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Topic: Building High-End Gaming System - does it make sense to mine on it while idle? (Read 2702 times)

hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
I <3 VW Beetles
Maybe some 7850s? http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

They are currently one of the best Price/Performance ratios, and should be pretty good for gaming. They'll also be great for mining. Can expect ~360MH/s (SHA256) or ~360KH/s (Scrypt). I plan on buying some of these when I upgrade from my 6850s. And yes, mine with your PC when not using it. I leave my gaming PC on 24/7. When I'm sleeping or working, they are mining.

EDIT: Maybe some 7950s if you really need the extra performance.
Make that 400~ Mh/s or 400~ Kh/s Smiley


I have 2 Asus ones. That is the only thing, buy goddamn Asus ones, they clock much higher and the DCII cooler is a beast, 45% Fan and 55-60 degrees @1165 core, 1500 mem, and the best thing is that they are undervolted (-0.1 volt) at those golden clocks, I can reach 1300 mhz core and 1550 mem on one cards with a 0.1 overvolt, but don't want to stress the cards too much, at those clocks they reach 450Mh/s/450Kh/s.

Edit: Gaming is no problem, 130+ Fps in CFX, 65 Fps single on Battlefield 3 Ultra +AA+AF @1080p
The crossfire setup chews Metro LL At 50-60 FPS ULTRA! (Which would normally take you a 690 or higher). This is in an overclocked state Smiley
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 100
I cannot, on further research, 7990s do not work well together in crossfire mode which is the primary function of this system
hero member
Activity: 770
Merit: 500
buy 7990s and start mining  Cool
full member
Activity: 156
Merit: 100
If this is life , then I prefer death !
just mine litecoin, its currently 80% more profitable with gpus because asics dont work with scrypt algorithms. So Gpu mining isnt dead for cryptocoins, but just bitcoin.
legendary
Activity: 1428
Merit: 1001
Okey Dokey Lokey
I do miss winter.

autumn is better, and it is coming

summer is for the beach or.... bitch
Fall is the best season of them all
legendary
Activity: 1428
Merit: 1001
Okey Dokey Lokey
I mine while gaming. No downtime here.
One 7950 1000core 1375mem
BF3 AAx4 shadows on high, NO FUCKING "post processing" (rest is at maximum) and im slapped at 50+fps and 14x Mh/s using CGminer at intensity 1
Glorious!

Turn off the games, 1100core, 700mem. intensity 6 and nothing lags. 575mh/s
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Hodl!
 It's just that it's going to cause heartache in the future when the gaming rig dies.

Gaming is more likely to kill the gaming rig IMO, heat cycling, electronics don't like it..... well as far as they have likes, the mechanical strain of expansion and contraction cycles can fatigue solder joints.

If you have a 20 GPU mining farm, one or two are gonna die on you, them's the odds, but for an individual GPU, that is in the first place stable 24/7 on the settings you run, then I think the odds are better of it lasting 2 years of mining, than being hard gamed on every night for a year and turned off all day.

Similarly I know people who want to save the planet, 50 cents (per year worth) of electricity at a time, and have their HDDs power down the second they aren't in use... funny, those people seem to need to replace HDDs wayyy more than me. (Haven't killed any drive I've bought new in 20 years) Pretty sure that's a net environmental loss, just on the energy required to make the alloy casing.


legendary
Activity: 3248
Merit: 1070
I do miss winter.

autumn is better, and it is coming

summer is for the beach or.... bitch
full member
Activity: 227
Merit: 100
Shhhh guy stop wrecking our fun.

 Sorry hehe Grin

IMO It is a good idea to actually do some of the mining on your own for sure just to get a better understanding of what's going on & how to use pools/wallets etc..  It's just that it's going to cause heartache in the future when the gaming rig dies.  If it wasn't going to be his primary computer then it wouldn't be too much of an issue.
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
If you're interested in LTC then buy them, they're far less expensive to just buy than any hardware investment you could make.  You could either buy a $300 gfx card or 125 LTC.  That $300 card will take you an eternity to mine 125 LTC on your own, and is virtually guaranteed to cause an early heatdeath of the card.


Shhhh guy stop wrecking our fun.
full member
Activity: 227
Merit: 100
If you're interested in LTC then buy them, they're far less expensive to just buy than any hardware investment you could make.  You could either buy a $300 gfx card or 125 LTC.  That $300 card will take you an eternity to mine 125 LTC on your own, and is virtually guaranteed to cause an early heatdeath of the card.
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
Firing it up
Unless you have water cooled, it may be reasonable to do some when in idle.
hero member
Activity: 1246
Merit: 501
Mining LTC while idle is probably OK, you can make a bit off that, but be aware it will add a LOT of heat.  I run a pair of 7950 in a machine, and it adds about 5C to the ambient temp of the house.  It'll be good in winter but it's mad in the summer. 
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Hodl!
Depends 100% on local power cost IMO.

ATM I think 10c kW/h is about break even on BTC with something of that spec, which is fine if you just want to hoard BTC and sell it later. If mining to immediately sell you'll wanna be paying 8c or less.

Then even on alts, I don't think you'll want to be mining to sell immediately on anything more than 12c or so, and be at about breakeven on 16c.

People here are a bit funny about the "profit". Claim they're not making "anything" if it's less than a few hundred a month. Hell, I'll take $10 a month, something is better than nothing, extra $120 at Christmas comes in handy.

Also you can take a long term view that say BTC will be worth $500 in three years time, then bearing in mind that you just won't get near 10% from many bank investments then mining a bitcoin for less than about $375 now is a good expected return. (i.e. 375 invested at 10% would equal 500 in 3 years) but YMMV of course. Also buying them is cheaper, but you may consider "break even" to be about 15% above market, due to whatever fees, commissions etc it takes you to get fiat into exchanges to buy.
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 100
I just read that - so it will be either dual GTX 680s or dual Radeon 9970s.
full member
Activity: 174
Merit: 100
Don't buy 2x 7990s for gaming. The 7990 is a dual GPU card which makes than a quad-crossfire configuration. 4 GPU Crossfire scales badly, you really wouldn't see a big improvement over one card.

If it's for mining, then it would be fine, but for gaming more than 2 GPUs is a waste of money, especially Radeons.
sr. member
Activity: 364
Merit: 250
legendary
Activity: 952
Merit: 1000
plus getting free heating in our winter. How is GPU mining dead again?
It's summer here in the US, and now you have to factor in added cooling costs. Free heat is fine when you want it, but a few thousand kW of heat dumped into your house when it's already 35C outside is a giant PITA.
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
Out of curiosity, how many tens/hundreds of monitors do you need to be running at max res to take advantage of dual 7990s?

To the others in this thread: I thought we'd already demonstrated several times that litecoins enhanced profitability makes GPU mining still potentially profitable for some people (depending on electricity costs). While everyone's situation is different, you can google the profitability calcs and work out for yourself if its worth it. To say outright that GPU mining is completely dead ON ALL COINS is laughable, but I agree for directly mining BTC it has become unattractive.

I am still mining altcoins on my meager 1.2 GH/s of GPU's in Australia at $0.28 /kWh and making a profit on a weekly average, plus getting free heating in our winter. How is GPU mining dead again?
legendary
Activity: 1022
Merit: 1001
I'd fight Gandhi.
Maybe some 7850s? http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

They are currently one of the best Price/Performance ratios, and should be pretty good for gaming. They'll also be great for mining. Can expect ~360MH/s (SHA256) or ~360KH/s (Scrypt). I plan on buying some of these when I upgrade from my 6850s. And yes, mine with your PC when not using it. I leave my gaming PC on 24/7. When I'm sleeping or working, they are mining.

EDIT: Maybe some 7950s if you really need the extra performance.
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