Greetings (and a question)

[Winterfrost]

I've been a lurker in the forums for a while, but I decided to make an account now; so, hello!

Now the question:
Recently, I have been looking into the different options for mining bitcoins.
I tried running a mining client on my desktop a little while back just to see how it all works, and it's rather intriguing (albeit not very profitable on a single, old GPU).
So my question is, if one wanted to get started mining, what's a good setup? I get "free"* electricity, so assuming I had the money to buy equipment,
what would be the most efficient option per dollar invested (ignoring power costs)?


*Free with a paid college subscription.

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[Meni Rosenfeld]

Look at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison and compare the hashrate to the price with which you are able to get them. Basically any ATI Radeon 5XXX and up will be good.

You need a good PSU and good cooling but other than that all parts can be as cheap as they get.

The trend now is moving to FPGA and ASIC but availability of the best offerings is very limited so with sponsored electricity you have some mileage left for a GPU-based system.

[swissmate]

Look for used or cheap 5850's or 5830's

[PinkBatman]

I found this tool very useful for pricing setups.

http://tpbitcalc.appspot.com/

[KIDC]

Look for used or cheap 5850's or 5830's

I agree. To my knowledge, if you are ignoring GPU density and energy consumption, the 5850s and 5830s have the highest mhash/dollar ratios. Buy them used for the best value.

[LazyOtto]

I just did a cursory search and see 5830's going for about $200usd new.

What are they typically being sold at used?

[Toby]

I think about half of that used.
How much watt do those cards use?

hmm... 5830 is more expensive used than a 5850? Anyway, I'll never get this model naming... gave up on it long time ago...
I thought that currently the 7970 (under volted) is the best option for GPU mining? 550mhash/s @ 115 watts