What would you build with for mining if you had $2000-$2500 to spend on it?

[DoubleY]

<Words>

I already have a 7990 on it' way (It was $550 on Newegg; New) And my PSU isn't big enough to house another card (700 watt). 

[Vitalius]

Try this calculator. http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/ It uses recent difficulty trends to predict future increases, allowing a much more accurate estimate for the mid term.

The calculator you used previously is fairly static, and assumes the difficulty will only increase very little over the course of a full year. Therefore it's stats are generally good for only 2 weeks until the next difficulty change.

 

You find out more about the current, previous, and next estimated difficulty here. http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

And that is kind of what I'm saying.

As the difficulty increases, so will the price. Which is logical, because as it gets harder to attain BTC by way of mining, the BTC that already exists will be more valuable.

That calculator automatically sets the percent increase on the conversion rate of BTC to USD to 0%. It doesn't factor in the idea that BTC's price will rise.

My point in saying that and all this is simple: Any form of mining is profitable, so long as you actually get BTC, and hold on to it until the price of BTC rises to a point where you have made money on the time you spent mining. 

BTC only has a reason to increase, but no real reason to decrease. Emotions and human nature is not a "real reason". A real reason would be shorting or something equivalent. Or news. Unless the US outlaws BTC or severely restricts it's use in some meaningful way, which based on Congress' (IIRC) meeting on it (they were actually kind of positive about it) won't happen. 

I could buy an Avalon now and even mine when I'm not making a profit (where the difficulty makes it so that I get so little BTC that the current price means I spend more on electricity). However, so long as I hold onto that little BTC and wait for the price to go up more, as the difficulty goes up, I can still make a profit in the long term, assuming the price goes up enough to make it so. 

And considering BTC is known for massive price hikes out of no where, I think that is very probable. 

I'm still holding on to 0.02 BTC I mined back in College. I had a total of 0.50BTC, but I bought a lot of Humble Bundles with it. If I hadn't, that would be $350. And it took 3 months to mine with a 6870. I didn't pay for electricity, but even if I had, I 'm pretty sure I wouldn't have spent $350 worth of electricity on a system with nothing but an Athlon X4 and 6870 in it running constantly for 3 months. 

BTC is a waiting game. The people who bought in back when it was 20 cents a coin are rich now. The guy who spent 20,000 BTC on a pizza probably feels like he missed the biggest opportunity life ever gave him, monetarily, at least. And I'm just going to sit on this 0.2BTC and watch as the price rises. 

I would buy into it, but not enough people accept it yet for me to use it as my daily currency.

[RuecanOnRails]

I already have a 7990 on it' way (It was $550 on Newegg; New) And my PSU isn't big enough to house another card (700 watt). 

 

You'd be surprised by how many people believe they need an excessive PSU. a 700 watt can run 3 GPU's assuming it's a quality PSU. Even if you need more power, you can use two power supplies in one rig, there's no need to get an entirely new computer.

 

And that is kind of what I'm saying.

As the difficulty increases, so will the price. Which is logical, because as it gets harder to attain BTC by way of mining, the BTC that already exists will be more valuable.

That calculator automatically sets the percent increase on the conversion rate of BTC to USD to 0%. It doesn't factor in the idea that BTC's price will rise.

My point in saying that and all this is simple: Any form of mining is profitable, so long as you actually get BTC, and hold on to it until the price of BTC rises to a point where you have made money on the time you spent mining. 

 

When looking at that calculator, there's no need to look at the potential future price of Bitcoin. You are comparing the profitability right then about what would be a better investment. Whether buying coins or buying mining hardware. It's not about the price of Bitcoin, but which method would see your dollar go further in terms of acquiring Bitconis.

 

Essentially if you're buying mining hardware you're hoping the price, and difficulty drop or stay the same over time. At least until you can make more Bitcoin than you could on that investment day.

[AK0490]

As a Litecoin miner who is actually currently mining, here is what I might recommend for a new rig.  http://pcpartpicker.com/p/26M2Q  This configuration would  give you right under 3000 Kh/s as these cards will output 730Kh/s each. The PSU would be overkill but simple and safe.  Personally I would try to find a VERY high quality PSU a bit cheaper around black Friday. Don't waste money on a high end mobo and cpu. I wouldn't spend the money for a board with  4 16x slots when 1x slots will work just as well. By all means use a crate for a quick and easy case with extensions to spread the cards out. While 7950s get recommended a lot and are excellent cards, I wouldn't  recommend them anymore because of the small price difference between them and  7970s. If power is a big concern you can always undervolt and underclock. With winter approaching the heat from a few 7970s can help to heat the house!   Now is the perfect time to buy. It's currently 35 degrees outside  and my house is a nice toasty 77 from the exhaust of 12 AMD graphics cards hard at work.

 

Whatever you decide and whatever you mine, Good luck, and happy mining!!!

[DoubleY]

As a Litecoin miner who is actually currently mining, here is what I might recommend for a new rig.  http://pcpartpicker.com/p/26M2Q  This configuration would  give you right under 3000 Kh/s as these cards will output 730Kh/s each. The PSU would be overkill but simple and safe.  Personally I would try to find a VERY high quality PSU a bit cheaper around black Friday. Don't waste money on a high end mobo and cpu. I wouldn't spend the money for a board with  4 16x slots when 1x slots will work just as well. By all means use a crate for a quick and easy case with extensions to spread the cards out. While 7950s get recommended a lot and are excellent cards, I wouldn't  recommend them anymore because of the small price difference between them and  7970s. If power is a big concern you can always undervolt and underclock. With winter approaching the heat from a few 7970s can help to heat the house!   Now is the perfect time to buy. It's currently 35 degrees outside  and my house is a nice toasty 77 from the exhaust of 12 AMD graphics cards hard at work.

 

Whatever you decide and whatever you mine, Good luck, and happy mining!!!

My OC'd 7970 gets about 600 kh/s

[AK0490]

My OC'd 7970 gets about 600 kh/s

What brand? I would stay away from XFX, most others will do 730 easily. I have MSI, Gigabyte, and Sapphire 7970s all easily outputing 730 Kh/s clocked at 1046/1500.

[DoubleY]

What brand? I would stay away from XFX, most others will do 730 easily. I have MSI, Gigabyte, and Sapphire 7970s all easily outputing 730 Kh/s clocked at 1046/1500.

Asus DCUII OC'd to 1125/1575

[AK0490]

Ahh yes, I almost added Asus and Powercolor to my list of cards to avoid, but I though I would be nice. I would never use Asus cards for mining since they almost always carry a price premium, and offer no benefit for mining. If you already had this card then that is of course understandable. In my case I had a XFX 7970 when I started mining and the best It could do was 525Kh/s. I have all these cards and they all do 730Kh/s easily.  http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Radeon-Mini-Displayport-Graphics-GV-R797OC-3GD/dp/B00752QYLK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1385169765&sr=8-3&keywords=7970  http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-DL-DVI-I-SL-DVI-D-PCI-Express-11197-03-40G/dp/B009B6Y01Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385169765&sr=8-1&keywords=7970   http://www.amazon.com/MSI-Overclocked-R7970-TF-3GD5/dp/B00CAN84OY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1385169765&sr=8-4&keywords=7970 Pricing is very hit or miss with the release of the r9 series cards. Good deals can still be found and I recently got another sapphire for around $260.

[Cyphex]

Hmm, you are kinda right. I didn't realize the difficulty was so high. So you are right in that I was wrong where I said an Avalon could pay for itself and possibly another Avalon in a month.

However, if I bought an Avalon unit, I would break even in 73 days according to this calculator.

 

I would make $37 per day. 

One very very important thing you have to realize when BTC mining is that you can't look at the numbers today and use that to calculate whether you will break even or have a profit. BTC's price changes too much for that to even be remotely reliable.

If BTC gets over $1000 one day (It's probably gonna happen within 6 months, depending on the news and events regarding Bitcoin), then that "$37 per day" was really "$50 per day". My profits for that time period actually goes up because my total BTC is increasing linearly (even considering increases in difficulty) relative to the price, which can very easily increase exponentially ($150 to $500? I call that exponential). 

My point is, even if I got the equivalent of $37 worth of BTC a day, that will go up as the price does. The point isn't to view the BTC as money now, but as money later. Because that's when you will actually use it, and the price will most certainly be different then. 

Also, I wouldn't say "A 63GH one can't do anything at the current difficulty" if it can pull $37 a day. Also, that's considering the power usage. $37 is kind of a lot when you basically have to do nothing.

If I mine 0.02BTC over a 3 day period, and BTC's price increases from $100 to $500, I didn't make $2 over those 3 days, I made $10 over those 3 days. And the longer I hold onto my BTC, the more I made over that time period. 

 

Dude, it might make $37 a day with today's difficulty, but it increases by 100m every week. http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

 

Edit: Let's also put it this way - You buy the 72BTC miner today. Even if the difficulty stood still (lol), you'd only make 1.56BTC a month. Do you really want to wait 46months for it to pay back? With the current rate of difficulty increasement, it will NEVER, EVER pay for itself. Oh, did I mention it also requires power?

[Vitalius]

Dude, it might make $37 a day with today's difficulty, but it increases by 100m every week. http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

 

Edit: Let's also put it this way - You buy the 72BTC miner today. Even if the difficulty stood still (lol), you'd only make 1.56BTC a month. Do you really want to wait 46months for it to pay back? With the current rate of difficulty increasement, it will NEVER, EVER pay for itself. Oh, did I mention it also requires power?

I don't see where you are getting your math from. 

And the idea that it's going to increase at 100 million every week forever is stupid to be honest. 

It's at 600 million right now. So BTC has only existed for 6 weeks? There will be a slowing period at some point. Probably in the near future (a week to a month). The exponential rise in price was met with an exponential rise in difficulty. It was to be expected. But it will almost certainly not be constant. 

[RuecanOnRails]

I don't see where you are getting your math from. 

And the idea that it's going to increase at 100 million every week forever is stupid to be honest. 

It's at 600 million right now. So BTC has only existed for 6 weeks? There will be a slowing period at some point. Probably in the near future (a week to a month). The exponential rise in price was met with an exponential rise in difficulty. It was to be expected. But it will almost certainly not be constant. 

 

He is mostly correct, it's called exponential growth on an S-curve. It occurs as more people enter the network and the Bitcoin network has more hardware added.

 

Only points I'd argue with him, is that the increase is roughly ever 2 weeks not 1 week. The increase should be viewed as a % not a static number. If you look at the history, we have had a steady increase of 20% every 2 weeks for the past several months. In the upcoming difficulty, we will see a predicted increase of 125 million, last increase was 99 million. While I see it slowing a little, the average of at least "100 million" every two weeks will likely continue for awhile yet.

 

Go through the charts on here http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

 

 

Of course, when looking at Litecoin it's a different story where it's difficulty has been much more stable. I'd expect that to change as Bitcoin, and Crypto-Currency becomes bigger with more people wanting to jump in. I feel like we are derailing this thread

[Cyphex]

He is mostly correct, it's called exponential growth on an S-curve. It occurs as more people enter the network and the Bitcoin network has more hardware added.

 

Only points I'd argue with him, is that the increase is roughly ever 2 weeks not 1 week. The increase should be viewed as a % not a static number. If you look at the history, we have had a steady increase of 20% every 2 weeks for the past several months. In the upcoming difficulty, we will see a predicted increase of 125 million, last increase was 99 million. While I see it slowing a little, the average of at least "100 million" every two weeks will likely continue for awhile yet.

 

Go through the charts on here http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

 

 

Of course, when looking at Litecoin it's a different story where it's difficulty has been much more stable. I'd expect that to change as Bitcoin, and Crypto-Currency becomes bigger with more people wanting to jump in. I feel like we are derailing this thread

 

My bad, haha. That's what happens when you get back home on a friday night and decide to read charts. Point is - He'll never get his investment back. By the way, check http://www.coinwarz.com to see which cryptocurrency is the most profitable ATM.

[DiceCustoms]

My bad, haha. That's what happens when you get back home on a friday night and decide to read charts. Point is - He'll never get his investment back. By the way, check http://www.coinwarz.com to see which cryptocurrency is the most profitable ATM.

OMG ITS CYPHEX! DO YOU LIKE DOMINATE ALL CORNERS OF THE INTERNETS?!

[Cyphex]

OMG ITS CYPHEX! DO YOU LIKE DOMINATE ALL CORNERS OF THE INTERNETS?!

 

Hahaha, your name rings a bell. Yeah, kinda.

[FlakeyBanana]

Just buy the best bfl ASIC you can buy

[Cyphex]

Just buy the best bfl ASIC you can buy

 

BFL may even take a year to deliver.

[RuecanOnRails]

BFL is one of the worst companies in the Bitcoin community along with Avalon they should be avoided. I cringe every time I see people suggest them.

 

Before you decide to purchase from anywhere, always to research into what and who you're buying from.