said already back in 2017. 

I'll only believe that when it happens.
POS simply has a few crucial disadvantages, like 'Nothing at stake' etc.

@OP
Very good buy! Have fun mining!

[GhostWithin]

And what will you do with these cards later? After all, then they will be difficult to sell, because nobody will need them. Maybe it's better to buy something more modern, which can be resold in a year or two and return some of the investment in equipment?

[adaseb]

You did get a great deal. The RX series GPUs have horrible resell value at the moment. My guess is AMD has made tons of these GPUs and nobody wants them, even with people who got power <$0.10 kwh.

Since you paid so little, unless they fry themselves you can probably sell them for $50 second hand (third hand for you) and get break-even. Even if the mining scene is dead by then.

[serhanni]

You did great job by doubling your budget and re-buy more gpus. Do you have any plan in your mind if the ETH goes pure POS? Will you continue to mine other dagger hashimoto coins or will you switch another algo?

[MATHReX]

Read your post on reddit too.
For $53, I am sure you'll break even in three months even with the profitability right now.
So yeah! Good going!

[arielbit]

being a miner does not limit you to be a miner..

you can POS coins, masternodes, invest, trade, buy gold, buy real estate, when you limit yourself (in your mind) to be a miner then you'll just be a miner.

[Dr.Osh]

well, this might be crazy in an extraordinary sense. if you do this alone, I think you have extraordinary principles. when the ETH price has risen again, you might get a ROI in a short time. just wondering, how many dollars can you make in a month with a GPU like that, and what is the electricity cost, and the maintenance of the gpu you pay? this might be a good reference for beginner miners.

[Xazax310]

Like what Metroid said. If eth/btc rises you made a mistake and was better off holding coins. If it drops then good thing you hedged by getting mining gear.

Selling coins you get hit with a taxable event. But you offset some of that by getting mining gear. However you now pay taxable income each day you mine. If you held your coins you won't pay double tax like you do with mining or get taxed daily.

This means that if you sold 100 eth and bought mining gear you will have to have that mine back 130 ETH to break even.  Why 30 extra ETH one might ask to break even ? Because of taxable income of 30 percent on average.

My guess is that btc and eth will be higher than now by end of year by 2x. In my opinion I think you made a mistake and sold too soon during what appears to be like the beginning of a long term bull market.

Mining gear should never be worth more than 20 percent of all the coins you hold at a 10 cent electric rate.

Ya and the fact you also got soon to be obsolete hardware at 10 cent electric rate puts you in a risky situation of losing money on a bad trade and topping that off with wasted time baby sitting gpu rigs.

I actually didn't sell my coins. I put them into a DeFi loan from Nexo. My plan is to HODL as much as I can mine with these GPUs. Your right Hence the am I insane lol! It is definitely a risk considering its older hardware and the DAG size is set to be 4GB(should ETH mining continue) in Dec 2020. I'm hedging my bets.

You did great job by doubling your budget and re-buy more gpus. Do you have any plan in your mind if the ETH goes pure POS? Will you continue to mine other dagger hashimoto coins or will you switch another algo?

I plan HODL whatever I can and to stake my mined Ethereum. As far as GPU mining I'm still interested in RVN and UBQ. So I'll continue to mine those, maybe at a smaller scale than what I'm planning now.

being a miner does not limit you to be a miner..

you can POS coins, masternodes, invest, trade, buy gold, buy real estate, when you limit yourself (in your mind) to be a miner then you'll just be a miner.

I've looked in POS/Masternodes my problem is usually the cost to buy the coins outright. Other coins like ZEN/ZELCASH I'm interested in running 'secure nodes' but never have had the time to fully dive into building one. I've also traded my earned coins... heavily during the 2018 market and while I made out on some I lost quite a bit more on others. I've learned I'm a terrible terrible trader and make better returns by just HODL until price hits ATH.

well, this might be crazy in an extraordinary sense. if you do this alone, I think you have extraordinary principles. when the ETH price has risen again, you might get a ROI in a short time. just wondering, how many dollars can you make in a month with a GPU like that, and what is the electricity cost, and the maintenance of the gpu you pay? this might be a good reference for beginner miners.

Thank you, I've learned a hell of a lot from starting a small mining farm in 2017 thru the run-up and then crash in 2018. I've made a ton of mistakes along the way some very costly. I've taken a much better approach and more thoughtful one this time around. I'm thinking I'll make some documentation and blogish style of my adventure here with these GPUs. To truly see if GPU mining is 'do-able' for the everyday residential miner person.