Good Article on Bitcoin Mining Machines

[gunDriller]

http://techreport.com/news/26063/these-are-the-mining-machines-monopolizing-high-end-radeons

http://techreport.com/r.x/2014q1/suchradeon.jpg

"Demand from the cryptocurrency mining scene seems to be messing with the market for high-end Radeon graphics cards. First, members of the R9 280 and 290 families were in short supply. The cards eventually became more widely available, but only at premium prices. In fact, just last week, the R9 290X hit $900 on Newegg, up substantially from its suggested list price of $549.

High-end Radeons based on AMD's GCN architecture are particularly adept at doing the math required to generate cryptocurrencies, and the mining community appears to be buying cards in droves. One needs to look no further than ThinkComputers' gallery of insane mining machines to spot evidence of the apparent trend. The article doesn't include system specifications for the various rigs, but I see a lot of Radeons, especially in the more ambitious configs."


Big Geek Fest of Bitcoin Mining Machines -

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/insane-crypto-currency-mining-rigs/

From looking at the calc's it almost sounds like you need REALLY CHEAP electricity to make it work.

Also for some reason the Bitcoin Miners use AMD video cards, not nVidia, for some technical reason.

[ShortJohnSilver]

Bitcoin uses a mathematical algorithm called SHA-256. Litecoin, Dogecoin etc. use a different one called scrypt .

These rigs are used for scrypt, not Bitcoin.

The Nvidia cards are simply not as fast at scrypt as the AMD cards.

[Sparky]

I don't know how you could look at that picture and be comfortable with the stability and integrity of mining-based crypto currencies. Somewhere within that array of circuit boards, cables, and connectors, currency is being generated as a re-configured array of electrons. And I say that will full acknowledgment that government controlled fiat paper is also problematic.

[gunDriller]

I don't know how you could look at that picture and be comfortable with the stability and integrity of mining-based crypto currencies. Somewhere within that array of circuit boards, cables, and connectors, currency is being generated as a re-configured array of electrons. And I say that will full acknowledgment that government controlled fiat paper is also problematic.

i wouldn't describe Bitcoin as a store of value.

as an investment, it is highly speculative. however, it seems to fit in with the "technology as religion" fervor that exists in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs.


i don't understand how Bitcoin miners make money unless they get their energy for free.

[osoab]

I don't know how you could look at that picture and be comfortable with the stability and integrity of mining-based crypto currencies. Somewhere within that array of circuit boards, cables, and connectors, currency is being generated as a re-configured array of electrons. And I say that will full acknowledgment that government controlled fiat paper is also problematic.

I see it as the same thing basically.

NYSE server room

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/nyse-server-room-470.jpg

http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/71ec025c-ad15-11de-9caf-00144feabdc0.img

The FED's POMO desk gives me warm fuzzy feelings too. /sar

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/havenstein/White%20POMO_0.jpg

[Sparky]

I see it as the same thing basically.

NYSE server room
...
Yes, I agree that the current system has its own problems, which includes similar vulnerability to digital electronics. But the current system is "backed up" by the ability for TPTB to simply make good on digital crises by making new digits out of thin air in order to maintain their exploitive status quo. Also, at any time the digits can be converted to paper which my grocery store will exchange for goods without question.

[ShortJohnSilver]

I don't know how you could look at that picture and be comfortable with the stability and integrity of mining-based crypto currencies. Somewhere within that array of circuit boards, cables, and connectors, currency is being generated as a re-configured array of electrons. And I say that will full acknowledgment that government controlled fiat paper is also problematic.

I get that, however, these crypto-currencies are full-reserve, you cannot fractionally-reserve them the way banks and the Fed do with FRNs. So in that sense, I encourage them as it leads to people waking up about the Fed and our current banking system.

[Ares]

I don't know how you could look at that picture and be comfortable with the stability and integrity of mining-based crypto currencies. Somewhere within that array of circuit boards, cables, and connectors, currency is being generated as a re-configured array of electrons. And I say that will full acknowledgment that government controlled fiat paper is also problematic.

That's only temporary and small scale. Most Bitcoin mining is done with ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Chip) anymore. By the 2nd or 3rd quarter of this year, ASIC's will be available for scrypt mining as well.

So as of now, Bitcoin miners look like this:

https://www.kncminer.com/pictures/category/5426.jpg

For a cool 10,000 FRN's you too can be a Bitcoin miner. lol

Current top of the line Bitcoin miner is 3,000Gh/s

https://www.kncminer.com/categories/miners

[Ares]

From looking at the calc's it almost sounds like you need REALLY CHEAP electricity to make it work.

Also for some reason the Bitcoin Miners use AMD video cards, not nVidia, for some technical reason.

Having really cheap power is definitely a HUGE plus. It can be done even if you are paying a higher price per kilowatt. There are auto profit switching pools now that mine the most profitable coin all the time and pay you in bitcoin. A lot of the time mining some of the alternative currencies are more profitable to mine that Bitcoin.
The profit switching pools that I know of are as follows:
www.middlecoin.com
www.tompool.org
www.wafflepool.com
www.multipool.us.

The last pool will mine the most profitable coin, but will only pay you in the coins that it was currently mining.

The reason miners use AMD cards is because they are more efficient for hash rate / killowatt used. I use a dual AMD Radeon 7950's. Until the R9 series cards came out, they were the most efficient mining cards available. With some miner tweaking by under volting and over clocking the cards you can get a pretty decent hash rate while using almost 1/3 less power. But it can become unstable if you push the cards too hard without supplying enough power. So it's a lot of trial and error.

[Cebu_4_2]

What rates are you getting with the dual 7950's ?


Having really cheap power is definitely a HUGE plus. It can be done even if you are paying a higher price per kilowatt. There are auto profit switching pools now that mine the most profitable coin all the time and pay you in bitcoin. A lot of the time mining some of the alternative currencies are more profitable to mine that Bitcoin.
The profit switching pools that I know of are as follows:
www.middlecoin.com (http://www.middlecoin.com)
www.tompool.org (http://www.tompool.org)
www.wafflepool.com (http://www.wafflepool.com)
www.multipool.us (http://www.multipool.us).

The last pool will mine the most profitable coin, but will only pay you in the coins that it was currently mining.

The reason miners use AMD cards is because they are more efficient for hash rate / killowatt used. I use a dual AMD Radeon 7950's. Until the R9 series cards came out, they were the most efficient mining cards available. With some miner tweaking by under volting and over clocking the cards you can get a pretty decent hash rate while using almost 1/3 less power. But it can become unstable if you push the cards too hard without supplying enough power. So it's a lot of trial and error.

[Jewboo]

i don't understand how Bitcoin miners make money unless they get their energy for free.




Researcher Booted From Harvard Network for Mining Digital Currency (http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/02/harvard-dogecoin/)


:D

[Ares]

What rates are you getting with the dual 7950's ?

Right now my total is 1.2Mh/sec.

[Horn]

http://techreport.com/news/26063/these-are-the-mining-machines-monopolizing-high-end-radeons

http://techreport.com/r.x/2014q1/suchradeon.jpg

What a waste of good silver in that photo.

tisk, tisk

I imagine they'll be able to produce twice as many single year lifespan blenders from China with all the proceeds.

Maybe you could then make two Pina Coladas within 6 months then, before you throw it in the trash.

[Cebu_4_2]

Right now my total is 1.2Mh/sec.

What does that equate to these days as in how many days to mine a bitcoin if you were the only one working on a single one?

Them ACIC's are crazy fast! They will probably be obsolete in a year lol.

[Ares]

What does that equate to these days as in how many days to mine a bitcoin if you were the only one working on a single one?

Them ACIC's are crazy fast! They will probably be obsolete in a year lol.

I used to use that rig to mine Litecoin, but the difficulty jumped up crazy high after LTC hit 10 FRN's a coin. So now I'm just mining at an auto switch pool (Wafflepool.com at the moment, which has the cheapest pool fees at 1%) I average 0.014 BTC a day with that rig.

[gunDriller]

The reason miners use AMD cards is because they are more efficient for hash rate / killowatt used. I use a dual AMD Radeon 7950's.

Damn, no wonder it's confusing.

Back in 2006 nVidia was selling a GeForce 7950 ! That's what I thought you had before when you said 7950.

[Ares]

Damn, no wonder it's confusing.

Back in 2006 nVidia was selling a GeForce 7950 ! That's what I thought you had before when you said 7950.

Nope I did a lot of research before I purchased my cards. The rig paid for itself in under 6 months, and still left me a lot of Litecoins that I'm just holding on to now.

Here is the type and model of card I have:

http://www.pureoverclock.com/wp-content/uploads/images/review/video_cards/sapphire_7950oc/sapphire_7950oc_4.jpg

Before the R9 series was introduced that card could be over clocked to get over 700+ Kh/s and was the most efficient mining card available.(Scrypt is slower, so measured in Kilohash, while SHA-256 is quicker and measured in Megahash, well now Gigahash with ASIC's.) Even though they are now considered "old" they still command a premium that could probably double what I paid for them since there are a lot of new people getting into mining, and they are becoming more difficult to come by.

I've under volted and over clocked and I am getting on average 615 Kh/sec out of each card, give or take 2%. With that said, I average 10-15 FRN's a day in btc equivalent in just letting the cards hash. Why I love those multipool's that automatically pay in Bitcoin. I don't have to worry about doing the conversion, or deal with other coins I don't really care about using. The pool does it, charges 1% mining fee, and I make more with my 1.2Mh/sec rig than I would if I was mining Bitcoins directly with it.

[gunDriller]

I've under volted and over clocked and I am getting on average 615 Kh/sec out of each card, give or take 2%. With that said, I average 10-15 FRN's a day in btc equivalent in just letting the cards hash. Why I love those multipool's that automatically pay in Bitcoin. I don't have to worry about doing the conversion, or deal with other coins I don't really care about using. The pool does it, charges 1% mining fee, and I make more with my 1.2Mh/sec rig than I would if I was mining Bitcoins directly with it.

I have 1 hex core machine I could press into service. I would start using the 'expendable' one.

BUT perhaps only in the spring & fall, when my marginal electricity rate is lower.

I think it's worth learning how to do it, even if I discontinue it because of the cost of electricity.

Do you need to run your AMD/ATI cards in Crossfire, or you just have 2 cards in the same machine ?

[Ares]

I have 1 hex core machine I could press into service. I would start using the 'expendable' one.

BUT perhaps only in the spring & fall, when my marginal electricity rate is lower.

I think it's worth learning how to do it, even if I discontinue it because of the cost of electricity.

Do you need to run your AMD/ATI cards in Crossfire, or you just have 2 cards in the same machine ?

Nope, crossfire actually hinders performance. They run independently of each other in the same machine. The mining utility I use is called CGMiner (http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/). If you have an AMD card you'll need the Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) kit (http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/heterogeneous-computing/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/) to install and turn your Graphics cards into mini super computers. If you are using nVidia you'll need their CUDA miner utility.

What makes it even more confusing and frustrating is that different versions of the APP and video driver work better, or poorer depending on the card. It's a LOT of trial and error trying to get the most bang for your buck out of your cards.

[gunDriller]

Nope, crossfire actually hinders performance. They run independently of each other in the same machine. The mining utility I use is called CGMiner (http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/). If you have an AMD card you'll need the Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) kit (http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/heterogeneous-computing/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/) to install and turn your Graphics cards into mini super computers. If you are using nVidia you'll need their CUDA miner utility.



I have 2 other hex cores, a 3930K and an equivalent Xeon.

But they are 'mission critical', I am very cautious about what software I load on them because it would be very expensive to re-load the OS if I hit a major speed-bump setting up the mining HW & SW.

I have a choice between XP 32 & 64, Vista 32, and Windows 7.


Would Win7 be best ? I figure that, because if the mining SW uses C redistribute-able's or anything like that, it would be good to have 'supported software' where you get a full set of DLL's etc. with Service Packs etc.


Or - would it be better to go Ubuntu Linux ?

[Ares]

I have 2 other hex cores, a 3930K and an equivalent Xeon.

But they are 'mission critical', I am very cautious about what software I load on them because it would be very expensive to re-load the OS if I hit a major speed-bump setting up the mining HW & SW.

I have a choice between XP 32 & 64, Vista 32, and Windows 7.


Would Win7 be best ? I figure that, because if the mining SW uses C redistribute-able's or anything like that, it would be good to have 'supported software' where you get a full set of DLL's etc. with Service Packs etc.


Or - would it be better to go Ubuntu Linux ?

For GPU mining, it makes more sense to use Windows (I prefer Windows 7 64-bit) as Windows drivers allow more flexibility in fine tuning the card(s). You can't under volt, or over clock the card in Linux, but you can in Windows. Now if you have an ASIC it makes more sense to mine using Linux as the USB drivers natively support serialization while Windows you have to install a special driver to get serialization to work.. Mix in USB 3.0 and an ASIC and it's a nightmare trying to get it to work. I couldn't, so just installed a version of ubuntu, built the CGMiner application using the correct build instructions and it worked right out of the box with no driver manipulation. The mining applications include all DLL's and related libraries for Windows and Linux during the initial download of the application.

I would stick with GPU's as CPU mining isn't really beneficial. There are a few CPU only coins out there, Primecoin and a couple others that use 11 different forms of encryption which GPU's and ASIC's can't handle. But unless you've got a server farm and a lot of dedicated CPU's to mine a CPU only coin it really isn't worth it.

[Horn]

Then just sit and wait for China to recycle more silver video boards.

6068

[mick silver]

i have a shovel and a pick and a pan

[Horn]

i have a shovel and a pick and a pan

You're doing it all wrong.

First comes the pick, then shovel and pan.

[mick silver]

i need a new pick the one i have getting slower . back to the woods , cleaning up trees that have fallen down from the wind an ice they make good firewood

[Horn]

i need a new pick the one i have getting slower

Try downloading the latest Nvidia imagining and re-sharpening utility

[gunDriller]

Right now my total is 1.2Mh/sec.

My energy costs go down in the spring and fall. The energy company raises the rate above a certain amount of consumption.

I thought I might try it. I have been looking at the 270X boards. How does the hashing/ decrypting performance change in a Crossfire arrangement ?

I guess that's like asking, how does the hashing/decrypting scale with video card 'multiples'. 2 video cards, double performance ?


What would be the AMD equivalent to the nVidia 750 Ti ? That is their low energy consumption / decent performance video card.

[Ares]

My energy costs go down in the spring and fall. The energy company raises the rate above a certain amount of consumption.

I thought I might try it. I have been looking at the 270X boards. How does the hashing/ decrypting performance change in a Crossfire arrangement ?

I guess that's like asking, how does the hashing/decrypting scale with video card 'multiples'. 2 video cards, double performance ?


What would be the AMD equivalent to the nVidia 750 Ti ? That is their low energy consumption / decent performance video card.

Crossfire hinders performance. The mining application works with each card independently. As an example, my "strong" card I can get 615/620 kh/sec out of it, while my "weaker" card manages 600/610 on average. Granted they are the same exact model of card, they hash at different speeds. Every miner will tell you the same thing, that all cards even within the same model year will hash differently. So when you're setting up and doing the installation for mining do NOT use cross fire. Only time you'll ever use that feature is in gaming.

For the nVidia 750 Ti, I did some digging really quick and I keep coming up with AMD Radeon R7 265 series as being in the same ballpark with that particular model of card.

Hope that helps.

[gunDriller]

Hope that helps.

it helps a lot.


it sounds like the graphics card is doing the heavy lifting.

since the thing that ends up costing is the electricity, that gives a Bitcoin Miner (person) the incentive to pick the CPU motherboard combo that sips the electricity.

i don't know if mini-ITX generally consumes less electricity than a micro or ATX size. i would think, probably.

i guess then it's a competition between Intel & AMD with a bit of online shopping thrown in to find the low power consumption CPU of choice.


i was looking at Newegg to see what they had, affordable mining video card wise.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127769

an MSI 270 for $219, good reviews.


\/ i thought this was sort of funny. some gamer is complaining about "those damn miners" driving up the price of this card.

well, that sort of answers my question. from reading some of the 290X reviews, not all of them are mining SW compatible.


"Great little card before the miners ruined it.

Pros: This card used to be the best bangs for your buck in its price-range. It is a wonderful overclocker and keeps cool under load (Almost never exceeding 55* Celsius). The R9 270 plays every game I throw at it on ultra settings at 1080p with high average framerates and frame latency. (Except Skyrim. But I have a demanding ENB preset and over 50 other mods installed, so a 45 FPS average is to be expected.)
Two gigabytes of VRAM and a 256-bit memory bus makes this one of the best <$200 you could have bought.

Cons: I would have no complaints, if it weren't for the mining fad causing a massive price increase. I got this card for around $180 in December. In less than four months, the price has gone up by almost $100. Its a real shame because I really wanted to run two or three of these cards in Crossfire, but for over $250 a price it would make more sense to buy two GTX 760s.

Other Thoughts: If you can get this card for less than $200, do it. You won't regret it. The only reason it lost and egg is because of the ridiculous price; and at that current price, I can't recommend you buy this card. Please, Newegg. Find a way to get this card to a reasonable price again.

My regards,
-Jace"


also i found a link to a HD 7950 from Sapphire -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202026

"SAPPHIRE 100352-3L Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card"

[ShortJohnSilver]

Crossfire hinders performance. The mining application works with each card independently. As an example, my "strong" card I can get 615/620 kh/sec out of it, while my "weaker" card manages 600/610 on average. Granted they are the same exact model of card, they hash at different speeds. Every miner will tell you the same thing, that all cards even within the same model year will hash differently. So when you're setting up and doing the installation for mining do NOT use cross fire. Only time you'll ever use that feature is in gaming.

For the nVidia 750 Ti, I did some digging really quick and I keep coming up with AMD Radeon R7 265 series as being in the same ballpark with that particular model of card.

Hope that helps.


The R9 270 is the lowest spec card I would recommend, about 400- 450kh/s with scrypt mining.

[Dogman]

The hardware manufactures and the power company's must just love miners..

Everyone gets a taste.

[Buddha]

The hardware manufactures and the power company's must just love miners..

Everyone gets a taste.

Where is mine, guess I gotta go to Ben and Jerry's to get one...

[Dogman]

Where is mine, guess I gotta go to Ben and Jerry's to get one...Here Blue Bell rules!

[Ares]

since the thing that ends up costing is the electricity, that gives a Bitcoin Miner (person) the incentive to pick the CPU motherboard combo that sips the electricity.

Well kind of. Miners go for cards that have high hash rate, and lower power consumption. It's the reason I went with the Sapphire 7950 over a year ago, as that one got you the most bang for your buck. Right now the highest hash per watt is the Radeon R9 290, but that's a 450 to 600 FRN card. CPU / Motherboards don't really matter, because like you said the video cards are doing all the heavy lifting. Just if you're doing scrypt mining to make sure you have enough memory installed. As scrypt is memory heavy. My scrypt mining rig has 12GB of ram, with 2 7950's. I might of went a little overboard with memory and probably could of gotten away with 8GB of ram. But I wanted to make sure I had enough memory. :)

[Horn]

Can't you just download the cheat hack tool onto a series of machines at your local library?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12u25f_bitcoin-generator-hack-tool-cheat-free-download-august-september-2013-update_videogames

[Buddha]

Can't you just download the cheat hack tool onto a series of machines at your local library?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12u25f_bitcoin-generator-hack-tool-cheat-free-download-august-september-2013-update_videogames

I like your style :) Years ago, I worked at Walmart, and they fired me (in hind-sight is was a good thing) for cussing in the breakroom. I dled a virus purposly, a bad porn torrent with a trojan, never opened it and put it on Flash, stuck it in every comp in the break and training rooms, friend that still worked there said it caused massive angst.

No one ever heard of Avast? Shit they had to call in a "specialist".

on Horn, I've always thought that one could put the mining software on ANY comp, and if they are always running... Libraries, community colleges, work computers, etc... most even in 2014 are to dumb to know the tools that they use.

[gunDriller]

I am taking mini-steps towards getting one (a Bitcoin machine) online.

I have a Windows 32 machine, Dual Core Athlon, that would be great.

I prepared it for a neighbor as a gift for working on my house. I couldn't find one of the covers. He said he didn't want it without the cover. Then he moved.

So now I got that computer sitting around. 4 GB memory, 320 or 250 GB hard drive. Actually an "old favorite" machine in an EMachines case that was being used as a network server until I upgraded to Windows 7.

I could re-load the OS on that machine. Is that necessary ? Would I be jinxing myself by running an OS like XP32 ?


The other candidate is a 6 core AMD laying around ... and finding my copy of Windows 7/64.

[Horn]

I like your style :) Years ago, I worked at Walmart, and they fired me (in hind-sight is was a good thing) for cussing in the breakroom. I dled a virus purposly, a bad porn torrent with a trojan, never opened it and put it on Flash, stuck it in every comp in the break and training rooms, friend that still worked there said it caused massive angst.

No one ever heard of Avast? Shit they had to call in a "specialist".

on Horn, I've always thought that one could put the mining software on ANY comp, and if they are always running... Libraries, community colleges, work computers, etc... most even in 2014 are to dumb to know the tools that they use.

Was reading on the internet a couple days ago how they were hacking security system's video surveillance networks into mining bitcoins. Guess you would need access to the monitor then just install, have any resultant bitcoins sent to your wallet.

Get a part time job with a video surveillance company.

[Ares]

I am taking mini-steps towards getting one (a Bitcoin machine) online.

I have a Windows 32 machine, Dual Core Athlon, that would be great.

I prepared it for a neighbor as a gift for working on my house. I couldn't find one of the covers. He said he didn't want it without the cover. Then he moved.

So now I got that computer sitting around. 4 GB memory, 320 or 250 GB hard drive. Actually an "old favorite" machine in an EMachines case that was being used as a network server until I upgraded to Windows 7.

I could re-load the OS on that machine. Is that necessary ? Would I be jinxing myself by running an OS like XP32 ?


The other candidate is a 6 core AMD laying around ... and finding my copy of Windows 7/64.

win 7 64-bit is probably your best bet. I didn't even worry about installing the latest updates on my rig before just using it for mining. But others do install updates and anti-virus software. Up to you. But I would stay with Win7 64-bit for the OS to use. You'll get the latest drivers, and best support from the community on how to go about tweaking the hash rate for the card(s).

[gunDriller]

I'm trying to round 'up' the purchase, to $500, because then I get the 12 month interest-free financing.

I have done this with them before, they actually do a fair job of administering it.

$190 for the R7 - down $30, I think prices are dropping because demand is dropping.

$90 for a 2 GB back-up hard drive, I'm not backed up so very well, so that's not hard to justify.

$25 for another 16 GB thumb drive. I had a drive that I actually repaired, I like it. But it fell into one of my file drawers, which is like falling into a black hole.


un-related to Bitcoin side-purchase -

http://www.amazon.com/Kodak-PlayTouch-Video-Camera-Black/dp/B003VTZE4Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1397508742&sr=1-1&keywords=Kodak+PlayTouch

I would love to find another "flat" HD Camcorder, like the Flip or the Kodak Playtouch. But there seems to be a reliability problem with the Playtouch. I've had 2. Second one choked, comments online indicate a problem.

[ShortJohnSilver]

R7 or R9? Get the R9 I think.

[gunDriller]

R7 or R9? Get the R9 I think.

good advice, in general.

for me this is still "R&D". until I have one Bitcoin (or similar) mined and converted to cash (FRN's), it's all R&D.


And i don't want to over-spend on R&D.

to make it profitable, i also have to lower my electricity cost - to about zero. more R&D.

[Ares]

good advice, in general.

for me this is still "R&D". until I have one Bitcoin (or similar) mined and converted to cash (FRN's), it's all R&D.


And i don't want to over-spend on R&D.

to make it profitable, i also have to lower my electricity cost - to about zero. more R&D.

With current difficulty it'll take you almost 10 years to mine a single bitcoin with a graphics card. Your best bet is to use a multipool that automatically pays you in Bitcoin. A multipool works by mining the most profitable scrypt based coins, converting them, and paying you in bitcoin. I've been mining at wafflepool.com for about 2 months now and with my dual 1.2Mhash miner have accumulated 0.37742549 Bitcoin. Which at current price for a bitcoin is 186.16 FRN's.

So that's about the most profitable way to mine bitcoin at the moment unless you have some serious hashing power and cheap to zero electricity cost.

[gunDriller]

With current difficulty it'll take you almost 10 years to mine a single bitcoin with a graphics card. Your best bet is to use a multipool that automatically pays you in Bitcoin. A multipool works by mining the most profitable scrypt based coins, converting them, and paying you in bitcoin. I've been mining at wafflepool.com for about 2 months now and with my dual 1.2Mhash miner have accumulated 0.37742549 Bitcoin. Which at current price for a bitcoin is 186.16 FRN's.

So that's about the most profitable way to mine bitcoin at the moment unless you have some serious hashing power and cheap to zero electricity cost.


COSMIC ! :)

my browser session 'black-screened' when i was reading that thread. not sure exactly what that means. i wonder if it means, too many browser windows open.

between Chrome, Firefox, Seamonkey, and Safari, I usually have about 75 windows open.

i like Seamonkey because it allows you to easily archive a web-browsing session, you can save a group of tabs, and start closing windows.


anyway, a sign, perhaps, that i need more graphics power anyway.

not sure why it black-screens.


i was using Ares' $10 to $15 a day with the dual 7950s as a metric of sorts. but that might have been when the BitCoin price was higher ?

[Ares]

i was using Ares' $10 to $15 a day with the dual 7950s as a metric of sorts. but that might have been when the BitCoin price was higher ?

Yep most likely as I'm getting about 4-5 dollars a day now mining at that multipool.

[gunDriller]

Yep most likely as I'm getting about 4-5 dollars a day now mining at that multipool.

It sounds like the current metric is,
call it $4.50 a day with Bitcoin at $510, price from
https://coinbase.com/charts

(admittedly Ares may be using a different crypto-currency, with a different price)

dual 7950's i am thinking would be matched by dual 290X. 2 x 500 ~ $1000.


it was hard to get a 290X for $500 but in the last few days the R9 series of AMD has dropped a bit in price.


IF YOUR ELECTRICITY COST IS ZERO, (big "if"), the $1000 invested in the cards pays off in 222 days. this is assuming some things, e.g. already having a system to put the cards in.

or, in one year, the $1000 invested in the cards pays a return of $1642.5.


the trick to getting that return is getting the electrical cost to zero.

if i worked at a nuclear facility, i'd have a closet full of mini-mining PC's plugged into the house AC mining away. :)

actually, it sounds like some of the mining machines use ASIC's.

[Ares]

actually, it sounds like some of the mining machines use ASIC's.

For bitcoin mining or SHA-256 it's all done by ASIC's anymore. GPU mining will also get phased out in the near term as Scrypt based ASIC's are coming online now.

www.zoomhash.com

That site sells gridseed miners. They are capable of hashing Bitcoin and Litecoin at the sametime. Although you do take a performance hit by hashing both at the sametime. Just know that they are capable of it. In all honesty I wouldn't even bother with getting a GPU rig. ASIC's will outperform GPU's any day of the week with a fraction of the power consumed.

[gunDriller]

If you are using nVidia you'll need their CUDA miner utility.

i didn't know nVidia was compatible software wise. does this mean you could use a Titan or a 780 for mining, but the enthusiasm for AMD/ATI, like the 7950 or 290X, indicates that they have better hash rates ?

or do the top nVidia products actually keep up with the AMD miners ?


i found this list of mining utilities -

cgminer-4.2.3-windows.7z 03-Apr-2014 15:49 1.4M
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-windows.zip 03-Apr-2014 15:50 1.8M
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-x86_64-built.tar.bz2 03-Apr-2014 15:50 461K
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-x86_64-built.tar.lrz 03-Apr-2014 15:50 379K
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3.tar.bz2 03-Apr-2014 15:51 1.5M
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3.tar.lrz


do you use one of the "*64*" labelled files,
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-x86_64-built.tar.bz2
or
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-x86_64-built.tar.lrz


found these websites about the mining software -
https://bitminter.com/
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_software
http://www.bitcoinx.com/bitcoin-mining-software/

[Ares]

i didn't know nVidia was compatible software wise. does this mean you could use a Titan or a 780 for mining, but the enthusiasm for AMD/ATI, like the 7950 or 290X, indicates that they have better hash rates ?

or do the top nVidia products actually keep up with the AMD miners ?


i found this list of mining utilities -

cgminer-4.2.3-windows.7z 03-Apr-2014 15:49 1.4M
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-windows.zip 03-Apr-2014 15:50 1.8M
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-x86_64-built.tar.bz2 03-Apr-2014 15:50 461K
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-x86_64-built.tar.lrz 03-Apr-2014 15:50 379K
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3.tar.bz2 03-Apr-2014 15:51 1.5M
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3.tar.lrz


do you use one of the "*64*" labelled files,
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-x86_64-built.tar.bz2
or
[ ] cgminer-4.2.3-x86_64-built.tar.lrz


found these websites about the mining software -
https://bitminter.com/
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_software
http://www.bitcoinx.com/bitcoin-mining-software/

Cgminer will work, never tried it with an nvidia. So don't have the slightest idea on how you would configure it to work with it. :)