Cryptocurrency mining worth it?

[Guest]

I've heard talk of a Bitcoin/Etherium mining spike going on at the moment, and it got me thinking; would investing in a graphics card to mine cryptocurrency with be worth it? Would I be able to make a reasonable profit quickly? I'm only just learning about how the whole mining thing works at the moment, sorry if it's an obvious answer.

[rn8686]

It is for me (Can make $5 AUD/day after power), but I cant really vouch for the long term stability of Zcash or Eth (It looks like it will stay strong, but I am not an investor). 

[Phentos]

If you pay your own electric bill and live in an area that doesn't get insanely hot during the summer, then yes it is worth it.

 

If you do not pay your own electric bill, or you can't control your ambient temps, then don't. Mining is very energy-intensive and your GPU will be at 100% load constantly, pumping out a lot of heat. 

 

A friend of mine recently got in trouble for mining ETH for about 20 hours per day a couple months ago while living at home with his parents rent-free. Their electric bill was $670 one month. His parents were pissed.

[Guest]

Just now, rn8686 said:

It is for me (Can make $5 AUD/day after power), but I cant really vouch for the long term stability of Zcash or Eth (It looks like it will stay strong, but I am not an investor). 

After power? Does it use a noticeable amount of power?

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Phentos said:

If you pay your own electric bill and live in an area that doesn't get insanely hot during the summer, then yes it is worth it.

 

If you do not pay your own electric bill, or you can't control your ambient temps, then don't. Mining is very energy-intensive and your GPU will be at 100% load constantly, pumping out a lot of heat. 

 

A friend of mine recently got in trouble for mining ETH for about 20 hours per day a couple months ago while living at home with his parents rent-free. Their electric bill was $670 one month. His parents were pissed.

Damn. I still live with my parents, so I guess I at least won't be doing anything that intense any time soon. And I live in Australia, where it's like 30C on average right now, during winter.

[rn8686]

1 minute ago, LeinadTM said:

After power? Does it use a noticeable amount of power?

It would, probably around $350-$400 AUD per year here (Can still make over $2k assuming price is stable), but its expensive here at 31C K/WH (or around that I think). 

[Guest]

Just now, rn8686 said:

It would, probably around $350-$400 AUD per year here (Can still make over $2k assuming price is stable), but its expensive here at 31C K/WH (or around that I think). 

Hmm... I guess if I decide to do it I'd better check how much we pay per KWh first. I'm assuming this is running 24/7 that gets you $5 a day?

[rn8686]

3 minutes ago, LeinadTM said:

Hmm... I guess if I decide to do it I'd better check how much we pay per KWh first. I'm assuming this is running 24/7 that gets you $5 a day?

Yes, $5 after power on A 1070.

[Phentos]

Just now, LeinadTM said:

Hmm... I guess if I decide to do it I'd better check how much we pay per KWh first. I'm assuming this is running 24/7 that gets you $5 a day?

It's highly dependent on your hardware. If you're trying to mine on an old card, then it isn't worth it at all.

 

I hope you still don't have that Radeon 3870 in your signature, because you would be lucky to earn maybe 10 cents per week on that. If it even works.

[Guest]

Just now, Phentos said:

It's highly dependent on your hardware. If you're trying to mine on an old card, then it isn't worth it at all.

 

I hope you still don't have that Radeon 3870 in your signature, because you would be lucky to earn maybe 10 cents per week on that. If it even works.

Heh heh... yeah I'm still using the 3870, until a molex-PCIe adapter arrives so I can use my 4870. I wasn't planning on starting any time soon with my current hardware, just seeing if it's a decent way to make profit in future.

[renesdk]

Just be aware that it's worth mining Etereum now, if you have a low cost on your electricity, but it will cost a lot of money mining. But as people find out about it, it becomes less and less interesting as the time between hitting shares gets longer and longer. Also I don't believe 3870 and 4870 are interesting hardware to mine on.

 

The interesting ones for Ethereum mining are AMD 470/480 and AMD 570 and 580. Nvidia 1070/1080/1080Ti can be used, but are in no way as efficient as the AMD counterparts. That is also the reason why AMD cards are so hard to find these days.

 

Personally it is not really interesting for me to mine Ethereum as the cost of electricity is with my supplier $0.45 USD pr. kWh. Also as I would not just sell my Ethereum right away if I had any that I had mined, then it would just be a huge extra bill from my power company, so I see no reason to do it.

[Guest]

Where I live power only costs .08 cents per Kwh so mining Ethereum is very profitable. Use this to calculate if mining will be profitable. I have a GTX 1060 and my Mh/s is around 18-19. I can make around 3 dollars per day running it 24/7. If you want to get started I recommend this tutorial. Only thing I would leave out from the tutorial is use the MetaMask Chrome extension as your Ethereum wallet. Better Ui and less resource demanding. 

[BuckGup]

4 hours ago, Phentos said:

If you pay your own electric bill and live in an area that doesn't get insanely hot during the summer, then yes it is worth it.

 

If you do not pay your own electric bill, or you can't control your ambient temps, then don't. Mining is very energy-intensive and your GPU will be at 100% load constantly, pumping out a lot of heat. 

 

A friend of mine recently got in trouble for mining ETH for about 20 hours per day a couple months ago while living at home with his parents rent-free. Their electric bill was $670 one month. His parents were pissed.

$670? There is no way even quad 290Xs could come close to that on top of what they normally pay unless it's like $0.30/Kw

[Phentos]

16 hours ago, BuckGup said:

$670? There is no way even quad 290Xs could come close to that on top of what they normally pay unless it's like $0.30/Kw

I live in central California, where the utility charges are increased to a huge premium during spring-summer months. Their usual electric bill per month was like $450-500, which my friend's parents were barely able to pay. 

[BuckGup]

5 hours ago, Phentos said:

I live in central California, where the utility charges are increased to a huge premium during spring-summer months. Their usual electric bill per month was like $450-500, which my friend's parents were barely able to pay. 

Ouch