AMD destroys Nvidia at Bitcoin mining, can the gap ever be bridged?

[Chiropteran]

Sorry, you really can't.

Yes I really can.

Read: almost

There are plenty of AMD users who don't touch BTC mining. I've had more AMD cards than Nvidia cards over the years, and I'm still not sold on it. Sure you can make money on it, but with only one card, it amounts to eating out once a week, and at the same time, it is pretty unethical in doing so. It's a ponzi scheme feeding black market purchases. Not to mention you're smoking your room and eating up power for the sake of doing so (which works in winter, I suppose).

Unethical, seriously? Smoke? If smoke is coming out of your computer, ever, I think you built it wrong.

Eating up power... to make money. I guess in your mind you can justify wasting power for personal entertainment in the form of video games, but you can't justify spending money to verify bitcoin transactions and make actual money?

What world do you live in where your meaningless entertainment is a more ethical use of power than a business?

Don't mine if you wish, it's your choice, but don't try to justify it with absurdities.

 

[Eureka]

I play my games maybe 10 hours out of a week, if I'm lucky. On the other hand, I would be mining for 158 hours. Quite a bit of difference in heat and power consumption, and even more so when everyone's doing it.

And it's not a business. You do realize what most of these transactions are, right? They're not going to your mom and pop shop around the corner, it's for moving stuff on the deep net like the Silk Road.

It's not being absurd. Do you think this money is coming out of thin air?

 

[Chiropteran]

Do you think this money is coming out of thin air?

I've heard USD are used for drug sales too. I assume you don't use american money for anything, right? You wouldn't want to be an ethical hypocrite.

 

[crashtech]

Still wondering why anyone thinks it's their business what others do with machines and electricity that don't belong to them.

 

[Keysplayr]

The thread wasn't about bitcoin mining, it's profitability or lack thereof, whether people are dumb to do it, etc... That's just where it got dragged off to. It's about whether or not nVidia hardware can be made as fast as AMD hardware at mining.

Oh you're adorable. Doesnt matter what the thread was about. Its apparently taken a back seat to more "important" things.

 

[Rikard]

I play my games maybe 10 hours out of a week, if I'm lucky. On the other hand, I would be mining for 158 hours. Quite a bit of difference in heat and power consumption, and even more so when everyone's doing it.

And it's not a business. You do realize what most of these transactions are, right? They're not going to your mom and pop shop around the corner, it's for moving stuff on the deep net like the Silk Road.

It's not being absurd. Do you think this money is coming out of thin air?

I have friends who consider it suspicious that I am still keeping a bit of cash in my wallet. According to them, cash is only good for untraceable transactions, so the logical conclusion is that I must either be a drug dealer or a pimp.

 

[Eureka]

That's funny, but I like how you keep trying to sugarcoat BTC. I'm not a hypocrite, I'm just aware of what I'm doing.

USD is far bigger than BTC, meaning proportionally, a lot more of the currency is in use for legitimate purposes. BTC, on the other hand, has very little in term of legitimacy. It's part investment, part scam and part money laundering.

I have no qualms with mining myself. But I think it's hilarious when people try to make it into a poster child of a currency. It's like a drug dealer trying to pretend to be a chemist.

 

[Chiropteran]

USD is far bigger than BTC, meaning proportionally, a lot more of the currency is in use for legitimate purposes. .

So you are okay with supporting drug dealers, it's just that you only want to support them a little. Glad your ethical standards are so quantifiable.

Except: proportionally, most drug dealers don't have a clue what bitcoin is. I'd bet the vast majority of drug sales in America are done with USD, I'm pretty sure your idea of proportions is way off.

 

[Eureka]

Either you're just in denial or you're trying to question my ethics.

I'll just state it again. My statement is that BTC mining for profits, in it's current state, is of very highly questionable ethics. That alone gives reason for people not to pursue mining, even if they do have AMD cards (which you brought up earlier). If you believe that BTC mining is for a good purpose overall and the money isn't being generated through grey and black markets, well, that's great for you.

Yes, proportionally, most drug dealers don't know what BTC mining is. But most BTC users, on the other hand, are aware of it's nature.

Now, how ethical I am personally, it's a different matter and has nothing to do with the topic on hand.

 

[96Firebird]

The entire thing was a bit tongue in cheek, but just to play along: if you are going to assume a grant or scholarship, I can assume that you can simply lease or rent the video cards and resell later, given resale value around 50% at one year increase the money earned to $300k for a year.

No, that comparison won't work for grants/scholarships. A more realistic way of looking at it would be subsidizing the cost of the card by selling the game bundles that come with it to decrease the initial cost of purchasing the cards.

Either way, if you really think Bitcoin mining is a better investment than a (non-worthless) degree, there really is no point in discussing further.

 

[crashtech]

While we are digressing, I wonder how the Cypriots feel about ethics and government issued currency.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I play my games maybe 10 hours out of a week, if I'm lucky. On the other hand, I would be mining for 158 hours. Quite a bit of difference in heat and power consumption, and even more so when everyone's doing it.

And it's not a business. You do realize what most of these transactions are, right? They're not going to your mom and pop shop around the corner, it's for moving stuff on the deep net like the Silk Road.

It's not being absurd. Do you think this money is coming out of thin air?

Considering I think almost all of our drug laws should be done away with, I don't care if people buy an eighth of garbage quality weed or a mansion, or anything inbetween with their bitcoins. People who want to do drugs will do them, they did drugs before bitcoins and if bitcoins crash and burn they'll continue to do drugs after bitcoin. Bitcoin may make it more convenient, but its not like bitcoins are enabling the drug trade.

 

[Chiropteran]

No, that comparison won't work for grants/scholarships. A more realistic way of looking at it would be subsidizing the cost of the card by selling the game bundles that come with it to decrease the initial cost of purchasing the cards.

You need to account for the years of your life and hours which you could have been productively working were you not in school. Even with a terrible entry level job you could have made another $90k or more if you were working every hour instead of in class.

The point was, which you seem to have failed to understand, is that for a gamer with video card, the opportunity cost to bitcoin mine is basically zero. The opportunity cost to get your degree is incredibly huge in comparison. It's a dumb comparison to try to make.

Bitcoin mining is a small bit of free money. $100/month for basically nothing is a great return on investment.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Seeing how this thread went, I bet the mods can't wait for the 7990 to launch tomorrow!

 

[wand3r3r]

Degrees
Drugs
Computers blowing up
Carbon footprint
Stress on components
No need for $50-$300/mo.
Picking up cans (& pop can honeyholes)
FPGAs
Asics are coming
Bad maths

What have I missed.

An interesting thread to say the least.

 

[Cloudfire777]

328 terahash by end of july? Not gonna happen. I doubt we will enven have this much network hashrate by the end of 2013. The whole hashing power of Avalons batch 2 and 3 which jhave not shipped yet are 1200 x 60g/hash. This is 72 Terahash. Enough to just about double the network hash rate now if the are all running and mining come 1/5/13, which they wont be.

There is no Avalon Batch 4 yet And BFL will trickle out no flood out (well maybe!!!!)

So where is this other 200 terahash coming from by July? That is 200 million megahash!! which is 400,000 AMD 7950 GPU pulling 500 megahash each!

lol.

M

Assumptions
Updated information plus my current guesses and estimates:

• Arrivals are constant. Rather than modelling arrival times, I'm assuming a constant rate of hashes per second added to the network for each of the batches.
• Batch 1: COMPLETE. (I know it's not quite, but near enough for this analysis).
• Batch 2: 600 of 67 Ghps units delivered from 1st May to 1st June.
• Batch 3: 500 of an even mix of 67 and 85 Ghps units, delivered from 1st June to 1st July
• BFL delivers 2000 Ghps per day (~35 SC Singles per day) from 15th May to 1st August.
• ASICMiner delivers 5 Thps until 30th April.
• ASICMiner delivers 50 Thps from 1st May to 1st July.

http://organofcorti.blogspot.no/2013/04/913-asic-choices-asic-earnings-17-april.html

 

[Grooveriding]

That's funny, but I like how you keep trying to sugarcoat BTC. I'm not a hypocrite, I'm just aware of what I'm doing.

USD is far bigger than BTC, meaning proportionally, a lot more of the currency is in use for legitimate purposes. BTC, on the other hand, has very little in term of legitimacy. It's part investment, part scam and part money laundering.

I have no qualms with mining myself. But I think it's hilarious when people try to make it into a poster child of a currency. It's like a drug dealer trying to pretend to be a chemist.

What an asinine comment. Any currency can be used for illicit means... I'm sure the majority of illegal drug transactions are done in USD. Guess USD is part investment, part scam and part money laundering. Actually, considering how corrupt the US financial system is, I guess that is accurate :biggrin:

 

[Chiropteran]

While we are digressing, I wonder how the Cypriots feel about ethics and government issued currency.

http://vladimir.wistia.com/medias/eplvjeafbo

 

[railven]

Degrees
Drugs
Computers blowing up
Carbon footprint
Stress on components
No need for $50-$300/mo.
Picking up cans (& pop can honeyholes)
FPGAs
Asics are coming
Bad maths

What have I missed.

An interesting thread to say the least.

We can buy drugs with Bitcoins? Not that I need to...just curious...

 

[SlowSpyder]

We can buy drugs with Bitcoins? Not that I need to...just curious...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)

 

[Eureka]

What an asinine comment. Any currency can be used for illicit means... I'm sure the majority of illegal drug transactions are done in USD. Guess USD is part investment, part scam and part money laundering. Actually, considering how corrupt the US financial system is, I guess that is accurate :biggrin:

The big difference is that the majority of USD is used for legitimate transactions. Can you say the same for BTC?

Keep denying it, but BTC is popular because of its shadowy nature. Are you just afraid of admitting that BTC exists through dirty money and that your payout is coming from illicit transactions? Or do you just believe that BTC is the savior for world finance?

 

[wand3r3r]

Apparently you can order everything from acid to ecstasy and everything between.
People have blogged etc. that they actually got legit product.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Ugh Safari = Apple = Ugh

 

[Grooveriding]

The big difference is that the majority of USD is used for legitimate transactions. Can you say the same for BTC?

Keep denying it, but BTC is popular because of its shadowy nature. Are you just afraid of admitting that BTC exists through dirty money and that your payout is coming from illicit transactions? Or do you just believe that BTC is the savior for world finance?

I don't even use bitcoins. When I first got a 7950 I used it for a while until I had one coin and just said forget because at the time they were worth $20 and I couldn't be bothered. I sold that coin for $180 when the price skyrocketed and haven't bothered with it since.

My point is just that I don't care if some people are using bitcoins to buy some marijuana from one another. Just like I don't care about someone using some government issued paper currency to buy some drugs either. It's just smokescreen to me, no one can say one way or another what the majority of transactions are being done for or with and it's irrelevant. Illegal use of currency is nothing new...

Fun fact, near every single bill in circulation will test positive for traces of cocaine. People will use currencies for illegal means, nothing new here.

 

[Zanovar]

Apparently you can order everything from acid to ecstasy and everything between.
People have blogged etc. that they actually got legit product.

Lol,i wonder how much mdma is actually in those*laughs*