Just out of interest... Bitcoin mining

[Darujhistan]

A complete waste of time.

 

[andybird123]

If you have an nVidia card as per your forum sig, it's not really worth it. AMD GPUs are much better for mining due to the higher number of shaders they have.

even then, with dedicated hardware becoming available for the same price that has 5-10 times the hashing power of an AMD card, it is becoming pointless to try bitcoin mining, and even litecoin mining is barely profitable (unless the price spikes - but equally it can and does tumble)

 

[Sasahara]

I find it all quite repulsive tbh. People complaining that folding would use too much power but as soon as they have a chance to make some money they do the same thing.

I wouldn't mind if the computation was towards a good cause. Is it?

Do you find everyone earning money repulsive if they don't give it away?

You could mine bitcoins and give the profits to charity if you want to help a good cause.

 

[Bodom]

Was thinking about this myself got my old c2q lying around somewhere needs a new mobo though then I was thinking a 7950 but would it be worth it?

 

[andybird123]

no, just buy a butterfly, cheaper and much much faster

 

[Puppetmaster]

even then, with dedicated hardware becoming available for the same price that has 5-10 times the hashing power of an AMD card, it is becoming pointless to try bitcoin mining, and even litecoin mining is barely profitable (unless the price spikes - but equally it can and does tumble)

But dedicated hardware isnt becoming available. Butterfly labs claim to be shipping around 5 - 10 units a day (I dont believe that) so it will be a long time before they are actually available to buy without waiting 3 - 12 months. Added to that, Asic units will be pretty worthless when the mining speeds are insignificant. Graphics cards however will still have some value for gaming.

At this stage, if you have a decent enough graphics setup, you can profit from it. Even more so if you don't have to pay for electric costs.

no, just buy a butterfly, cheaper and much much faster

Sure you can spent $300 and pre order one, but you might we waiting ages before you actually get one and at that point, it might not be profitable. Added to the fact that Butterfly labs don't have to refund you and there is no way you can get your money back should it be a scam.

 

[andybird123]

At this stage, if you have a decent enough graphics setup, you can profit from it. Even more so if you don't have to pay for electric costs.

at the current rates, you barely make more than the cost of electricity
so if you are bit mining using someone else's electricity then you are basically just stealing money from the person that pays the bills

buying a new graphics card now for this purpose (as the person I replied to was asking), you aren't likely to make back the cost of the card itself

butterfly have been giving refunds to people who have asked for one, there's no refunds once you recieve your product though
looking at the photos of the products being made, I was under the impression that they were very close to being shipped
I know the avalon ones have started shipping and are online, having already increased the difficulty

 

[varkanoid]

boring now move onto the right forum.

 

[555BUK]

Rates always go down, requirements always go up. It may be possible to "make some money back" by purchasing efficient GPU's with sufficient performance, but they will rarely pay for themselves. 2x 7870's for example may make ~£30 per month, but will cost 6kW of electricity per day (about 80p). 30 x 80p equals £24, so you could make £6, but only until rates drop.

Mining just reduces the life of you PC, sucks lots of dust into system, and kills trees. If it was easy money there would be warehouses full of systems raking it in. At the start it was possible to make a little money, but now it is just a Ponzi scheme for geeks.

 

[Puppetmaster]

so if you mine for 6 months your graphics card is now worth £0? It will still have a resale value. Also the value of bit coins may rise over time as difficulty increases. You could mine now and sell later potentially making more money. Graphics cards can also be used for gaming as well.

at the current rates, you barely make more than the cost of electricity
so if you are bit mining using someone else's electricity then you are basically just stealing money from the person that pays the bills

buying a new graphics card now for this purpose (as the person I replied to was asking), you aren't likely to make back the cost of the card itself

butterfly have been giving refunds to people who have asked for one, there's no refunds once you recieve your product though
looking at the photos of the products being made, I was under the impression that they were very close to being shipped
I know the avalon ones have started shipping and are online, having already increased the difficulty

Butterfly labs state on their own website that all sales are final. Sure right now you might get a refund but what if 50% of their orders try to get a refund. I cant see them honoring that as they have no need to. You cant just do a chargeback and get your money back.

But I still feel the need to point out that you cannot just logon to their website and purchase one for delivery. You have to pre order and they have not specific dates of delivery. If you knew anything about them you would know they are constantly pushing back dates and never have anything solid that can be relied upon.

 

[Darujhistan]

No such thing as a free lunch...

 

[imginy]

Rates always go down, requirements always go up. It may be possible to "make some money back" by purchasing efficient GPU's with sufficient performance, but they will rarely pay for themselves. 2x 7870's for example may make ~£30 per month, but will cost 6kW of electricity per day (about 80p). 30 x 80p equals £24, so you could make £6, but only until rates drop.

Your got your number wrong there.

2x 7870 will give a hashrate of 800kh on ltc and 800kh will give you 51 ltc a month and 51ltc currently sells for $156

So that's £101 a month minus electric,

 

[Yaayuh!]

Your got your number wrong there.

2x 7870 will give a hashrate of 800kh on ltc and 800kh will give you 51 ltc a month and 51ltc currently sells for $156

So that's £101 a month minus electric,

And the 7870s would cost £360 so it'll take at least 4 months of constant mining until you make profit?
Is that how it works out?

 

[andybird123]

Your got your number wrong there.

2x 7870 will give a hashrate of 800kh on ltc and 800kh will give you 51 ltc a month and 51ltc currently sells for $156

So that's £101 a month minus electric,

it's more like 40 coins at the current rate, so more like $120, which is £79, or £55 after electicity - and that assumes that today's rate on litecoins is stable, it has been as high as $6 and as low as $1.50 in even the last few month

and it also assumes that the difficulty remains the same, which is doesn't, it increases as more people move their hardware over to litecoins instead of bitcoins

my point being, if you have hardware sitting doing nothing anyway, then yeah, do it for a laugh, but don't bank on actually making any money from it

oh, and then, when you actually sell the coins on an exchange, there's no easy way to transfer the money to your bank account without incurring significant charges

 

[Catanonia]

The way I see it is that the mining pays for the upgrades of my GPU whilst it is idle at home.

I started with 1 x 7950, bought another and now I have a 7990. By the time I sell the 2 x 7990, sold the free games and combined the mining profits (if I sold) in 5 months I would have nearly paid for the 7990 give or take.

Of course this all depends on your leccy costs and the price of LTC in the market place.

My Sapphire 7950's gave me 620 k/hashes. I have just sold a faulty 7950 that artefacted on games but was perfect for mining for £160 on the bay. I have my other perfectly good one for sale soon and expect to get just over £200 for it as it is almost new and VaporX

My 7990 gets me 1,460 k/hashes (730 per GPU) and is my end GPU unless I get another.

 

[Puppetmaster]

It costs me €0.90 to do a bank transfer on bit stamp. Hardly a significant cost on $100's. For lite coins you can sell on btce for bit coins send to bit stamp and sell there.

 

[imginy]

it's more like 40 coins at the current rate, so more like $120, which is £79, or £55 after electicity - and that assumes that today's rate on litecoins is stable, it has been as high as $6 and as low as $1.50 in even the last few month

and it also assumes that the difficulty remains the same, which is doesn't, it increases as more people move their hardware over to litecoins instead of bitcoins

my point being, if you have hardware sitting doing nothing anyway, then yeah, do it for a laugh, but don't bank on actually making any money from it

oh, and then, when you actually sell the coins on an exchange, there's no easy way to transfer the money to your bank account without incurring significant charges

Yes your right the difficulty on my pools calculator was set to 400 instead of 500.

Your right about transfers as well I sent £85 back from japan last week and only got £72 so I wont be using that method again.

If you need a card anyway for gaming I think mining gives you a good reason to spend more on a better one

It costs me €0.90 to do a bank transfer on bit stamp. Hardly a significant cost on $100's. For lite coins you can sell on btce for bit coins send to bit stamp and sell there.

thanks for the tip

 

[trisp]

Gpu's really arent the way to go anymore sadly

I would buy a 250 dollar 5ghs machine as you will get the money back within a week pretty much and they use 30-50 watt's compared to a ati card that use 300 odd?

 

[Puppetmaster]

Gpu's really arent the way to go anymore sadly

I would buy a 250 dollar 5ghs machine as you will get the money back within a week pretty much and they use 30-50 watt's compared to a ati card that use 300 odd?

But you wont get that for ages (or maybe ever). Also @ the current value of $119 per BTC and difficulty it would take you more than a week to make it back. A week makes you $188 and the cheapest butterfly labs sell is $274. So looking at more likely 1 1/2 weeks. By the time you would actually get it (minimum july) the value / difficulty will probably have changed. Atleast with GPU's you can use them for gaming / other pc's and even sell them on afterwards.

 

[Kaapstad]

I don't understand bit coin mining

If people can mine bitcoins, who is putting the money in the system in the first place and why would they give away large sums of money.