If you're thinking buying mining hardware, read this first

[mmortal03]

This thread should be made a sticky.

[finnthecelt]

I appreciate your work too, JJG -- raising all of the risk factors of mining is very helpful, and every market needs its contrarian

Welcome to the club....

I guess that's the last we'll hear from you!!

[bitbitcoincoin]

Mining just needs to get more efficient.  You don't need that much more attention.  Some technological breakthrough similar to GPU mining when it came out would destroy the difficulty.  New cards that are more efficient could come out.  There are a lot of things that can make difficulty grow fast.

That would give the opposite effect of what the messages I responded to were predicting. I'm saying that difficulty will increase almost no matter what happens.

An extreme price drop will make difficulty get easier, but besides that, I agree.

It appears this thread/discussion ended(5-08) when the value for BTC were around 3-4 USD each, and today's mt-gox listing currently at 16.3.    Interesting to see if the difficulty increase has been proportionate with the BTC value increase to make mining still a worthwhile endeavor.  Still new to the site and working through all the great info here.

Also of course investing is always better IF BTC prices continue to rise, but if you don't want to invest in the coins themselves(for whatever reason) it's pretty irrelevant to the "is mining profitable" discussion even though it took up the majority of this otherwise helpful thread.

[dayfall]

I just bought parts for yet another mining rig.  I did this calculation for 1Gh/s at current difficulty and assuming a 100% increase in 20 days :

days  - 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240 260

BTC/day - 0 1.77 0.89 0.44 0.22 0.11 0.06 0.03 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

power $ - 0 91.2 182.4 273.6 364.8 456.0 547.2 638.4 729.6 820.8 912.0 1003.2 1094.4 1185.6

BTC Total - 0.00 35.4 53.1 62.0 66.4 68.6 69.7 70.2 70.5 70.7 70.7 70.8 70.8 70.8

If I am even close to calculating returns, a 1Gh/s rig will only net about 70 BTC ever.  Can someone verify?  Does this mean a 1Gh/s rig must cost under 70BTC right now to be feasible.  Otherwise just buy the BTC.

[Jack of Diamonds]

I just bought parts for yet another mining rig.  I did this calculation for 1Gh/s at current difficulty and assuming a 100% increase in 20 days :

days  - 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240 260

BTC/day - 0 1.77 0.89 0.44 0.22 0.11 0.06 0.03 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

power $ - 0 91.2 182.4 273.6 364.8 456.0 547.2 638.4 729.6 820.8 912.0 1003.2 1094.4 1185.6

BTC Total - 0.00 35.4 53.1 62.0 66.4 68.6 69.7 70.2 70.5 70.7 70.7 70.8 70.8 70.8

If I am even close to calculating returns, a 1Gh/s rig will only net about 70 BTC ever.  Can someone verify?  Does this mean a 1Gh/s rig must cost under 70BTC right now to be feasible.  Otherwise just buy the BTC.

Difficulty is dynamic. When mining becomes unprofitable for even ASIC farms and botnets, difficulty will go down in a linear curve with thash/s of the network, until optimal amount of blocks are generated.

[stillfire]

If difficulty ever starts to go down you should absolutely not buy new mining hardware as the equilibrium will tend towards profitability for those already invested. There will be very little headroom for new investment during the lifetime of the existing mining hardware.

[film2240]

Depends on your electricity costs.  At full load a 5970 system will probably end up pulling ~500W from the socket (remember that PSUs are not 100% efficient).  During the summer, and taking into account home AC and the second watt problem, at $0.12/kWh you're looking at $86 a month.

Wrong. 5970 system shows for me ~350W power consumption cause I tried to be the smart half in the relationship between electricity bill-my wallet.

If ~350W is really the full system draw at the socket then at standard US rates you're looking at ~$60/month.

I have a question about power consumption of a card I'm planning to upgrade to.Radeon HD 6950.How much would a pc with this setup cost per month to run in US $ then in UK £:
Core i7 920 @2.67ghz stock (3ghz OC'd and 1.53GHZ max power savings mode) CPU
6GB RAM
3 HDDs
Asus P6T SE mobo (chipset also  in max power savings mode with deep voltage drops)
Radeon HD 4670 currently but will be upgraded later on.
620W Enermax Liberty PSU

I want to know (an estimate if possible) of power use in the following scenarios:
1.I Continue with the above setup with no upgrade (as Power is only 145W at the wall)
2.I swap out hte 4670 with 6950 GPU

How much will my power usage rise at load when the gpu is upgraded from the wall?
How much will this cost me in US $ and UK £ if possible.

I have joined a pool now to make things work faster.Pool is Bitcoin.lc.

ny help would b appreciated guys.

[n4l3hp]

At stock clocks, the difference will be around 140w. If unlock the shaders and overclock, probably 200w or more.

If its only for mining, don't overclock your cpu, or replace your I7 with an I3. You can also lower the memory clocks of your video card, it will lower the temps and power consumption a little bit. 250MHz seems the lowest I can set for DDR2 and DDR3 cards without affecting hashing performance, and 300-400 for GDDR5. Lowering mem clock can also help to stabilize your card at higher core clocks.

[film2240]

At stock clocks, the difference will be around 140w. If unlock the shaders and overclock, probably 200w or more.

If its only for mining, don't overclock your cpu, or replace your I7 with an I3. You can also lower the memory clocks of your video card, it will lower the temps and power consumption a little bit. 250MHz seems the lowest I can set for DDR2 and DDR3 cards without affecting hashing performance, and 300-400 for GDDR5. Lowering mem clock can also help to stabilize your card at higher core clocks.

I need help underclocking my i7 in bios on mobo Asus P6T SE to reduce CPU power use while giving GPU more of the available power needed for mining.Also how to underclock 6GB RAM or wotever it is to reduce power use of these parts to make more power available for GPU mining.

If some1 knows how,then please either put it in this thrad if possible or if not link to it in ur reply.


Thanx n4l3hp 4 the advice on hte GPU power use.

P.S does someone know of a good cost effective SSD at 80GB and 120GB capacities thanx?.It needs to be long lasting,reliable,cost effective,fast and low power consumption.

[Synaesthesia]

It's very simple in BIOS but really not necessary. Core i7 downclocks itself when not in usage, and cuts down on power consumption drastically. In fact it will use very little power compared to your GPUs while mining as will the RAM. But basically just go in and reduce the clock speed and try put down the voltage if you want, might save a few watts  

For SSD I recommend the Intel 320 series. They have a 5 year warranty now, and boast the best reliability and compatibility. Plus they're really fast.

[mvoss]

What I find interesting is that there are so many variables at work here that determine profits (power costs, difficulty, current BitCoin value).  Obviously there must still be some, even after power costs, for those who already have the equipment, or continue buying it cuz they've wanted state-of-the-art equipment on their system since WAY before the BitCoin existed (e.g. gamers).  I happen to be one of those people who wants a great video card in my system so I have a good system, mining BitCoins is just a current, temporary bonus.  But one thing I've noticed: a lot of posts made in May stated how mining was profitable then, but won't be as difficulty increases.  But back then, a BitCoin was only worth 4 and a half bucks!  Obviously the price is volatile, unpredictable, and has some inherent risk, but what investment in life isn't?

[shotgun]

What I find interesting is that there are so many variables at work here that determine profits (power costs, difficulty, current BitCoin value).  Obviously there must still be some, even after power costs, for those who already have the equipment, or continue buying it cuz they've wanted state-of-the-art equipment on their system since WAY before the BitCoin existed (e.g. gamers).  I happen to be one of those people who wants a great video card in my system so I have a good system, mining BitCoins is just a current, temporary bonus.  But one thing I've noticed: a lot of posts made in May stated how mining was profitable then, but won't be as difficulty increases.  But back then, a BitCoin was only worth 4 and a half bucks!  Obviously the price is volatile, unpredictable, and has some inherent risk, but what investment in life isn't?

People on the internet like to bitch and moan about all kinds of things. I'm sure that back in May life was different and thus required different amounts of bitching than the current state of available things of which to bitch about now. Life's a bitch, just mine coins and enjoy it. If it ends up being profitable, great! If not, you tried.

My word of advice, with my $5K invested in BTC mining, is that there are too many variables to do very accurate projections. You either go for it or don't. BTC is a gamble. It's better than going to a casino though

[nebiki]

What I find interesting is that there are so many variables at work here that determine profits (power costs, difficulty, current BitCoin value).  Obviously there must still be some, even after power costs, for those who already have the equipment, or continue buying it cuz they've wanted state-of-the-art equipment on their system since WAY before the BitCoin existed (e.g. gamers).  I happen to be one of those people who wants a great video card in my system so I have a good system, mining BitCoins is just a current, temporary bonus.  But one thing I've noticed: a lot of posts made in May stated how mining was profitable then, but won't be as difficulty increases.  But back then, a BitCoin was only worth 4 and a half bucks!  Obviously the price is volatile, unpredictable, and has some inherent risk, but what investment in life isn't?

People on the internet like to bitch and moan about all kinds of things. I'm sure that back in May life was different and thus required different amounts of bitching than the current state of available things of which to bitch about now. Life's a bitch, just mine coins and enjoy it. If it ends up being profitable, great! If not, you tried.

My word of advice, with my $5K invested in BTC mining, is that there are too many variables to do very accurate projections. You either go for it or don't. BTC is a gamble. It's better than going to a casino though

well.. $4.50 at 200k difficulty (average in may) and $14 at 1.6m difficulty. that's 155% more profitable than it is today (before electricity cost, so effective profit was even higher).

edit:

At stock clocks, the difference will be around 140w. If unlock the shaders and overclock, probably 200w or more.

If its only for mining, don't overclock your cpu, or replace your I7 with an I3. You can also lower the memory clocks of your video card, it will lower the temps and power consumption a little bit. 250MHz seems the lowest I can set for DDR2 and DDR3 cards without affecting hashing performance, and 300-400 for GDDR5. Lowering mem clock can also help to stabilize your card at higher core clocks.

I need help underclocking my i7 in bios on mobo Asus P6T SE to reduce CPU power use while giving GPU more of the available power needed for mining.Also how to underclock 6GB RAM or wotever it is to reduce power use of these parts to make more power available for GPU mining.

If some1 knows how,then please either put it in this thrad if possible or if not link to it in ur reply.


Thanx n4l3hp 4 the advice on hte GPU power use.

P.S does someone know of a good cost effective SSD at 80GB and 120GB capacities thanx?.It needs to be long lasting,reliable,cost effective,fast and low power consumption.

alright, first of all, you don't use an i7 as a dedicated miner. it's way too expensive. secondly, your post sounds as if your PSU doesn't have enough power to support your graphics cards if the other components use up too much power. that's not the best case here, you don't want to run a PSU at its maximum capacity. lastly a ssd doesn't consume much power, you can go with any type/brand. even a hdd doesn't consume very much when idle.

solution:

get a dedicated rig, low power (+consumption) cpu, a usb stick with linuxcoin, a few cards, and a decently sized PSU (of course you need a board and ram, too. but there's not much you can do about its power consumption).

ps: your nick and your language.. wow

[mvoss]

Now here's the million dollar question: Has that change decreased linearly, or exponentially?  No seriously, I'm not trying to be a smart ass, does anyone know?  Who's up for creating some XLS ?

[nebiki]

Now here's the million dollar question: Has that change decreased linearly, or exponentially?  No seriously, I'm not trying to be a smart ass, does anyone know?  Who's up for creating some XLS ?

there's a million dollar reward on many many mathematical problems, but i doubt there's one on this one. http://bitcoin.sipa.be/.

obviously it's exponential, but as someone on this forum has said "every exponential is a logistic in disguise" which seems to be pretty true. hasn't been going exponential in the past 2 weeks.

[mvoss]

So, a decline in miners/mining hash causes difficulty to increase?

[AngelusWebDesign]

You have to be more specific.

If there is a NET LOSS of mining capacity, then difficulty will go down.

But just because 1,000 5830's are taken offline doesn't mean that 1000 6870's aren't going ONLINE somewhere else.

That's why you have to net it out. The bitcoin network charts show the actual state of the network, based on how many blocks are being found per hour.
The number to look at is "expected difficulty" -- that shows what we're on track to get at the next reset.

[mvoss]

A lot of people on this forum are talking about (in the last few days anyway) that it's a bad time to invest in new rigging equipment. Is that something that can be determined by 3 or 4 factors (power = 8 cents per KW hour, 1 BTC = roughly $14US, difficulty = a lot, rig building = $110)? Assuming all the variables stayed the same for the next few months, is it seriously a bad time to buy/add hardware now? I just bought a good video card cuz I wanted to upgrade my video card before I knew what a BitCoin was, but I am a little overzealous upon learning about BitCoin mining (brand new to me, I knew nothing 4 days ago) and can afford to build a decent 3 card system this week. 

[AngelusWebDesign]

If you won't miss the money (i.e., you're spending your "spending money"), then go ahead.

Worst case, you don't make much and you have yourself some computer hardware that plays games well.

I would say, however, that the "get rich quick" phase has unfortunately passed.  You're looking at 70-day payoff periods on cards (110+ days on systems) instead of 9 or 10 day payoff periods like we had in early June.

But the problem is, nobody really knows where Bitcoin is going. It's a gamble. BTC could continue to get cheaper every week, even as difficulty inches up every 1 1/2 weeks. That's what seems to be happening right now, so it's safest to bet on that (a.k.a., "more of the same") -- but that could change if something happened out of left field.

Long story short, Bitcoin is still a gamble. Are you a gambling man? 
But it's not exactly like playing the lottery, because when you lose the lotto you just have a lousy piece of paper. PC hardware is better than that.

Matthew

[Mousepotato]

If you think now is a bad time to invest in mining, it was even worse for the early adopters 1-2 years ago.  At least now you can expect somewhat of a return for your money.  Early adopters were looking at absolutely zero for their investment.