Topic: Beginner Questions (Read 297 times)

I'm not arguing with you. I was posting for the benefit of the OP.

You are wrong. This is what I said


It's common sense that both GPUs and ASIC or even CPUs have things in common, from choosing the right coin, the pool and creating a wallet, I stated that clearly


Now for the things that are ASIC-Only-Related, mining with a GPU teaches you absolutely NOTHING about ASICs (not mining), I think I made that clear enough, I am not responsible for any miscomprehension or cherry-picking.

You sure did.

In a reply to a suggestion not to buy an ASIC you stated, quite emphatically, there was little to be
learned from GPU mining and that he should start with an old ASIC first.

That's quite the opposite of learn before buying.

If you are computer savvy then there is little difference for you when dealing with a GPU rig or with an ASIC farm. However for many non-savvy people the difference is as day and night.

I helped a few people in the past set up some ASICs, basically they figured it out in probably less than 5 minutes. What took the longest was setting up the pool, checking stats, etc. We never fiddled around with the frequency or voltage settings on the ASICs, just left it stock.

Then they wanted to go the GPU route because it was more profitable and it was very difficult teaching them. It was easy when they just wanted 1 GPU and you just needed to show how Claymore works and mod the GPUs. However it became difficult when they wanted 6 GPUs per rig, using 2 PSUs, with risers, etc.

So there is a difference between the two.

Then why buy a GPU and ONLY then buy an ASIC miner? obviously one should learn about mining before investing in it, that's common sense, my argument is that the point of "go GPU and then go ASIC" when initially you want to mine with an ASIC is an unnecessary step.


Again, I did not say anything that goes against this statement, I 100% agree to it, it's missing one single part IMO and it should be


Please allow me to shed some light on the fact that GPU mining is NOT cheaper than ASIC mining, buying a second-hand S9 is probably cheaper than buying the cheapest GPU rig available, at worst case scenario - cost is equally similar, so there are no advantages in terms of the initial cost here, and since the price factor is out of the equation, the leaning process or say the closest thing to "Plug and Play" as OP wants it to be, there is no argument that setting up and ASIC takes less than half the time you need to set up a GPU miner, I mean its almost a plug and play for the most part, if you count the steps from unboxing to payouts you will understand why ASIC miners are way easier to work with but if you want me to go into great details on how one can set up 5 miners at the same duration they need to assemble a single GPU rig, let me know although I think that is common sense.

With that being said, if you happen to actually own a GPU, even an old one that hashes a few hashes above zero, you should certainly play with it before buying any mining equipment regardless of what it is, and honestly, with all the information available online, it's pretty easy to read and understand MOST of what you need without even trying.

I respectfully disagree. There's a lot more to learn about mining than the type of hardware used to do it.
The point is to learn as much as possible before spending on an ASIC so you can make an informed purchase
when the time comes.

Don't send any money to Bithull, they will scam you.


I would argue that setting up an ASIC miner is a lot simpler than mining with a GPU even at Nicehash, I own both ASICs and GPUs and when I started mining with GPUs I was far from a beginner in terms of dealing with hardware, and I can tell you it was not really too easy, with MOST GPUs overclocking is a must, and then you get to the part where you have to configure Claymore and all that, I am not claiming it's rocket science, it's doable pretty much by anyone who understands how to install a driver but IMO mining with an ASIC is simpler and easier by a few steps.

Another thing I would like to mention is that in most cases mining with a GPU doesn't really teach a thing about mining with an ASIC, aside from picking the right pool and all that, the experience is TOTALLY different, the difference between a GPU miner and someone who never mined with a GPU is little to nothing when it comes to having an ASIC, so in general, I am against this theory of start with a GPU then move to ASIC, I used to think it works but now I don't anymore.

My advice is that if you want to end up owning an ASIC miner, start with an ASIC miner, there are no short-cuts, the only thing you could do to reduce the risk is by starting with small and cheap gear, even if you mine at loss for a while, once you know how to treat an ASIC, then try to grow.

All of the above worth much less if your power rate is not competitive enough, in my humble opinion, anyone who has a power rate above 6-7 cents per Kwh should discard mining altogether, that's not a solid rule, maybe not even agreed upon by so many people, but that way I see it is that mining, in a nutshell, is a "power rate competition", when the average rate for huge farms is 2-5 cents, how does one expect to beat them long term with 8 or 15 cents? I just don't see that happens unless you want to count on your luck, which in that case you should probably just buy crypto and hodl it.

There is no legit real miner with that kind of hashing power presently, I suspect it's scammers at work, be careful and do your own research carefully, better off buying from bitmain or other popular asic companies

Those questions are for another part of this forum. You should disable CPU mining as it is not that profitable unless it is powerful enough and mining RandomX.

And yes, it takes a lot of time if you are benchmarking every possible algorithm in Nicehash. Just let it do it as you should only do it once.

Ok, i just started by using nicehash.
Is it normal that it takes verry long to benchmark the graphics card?
(Allready 10 minutes)

At the moment it mines with the cpu (0.00680 mBTC a day )
and the graphic card (RTX 2070 Super) is still in benchmarking mode...

mocacinno gave you a good thread to read, but I wouldn't suggest you to buy ASIC right now with your amount of knowledge, as they are not really PLUG-n-PLAY, you must know how to choose pools, make pool account, choose wallet, make wallet, connect ASIC to pool, and connect pool to wallet (that is simply said). For now, I'd recommend you to do some GPU mining with nicehash (easy to use and introduce you to mining) and then when you feel like you know a bit, go learn more about ASICs and BTC mining pools, and then when you think you know ENOUGH, go read even more, and after a month or so, after you already did your calculations, learned a bunch of new stuff,  ONLY THEN think about buying ASIC.

Well, it's $95 + PSU + shipping & handling + custom duty + tax

It draws about ~1600 Watt at the wall and hashes at 16 Th/s. If you think you can ROI with those numbers, why not...

Do realise that with this ASIC, even if you pay the (low) electricity price of $0.1/Kwh, you'll have a daily income of ~0.00027341 BTC =~ $2 (at current preev rate) while your electricity cost will be close to $4.

So, even if you only pay 10 cents/kwh (i pay close to 30 cents), you'll make a negative profit of $2/day... And we're close to the halving aswell, at which point you'll probably see your "profits" going even further into the red.

If you see it as a learning experience tough, why not...

Because i am an absolute beginner, what about this

https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020200306153650096S2W5mY1i0661

just to test it?
I know it is only 16 TH/s, but its also only 95$...

There seems to be quite a discussion about them on reddit, the consensus seems to be that they're a scam...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/fxelq6/beware_bithull_miner_scam/

About which ASIC to buy, you can start by having a look at this thread:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/current-list-of-competitive-hardware-january-2020-5045732

However, before you commit to buying an ASIC, please be aware that an ASIC is NOT a free money press!
Bitcoin mining has become a very serious business, one with very thin margins. If you buy an ASIC and you haven't done your homework, you might end up losing money (no matter how good and performant your ASIC is)

I hope it is allowed to paste this link here:

https://www.bithull.com/shop/

This is where they sell this miners.

So you say it is fake, ok.
Can someone maybe recommend a miner?

What i really would like is:

- Order it
- receive it
- plug it to power
- plug it to LAN or WLAN
- switch on and earn BTC

I dont have a lot of knowledge about the software and how to configure it...

99.9% fake. They promote it having:
Bitcoin 360 TH/s
Litecoin 60 GH/s
Ethereum 15 GH/s
Monero 3 MH/s
Power consumption 550W

Which is technically and practically impossible. Avoid things that are too good to be true, because they usually are.

I haven't mined in a really long time, but i've never heared about an "BH-FGPA-Miner"

Bitmain is going to produce sha256d ASIC units that hash a ~110 Th/s

At the moment, they produce units that hash around ~70 Th/s and cost ~$1600

However, these are ASIC's, not FGPA's. An FGPA is not as performant as an ASIC.

I'm not saying that you're being scammed, altough my gut feeling tells me these numbers are not OK... An FGPA that'll create sha256d hashes @ 360 Th/s sound unbelievable to me... But maybe i'm wrong, eventough i don't think so...

Any links to the product page?

Hello,

i plan to buy a BH-FGPA-Miner.
The company told me that it will have 360 TH/s
an will cost 4.500$.

My questions:

1. 360 TH/s sounds like a lot for a single miner. Is this even possible?
2. Is it really "plug and play"? I mean i have no idea about the software.
   I dont want to spend 4.500$ and the i dont know how to make it work...
3. Due to i have a never fully used flatrate for electricity (up to 4900 KW/h every year while i use around 2000 atm)
   the powerconsumption ist not important to me (although the Miner will use 550 W). On some
   calculators in the internet, it says that i will earn in average 2 BTC/Month. Ist this realistic?

Sorry if my english is not the best. It is not my native language.