Topic: The most profitable graphic cards in 2011-12? (Read 1401 times)

R9 280x now but 5850 back then or cheap 6990, but the heat 

I ran a pair of 7950s as my last GPU miners.  They were good, paid for themselves in no time, and then I sold them for what I bought them for after 6 months.

I still run a 7770 and a 7850 for scrypt, they're pulling BTC0.01 a day.  Half what my 120GH of ASICs does on pure BTC mining.  Yep, 400kH/s is making half of what 120GH is.   

I just picked up a R9 280X to get more scrypt hashing power, and I might even play some games with it too! 

My last rigs was build with 7950's , they were easy to get without waiting.
The were easy to cool, power effecient and silent.
I ask my nephew to sold all my GPU's for me, because I am not a seller.
I didn't expect the the great resall value, but it was welcome

I'll agree with #1. Don't know too many people who really went all out with the 7850, as its density wasn't that great. And the 7990 was more of a niche market. Most people I know of were using 7950 or 7970.

It's all about price. As dropt said, more people have their eye on cryptos right now. Back in 2011, no one was giving BTC a second glance. Most people thought BTC had risen to it's peak, and died already.

BTC, LTC, Doge, and other cryptos are designed to be currency, not an investment. For anyone new to BTC, they need to understand this simple fact that has huge implications.


No, you're not missing something. Buying a 7950 and mining LTC today will earn you more per day than a 7950 in 2012 mining BTC. There's nothing wrong with that.

To me, what this high price means is that eventually, we'll reach a point where the difficulty catches up to the crypto price. Then, GPU prices will go back down to normal. Try finding a place that has 280x in stock, for a decent price. It does not happen. Either you can find 2-4 that only cost an arm and a leg, or you an buy up to 6 that cost your firstborn.

To give you a little history, those smarter than me discovered that the difficulty was dependent on the crypto price, at least in regards to BTC and it's massive fluctuations over the past few years. When the price is high, people want in. When the price is increasing, more people want in. How do they do this? Buy LTC, or buy GPUs. Right now, because you can earn back your investment in such a short time, people are buying GPUs, which is causing this shortage.

You won't see a 3 month return investment forever. Eventually, the difficulty and price will level out. Where that is, I don't know. I always thought a 6-8 month return time was way more sustainable, but that's just me.

In 2011 the card to have was the 5830. Newegg sold them at $109 and could not keep them in stock. Oddly Newegg had not figured out how to price gouge at that point in time...

But this is not making any sense here. The point is: there are too little GPU miners or/and there is too high litecoin price, so mining is too gainful compared with 2011-2012 situation. I mean, 7970 pays itself for 3 months and it looks like a great investment. And you tell this is because there are too many miners around.

Am I missed something?

And I wonder if litecoin price will drop until we'll have $1 profit per day from 7970 or AMD will produce another ton of 7970 and difficulty will doing up?

   I was mining back then, mostly in 2012 though.  I ran 7.5GH/s of GPUs and at the peak I earned 5 coins a day.  That was approximately 35$ a day.   The first weeks earnings every month was dedicated to paying the power bill, of which was already subsidized and I lived in a low $/kWh region.  I only bought hardware that I could pay off in 3 months.  However, it was a different time and difficulty was much more stable so I was able to make fairly solid predictions.

I should add that for myself, it was about the idea of bitcoin.  The love of tinkering with hardware, pushing it to its max and trying to keep it stable.  The sharing of ideas and helping each other chip another coin a week from their rigs.  I was not looking to become a millionaire off the added income of $35 a day.



April 2013 happened and people got wind of cryptos and mining "free money".  People wanted a piece of the pie, got greedy and now here we are.  What most of them fail to understand is that the people who are "bitcoin rich" didn't do it by buying a crap tonne of hardware and selling the coins off as they were mined.  They did it by mining intelligently and holding onto the coins they produced.

Mining crypto's was never a get rich quick type of deal, it's only become that once the average tech user got wind of it. It is no longer a group of people aligned with libertarian/voluntaryism ideologies.  It is now rife with speculation and people who want to get rich quick.

So, with 5970 I computed this and this.

And compared to this and this it looks like GPU mining was a much less profitable in 2011-2012. $1-$2 a day for bitcoin mining with 5970 against $4 for current litecoin mining with 7970 and even more for DOGE and other multipool’s shitcoins. Besides, 5970 was expensive like hell.

Today I have friends who bought 7970s and they are complaining about litecoin difficulty rise and "it's so damn hard to get graphic card self-paid (it requires a couple of months)".

So, what's happening?
We have some kind of "mining bubble"?
Why am I not running into the store and not buying all of 7970’s?
Could I tell my grandchild "when I was your age, I calculated hashes in one`s head both ways uphill" or something?

5830 was best $/GH in 2011-2012 (I was buying them 2nd hand off ebay for £60/$90)
7850 was best W/GH in 2012 (2x were as powerful as a 7970, but used way less power, and I was picking them up new for £120/$180)
7990 was just the best at everything in 2013, especially the 2nd Ed. with 2x8 Pin power, and it's still faster than anything R9 in 2014!

Oh man, I don't remember prices too well. I know my first 5830 was $300. 5850 was $350, and 5870 was $400? I don't remember prices for the 5970s. Maybe 700ish when they were new?

I've bought and sold so many it's not even funny, and the prices could change in a month, so it's hard to pin point.

crazyates, you're awesome!

So, I'll choose 5970 as a best available option.

And one thing I forgot to ask about: how much did 5970 cost in 2011? I found a number like $1,000.

For 2011, it was the 5xxx series.

I liked the 5830, they were cheap, ran cool, and could pull 300mhs easily.

The 5870 was also very popular. That could pull up to 400mhs.

If you wanted the most beastly powerful rig out there, you used 5970s. They could usually do 750mhs. They sucked a lot of power tho.

This all changed when the 7xxx cards came out. Often they would hash at about the same speed, but were MUCH more power efficient. The 7970 and 7950 were instant hits. My 7970s could do 720mhs, and at way less power and noise than a 5970.

The 6xxx cards were never popular for mining. Most of the times when people used them, it was cuz they also wanted to game, or they already had them. Very few people build new dedicated rigs with 6xxx cards. They would often times be slower than a comparable 5xxx rig.

ASICS ... or 7990 

In 2011 people are mining with 5xxx from ATI and 6xxx serie from ATI and in 2012 7xxx from ATI come into play.
NVIDIA sucks for mining BTC.
2012 the year of the FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) from various manufacturers.

Hi miners.
I need to know what graphic cards were the most profitable in 2011-2012.
I'm trying to calculate a mining cost for this period.
Of course, I know the full list, but I don't know which of them were available for miners two years ago.

Thanks.