CPU Mining | Is it worth it with these numbers?

[larsen161]

I've just started mining after a day or so trying to get one to work and compile properly with my setup. Now that I'm up and running I'm wondering how rewarding the work being done is.

I've joined the deepbit.net pool and set up to use the Pay Per Share scheme.

Server cost <= $0.01 / hr
CPU mining generates ~27,500 khash/sec

With this kind of setup is it worth it to continue?


Thanks in advance

[Hexadecibel]

short answer: No.





Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo


edit: ok, real response. I'm not going to bother (i.e lazy, can't, etc) doing the math, but 27.5K/hash is not going to cover the cost of even .01 an hour. Thats just my gut feeling. My gut is often right though. You should trust it. (I could be wrong)

edit 2: ok, I just read the beginning of your post. 1: You should not be using Deepbit. You should be using a smaller pool, or better, P2Pool.
Consolidating so much hashing power in one or two pools is not good for bitcoin as a whole.

See my sig for more info on P2Pool.

Oh, welcome to the mining club!

So yeah, your mining at a loss right now, but hey, you can think of it as being a loss short term as you will (might) recover those losses eventually as the demand for bitcoin rises

[deusstultus]

$.01 / hour >> calc .05 BTC /hour.  Based on one machine I was playing with at similar rates, you're probably looking to average no more than 1 share / 2 minutes. Contributing to mining pools, that won't be a profitable return, most on the order of .0004 (estimate, haven't looked in a while, and veries based on block luck) / valid share.  Take that on your own, and it's a gamble, but the odds aren't in your favor.  Now taking into question efficiency or ease of translating USD to bitcoin through this method as opposed to others, and estimating long term value of BTC, this point could be argued, but frankly, no.

[Bitcoin Oz]

I remember mining 200btc with a  pentium 4 cpu.

Those were the days 

[Hexadecibel]

I remember mining 200btc with a  pentium 4 cpu.

Those were the days 

*shakes tiny fist at you*

[larsen161]

great info so far. thanks for all the advise. lots to consider now and change just on the above

my next question would be is there any way to make the CPU more efficient? Am I getting the most out of this CPU per thread? I had a quick look over at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#Intel but didn't find the same CPU for comparison.

I'm running cpuminer-1.0.2 compiled with
CFLAGS="-O3 -Wall -msse2 -march=native" ./configure

running on 2x E5-2670 @ 2.60GHz
getting ~865.00 khash/sec/thread

you're probably looking to average no more than 1 share / 2 minutes.

I'm getting about 1 share / 1 minute it seems - is that right??

Code:

[2012-06-06 02:56:13] 32 miner threads started, using SHA256 '4way' algorithm.
[2012-06-06 02:57:23] PROOF OF WORK RESULT: true (yay!!!)
[2012-06-06 02:59:22] PROOF OF WORK RESULT: true (yay!!!)
[2012-06-06 03:00:16] PROOF OF WORK RESULT: true (yay!!!)
[2012-06-06 03:01:13] PROOF OF WORK RESULT: true (yay!!!)
[2012-06-06 03:02:51] LONGPOLL detected new block
[2012-06-06 03:03:28] PROOF OF WORK RESULT: true (yay!!!)
[2012-06-06 03:03:37] PROOF OF WORK RESULT: true (yay!!!)
[2012-06-06 03:04:16] PROOF OF WORK RESULT: true (yay!!!)
[2012-06-06 03:04:36] PROOF OF WORK RESULT: true (yay!!!)
[2012-06-06 03:04:56] PROOF OF WORK RESULT: true (yay!!!)

[Hexadecibel]

www.butterflylabs.com

They make purpose built hashing hardware. I believe they are the most efficient around, doing something like 830M/hash@80 watts. for 600$
I think thats the best $/hash rate out there. I'm not sure, I haven't kept up on that stuff.

CPU mining is not even worth it.

but then, It hasen't stopped me from mining at a loss either :p

[mc_lovin]

why not mine litecoins on idle cpus?

[Hexadecibel]

why not mine litecoins on idle cpus?

because litecoins are silly

[matthewh3]

why not mine litecoins on idle cpus?

I agree mining litecoins with CPU's is definitely more profitable than bitcoin.

[Gabi]

I've joined the deepbit.net pool

A nice way to waste your income with fees

[Riddleman]

Nope, sorry. You'll need a whole lot stronger rig for it to be worth it.