Cryptocoin Mining?

[VulgarDisplay]

That is extremely temping. Especially if I subtract another $70 with my current bitcoins. Which would in turn allow me pay back my cards faster on bitcoin...

I don't even care about watercooling. At stock the cards aren't that loud, and at 1920x1080 I would have zero reason to overclock. CHOICES...

By choices I mean, how do I con the wife into this lol...

 

[RussianSensation]

With recent rumors of HD8970 being pushed to February-June 2013, I ordered another 7970 this week. I figure there is still time to mine before 8970 / Asics drop . Even if the 7970 mines for another 2-3 months, that's almost > $150 after electricity.

I am not a huge fan of reference blowers but if you force the fan speed to 40%, it should be manageable as the reference blower cools the VRM very well and GPU can take 85-90*C. 5 year warranty on that card too!

 

[Fire&Blood]

With recent rumors of HD8970 being pushed to February-June 2013, I ordered another 7970 this week. I figure there is still time to mine before 8970 / Asics drop . Even if the 7970 mines for another 2-3 months, that's almost > $150 after electricity.

I am not a huge fan of reference blowers but if you force the fan speed to 40%, it should be manageable as the reference blower cools the VRM very well and GPU can take 85-90*C. 5 year warranty on that card too!

The way I look at it, even if BTC dies in November, it will be a while before the price of a used 7950 drops to $100 which combined with my BTC earnings so far is enough to break even, fully recover the money I paid for a new 7950.

If I can keep trucking at current rate for another 3 months, I'll have made enough to make picking up the next gen card a lot less painful. Might even grab 2 if mining is still profitable at that point.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I caved. Just ordered two Diamond reference 7970s. There goes my baby's milk money

 

[RussianSensation]

If I can keep trucking at current rate for another 3 months, I'll have made enough to make picking up the next gen card a lot less painful. Might even grab 2 if mining is still profitable at that point.

I am stuck. I have no more room after 2 7970s DXs since they are 2.5 slot cards. I am not aware of any motherboard that can support 3x 2.5 slot after-market cards and them not drawning in their own heat. If mining still works though, even if 8970s launch with 2560 SPs, if they are $550, the MHash/$ will be worse on it them than what we would get now from a $320-380 HD7970. Plus from now until then difficulty will rise more and by Dec 2012 the BTC reward per block should be halved. And another thing, AMD's new flagship cards might tip > $500 again but we aren't going to see 50% more Stream Processors which is really the main thing that matters for BTC. AMD will probably add ROPs, TMUs and all that jazz for games and move SPs maybe 25%.

Hopefully some guys here will update us on the Jalapenos. If those bad boys work as advertised, forget GPU mining, I'll order 4 of those instead of an 8970.

 

[blanketyblank]

I'm so happy with ATI this generation because of bitcoin mining. My 5770 not only paid for itself but most of my my 7950 which itself has already gotten me about $70 or so. I think that's pretty good considering I've only had it for like a month.
That 7970 would be so tempting if only my mobo and psu could handle it. I could probably make back $300 something for the card or close to it, but not sure if I could make back 320 + 150 + 80 to even use an extra card if the bc price falls.

 

[3DVagabond]

I am stuck. I have no more room after 2 7970s DXs since they are 2.5 slot cards. I am not aware of any motherboard that can support 3x 2.5 slot after-market cards and them not drawning in their own heat. If mining still works though, even if 8970s launch with 2560 SPs, if they are $550, the MHash/$ will be worse on it them than what we would get now from a $320-380 HD7970. Plus from now until then difficulty will rise more and by Dec 2012 the BTC reward per block should be halved. And another thing, AMD's new flagship cards might tip > $500 again but we aren't going to see 50% more Stream Processors which is really the main thing that matters for BTC. AMD will probably add ROPs, TMUs and all that jazz for games and move SPs maybe 25%.

Hopefully some guys here will update us on the Jalapenos. If those bad boys work as advertised, forget GPU mining, I'll order 4 of those instead of an 8970.

This one using the 1, 4, and 7 slots. Pop it into a Silverstone case that mounts the cards vertically and you're good to go. Unfortunately it will mean a complete upgrade.

 

[SPBHM]

I think last year I tried the bitcoin thing on a 5750, it was a failure, 2 or 3 days and it didn't find anything, also the PC was not really usable while running the software (video was to slow),

also power is a bit expensive here, so I think it's probably a waste of time (maybe buying the 100% right equipment it can work out better... but... meh)

 

[thilanliyan]

I think last year I tried the bitcoin thing on a 5750, it was a failure, 2 or 3 days and it didn't find anything, also the PC was not really usable while running the software (video was to slow),

If you were solo mining then yes you probably would not have found anything after only 3 days. A 5750 is not a very powerful card for mining though...with a 6950 I was getting about 0.4 BTC/day last year. Now, because of difficulty increases, I am only getting 0.3BTC/day with a 7950 AND another 6950 mining 24/7. Lol, I still play games while mining (playing DE:HR right now) by just turning down the res.

 

[Elfear]

I was really tempted to pick up another 7970 for $312 but looks like it's OOS now. Probably better in the long run since the profitable days of GPU mining are rapidly coming to a close.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I was really tempted to pick up another 7970 for $312 but looks like it's OOS now. Probably better in the long run since the profitable days of GPU mining are rapidly coming to a close.

I wouldn't necessarily invest in more GPUs now purely for mining.
But to minimize the cost of an upgrade you were going to do anyway? H*ll yeah!

 

[Elfear]

I wouldn't necessarily invest in more GPUs now purely for mining.
But to minimize the cost of an upgrade you were going to do anyway? H*ll yeah!

Ya with the games I play the extra card would have been purely for mining.

 

[Zargon]

yeah I am torn on another 7950 TF3, or just buy another korean acd clone....

 

[blastingcap]

I estimate that your revenue per day will drop by about 90-95% by December due to these factors (more people mining with faster GPUs... difficulty is skyrocketing and is more than double what it was just a couple of months ago; ASIC launch will probably increase difficulty by at least 200%; and December block reward halving cuts everybody's revenue in half).

Gonna be pretty hard to turn any profit unless you get free electricity or are running FPGA/ASIC yourself, and even then video cards depreciate quickly.

If you are hoping prices will rise, good luck as there are over 10 million coins mined already and the trickle from mining (7200 per day, soon to be 3600 per day) doesn't affect supply much. So price is mostly affected by demand, not by supply-side issues like mining. You can also directly buy coins if you are so sure prices will rise.

 

[MrK6]

Even looking at the end of an era, I just cleared $1400 profit today from mining over the last 15 months. Definitely fun while it lasted and has more than paid for my 6950, 7970, and whatever my next graphics card will be.

 

[Zargon]

I estimate that your revenue per day will drop by about 90-95% by December due to these factors (more people mining with faster GPUs... difficulty is skyrocketing and is more than double what it was just a couple of months ago; ASIC launch will probably increase difficulty by at least 200%; and December block reward halving cuts everybody's revenue in half).

Gonna be pretty hard to turn any profit unless you get free electricity or are running FPGA/ASIC yourself, and even then video cards depreciate quickly.

If you are hoping prices will rise, good luck as there are over 10 million coins mined already and the trickle from mining (7200 per day, soon to be 3600 per day) doesn't affect supply much. So price is mostly affected by demand, not by supply-side issues like mining. You can also directly buy coins if you are so sure prices will rise.

mining would be the secondary use of the GPU anyways. Ive used btc mining as a way to fund some computer upgrades over the last year and half

 

[Chiropteran]

If you are hoping prices will rise, good luck as there are over 10 million coins mined already and the trickle from mining (7200 per day, soon to be 3600 per day) doesn't affect supply much. So price is mostly affected by demand, not by supply-side issues like mining. You can also directly buy coins if you are so sure prices will rise.

Well, that is debatable.

It's partially self correcting. If 80% of the GPU miners are limited by electricity and average electricity cost is x allows for 50% overall profit at current values, increasing difficulty by 200% will push all of them out of the range of being profitable. 80% drop in GPU mining should, in turn, push difficulty back down, at least temporarily.

Of course eventually the majority of mining will be ASIC, and the impact of the last few die-hard GPU miners leaving won't really cushion the difficulty increases- but all in all I don't think the doom and end of GPU mining will be super sudden- it'll be more of a gradual difficulty increase as various tiers of GPU miners quit- first the GPU miners who overpay for electricity (bye bye California), next the GPU miners paying fairly average prices, then the GPU miners paying very cheap electricity, and last of all, if ever, the GPU miners who get "free" electricity, one way or another.

You can also directly buy coins if you are so sure prices will rise.

Very true, and probably the best thing to do. There is just some psychological difference, at least for me, between buying hardware that may or may not pay off as opposed to buying coins which may or may not increase in value. Even though buying coins directly is probably the smarter choice, I feel more comfortable buying harder, because it has some intrinsic value beyond all the speculators and hoarders.

 

[wbynum]

Just got back into mining today, on a limited basis. Things have change quite a bit since last summer when I got into it pretty heavily (13 cards). More mining clients, more pools, and more terminology I don't understand.

Got a few questions:

1. What are some of the better pools one would recommend?

2. Right now I am running cgminer under Win 7 with just the "-I 9" option for each card. Are there any options I should add that will increase my hash rate?

3. Does lowering the memory clock on the 7950/7970 cards make any difference. Last summer, lowering the mem clock on the 58xx cards would give better hash rates and higher overclocks on the core.

4. What is the best bang for the buck card nowdays? Last summer it was the 5830 at $109. Newegg could not keep those in stock fast enough.

I am just mining with two 7950's and two 7970's this time. Figure I will mine through the winter as long as it is profitable or break even. Free heat will be nice. Of course the free heat might not last long when the BTC per block drops to 25.

One thing I noticed with the 7950 cards is they sky rocket in wattage as the overclocks go up. At 1ghz and 1.087v, the two cards and rest of the system pulls around 520w from the wall. At 1075 mhz and 1.149v, the system pulls ~640w from the wall. Mhash/sec only went up from 520 per card to around 560 per card. That extra 40 x 2 mhash/sec at 120w is barely break even on profitability for me. So moral of the story, pushing for maximum overclock is not always the best idea with mining.

 

[RussianSensation]

wbynum, what's your PSU efficiency rating?

500W at the PSU level @ 80% efficiency = 625W at the wall
500W at the PSU level @ 92% efficiency = 543W at the wall

Also, you can safely drop memory voltage as low as possible. It hardly has an effect on performance. Finally, if CGMiner uses a lot of CPU power, switch over to BitMinter as its CPU use is very small. An HD7970 @ 1150mhz @ 1.09V actual with lowered memory clocks would use 170-180W (or maybe even less). Your power consumption seems way too high.

 

[wbynum]

The PSU is a 650w XFX unit. I believe it is a rebadged Seasonic unit, but I am not 100% sure. I'm guessing 80% efficiency as it is a few years old. I did not realize cgminer could be using a lot of CPU. The CPU in the machine is a sempron single core I bought last summer for mining. CPU usage in taskmgr only shows ~25% peaks. That is with the bitcoin client downloading the block chain (taking forever).

I tried to lower the memory in Afterburner, but it did not have an effect. Any tips on how to make Afterburner actually lower the memory?

CGMiner reports ~520 mhash/sec per card. Is that a decent figure for a 7950 clocked at 1ghz?

 

[MrK6]

The PSU is a 650w XFX unit. I believe it is a rebadged Seasonic unit, but I am not 100% sure. I'm guessing 80% efficiency as it is a few years old. I did not realize cgminer could be using a lot of CPU. The CPU in the machine is a sempron single core I bought last summer for mining. CPU usage in taskmgr only shows ~25% peaks. That is with the bitcoin client downloading the block chain (taking forever).

Try diablo miner: it's command line and doesn't even register CPU load in my task manager.

I tried to lower the memory in Afterburner, but it did not have an effect. Any tips on how to make Afterburner actually lower the memory?

Use unofficial overclocking mode 2, it disables power play. I run my memory at 250MHz (down from 1375MHz normal, 1600MHz overclocked) and it saves ~40W.

CGMiner reports ~520 mhash/sec per card. Is that a decent figure for a 7950 clocked at 1ghz?

I get ~580 mhash/sec at 1GHz on my 7970. That sounds about right.

 

[railven]

HAHA, of course the day I decide to consider resetting up a miner the few posts today are of a dim future.

I really wish I didn't stop mining but when someone offered me $400 2011 for essentially 2x5830s, 1xGB RAM, on an E2180 - I saw dollar signs haha.

 

[SickBeast]

HAHA, of course the day I decide to consider resetting up a miner the few posts today are of a dim future.

I really wish I didn't stop mining but when someone offered me $400 2011 for essentially 2x5830s, 1xGB RAM, on an E2180 - I saw dollar signs haha.

We really have no way of knowing what will happen in the future. The difficulty will increase gradually just as it always has. Right now is an ideal time to be mining, for sure. The price is remaining stable and profitable.

The nice thing is that most cards can nearly pay for themselves in a few months.

I really don't think that those new butterfly labs chips will make a huge difference, and if you're that worried about it you can always buy one. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Plus there will be the 8xxx Radeons.

 

[railven]

We really have no way of knowing what will happen in the future. The difficulty will increase gradually just as it always has. Right now is an ideal time to be mining, for sure. The price is remaining stable and profitable.

The nice thing is that most cards can nearly pay for themselves in a few months.

I really don't think that those new butterfly labs chips will make a huge difference, and if you're that worried about it you can always buy one. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Plus there will be the 8xxx Radeons.

When I mined and sold, coins where going for $23 and peaked at like $26. $12 isn't very enticing considering looking over the charts, my card would net me about 1 coin a week when my old setup was netting me more a week.

If these claims of changes in December are right, even if I started now (which it won't be 24/7) the few dollars I'd make really aren't that tempting. I'm not that strap for cash haha, and no I will not buy more hardware to setup a miner.

Maybe I should see what I can trade my GTX 460 SC for...hmmm...

 

[SickBeast]

When I mined and sold, coins where going for $23 and peaked at like $26. $12 isn't very enticing considering looking over the charts, my card would net me about 1 coin a week when my old setup was netting me more a week.

If these claims of changes in December are right, even if I started now (which it won't be 24/7) the few dollars I'd make really aren't that tempting. I'm not that strap for cash haha, and no I will not buy more hardware to setup a miner.

Maybe I should see what I can trade my GTX 460 SC for...hmmm...

A GTX 460 is worthless as a miner. I sold mine for about $80 quite some time ago now. They're probably still worth $50-60.

Don't listen to the doomsday prophecies. Mining will still be profitable into the new year IMO.