Topic: Are GPUs still relevant and for how long - page 3. (Read 10835 times)

oh texas, only you would charge more for conserving energy.

texas

by using a different plan, with a guarantee to use x amount of kilowatts

i.e. plan A charges you $20 a month (flat fee) and 6c per kWh

plan B charges you $50 a month (flat fee) and 5c per kWh, provided you use a minimum of 3000 kWh.  if you don't, you get billed for 3000.  if you use 3000, it's a wash.  if you use more than 3000, then it's a discount

ed:

ok, i just checked.  plan A is $20 per month, the next one is $40 per month.  there's also one where there's a 'minimum bill' of $500, where you can get electricity for 4.16c/kWh, that may be business only though

Hard to tell. I think there are at least FPGA development efforts already underway. If LTC hangs around and becomes significantly more profitable than BTC due to hashrate not increasing as quickly as BTC, there might be incentive to do an ASIC run.


Yes, eventually all GPU miners will switch to scrypt as BTC hashrate rises and LTC and other scrypt coins become more profitable. That is, unless it doesn't become more profitable.


Huh? All cryptos become easier to come by as they get mined (there is more in circulation). Difficulty adjusts to keep production constant--I don't understand the logic here.


Absolutely. Just as people gamble (and expect to lose), this can be a fun gamble as well. Personally, I'm trying to invest only in opportunities that appear to have a positive ROI. But everyone is different!

Mine scrypt...

I highly doubt there will ever be an ASIC for scrypt, so GPUs are going to be the norm for scrypt mining.

The main question is will ASIC mining of BTC kill all cryptocurrencies?  It could because it will force people who are still using GPUs to mine SHA256(BTC) to switch to Scrypt(LTC) if they want to make any coin.  This will just make LTC/FTC/etc more difficult to come by.

I just started mining last month, but overall I have only put in $140 to my "rig".  I bought a 5850 for $80 and a 850W PSU for $60, and slapped them into my PC with a 6950 I already had.  I get about 800MHash/s for BTC (800KHash/s for scrypt).

I've only made like $30 so far, and will likely piss that away with gambling, but I did it more for fun and experimentation. 

My advice:  Don't buy new hardware if you can avoid it.  Spend $60-80 on a 5850 instead of $300 on a 7950 unless you just have a lot of extra income OR you want to upgrade your graphics card anyways.

I plan on getting a 7950 or 7970 next month but that will be going in another desktop that I will only mine with while I sleep/work. 

I'm a n00b though, so I could be wrong, but I think there is still profit to make here.  A lot of people pay some ridiculous amounts for electricity, too.  I'm in Texas and pay $0.06/kwh... so it costs about $40 to leave my computer on all month. On average, I make ~$2-3/day right now, so I get a small profit, but it's not really about the money for me as much as it is the experience. 

It's a way better hobby than smoking rock and playing dice.

Did anyone notice the drop in hash rate? Could it be some GPU miners backing out after the difficulty change?

http://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate

From a post above in this thread:

"why not buy and sell some of those asicminer usbs on ebay? make double your money that way

It's a good idea but apparently Ebay is canceling auctions related to Bitcoin mining."

To be more specific, Ebay has cancelled AN auction related to Bitcoin mining.

where/how?

i get discounts for using more electricity

Rather then jumping around I think it's a good bet to bet on one or two coins and put your power there.

See returns? Yes, you may see a few mincoins in a few hours, becuase they're worth 0.000437 BTC each. You'd need nearly 2300 for 1 BTC. According to coinchoose, it is not really any more profitable to mine altcoins--Mincoin may be 200% of BTC right now, but it has averaged only 90% of the profitability. As more people join pools like multipool.in, it will ensure that whack-a-mole is played more effectively, knocking down the most profitable altcoin.

Mine alt-coins... save power and make real money... BTC is dead to GPU's...

We are all moving or have moved to alt-coins...

Litecoins
Feathercoins
Novacoins
Worldcoins
Mincoins
Digicoins
Memecoins
Fastcoins
etc...

Places like www.Multipool.in have ports that simply mine whatever coin is the most "profitable" those few minutes. (Eg, lowest Diff and highest trade-value. Port 7777 I believe. Average value is greater than 120% of BTC, and up to 210% on some coins, when they sell. EG, if mining BTC earns you $100, these earn you $120-$210 when you mine them.)

Or, jump on a coin of your choice.

Great solo-mine coins are... (You actually see returns within hours, not days.)
Memecoin
Fastcoin
Mincoin
Worldcoin

The others are sort-of pool dependent, for the best value, over solo mining. (The diff is higher and you get more on average from pools.)

Got my electricity bill.  Tier 2!  After all the extra fees, ECA_VEA_CRPSEA_CRPSEA, etc  The per kw/h comes to around 0.22399 plus 10% of the subtotal.  So friggin expensive in california.

Right now I'm barely making profit.  Probably won't be mining for much longer

Mine scrypt for now.  It will keep profitability at least for alittle.  I'm waiting for the difficulty to stabilize after the majority of asics are shipped (or turn out to be scams) then sell my gpus and buy an asic or whatever will be equivalent then.

I tend to agree.

It means you should move out of CA.

Just got my first electricity bill.

Surprise! PG&E Tiered Rates!

Baseline	$0.13 per kWh
Tier 2	$0.15 per kWh
Tier 3	$0.31 per kWh
Tier 4	$0.35 per kWh
Tier 5	$0.35 per kWh

I blasted all the way to Tier 5. That means I win? Right?

My own fault for not knowing.
Mining has officially become a labor of love.
Or collecting BTC.

I have been running the math - My GPU rig is now at 100% break-even with 8.5 cents/KWh, $101/BTC and difficulty at 15.8M.  Difficulty will be at 19M by Monday morning.  Unless BTC goes to $120, I'm pullin' the plug and putting it all on Ebay.  If you still think GPUs are relevant, you can bid for it there.

Now I just need to wait for the BFL stuff to materialize on my doorstep.  I'm hoping that the hashrate is below 300T and that Hell is still warmer than Texas (i.e. not frozen over) when that eventually happens.

In looking at prices for ASIC-Miner "block-erupter" cards, they are about the same cost in $/MH/s as Radeon cards.  Their only benefit is power savings.  It's hard to recover $5,000.00 in power savings while the hashrate heads moonward. 

Litecoins are less profitable than BTC over the last week. I don't understand your "too difficult" comment re: BTC.

Sometime Sunday, difficulty is going to jump about 23%, to 19.2 million (the last jump was 28%). That will bring the average 650 MH/s GPU down to about $1.04 per day after electric. Around June 29, the difficulty will likely jump to 23 million or so, which will bring profit down to $0.73 per day. The BTC price dropping to ~$100 is not helping at all.

Plugging in a new 650MH/s GPU today will likely yield less than $50 (0.45 BTC) in mining profits over the life of the card at 20% difficulty increases (which is probably optimistic). By September at the latest, GPUs will cost more to run than they produce.

Pretty irrelevant if you asked me. FPGAs are also irrelevant.

Wow what a great thread - excellent arguments from both camps and in good humor....well sorta 

Update:

I did take the plunge and as anticipated I am not going to be making my fortune but I am having fun, I am currently mining litecoins, though have tried bitcoin (too difficult) and I did take advantage of FTCs little bubble recently.

Please keep the discussion going I was thrilled to come back and see how much it had grown in a productive way.