bitcoin mining...but why? or how?

[dl2002081]

Well a few months ago i was looking at GTX680 or 7970. Right before I bought a GTX680 I went to this forum and see people saying 7970 is more worth it because of bitcoin mining. I see people saying like they got their 500bucks back with 3months of bitcoin mining with 7970 etc and that actually made me bought the 7970.
I currently mine at slush's pool. The highest profit per day i got is slightly a bit over 1 dollar. And it is around 70cents these days (assuming 1:10 bitcoin:USD). But things gone bad after adding the electrix cost. The Guiminer (at around 600Mhash/s) i used keeps my graphic card at 99% workload. The power consumption of the whole machine I guess is around 400W at least and I am paying for 0.75 for electrix bill. That actually ends up with around 0.7~0.8 USD per day. So at this point, I kept my machine running all day for the past few months 24/7 without gaming on my new desktop. (Because I wanted to get back my money before I game on it so I just gaming on my laptop and keep my desktop mining).
I really feel stupid at this point. I bought a new computer with powerful gfx card but I dont even use it?
I really regret my decision now. First I tried to get a 680 cuz its a little faster, then I get a 7970 because I believe is a free ride, then I found out it doesnt work at that point and I don't even game on that machine because I am doing mining all day. Feel like a waste of money at this point. Should I really need to keep doing that?And it is barely making any money(Im actually losing money these days). Am I doing something wrong here? Like there is a higher rate of mining bitcoin? or is it just people exaggerating their profit? or should I mine alone?

 

[philipma1957]

Well a few months ago i was looking at GTX680 or 7970. Right before I bought a GTX680 I went to this forum and see people saying 7970 is more worth it because of bitcoin mining. I see people saying like they got their 500bucks back with 3months of bitcoin mining with 7970 etc and that actually made me bought the 7970.
I currently mine at slush's pool. The highest profit per day i got is slightly a bit over 1 dollar. And it is around 70cents these days (assuming 1:10 bitcoin:USD). But things gone bad after adding the electrix cost. The Guiminer (at around 600Mhash/s) i used keeps my graphic card at 99% workload. The power consumption of the whole machine I guess is around 400W at least and I am paying for 0.75 for electrix bill. That actually ends up with around 0.7~0.8 USD per day. So at this point, I kept my machine running all day for the past few months 24/7 without gaming on my new desktop. (Because I wanted to get back my money before I game on it so I just gaming on my laptop and keep my desktop mining).
I really feel stupid at this point. I bought a new computer with powerful gfx card but I dont even use it?
I really regret my decision now. First I tried to get a 680 cuz its a little faster, then I get a 7970 because I believe is a free ride, then I found out it doesnt work at that point and I don't even game on that machine because I am doing mining all day. Feel like a waste of money at this point. Should I really need to keep doing that?And it is barely making any money(Im actually losing money these days). Am I doing something wrong here? Like there is a higher rate of mining bitcoin? or is it just people exaggerating their profit? or should I mine alone?

It is complicated your problem is your watt to hash ratio. you want


2 hash to 1 watt .

you have 600 to 400 or 1.5 hash to 1 watt.

I have a r7950 and a hd7750 I am getting 450 hash to 180 watt or 2.5 hash to 1 watt


that is a money maker. i was getting 600 hash to 300 watt or 2 hash to 1 watt by oc.


Still a money maker, but hot and loud as i pushed the 2 cards.

I went underclock my watts dropped my temps dropped my fan speed dropped.


I can also just run 1 card for bit coining when I want to game.


If i were you I would look for hd7750 as it uses no wires just a pcie jack.

I would under clock the hd7960 .

you will do better that way.


I run my msi r7950 at .82 volts! with 750 625


stock is .113 volts 880 1250


the hd7750 I can't un lock the volts but I run it at 800 900

stock is 800 1125.

these settings cut down the power a huge amount. also good to do this in the summer as I can run less ac.

 

[RussianSensation]

Welcome to AT dl2002081,

I see people saying like they got their 500bucks back with 3months of bitcoin mining. So at this point, I kept my machine running all day for the past few months 24/7 without gaming on my new desktop. (Because I wanted to get back my money before I game on it so I just gaming on my laptop and keep my desktop mining).

That's pretty much impossible. The payout on the 7970 is not 3 months and I don't remember any person here claiming it that way. Where did you read that a the payout on a 7970 is $500 in 3 months?

Also, you created an arbitrary constraint that you needed to mine to pay the card off fully before gaming. Why? The whole point of getting an HD7950/7970 for games is that they are cheaper than 670/680 while offering good gaming performance and ability to mine on the side as a bonus to make up the cost over time, which over time makes them free, about 3.5 months non-stop for a 7950, longer for a 7970 after average electricity costs in the US/Canada.

2) The power consumption shouldn't be 400W unless you are not downlocking the VRAM to 300-700mhz in MSI afterburner using the MSI afterburner unlock function and putting -f15 or higher flag in GUIMiner to unload the CPU usage:

See this to unlock MSI afterburner ---> Link

For flags using GUIMiner, HD7900 series, -w 256 -f1 (where -f1 controls the amount of CPU usage/priority with the lower number being more and higher number like 15 / 20 / 30 being less). So you'd use -w 256 -f20 to slow CPU usage and still get a good rate. Lowering VRAM should lower power usage another 20-25W.

3) I don't recall any person on our forum stating that you can get an HD7970 for free in 3 months without reinvesting funds from previous AMD mining cards. The 3-3.5 months mark is for a $320 HD7950 not 7970. This is because a 7950 @ 1.15ghz ==> 600Mhash makes around 9 BTC @ month and the rate was ~ $13-14 just days ago. ==> That's how the estimate of 9 x $13 x 3-3.5 months = $351-410 came up - electricity costs of (~275-300W for that system with low CPU usage and VRAM downlock assuming $0.15 per kWH = ($97) ~ nearly free 7950).

If you pay higher electricity rates, if your power supply is only 80% efficient, not 85-90%, etc., if you buy a 7970 and not a 7950 (esp. if you build a dedicated desktop with 7970 for mining only), you have to account for all these factors yourself using this calculator that many of us have provided:

http://bitcoinx.com/profit/

The payout time is much longer for a 7970 than an overclocked 7950 is. Also, I don't understand why you weren't mining with a 7970 on your main rig when not gaming?

So at this point, I kept my machine running all day for the past few months 24/7 without gaming on my new desktop. (Because I wanted to get back my money before I game on it so I just gaming on my laptop and keep my desktop mining).
I really feel stupid at this point. I bought a new computer with powerful gfx card but I dont even use it?

Why didn't you just buy a 7970 and gamed on it while mining on the side? I already said it before but it's very odd to me that you went out and bought a GTX680 and then a new computer + 7970 to only mine on that because somehow you couldn't game on the 7970 and mine when NOT GAMING on the 7970? I don't get that.

I don't know a single person on our board who recommended building a full computer system + 7900 series card ONLY for mining as you just described above. It seems you bought a 7900 series card to make $ mining not to game. The whole point is to take the main desktop you use (that say normally might draw 100W at idle) and add a 7900 series to it for games/mining on the side. This way mining is something you can do on the side when not gaming (for example if you game 5 hours a day and mine the remaining 19). If you ONLY wanted to make $ mining, there are far more efficient and cheaper products on the market.

http://www.butterflylabs.com/products/

Long-term the 7950/7970 card pays for itself. If you are losing $ mining, that means you are losing $ per hour which means you didn't calculate your electricity costs @ your rate from the beginning. Alternatively, the system you use with a 680 also uses power at idle. So you are assigning 400W of power for an extra CPU + motherboard + RAM + case fans + HDD that should have been a part of your primary system to begin with, which means the incremental power added is not 400W. If you electricity costs are $0.30 or $0.40 per kWh, then you could lose $.

Even recently I posted this in another thread:

I DO NOT RECOMMEND BUYING A GPU ONLY FOR MINING. There is a risk involved. If you wanted to buy a 7950/7970 for games and want to use mining on the side as a bonus, great. Don't buy a $300 GPU though ONLY because you want to make $ bitcoin mining. If you don't need a GPU for games, there are much faster mining products on the market for as low as $150, and 7x faster.

 

[dl2002081]

Actually..I picked 7970 instead of 680. The new computer is just that setup. Not a second computer or gfx card. But yea thanks for the response. I ll try looking into it and see if i can get it better. but dont minning process takes like 99% of GPU load? game still runs?

but yea over thanks to both of you I ll see how well it goes later on

 

[SheHateMe]

You shouldnt be mining and gaming at the same time. If you spend 5 hours a day gaming and 6 hours a day sleeping (theoretically) then you should be mining for the 6 hours that you sleep or something like that.

I will try my hand at mining soon, I am getting a 7950 instead of a 7970.

 

[RussianSensation]

Actually..I picked 7970 instead of 680. The new computer is just that setup. Not a second computer or gfx card. But yea thanks for the response. I ll try looking into it and see if i can get it better. but dont minning process takes like 99% of GPU load? game still runs?

but yea over thanks to both of you I ll see how well it goes later on

You should either mine or game. When you stop gaming, turn on GUIMiner. When you sleep and are at work, have the compute mine. Please take 5 min to calculate your costs. If your electricity cost exceeds your mining rate, stop mining and sell the 7970 while it still has value. :thumbsup:

Use this calculator with appropriate power consumption and ~$8 rate:

Also, make sure to put in proper flags in GUI miner as I noted above and perhaps see if you can overclock your card to 1150mhz on stock voltage OR undervolt it while keeping the voltage at 925mhz. Some 7970 cards work at 925mhz with an undervolt to 1.05-1.07V. Set that rate using unlocked MSI Afterburner.. Lower your VRAM speed as well as I noted. Put the -f15 flag in GUIMiner to curb CPU speed.

 

[Elfear]

You should either mine or game. When you stop gaming, turn on GUIMiner. When you sleep and are at work, have the compute mine. Please take 5 min to calculate your costs. If your electricity cost exceeds your mining rate, stop mining and sell the 7970 while it still has value. :thumbsup:

Use this calculator with appropriate power consumption and ~$8 rate:

Also, make sure to put in proper flags in GUI miner as I noted above and perhaps see if you can overclock your card to 1150mhz on stock voltage OR undervolt it while keeping the voltage at 925mhz. Some 7970 cards work at 925mhz with an undervolt to 1.05-1.07V. Set that rate using unlocked MSI Afterburner.. Lower your VRAM speed as well as I noted. Put the -f15 flag in GUIMiner to curb CPU speed.

+1

I think you had some misconceptions about mining when you bought your 7970. Just mine while your GPU would normally be idle. I only game about 4-5hrs a week so the rest of the time my rig can be mining. With my 7970@1170/685 (1.08V) my whole system only draws about 280W. You might want to buy a Kill-o-watt meter and check actual power draw from the wallplate.