Is rig building still profitable? - page 2.

Bigpiggy01

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You still have to add in the cost of additional hardware. MB, PSU, RAM, CPU, HD or USB, PCIe extenders, frame hardware.

Atm that is doable for roughly 35-40$ per gpu slot if averaged out using 1-7 extenders so yup there are additional costs fpgas still need supporting hardware as well though but that can be done at much lower levels.

The one thing that worries me about most to the fpga tech available though is the inflexibility of more or less all of the current boards barring the Icarus board. Atm I'd stay well clear of any of the fpga solutions due to their in-adaptability barring again the Icarus board (I'm attempting to order a few atm).

Given bitcoin's current level of adoption etc I'm far from certain that investing in 100% dedicated mining hardware (as in it can't be used for other purposes) is a sane investment.

kjj

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Quote from: gnar1ta$ on April 11, 2012, 12:10:56 PM

Quote from: Bigpiggy01 on April 11, 2012, 11:21:59 AM

GPUs still have that well beat if you buy slightly lower end new GPUs like powercolor 6770s or something like that for around 80$ @ 200Mhash/s that gives you 2.5Mhash/$ minus power though. Undervolted but still OCed they pull around 80W.

You still have to add in the cost of additional hardware. MB, PSU, RAM, CPU, HD or USB, PCIe extenders, frame hardware.

Shouldn't be more than about $200 per rig, or $50 to $70 per video card. Even less if you already have some or all of the stuff lying around.

gnar1ta$

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Quote from: Bigpiggy01 on April 11, 2012, 11:21:59 AM

GPUs still have that well beat if you buy slightly lower end new GPUs like powercolor 6770s or something like that for around 80$ @ 200Mhash/s that gives you 2.5Mhash/$ minus power though. Undervolted but still OCed they pull around 80W.

You still have to add in the cost of additional hardware. MB, PSU, RAM, CPU, HD or USB, PCIe extenders, frame hardware.

rjk

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1ngldh

The only reason GPUs have become the de facto mining hardware is because FPGA/ASIC miners didn't exist back then. I foresee them going the way of the dinosaur, although not anytime soon of course.

Bigpiggy01

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Even with cheap or free electricity, GPU rigs don't seem to make as much sense as FPGA's. Unless your buying used hardware of course, but I like warranties. A BFL single will get around 1.38Mhash/$, the minirig around 1.65Mhash/$ and if you already have rigs running they don't require additional hardware. Try and build a GPU rig from Amazon.com or Newegg.com with those numbers. I'd stick with FPGA's.

GPUs still have that well beat if you buy slightly lower end new GPUs like powercolor 6770s or something like that for around 80$ @ 200Mhash/s that gives you 2.5Mhash/$ minus power though. Undervolted but still OCed they pull around 80W.

GPUs still have fpgas beat in terms of resale value etc but long term fpgas will win a pure mining race due to the lower power costs.

Atm I'd say that if you want flexible go for GPUs but for long terms mining/other sha256 (some of the fpga boards sold atm aren't really adaptable for other purposes) go for fpga.

gnar1ta$

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Even with cheap or free electricity, GPU rigs don't seem to make as much sense as FPGA's. Unless your buying used hardware of course, but I like warranties. A BFL single will get around 1.38Mhash/$, the minirig around 1.65Mhash/$ and if you already have rigs running they don't require additional hardware. Try and build a GPU rig from Amazon.com or Newegg.com with those numbers. I'd stick with FPGA's.

discordian666

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Not if Vlad's supposed business venture gets operational in the coming months Wink

Red Emerald

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THREAD NECROMANCY!

Still seems like these comments apply pretty well though. Now if only we could get back to last June's prices Wink

kjj

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$1000 invested in GPUs today will get you about 1 BTC per day. If you get free electricity, they should pay for themselves (at current difficulty and exchange rate) around November. FPGA devices will have longer payoff times (assuming difficulty and exchange rate cooperate), but are better if you pay for electricity.

If you love bitcoin and have some spare cash, build a rig and run it, and don't worry about profit.

If you are looking for a longshot investment, build a rig.

If you are looking for a sure profit, I wouldn't bother.

the joint

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Worth it?

Depends on electrical cost and the efficiency of your rig. If you pay a high electrical cost, FPGAs are likely the way to go for now. If your electrical cost is very low, GPU-rigs are still good because, relative to FPGAs, they give you more bang for your buck, at least right now.

Keep in mind, mining Bitcoins is like buying them indirectly instead of buying them directly, except that you hedge your investment in the form of your hardware. With an efficient rig, you will pay off your hardware in less than a year and then anything after that is profit, PLUS you still have the value of the hardware itself.

All things to consider. My advice would be to look for common trends -- a lot of very smart people are throwing down insane amounts of money on Bitcoin rigs ($100,000+ in some cases). The new trend right now is the FPGA-based rig as well as the BFL singles and mini-rigs.

If you have the money, nothing beats a mini-rig right now.

fergalish

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Quote from: Departure on June 16, 2011, 04:11:17 AM

For anyone just getting into it I suggest buying bitcoins as its safer and faster to make more money...

Of course, if *you* have already bought mining hardware, it would be very convenient for you to dissuade others from mining and keep the difficulty low, so *you* can pay off your hardware.

From a network point of view, higher difficulty means the bitcoin network is much more secure and resistant to attack.

Departure

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to sum it up in a very simple to understand way....

Mining = long term gamble...
Buying = short term gamble....

Mining you need to hope the value doesn't go down and also pay your investment off before it goes down, could take months, in this time the bitcoin system could crash or it could rise, but as we have seen the current rate was produced from a "bubble" meaning it wont stay at these rates, which also means it will take alot longer to pay off the hardware, which also means your a more exposed to loosing due to the time frame if it goes bust..

Buying is a quick way to make money and has less risk on what you invest, but it is also exposed to the market going down, but the benifit is you can redeem your money back very quick before it goes totally down thus not loosing all of your investment.

These are the cold hard facts and thats without talking about the fact the difficulty will not drop(why should it when miners have already paid off the investment and still makes a small profit after running expenses). Leaving it to only get harder to mine which leaves you gambling on your investment longer...

For anyone just getting into it I suggest buying bitcoins as its safer and faster to make more money...

phelix

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Quote from: elkrisi on June 08, 2011, 03:31:36 PM

Cost of producing a bitcoin is as relevant to its value as the value of paper the dollar or euro are printed on is to their value.

there sure is some kind of link: who would buy something that he could produce for less? the rise of the bitcoin price is limited by the rise of mining cost.

elkrisi

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Quote from: grndzero on May 23, 2011, 03:29:28 PM

Quote from: Gameover on May 23, 2011, 03:07:10 PM

Quote from: grndzero on May 22, 2011, 01:08:12 PM

Quote from: Gameover on May 21, 2011, 08:41:08 PM

Anything over the base cost, plus some profit, plus the freedom of anonymous payments, puts the bitcoins real value at somewhere around $0.25 to $0.50

Do you have any hard technical data you'd like to share to support this assertion or is it all from your rectal knowledge base?

Quote from: Gameover on May 21, 2011, 08:41:08 PM

the $5 - $8 figure we are seeing is because of pure speculation, it has nothing to do with 'demand' of bitcoins since anything you can buy with them can be bought with normal dollars.

Since there are no futures contracts and the prices on the exchange are what people are actually trading BTC for cash, speculation doesn't have anything to do with it. It may or may not be overvalued but the market will determine that.

I don't need to post technical data, any idiot can calculate the raw value of a bitcoin at any time, simply use your hash rate, difficulty, and the price of electricity you pay, $0.12/KWh and 360Mh/s works out to be around $0.25 per bitcoin, given that the other features of bitcoin must have a value of something, I put the value slightly higher, of course those same feature may be a negative to many people.

Knowing this and that nothing of value is sold exclusively in bitcoins leads me to believe the rest of the value is purely speculation (people buying them in hopes they will rise in value). A huge price correction is on the horizon as others in the post have spelled out (amazingfunksta). As soon as people realize the nonvalue in bitcoins and mining them, you will see a huge dropout, followed by a huge price decline.

Bitcoins value is not linked in any way to the amount of electricity it takes to generate it.

The long term success of Bitcoin will depend on an economy being created around it. There are people trading BTC for goods and services. Go read the Buying and Selling threads. If you believe that it's mostly speculation, that's your opinion. If you are so sure that the price is going to bottom out then you should find someone willing to make an options contract with you. You'll be speculating too.

BTC value is not linked to difficulty either. A huge dropout would cause difficulty to lower and make it easier for the miners still mining to get more BTC from their mining operations. The only way that would effect the market would be the miner that gave up selling their coins. The chances of someone dropping out at this point from being fed up and having enough coins to flood the market and crash the price is most likely pretty low. The miners with the most coins are the ones who either have been around since the beginning or the ones who put a huge amount of capital into mining. Either way they have a vested interest in taking a long term outlook.

Gameover you have it all wrong. I couldn't agree more with grndzero.

Cost of producing a bitcoin is as relevant to its value as the value of paper the dollar or euro are printed on is to their value.

I'm very new to bitcoin. What brought me here is not speculation but the realization that this is an awesome way to transact.

The future life and future value of bitcoin will entirely depend on whether there will be demand for it to buy and sell stuff.

It is this demand that will make or break BTC. Is BTC easy to transact? Is it easy to tranfer? Is it cheaper to keep? Is it more secure to keep than other payment means? How many products / services will there be to accept BTC? Will it be easy to exchange with "regular" currencies at will? At what cost? These are the parameters that will determine its value and not cost of electricity, h/w cost or internet connectivity costs.

By the few things I have learned so far about BTC, it looks like we have a paradigm changing transaction token in our hands and its value may very well climb drastically in the long run.

If you take this outlook, mining could be profitable as long as you don't kill your hardware by extreme overclocking or wrong cooling. If I buy a 2,000 Eu rig and don't kill it by next week then my h/w costs to produce coins are not the full 2k but the depreciating value over time.

Gameover

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Such a calculation completely ignores money and opportunity costs, which are not trivial. It would be better to take the cost of building and operating your rigs priced in Bitcoins, and compare the ROI in Bitcoins mined to the ROI in Bitcons purchased directly. You will come up with a very different result.

I 100% agree, but this is my machine, not a dedicated mining rig, therefor there is no costs involved with it as pertains to mining, I am going to have the machine no matter if I mine or not, so only the energy costs are extra. Also the opportunity costs are very trivial, they are much easier to estimate than any 'value' associated with bitcoins.

grndzero

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Quote from: Gameover on May 23, 2011, 03:07:10 PM

Quote from: grndzero on May 22, 2011, 01:08:12 PM

Quote from: Gameover on May 21, 2011, 08:41:08 PM

Anything over the base cost, plus some profit, plus the freedom of anonymous payments, puts the bitcoins real value at somewhere around $0.25 to $0.50

Do you have any hard technical data you'd like to share to support this assertion or is it all from your rectal knowledge base?

Quote from: Gameover on May 21, 2011, 08:41:08 PM

the $5 - $8 figure we are seeing is because of pure speculation, it has nothing to do with 'demand' of bitcoins since anything you can buy with them can be bought with normal dollars.

Since there are no futures contracts and the prices on the exchange are what people are actually trading BTC for cash, speculation doesn't have anything to do with it. It may or may not be overvalued but the market will determine that.

I don't need to post technical data, any idiot can calculate the raw value of a bitcoin at any time, simply use your hash rate, difficulty, and the price of electricity you pay, $0.12/KWh and 360Mh/s works out to be around $0.25 per bitcoin, given that the other features of bitcoin must have a value of something, I put the value slightly higher, of course those same feature may be a negative to many people.

Knowing this and that nothing of value is sold exclusively in bitcoins leads me to believe the rest of the value is purely speculation (people buying them in hopes they will rise in value). A huge price correction is on the horizon as others in the post have spelled out (amazingfunksta). As soon as people realize the nonvalue in bitcoins and mining them, you will see a huge dropout, followed by a huge price decline.

Bitcoins value is not linked in any way to the amount of electricity it takes to generate it.

The long term success of Bitcoin will depend on an economy being created around it. There are people trading BTC for goods and services. Go read the Buying and Selling threads. If you believe that it's mostly speculation, that's your opinion. If you are so sure that the price is going to bottom out then you should find someone willing to make an options contract with you. You'll be speculating too.

BTC value is not linked to difficulty either. A huge dropout would cause difficulty to lower and make it easier for the miners still mining to get more BTC from their mining operations. The only way that would effect the market would be the miner that gave up selling their coins. The chances of someone dropping out at this point from being fed up and having enough coins to flood the market and crash the price is most likely pretty low. The miners with the most coins are the ones who either have been around since the beginning or the ones who put a huge amount of capital into mining. Either way they have a vested interest in taking a long term outlook.

Gameover

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Quote from: miner249er on May 23, 2011, 11:04:49 AM

With current difficulty plotted to go up 100% this morning - anyone who is building a rig for mining is going to have a long wait to pay it back.

I know that alot of people don't quite grasp the power of doubling - but it's real. I'm fairly certain most of this capacity is being brought online by those that do the simple calculations without really looking at difficulty increases, trade differences, etc.

excellent post and my same conclusion, I have been in the tech biz for 20 years, 15 years of that on my own biz, I think a lot of the recent price increase came from people not really analyzing the data and understanding the returns over months. when i first heard about bitcoin last week i was super excited about it and fired up my 6950 immediately while i crunched the numbers for a planned roll out of several machines with 4 5850s each, there are still many available (8 on craigslist in my area) after some rather simple analysis there is no way in hell i would do it, there are simply too many unknowns and all profit is dependent upon bitcoins value increasing by a lot, and if that is the case simply buy bitcoins...

my predictions:
bitcoin value goes to cost of electricity over the next 45 days
mass exodus on market and fallout of bitcoins value thereafter
excellent time to buy bitcoins as value should increase back to electricity cost
bitcoin market slowly recovers or entire bitcoin market is gone
flood of 5850, 6990 hit ebay, great time to upgrade your card

Satoshi Nakamoto releases iCoin project to replace bitcoin

Gameover

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Quote from: grndzero on May 22, 2011, 01:08:12 PM

Quote from: Gameover on May 21, 2011, 08:41:08 PM

Anything over the base cost, plus some profit, plus the freedom of anonymous payments, puts the bitcoins real value at somewhere around $0.25 to $0.50

Do you have any hard technical data you'd like to share to support this assertion or is it all from your rectal knowledge base?

Quote from: Gameover on May 21, 2011, 08:41:08 PM

the $5 - $8 figure we are seeing is because of pure speculation, it has nothing to do with 'demand' of bitcoins since anything you can buy with them can be bought with normal dollars.

Since there are no futures contracts and the prices on the exchange are what people are actually trading BTC for cash, speculation doesn't have anything to do with it. It may or may not be overvalued but the market will determine that.

I don't need to post technical data, any idiot can calculate the raw value of a bitcoin at any time, simply use your hash rate, difficulty, and the price of electricity you pay, $0.12/KWh and 360Mh/s works out to be around $0.25 per bitcoin, given that the other features of bitcoin must have a value of something, I put the value slightly higher, of course those same feature may be a negative to many people.

Knowing this and that nothing of value is sold exclusively in bitcoins leads me to believe the rest of the value is purely speculation (people buying them in hopes they will rise in value). A huge price correction is on the horizon as others in the post have spelled out (amazingfunksta). As soon as people realize the nonvalue in bitcoins and mining them, you will see a huge dropout, followed by a huge price decline.

amazingfunksta

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amazingfunksta

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