How can mining be profitable? (I think I´m missing a point...)

[expansioN]

Hey guys,

I´ve read about bitcoins a while ago, but didn´t do anything back then. Now I thought "Hey why not give it a shot?" After my usual approach into something new (1-2 hours research) I decided to start this topic. There are some things that are just not clear and I hope you´ll clear them up for me

First thing I realized is that AMD >>>>>> Nvidia. My gaming PC runs Nvidia so I´ll "need" a new one. I would have no problem buying one since I got the money and no other Idea what I should do with it. I could use the new one dedicated and 24/7.

I found out that 5850 and 5870 are doing pretty well for the price. Overall I could spend 1000$ so they are my priceclass. (And I try to get 1mh/s for 1$)

The problem is that most topics I found with interesting info date back to 2011. There they state "Yeah good rig you could make about 800-900$ per month." and also some with even higher earnings. At the first moment this sounds really good. One month and I got my investment back. But I know that difficulty has increased since this date (and also some inflation happened). So I put the numbers into this fancy calculator http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

Current difficulty factor: 1726566.55919 (that´s 4 times higher than stated in one post dating back to 2011)
1000 mh/s
Current exchangerate: 6.62886

So... I make about 117$ per month. That's not THAT bad but... is it worth letting a computer run 24/7? So I could say after 10 Month (in reality it´s for sure higher because of the difficulty increase and costs) I got the investment back and start make some profit. From the numbers I saw I´ve expected at least a bit more. Am I missing a point?

But how far is this number from reality? It seems just too low. Don´t tell me there are lots of people doing this for a few extrabucks per month.

Some people will say I missed the boat... I should´ve started earlyer. But I don´t want to miss the boat. I´ve already missed some boats, I just don´t want to miss another one.

So is it possible to get any real numbers and not just out of calculators? How much mh/s you got and how much money you get out of it?
As I said the most helpful threads seem to be heavily outdated. I would also donate some BTC for really helpful advice but at the moment I have none Maybe I´ll start mining and if so, I´ll think back to this thread and donate some.

Thanks in advance and greets,
exI

Also what about the jalapeno?

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[AmazonStuff]

Jalapeno is a product of ButterflyLabs. It's a specialized hardware for BTC mining with a 3.5 GH/s, it's energy effective compared to GPU and it cost's $149. Read more about it and other products at:
http://www.butterflylabs.com/products/

[expansioN]

Hmm this sounds good. So more or less the Jalapeno is the best start. 3,5 gh/s for (overall + shipping) about 200$. But isn´t this until October or so?

(Also your post sounds like Spam lol)

[Shadow383]

You've probably missed the boat  

I mine as a way to make some of the money back on awesome gaming hardware.

For example, my current machine I could never justify to myself if it weren't giving me ~$250 per month, it might not get a chance to pay for itself before ASICs hit the market (which won't be October - BFL has never done anything on time and they aren't about to start now...) but it'll pay off some of the hardware cost, and then if mining becomes unprofitable on it I can sell off the hardware since it's still amazing gaming gear.

If you're going to start GPU mining, go 5970 or 7970, since either can be undervolted for amazing Mh/W performance. By playing with the voltages on my 7970s I can go from 480Mhash at 6Mh/W to 540Mhash at 5Mh/W, all the way to 710Mhash at ~2.25Mh/W 

[Kluge]

ETA: Oh -- what that guy said ^

Probably a bad time to start unless you have no problem losing as much as you're putting in (though not so much the case with GPUs). Either way you could go is risky.

ASICs like BFL's may come in October. - Or they may not. They have a terrible track record with shipping in a reasonable amount of time and have already announced a lottery scheme as part of ordering their shipment queue. You've probably already missed the boat for receiving an ASIC from BFL in 2012. Additionally, it'll be very difficult to guesstimate how many multitudes difficulty will increase by the time you get your unit. Additionally, all that cash you have tied up for months in a pre-order has an opportunity cost (in this case, it could easily be what you could have mined for 4-8 months on a GPU or FPGA). OTOH, ASIC units will likely be the only significantly profitable pieces of mining hardware in mid-2013.

GPUs, you can purchase now, but they're fairly expensive to run (if you pay much over $.12/kWh, forget it), and once ASICs are out in the wild in significant numbers, your GPU will be near-worthless for BTC mining. OTOH, GPUs will have resale value beyond Bitcoin. It doesn't really matter what the BTC difficulty is, you can resell them for a fair amount of what you paid. This will not be the case for ASICs unless you sell them before they're "too" obsoleted by future generations, or perhaps the first-gen unit of one of the other hopeful ASIC producers.

Block reward will also be halving, likely before the end of 2012. Difficulty will be increasing by multitudes, reward will be decreasing by 50%. Hard to recommend unless you like taking shots in the dark.

[SaintFlow]

I think you are Ok informed.

Certainly the numbers are no longer accurate.

With ASICs around the corner ANY move you make right now is very speculative and you do take quite a bit of risk.
Making any 10 month commitment - including buying Bitcoins at current market rate IS SPECULATION.

Bottom line is: GPUs are still bringing in some money. Certainly not 800-900$ per month.
So if you already have everything at home besides the right GPU buying a USED mining-grade card
especially if you have use for it besides mining is still something to look at with a good risk benefit ratio.

Alternative is buying share on the Global Bitcoin Stock Exchange (GLBSE.com) of a mining company. But you run
risk of lower returns and falling stock prices, too.

[Alwaysmining]

The more cards you stack the more profitable you end up being. You cant really just run 2 cards at a profit.

[drakahn]

Think of it as buying bitcoins at the price of electricity, and if you think bitcoins will go up in price, then mining becomes more worth it, once it gets to costing more in electricity than buying, i buy instead of mine, but right now its cheaper to mine than to buy on crypto

[AmazonStuff]

Hmm this sounds good. So more or less the Jalapeno is the best start. 3,5 gh/s for (overall + shipping) about 200$. But isn´t this until October or so?

(Also your post sounds like Spam lol)

Yes, I always try to give academic explanation and it always sounds boring 

[zvs]

if you have a motherboard that has 3 pci-e slots, you could buy three 5830's (or 5870's, or maybe 5970's, havent checked in a month or two) and make a profit, assuming you dont blow out any of your equipment or buy duds

you still probably could, if you put together a system properly.  i.e. near worthless CPU, linux on a USB flash drive, 2GB ram, etc.  could get a decent motherboard for a moderate price.  though I wouldn't skimp on the PSU

i wouldn't bother unless you pay less than 10c for electricity at this point

[expansioN]

"shot in the dark" and "really speculative" doesn't sound good in my ears. If I could get a really cheap system I would definitly try it. But as far I could think it doesn't seem to be a good idea. I have a bit bad feelings about this. Well I have a friend with amd I'll ask him to try it. Maybe I can get some spare bitcoins from him 

Hmm I think I'll go back to adsense and affiliate marketing for my extra pocket money (adsense works great for me) Maybe I can manage to get my second project to get off, it is possible that it gets huge.

Meh too much the offtopic... thanks for advice and happy mining.

[lanternblue]

just do the math and stop asking ridiculous questions