Cryptocoin Mining?

[JumBie]

So what's the deal with bitcoins now? I was following it for a while even gave it a shot when I had my gtx 580, even though I knew Nvidia was terrible for mining.

How long would it take me to mine a bitcoin with a 7970?

Also whats the going rate? and are people still purchasing them?

 

[Zargon]

On air cooling I would think about 75-80C is fine. Check VRM temps too though...you don't want those going much above 85C.

whats the best way to monitor VRM temps?

 

[Despoiler]

So what's the deal with bitcoins now? I was following it for a while even gave it a shot when I had my gtx 580, even though I knew Nvidia was terrible for mining.

How long would it take me to mine a bitcoin with a 7970?

Also whats the going rate? and are people still purchasing them?

Ahh read the last few pages.....

 

[thilanliyan]

whats the best way to monitor VRM temps?

Hwinfo64 can do it.

 

[georgec84]

So you have your GPU carry a workload for bitcoin transactions and you accumulate bitcoins yourself?

 

[Zargon]

I really hate how long it can take to move bitcoins

 

[Vesku]

Agreed that it can take too long to confirm with the current design. IMO, transactions should be fast to match the fact it's an electronic currency. The waiting is a partially arbitrary setting for the purposes of "mining" new bitcoins.

 

[Chiropteran]

I'm hoping bitcoins reach $12.75~ each soon, as that will push them up enough so that I can just outright buy a Single SC with BTC.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I'm hoping bitcoins reach $12.75~ each soon, as that will push them up enough so that I can just outright buy a Single SC with BTC.

Still kicking myself for missing the spike to ~$15 a little while ago.

 

[Zargon]

butterflylabs just let me know the October shipment of jalapenos is full up

 

[Chiropteran]

Still kicking myself for missing the spike to ~$15 a little while ago.

It spiked to $15 recently? I missed that.

 

[RussianSensation]

I know this is kind of subjective, but what kind of temperatures are regarded as safe for Tahiti under 24/7 load? I'd like to bump up the voltage and see just how high my 7950 can clock, but I want to be sure I'm not going to be burning it up while mining.

GPU is 100% safe under 90*C, prob even 95*C. The higher GPU temps will probably affect overclocking stability but they won't kill the chip. From all the failures of 4870/4890/570 overclocking, the most critical aspect for GPUs still appears to be VRMs, not GPU temps. HWInfo64 reads VRM temps. Make sure the highest value never exceeds 120*C or so. I believe beyond 120*C for VRM is beyond specs (maybe someone can confirm). I try to keep VRM under 100*C. My GPU generally runs at 71-73*C at 99% load with spikes to 76*C when it gets hotter mid-afternoon. VRM Temperature1 increases from 90*C to 97-98*C in the same period. That's why I pay attention to the VRMs, not GPU temps. Unlike CPUs, GPUs can handle very high temperatures, but what fails the videocard most often are VRMs/power circruitry and electromigration from too high GPU overvoltage (like putting 1.275-1.3V into a Tahiti and running it 24/7) on air cooling.

So you have your GPU carry a workload for bitcoin transactions and you accumulate bitcoins yourself?

The GPU runs an application which allows it to solve complex math, and the reward is a bitcoin (about 0.3 BTC for an overclocked 7970). Then when you have enough, you have $ to spend or alternatively you can think of it is paying for the videocard.

 

[Zargon]

Shipping of new units is still anticipated to begin late October with the first wave of shipping filled with June orders. We are unable to predict accurate wait times for July and August orders until shipping begins. This will be better addressed by our engineering team once production gets underway.

Im pretty close to cancelling the preorder

not looking like I can get much out of it, if any, before the reward is cut in half

 

[Chiropteran]

Im pretty close to cancelling the preorder

not looking like I can get much out of it, if any, before the reward is cut in half

Perhaps, but everyone is mining under the same conditions. If the bounty halving makes mining unprofitable, miners will quit, and difficulty will be pushed back down.

Also, look at the scale here.

Assume for a minute 500mhash earns you $75/month at current rates. This may or may not be 100% accurate, but just for the sake of argument we need to start somewhere.

Single SC, at 40ghash, would earn $6000/month at the same current rates.

With the bounty halved, that would be $3000/month.

Obviously, with the introduction of Butterflylab's SC products difficulty will skyrocket to some degree. If difficulty doubles, and bounty halved, a Single SC would pull in $1500 net. If difficulty quadruples and bounty halves, it pulls in $750 net.

Long story short, the bounty halving is not really a factor. The difficulty changes are going to affect your income far more, as would a drop in BTC value (for example last year value dropped from peak near $30 per BTC down to 2-3 BTC per coin for a long time until it slowly built back up to the $10/BTC we see today).

The halving of the bounty is just one small piece of the puzzle, and I wouldn't make any decisions based on it alone.

 

[Zargon]

the jalapenos are just like 3.5 but yes, you are correct

it would have been nice to have it earlier and maybe get some coins mined and sold before the potential uncertainties in the market surrounding the next big change

AFAIK those just USB to a PC right?



the singles are roughly a 6 week payback right now it seems.

I might be able to scrape around the cash to grab one

then change my preorder to the 8 pack, and hope Ive mined enough by then to have made some money before I kick into high gear

I do have a 7950 on the way, and listed my 69xx cards for sale.

I hope to atleast sell one soon if not two of them. I cant really tosh another miner in my office, maybe my living room but in general those reference cards are too loud.


I got out of the game last year around this time, and am royally kicking myself in the ass for it, just not sure I really want to jump that deep,thats alot of cash for me to toss around at bitcoins, when I have a baby on the way in February

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

It spiked to $15 recently? I missed that.

Not quite $15, but a large enough jump nonetheless. This after staying at ~$4-$5 for ~6 months!
http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html

 

[Mir96TA]

So I ran GuiMinner but I felt my 5870 running hot ?

What you all think ?

 

[Mir96TA]

My 6970 runnimg cooler compare to 5870 odd isn't it ?

 

[IGemini]

My 6970 runnimg cooler compare to 5870 odd isn't it ?

Not really. 6xxx cards are a more mature 40nm process and usually have better stock coolers.

And that's a 6950 you have, which uses significantly less power than the 5870. Even if it's an unlocked card, you're not running at 6970 clock speeds. Doing so might push it closer to 5870 temps.

 

[Zargon]

I think 5870s are rated at 180w and 6950s are 200 or 250w

Tapatalking on my pos thunderbolt. Sorry for teh typos!

 

[Chiropteran]

$12 peak today.

I was trying mtred, but I've switch back to btcguild. mtred just wasn't reliable enough, and if the servers are down for a few hours it erases all the gain I had from lack of fees. So back to btcguild for me.

 

[thilanliyan]

Yeah I just made an account with BTCGuild as well. MTRed is down right now too, and it has gone down several times since I started using it.

 

[Despoiler]

Yeah I just made an account with BTCGuild as well. MTRed is down right now too, and it has gone down several times since I started using it.

MtRed is working for me. What pool port are you using?

 

[thilanliyan]

MtRed is working for me. What pool port are you using?

It was 8337 I believe. It may be back up now, but it definitely would not connect for me for a couple of hours.

 

[Binky]

$12 peak today.

I was trying mtred, but I've switch back to btcguild. mtred just wasn't reliable enough, and if the servers are down for a few hours it erases all the gain I had from lack of fees. So back to btcguild for me.

You should always run with a fallback server. I just took a look at one of my miners and it looks like its been on the backup pool for most of the day. I'm switching away from mtred as primary for now.

Here's a pretty useful tracking website with no login.
http://www.btc-poolwatch.com/