Is litecoin mining still viable?

[Osmium]

I know that right now Bitcoins are impossible to mine on your own (and make a profit that is) but are litecoins still profitable?

 

And about how much would I make just running my machine for about 18 hours a day without factoring in power costs?

[Norwegiantweaker]

I know that right now Bitcoins are impossible to mine on your own (and make a profit that is) but are litecoins still profitable?

 

And about how much would I make just running my machine for about 18 hours a day without factoring in power costs?

probably less than nothing

[lufihengr]

If you are just getting into mining, I'd say no. Because the difficulty is high, and you would need a lot of hashing power now.

[Bluejay0]

If you are just getting into mining, I'd say no. Because the difficulty is high, and you would need a lot of hashing power now.

 

 

Litecoin is much easier to mine, but not as profitable.

[Vampire2.0]

I mine litecoins but i don't pay for power what kind of hardware do you use?

[Osmium]

Nothing special. i5 and 660ti. The GPU is not a mining card but I thought I'd do it on the side. But would I make more money getting a larger quantity of litecoins from mining or a smaller quantity of bitcoins.

 

I mine litecoins but i don't pay for power what kind of hardware do you use?

[Vampire2.0]

Nothing special. i5 and 660ti. The GPU is not a mining card but I thought I'd do it on the side. But would I make more money getting a larger quantity of litecoins from mining or a smaller quantity of bitcoins.

 

at the moment litecoins are 12.45x more profitable to mine with cpu's/gpu's

[RuecanOnRails]

Litecoin mining is still viable provided that you already have some of the basic hardware. The most important piece of hardware would be a high end AMD GPU, the best price to hash/performance is the 7950. Capable of achieving 630 K/hash while mining scrypt based coins. When compared to mining Bitcoins, the 7950's 630 K/hash on scrypt is more or less equal to 7.8 G/hash worth of Bitcoins. As @VampireKid said, it is definitely more profitable to mine Litecoin using a GPU than it is to mine Bitcoin directly. With that said, your current set up will cost more to run than you ever make. Consider purchasing a small amount of coins instead of paying more and mining less.

 

Here's what you can expect to see with the current difficulty, and exchange rate.

https://www.litecoinpool.org/calc?hashrate=630&difficulty=1429.04258944&power=&energycost=0.10&currency=USD

 

 

You can look up various GPU's performance here, https://litecoin.info/Mining_Hardware_Comparison The 660 Ti will get you only 150 K/hash, more or less equal to 1.8 G/hash of Bitcoin mining if you were to mine Litecoin then exchange it into Bitcoin.

 

Here's what you will see from your 660 Ti 

https://www.litecoinpool.org/calc?hashrate=150&difficulty=1429.04258944&power=&energycost=0.10&currency=USD

Keep in mind, you will be spending more in electricity than you could possibly mine. Would be better to estimate how much it costs to run and use that to buy Coins directly every month or Bi-weekly. Even if you don't pay for electricity, someone else is paying for it, and they are paying much more than you're mining.

 

 

If you're unsure about how I'm comparing the Litecoin to Bitcoin I'll give a brief explanation so you can do it too.

Scrypt is much more difficult than Sha-256, lucky for us, it seems to be logarithmic. You can pretty accurately swap scrypt K/hash for sha-256 M/hash, and scrypt M/hash for Sha-256 G/hash. Using a site such as http://coinchoose.com/ You can find the profitability over Bitcoin that each coin currently has. For this I'm going by VampireKid's estimate of 1245% or 12.45x. Multiply scrypt K/hash by the profitability margin then swap the scrypt K/hash for sha-256 M/G/hash.

[Osmium]

Thanks for the insight @RuecanOnRails

I will probably avoid it for now knowing I will be getting well under nothing.

[Commissar]

I mine litecoins but i don't pay for power what kind of hardware do you use?

7950's are the reccomended mining cards... i'm using a 7970, cuz it's a gaming rig.

[RuecanOnRails]

Thanks for the insight @RuecanOnRails

I will probably avoid it for now knowing I will be getting well under nothing.

I wouldn't go as far as avoiding it all together. You just need to figure out which method of acquiring coins is best for you. You can certainly mine on that gpu, but if you compare the cost of power and buy the coins directly you might end up with more coins per dollar versus mining.

Crypto-Currencies are definitely worth looking into, learning about, and following their development.

 

 

7950's are the reccomended mining cards... i'm using a 7970, cuz it's a gaming rig.

 

I prefer the 7970 to the 7950 simply because of the intensity required to run them. The 7970 runs at full speed with an intensity of 13, the 7950 requires much higher making the computer fairly unusable while mining. Neither can game while mining, but browsing and general use works while mining on lower intensities. The 7950 wins only because it's $ per hash is better and that's all that matters for dedicated mining rigs.

[Commissar]

I wouldn't go as far as avoiding it all together. You just need to figure out which method of acquiring coins is best for you. You can certainly mine on that gpu, but if you compare the cost of power and buy the coins directly you might end up with more coins per dollar versus mining.

Crypto-Currencies are definitely worth looking into, learning about, and following their development.

 

 

 

I prefer the 7970 to the 7950 simply because of the intensity required to run them. The 7970 runs at full speed with an intensity of 13, the 7950 requires much higher making the computer fairly unusable while mining. Neither can game while mining, but browsing and general use works while mining on lower intensities. The 7950 wins only because it's $ per hash is better and that's all that matters for dedicated mining rigs.

yeah, that's true. i guess the guys I was talking to are using dedicated setups, with a dozen or more cards/mobo (using risers)

I ahve noticed that if i have my settings too high, the video becomes so laggy, it's difficult to even press the stop button. i generally have my intensity set between 11 and 13... depending on the time and temps... too loud for night at 13.

[Mbarton]

LTC will always be profitable to me becous i run my Mining GPU off a soller panel so the card is always mining and it docent cost me a cent.And when im gaming i use a different gpu

[Osmium]

I wouldn't go as far as avoiding it all together. You just need to figure out which method of acquiring coins is best for you. You can certainly mine on that gpu, but if you compare the cost of power and buy the coins directly you might end up with more coins per dollar versus mining.

Crypto-Currencies are definitely worth looking into, learning about, and following their development.

I have only recently started caring about mining (somewhat dangerous to say that around these parts I know) so I really do not know a whole lot. What I kind if wanted to know If I would break even on my rig running it on the side, I never really planned to make anything significant but if the profit margin is either in the negatives or in the triple decimal points I wont bother doing it. I don't have the time to learn more about mining or digital currency (am teaching myself chemistry right now) and I don't have the money for an AMD GPU so there is not much I can do right now.