I would buy 7970s if I were to buy more cards, although the efficiencies of the 7950s isn't that bad. You can probably resell 7970s for 80% of their purchase value or so before the 8xxx series comes out Q1 next year, especially if LTC mining is popular then. This is in contrast to the 6xxx series which will probably lose way more of its value as they can only be used for mining by then, as comparatively their gaming performance will probably be poor.
I think those numbers are higher than most people report too, but I know what my rig pulls idle with no cards in it (70W) whereas most people measure power consumption as the difference from idle to load (which is incorrect and will give you lower than actual).
The temperature where I live goes down to an average of -20C in the winter time, so come November my rigs (outdoor in a shed) should be sufficiently cooled to pull excellent efficiency. The cards will have to probably mine at 800MHz in the summertime if I keep them that long, because the heat gets to be a bit much.
Currently the 7970s are pretty profitable to mine BTC with (I make $7 a day on a $1400 investment). If the rigs continue to pull LTC after BTC at a similar rate or the price of either grows exponentially (since I hoard), I should still have made money in 6 months time. You need to weigh it for yourself though, it is a gamble.
You can also try gambling with the LTC market by dumping about $10k into it progressively over a month and trying to get it to snowball upwards, but I think that's even more of a gamble.
You can probably rest assured that if all the GPU miners do move to LTC though, the LTC you save now will be worth a lot in the near future.
I think those numbers are higher than most people report too, but I know what my rig pulls idle with no cards in it (70W) whereas most people measure power consumption as the difference from idle to load (which is incorrect and will give you lower than actual).
The temperature where I live goes down to an average of -20C in the winter time, so come November my rigs (outdoor in a shed) should be sufficiently cooled to pull excellent efficiency. The cards will have to probably mine at 800MHz in the summertime if I keep them that long, because the heat gets to be a bit much.
Currently the 7970s are pretty profitable to mine BTC with (I make $7 a day on a $1400 investment). If the rigs continue to pull LTC after BTC at a similar rate or the price of either grows exponentially (since I hoard), I should still have made money in 6 months time. You need to weigh it for yourself though, it is a gamble.
You can also try gambling with the LTC market by dumping about $10k into it progressively over a month and trying to get it to snowball upwards, but I think that's even more of a gamble.
You can probably rest assured that if all the GPU miners do move to LTC though, the LTC you save now will be worth a lot in the near future.
some great input TacoTime, I appreciate it. I think ill be going with the 7970s for the time being even though at current rate I think it would cost about a year to pay it off completely.
