Topic: Antminer s1 ($130 a piece) Worth it??? (Read 2636 times)

Well... I understand your point of view.

I still think that buying S1 miners in a price of $130 when you need also to pay for electricity is not reasonable and it is far from being profitable.

I told before  that to gain  0.1BTC profit while mining with $130 S1 will take forever because well... you can calculate it on your own

If you want to know which company in my opinion is very reliable and are selling good contracts ---

my example will be "bitmarket.pl" - well .. they are offering LTC contracts but you can always exchange your LTC into BTC after all.
Bitmarket.pl is a branch of "AfterMarket.pl"   -- est. 2006.

And there are few companies that I would also give a trust but I don't want to advertise as I cannot be 100% about others - as about bitmarket.pl I am 10000% sure.

Anyway. I won't change my mind that mining with S1 even 6x S1 is mining for support/fun/learn/etc.


Regards.

I'm confused... are you selling the S1s, or trying to purchase them?  That's the way of the mining world, my friend.  Equipment is pretty much obsolete the minute it is initially sold, and becomes even more so as time progresses.  Those S1s were absolutely great machines in November/December of last year and in fact were pretty much responsible for about 20% of the entire hashing power on the network if you can believe Bitmain's claims.  Now, 9 months down the road, they're last-gen tech.  Bitmain has replaced them with a newer model that gets over twice the hashing speed for less power consumption.

Will those S1s still earn you something?  Sure.  Are they going to be a magic money maker that drops $100 a day into your pocket?  Not a freaking chance.  If that's what you're looking for, those days are gone unless you're a corporate entity with enough purchasing power to get a boatload of miners on the cheap from the manufacturer... or you're the manufacturer.

If you've got enough cash to grab 3 S1s at $130 each, save up just a bit more and pick up an S3.

hmmm. if that is the case I am not feeling to happy about my deal now. =/ 3 month old machines and I barely going to get anything out of them if it go up in difficulty. Well if i was to sell that local with 500watt PSU and 485watt PSU both 80 Plus Bronze. What would be a good price to ask for all of that?

Mining calculators are your friend

2 S1s get you 360GH/s stock.  Right now, that expects to earn you 0.009663BTC a day.  In about 3 days, that's going to change.  Current projects are about 6% increase in difficulty (which can and likely will change).  For the sake of this discussion, we'll go with the current predicted difficulty jump.  That same 360GH/s will earn you 0.009129BTC a day.

The S3 goes for 0.68BTC from Bitmain.  Assuming you could order just 1 (MOQ from them is 2), and also assuming a VERY modest difficulty adjustment of 5% a jump, you can expect those 2 S1s to have earned you enough BTC to buy an S3... never.  They will eventually make more than the $260 you'd need to put out for their purchase (right around the middle of November), but they'll never make that back plus the 0.68BTC to purchase an S3 before they cost more in electricity to run than the BTC they produce.

So, either you're going to pull the trigger on the S1s now and disregard the thought of them mining enough BTC to get you an S3, or you'll save up and grab an S3 when you've got the funds.

Thanks guys my avg town electric is 0.09 - 0.10 is that okay for S1? and is it worth getting 2 more S1 or just save to grab 2x S3 instead? I just think it will take a while to get one S3 with 2x S1 don't you guys think?

The way I see it is so many people told me it is not profitable to mine with the s1's but I am running a bunch of them and I am making profit because I have stupid cheap electricity. But in my opinion run them s1's to make enough to buy some s3's or turn around and resell them on ebay for $190 a piece because people are still dumb enough to pay that much for them. I recently started investing in the s3's because its the better thing to do. Just don't listen to the people that say its not profitable because it is, just make sure your electric is not dumb expensive.

I'm currently running 4 S1s and 4 S3s in my basement with no problems with heat. The room temp is 85F, and the only thing I did was add a 2nd fan to each of the S1s. If you plan to move the miners to bedrooms as the weather gets colder, you need to know that S1s are quite loud. S3s generate a lot less noise and heat. I'm in the process of replacing my S1s with S3s since I can run 4 S3s on a 1500W PSU.

As I said, if you can find some way to vent them directly out of a window you'll be good.  If not, putting a fan on them will just be circulating air that is getting hotter and hotter.  And since it's in a basement, that hot air will eventually make it's way upstairs.

Hey Thanks for the information much appreciated. I am just hopping that having 2x S1 for $200 hopefully was not a bad idea since most people were telling me, I should had gone the S3 route right way. My worried would had been burning those S3 and now having a debt with no way to generate money. So, I trying to play it a bit safe here by getting 2x S1, an trying to keep them cool using a direct fan and messing around with the settings etc... I ended up purchasing a room temp digital meter to keep track of unit ambient temps. Other than that if the S1 manage to get ROI, I will then put an order for 2x S3. I have to first see if they will or not.

The basement room temps so far has been 82 degree in the day and 75 degree by morning with no devices running there. I may need a fan if I run both S1 from there. In the winter, I will put the S1 on each of the kids rooms as space heaters. XD and have the other on my room that way I can drop the house overall heating down at night. =)

Well we are all allowed our opinions, I just think that yours was way off point.  The OP is a miner who is very familiar with GPU mining and moving into the ASIC realm.  Why would he have a need for mining contracts and cloud hashing (which happens to be in your sig - your bias is showing) which quite often pray on the uninformed or people who are technically challenged.  If you can run GPUs to mine ASICs are a joke for the most part.  He is very well capable of figuring out profitability.

I referred to you as a child because you said it would take "forever" to earn 0.1BTC.  Who is that impatient to make a doubling on their income other than teenagers?  Hell if I could double my money every year since I was 18 I could buy out every crypto there was.

You are the one not thinking reasonably.  Mining contracts as you refer to them aka cloud hashing has not proven itself as reliable.  Show me one company that has been around for 1 year.  Show me one company that has positive ROI.  Bitmain S1s have been proven to work reliably even in adverse condition.

Then you bring about this complaint about having to "configure, clean, connect, take care of etc" the miners - again read the OP - he ran 17 GPUs - this isn't his first rodeo.  If he said he was tired of the heat and the noise then promoting cloud mining might make sense.

Since you're so sure of cloud mining would you care to take a 10BTC bet with escrow that whatever company you choose will not fail, die, run away and will have + ROI during the contact period?

"I see we are letting children make financial decisions"
Who do you call a child ? and who make any financial decision
You act like a kid because we are just talking about something and we all have a right to say what we think. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything. Haven't you saw that?

Think reasonably. There are many good contracts and some of the companies are very reliable.
In some cases ROI from a contract is much much better than from S1 .... which you will need to configure, clean, connect, take care of etc. and as the result you will gain few $ after a year if your hardware will not fail =] ... GREAT deal - you are right - please make sure that you will never give me any advices


If you want to mine for FUN / SUPPORT / etc.  not for a profit then S1 in a price of $130 will be just great!

Kind regards.

I live in FL.  I have a "Florida Room" on the back of the house that is not well-insulated, only has one AC vent, and I keep it closed year round (unless we have guests trying to sleep back there.  I have 2xS1 and 2xS3 mining happily back there 24x7 venting directly out the window.  The room easily get's over 90 deg F almost every day, and they do not care.  The S3's have a slight overclock to 225, and BTCGuild hourly charts show they both fluctuate between 440GH and 480GH.  The S1's are currently underclocked and undervolted (as I mentioned previously in this thread), but before I got my S3's, the S1's were both overclocked averaging 195GH each (@387.5Mhz).  The only troubles I've had with them were entirely power related.  Lesson is, make sure your PSU(s) can handle the constant load, and make sure your home's electrical circuitry can handle the load.  I recently got new cables in that allow me to put my miners on an extra 220v circuit that I was fortunate enough to have back there.  Doubling the voltage halves the Amps required for the same power, and supposedly PSU's are more efficient at the higher voltage too. 

That being said, keep being careful, and don't blame me if you burn out your miners.  Just make sure you can properly vent the heat they produce, or any room with or w/o proper AC will be hard to keep cool.

I got two S1 for $200 with free shipping only 3 months old. I got those to learn this bitcoin stuff and to see if it can pay itself back. If so, I will go straight for 2x S3 as soon I get the chance. I am not sure if I will be able to save up $540 for an S3 mining with those two S1.

Also I was worried to put that kind of money $500+ into something I am yet sure how it all works. Plus the room that it will go in I will need to find a stable temp or if I need to add fans etc... I would hate to burn new S3 testing so my S1 are my testers.

I see we are letting children make financial decisions now... instant gratification types. So you would rather put money into a mining contract where the company could run away next month with your up-front fee rather than buy hardware and have it in hand?

It still can supply 140GH efficiently for around $100.  The link in your signature costs $150 for 100GH (plus maintenance fees).

In this case I think it is better to pay $100 for a mining contract than to buy S1...


S1 is old ... and to earn 0.1BTC it will take forever ...


I would invest those $$$ into a contract or raise founds and buy S3 :]

I guess you can take whatever it is, as long as you profit in a few months and could return on investment

I also want to buy s3, but go to my country would be very expensive yet tax and others here are very expensive so I think 2 times to the

Keep in mind, it is possible to undervolt and underclock the S1 and keep it mining profitably for a while to come.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/guide-undervolt-antminer-s1-119wgh-at-the-wall-526060

I was able to get my two S1 miners to hash stably at 130 GH and 150W each.  Others have managed a 140GH and 166w.  Still not as great as the S3's efficiency, but quite respectable for last gen gear.  And it was a very easy and totally free (assuming you have multi-meter that can measure voltage and kOhms) and reversible mod.


I'd say adaryian was right. $130 seems a bit steep.   For an in-person transaction $100 might be a more fair price.  2xS3's are only about $800, or 5xS1's from this guy is about $650, requiring more power supplies and electricity.  And to truly make them economical, you can really only get about 650-700GH (by undervolting as I suggested), compared to 880GH minimum from 2xS3's.  However, $500 for 650GH of last gen mining gear isn't too shabby, assuming you can come up with power supplies cheaply enough.

I really appreciate the effort you put into your response, and thank you for not immediate jumping on the whole "OMG IT WILL NEVER ROI, NOTHING WILL EVER ROI MINING IS DEAD STFU OMG!!" bandwagon. I am not looking for immediate profit, I love mining, and I love supporting the bitcoin network/community. Even if they don't ROI, I will have had fun and made at least something back, and hopefully btc will go up in value when I have a nice stash, and a good little savings account for when I'm older.

Thanks again!

You're certainly correct on the power usage of the S1.  Stock clocks call for 360W at the wall.  Most everyone reported the S1 consumed at least that amount.  Overclocked, and you're 400 plus.  The S3 is 340W at the wall for 440GH/s.  Less power, about 2.5 times the hash.

Thank you very much for all of your replies.

I am not new to mining, I am a GPU miner, who is selling his 17 GPUs and moving into the ASIC realm.

My reasons for mining are to hold, and hopefully have a decent savings later on in life. (unfortunately I have had many issues come up recently that forced me to sell every coin I have made, which would have been around 20 BTC, this is very upsetting, but life goes on)

I think, after this post and many others reading, that I am going to wait until I sell my hardware, and pick up some s3's, it seems like the best way to go, as no, I don't have free power, but I do have relatively cheap power, and a really nice circuit in my house that's capable of running quite a bit of hardware.


The s1's I am speaking of are a local deal, so there would be no shipping.

I just think that the power usage of the s1's is too high, and that getting s3's is a better idea.

Thanks again everyone who replied!

Well, let's take a look at some numbers.  First, a few assumptions: You pay 0.00017BTC per kWh, difficulty will jump 10% every 2016 blocks, BTC remains at $600 for the duration (mostly so I don't have to use variable rates for power) and you can start mining immediately (pretending you have the S1 in hand right now).  Also, I'm going to assume the price of the S3 drops to 0.6BTC in a month and you start mining with it on 9/1.  Oh, and I also assume you already have a PSU capable of driving the units.

S1
Up front cost is 0.22BTC
Expected ROI after a month: -0.1267BTC
Expected ROI at EoL (1/14/2015): 0.004746BTC

S3
Up front cost is 1.2BTC (MOQ from Bitmain is 2)
Expected ROI after a month: -0.7747BTC
Expected ROI at EoL (5/27/2015): 0.3253BTC

Take this analysis with a grain of salt - I assumed a few things that may or may not happen (especially the constant 10% difficulty increase).

If it's $130 shipped it's not highway robbery.  But if it's $130 before shipping then I'd look elsewhere as I know there are others, especially on this forum who would  part with their S1's for that price or cheaper.  Just keep looking around in the Marketplace here on Bitcointalk and don't forget to get an Escrow!

Pure and simple it's throwing your money tough the window. It would be better for you just to buy BTC with $$$ and hold, or if you really want to spend that money for nothing, than give it away to charity.

Give it try , Not bad deal, and if you still don't like it in near future you can always sell it over ebay with international shipping option

Depends on reasons why you want to mine. Most will say you won't get ROI. Some will say it would be a decent way to give mining a try.
It's not be biggest of investment (well hopefully its not for you) ... I say do it.

Do you have free electricity? if not then it would not be worth it even if it is $50..

I'd try and work the price down a little bit. $100 would be worth it for each miner.

IMO the S1 should be around $100 us. Do not pay more for an older model. Get a good power supply for them and you should be ready to go.

I have the opportunity to acquire 5 antminer s1's for 130 dollars a piece. I am simply looking for advice here as to whether you guys would go for it, or wait a little while and buy some s3's? Those are my two options, I know the s3's would be better on power, but overall what do you think, should I go for the s1's or pick up some s3's about a month down the road?

Thank you in advance for your opinions!

-crowetic