Is Mining Worth it for an Everyday User?

[Pulpypanda]

I am curious to know what the turn over on mining is for an "everyday" user. Lets assume they are somewhat competent with their hardware and have a system that can be used for this i,e an RX 480 with a i5 6600k and 16GB of RAM or something comparable. *apologies ahead of time if this is to much or to little  as I am unsure of what qualifies as decent hardware for bit mining, so im taking a stab in that dark with a medium gaming setup :P* I hear a lot about the mining industry but never really hear about the amount a user can turn doing this, so any info is great.

 

All help or info is greatly appreciated,

 

Pulpypanda  

[DrMacintosh]

Mining bitcoin is about as lucrative as mining for unicorns, if you want to mine you would need to find a different currency. 

[Pulpypanda]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Mining bitcoin is about as lucrative as mining for unicorns, if you want to mine you would need to find a different currency. 

Oh crap! Thanks for the catch I meant to mean it as mining in general, I apologize for the mix up.  I edited it and hopefully that fixes it.

[DrMacintosh]

The "problem" with mining is that once you start mining your card will run at 100% for as long as you are mining, this raises your power bill and potentially puts your cards at risk. 

 

Mind you, you can be mining all day long and making a few bucks everyday, but if your PSU fails and takes out a component you are screwed. Now this isn't common or even really an issue, but its something to keep in mind. 

 

In my view, unless you are going to commit to mining 100% and have multiple GPUs, I wouldn't mine. If you want a few bucks of free cash just use something like Bing Rewards to get a $5 Amazon card every once and a while. 

[Enderman]

Unless your power is very cheap, and you don't mind your hardware dying after a few months/years, it's not worth it.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

and you don't mind your hardware dying after a few months/years

Which basically means unless mining can make you $250 in the life span of the card there is no point, so even if you could you would only be breaking even which is dumb. 

[FrankV]

I would say no.... particularly if you pay for your own power.  My understanding is you might make $.50 on a good day. But that requires running said computer for 24 hours. 

 

I've concluded, in my own limited view port, that this isn't worth it. 

 

On the other-hand, I do participate in Folding@Home (when my computer is idle - not 24/7) as I think it's a worthy cause.... 

[3rrant]

26 minutes ago, Pulpypanda said:

I am curious to know what the turn over on mining is for an "everyday" user. Lets assume they are somewhat competent with their hardware and have a system that can be used for this i,e an RX 480 with a i5 6600k and 16GB of RAM or something comparable. *apologies ahead of time if this is to much or to little  as I am unsure of what qualifies as decent hardware for bit mining, so im taking a stab in that dark with a medium gaming setup :P* I hear a lot about the mining industry but never really hear about the amount a user can turn doing this, so any info is great.

 

All help or info is greatly appreciated,

 

Pulpypanda  

Short answer: not anymore.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, FrankV said:

I would say no.... particularly if you pay for your own power.  My understanding is you might make $.50 on a good day. But that requires running said computer for 24 hours. 

 

I've concluded, in my own limited view port, that this isn't worth it. 

 

On the other-hand, I do participate in Folding@Home (when my computer is idle - not 24/7) as I think it's a worthy cause.... 

whats $0.50 when you might get that one protein that cures a cancer for >>thousands of people?  

[DutchTexan]

 

A conservative estimate for the electricity cost for a 6700k, 1080 and 6gb 1060 is $0.80/day for me. As long as I make that much, then I will keep mining. I will be holding the ~.0015 bitcoin I make every day for a very long time. I do not get 'paid' until I incur the .00005 Bitcoin fee for moving my currency out of the NiceHash wallet into another wallet/exchange where I will then incur another fee, basically 2%, for exchanging the bitcoin to USD.

 

It is not super profitable, but it's a fun hobby when not working or gaming at home. I am looking at very long term, after the hard fork, aka segwit August 1st. I think Bitcoin is neat and I want to take part, I don't see it as a business or a major investment. I spent $300 on a 6gb 1060 just so I could mine an extra dollar or so a day and I am fine with burning that money and $25 a month for electricity. The heat is the only thing that bothers me. If my 1080 dies in a year, then that's a reason to upgrade. I'm not trying to kill it, but it runs above 70 degrees C for at least 20 hours a day. The 1060 stays under 50.

[pat_13b]

In my point of view:

 - The value of crypto has dipped recently, so if you take a short sighted look at it the profits aren't big. However, the values have started to bounce up and there is potential for your earned coin to be worth a bit more over time. If you plan on pulling your profits out of the coin and back into your local currency, then you wouldn't receive those dividends.

 - There will be a toll on your hardware. However even if the profits remain small for a while, if it enables us to buy new and updated hardware at the end of the year, then it's still worth it in my opinion.

 - Lastly, I just do it out of curiosity. I'm interested in tuning my pc to maximize profit and watching the markets fluctuate.

 

 

There are justifications for both sides.

 

[Antistatic12]

12 hours ago, Pulpypanda said:

I am curious to know what the turn over on mining is for an "everyday" user. Lets assume they are somewhat competent with their hardware and have a system that can be used for this i,e an RX 480 with a i5 6600k and 16GB of RAM or something comparable. *apologies ahead of time if this is to much or to little  as I am unsure of what qualifies as decent hardware for bit mining, so im taking a stab in that dark with a medium gaming setup :P* I hear a lot about the mining industry but never really hear about the amount a user can turn doing this, so any info is great.

 

All help or info is greatly appreciated,

 

Pulpypanda  

Download NiceHash and give it a go. Maybe try it for a week and see what happens. The NiceHash website should explain all you need to know to get started.
Then after that period of time you can have a better understanding of what is involved and form a better opinion on the matter.

[2bitmarksman]

On 7/17/2017 at 0:57 PM, Pulpypanda said:

I am curious to know what the turn over on mining is for an "everyday" user. Lets assume they are somewhat competent with their hardware and have a system that can be used for this i,e an RX 480 with a i5 6600k and 16GB of RAM or something comparable. *apologies ahead of time if this is to much or to little  as I am unsure of what qualifies as decent hardware for bit mining, so im taking a stab in that dark with a medium gaming setup :P* I hear a lot about the mining industry but never really hear about the amount a user can turn doing this, so any info is great.

 

All help or info is greatly appreciated,

 

Pulpypanda  

Personally I'd recommend using Claymore and Mining either ETH, EXP, UBIQ or DBIX with your 480 if you want to mine. Nicehash is easier to setup but usually has lower hashrates and a higher fee than just mining the alt-coin and then converting it to BTC on an exchange.

Also, you will want to make sure your cooling is sufficient on your card for mining if you want your card to live a good amount of time. Try to keep your card under 75C and the fanspeed on the card under 50%. you can check and manually set these things with MSI Afterburner to test things out. Above 80C and you're gonna start hurting the overclocking ability of your card in the longterm and above 66% fanspeed all the time will heavily wearout the fan as well. It would be a good idea to have some good case airflow if you wanna mine with your personal PC

[Chanc_]

I will agree with a few people here, it's all risk management and it requires the will burn though money if things go bad. But overall, it's worth a shot to try as a hobby. Good luck!