Bitcoin Discussion Thread Part 2

note235 said:
radeon 7950s were $131AR on newegg less than half an hour ago
snagged 2
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I got in on one of those earlier. May even have even got the last one. Thanks to the LTC spike, it's going to be tough getting 7950/7970s this week. The ones that go on sale will sell out very quickly. NE looks like they're all out of 7950s. Maybe some 7970s for around $200-$220 will pop up. I'll be keeping my eye on them.
 
Ive got four good 7950s I should sell and two more XFXs that just need their shrouds replaced...fans died on them...plus the supporting systems...I can't be arsed to set them up even though I know I would profit a lot more to mine....just don't want to deal with the hassle of getting them going....


Got a network of about 200 PCs that I could CPU mine with...if I could run the miner silently in the background :D
 
Wow NMC is up to 7.25. I mostly mined on EMC but just for giggles I checked my old BTC guild account and....

FigVwiX.png



sweet, I just bought a 280X today too, that's 2/3rds of it paid off!
 
canna said:
Wow NMC is up to 7.25. I mostly mined on EMC but just for giggles I checked my old BTC guild account and....

FigVwiX.png



sweet, I just bought a 280X today too, that's 2/3rds of it paid off!
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hmm thanks
i'll check my wallet also
 
I just checked all my old accounts yesterday and pieced together almost 1 btc! :)

I can't seem to find much info, is the R9 290 worth it for mining ltc?
 
Damn, so I sold my 7970s and moved to 780 SLI a few weeks ago. Given the price rise it seems silly to not get in on this though. I just ordered a parts for a new rig with 2x290s, if the LTC price tanks I'll be screwed but then again not a huge risk as I can always sell off the hardware.
 
sorry to hijack. Two questions please. Can a bitcoin miner, mine litecoin? and are there build guides here on Hard?
Thanks.
 
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harsaphes said:
sorry to hijack. Two questions please. Can a bitcoin miner, mine litecoin? and are there build guides here on Hard?
Thanks.
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Yes, I would appreciate someone with experience making a guide for newbs.

What hardware, and what software are the A-choice to get started.
 
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Yakk said:
I just checked all my old accounts yesterday and pieced together almost 1 btc! :)

I can't seem to find much info, is the R9 290 worth it for mining ltc?
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The R9 290 runs very close to the 7950 in terms of hashes per watt. With the right card, the right cooling and the right settings you can get up to around 900KHash/s. However, due to the card's reference cooler, it's pretty difficult to keep it there, since without adequate cooling, the card starts throttling the clock speed which will affect your hash rate. There's that, and I also hear they run quite loud.
 
harsaphes said:
sorry to hijack. Two questions please. Can a bitcoin miner, mine litecoin?
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Yes and no. GPUs can mine either Bitcoin or Litecoin. However, GPU mining for Bitcoin is pretty much obsolete. Bitcoin ASICs are great for mining Bitcoin but are not useful for Litecoin at all. GPUs are pretty much the only viable way of mining Litecoin at this time.
 
Carbon_Rod said:
The R9 290 runs very close to the 7950 in terms of hashes per watt. With the right card, the right cooling and the right settings you can get up to around 900KHash/s. However, due to the card's reference cooler, it's pretty difficult to keep it there, since without adequate cooling, the card starts throttling the clock speed which will affect your hash rate. There's that, and I also hear they run quite loud.
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That is why I've given up on the hanging basket type tactics and having anything more than 2 cards per system. Cheap boards can be had with a pair of slots with some spacing in between for air flow. The reference coolers are trash on all of the video cards when it comes to mining. gigabytes triple fan setup is nice along with the big heat pipe rigging of asus. I am big on the 280x right now. $100 less than the 290 and still in the 700+ khash. The trick is simply dont buy the reference cooler crap with the 850 cores. I'm only buying the 1ghz+ cores with better cooling and 700-750 can be had without any tuning. I plugged in my first one and went straight to 720 and after a couple hours of tuning hit 750 so not even worth the added time! I have nearly every 1ghz+ 280x and I'm not sure which is my favorite at this point. The MSI though is crap. Its the only one that doesn't easily hit 700k and stay there.

Now that the 280x's are gone everywhere I'm looking for a different card to buy with the "new cash" burning a hole in my pocket. I'm not going to bother with the 290. I'm considering going with the 7870 ghz edition since 7950's and 7970's are all gone at reasonable prices
 
Yakk said:
I just checked all my old accounts yesterday and pieced together almost 1 btc! :)

I can't seem to find much info, is the R9 290 worth it for mining ltc?
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if you are "investing" the 290's just not a smart buy. newegg has the HIS 1ghz card in stock for $320 right now and I'm averaging just under 750k on that one. I'm juggling funds around and waiting for the bank to open to go put cash in to order some more... that HIS is fantastic but a bit oversized so it'll crowd out cards if you are trying to put things side by side. The gigabyte and xfx black work side by side OK but that HIS and say the asus are hogs when it comes to space. It's smartest to plan on giving them plenty of space to work.
 
mkrohn said:
The MSI though is crap. Its the only one that doesn't easily hit 700k and stay there.
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Aww... don't tell me that! I just bought a couple of them because they were on sale. I read a few reviews that said their cooling was pretty good. Of course, I wasn't able to find any word on their hashing performance.

However on the bright side, even though I ordered a couple days ago and expected my order to ship very quickly, it appears it hasn't yet. Maybe it was fate that wanted me to read this so I could cancel my order (I'm going to do it just to be on the safe side).

I found Sapphire 280x Vapor-X on sale as well... since you said you've tried nearly every 280X, what do you think of the Sapphire Vapor-X model?

EDIT: Aw crap... the sale on the Sapphire Vapor-X model is "one per customer" only! Was hoping for a pair of them at least.
 
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mkrohn said:
Now that the 280x's are gone everywhere I'm looking for a different card to buy with the "new cash" burning a hole in my pocket.
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Last night was wild looking for cards. I snagged two 280x's from Amazon last night, out of stock this morning. Of course, we'll see if they actually ship.

EDIT: Canceled my order, decided not to pursue. I'll buy some LiteCoins and go from there.
 
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What's the best way to convert LTC to $$? I might want to sell in the future and want the minimum of fuss.

Best exchange place? Least number of steps and accounts to get $$ to my bank?

TIA
 
Dark Shade said:
I also use btc-e. Ignore the idiotbox
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That thing drives me crazy. Everyone just keeps saying to sell and buy and that a crash is about to happen. So absurd. Whoever came up with the idea to put a chatbox on a money exchange site should be taken out back and be shot.
 
Carbon_Rod said:
Aww... don't tell me that! I just bought a couple of them because they were on sale. I read a few reviews that said their cooling was pretty good. Of course, I wasn't able to find any word on their hashing performance.

However on the bright side, even though I ordered a couple days ago and expected my order to ship very quickly, it appears it hasn't yet. Maybe it was fate that wanted me to read this so I could cancel my order (I'm going to do it just to be on the safe side).

I found Sapphire 280x Vapor-X on sale as well... since you said you've tried nearly every 280X, what do you think of the Sapphire Vapor-X model?

EDIT: Aw crap... the sale on the Sapphire Vapor-X model is "one per customer" only! Was hoping for a pair of them at least.
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which saphire is it? I passed on the saphires that were in stock because stock clock was under 1ghz and I was trying to collect ones that stock were 1ghz so I knew I'd get 1050+ without crossing my fingers.
 
mkrohn said:
if you are "investing" the 290's just not a smart buy. newegg has the HIS 1ghz card in stock for $320 right now and I'm averaging just under 750k on that one. I'm juggling funds around and waiting for the bank to open to go put cash in to order some more... that HIS is fantastic but a bit oversized so it'll crowd out cards if you are trying to put things side by side. The gigabyte and xfx black work side by side OK but that HIS and say the asus are hogs when it comes to space. It's smartest to plan on giving them plenty of space to work.
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Thanks for the information!

Hmm, since my actual gaming time is near non-existent right now, I went ahead and got a couple 280x cards to continue mining.
 
DooKey said:
What's the best way to convert LTC to $$? I might want to sell in the future and want the minimum of fuss.

Best exchange place? Least number of steps and accounts to get $$ to my bank?

TIA
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i bring litecoin to btce convert it to bitcoin and cash out at coinbase. Usually coinbase has a higher bitcoin price as well so it's a win.
 
osrk said:
i bring litecoin to btce convert it to bitcoin and cash out at coinbase. Usually coinbase has a higher bitcoin price as well so it's a win.
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if you can go through the hoops of gox they pay better but I haven't used them yet because coinbase is so simple. I'm not going to cash anything out till the week before Xmas. I want to just keep riding since I"m on "free money" after recouping my expenses.
 
mkrohn said:
which saphire is it? I passed on the saphires that were in stock because stock clock was under 1ghz and I was trying to collect ones that stock were 1ghz so I knew I'd get 1050+ without crossing my fingers.
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It's an OC model... I think it's clocked at 1070 out of the box.

EDIT: Just a couple further questions... have you tried the Gigabytes? Gigabyte seems to be another one of those brands I have had a lot of exposure to that I trust. The only thing I don't trust about Gigabyte is that they're usually quick to cheap out and start locking voltages. If I were to buy a couple of their 280X's, I'd want the ability to adjust voltages. But it seems to be one of the highest clocked out of the box at 1100. Apparently, there's a couple different revisions of Gigabyte 280X's floating around out there too... not sure if I want to take a chance at the lottery at this moment.
 
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elite.mafia said:
That thing drives me crazy. Everyone just keeps saying to sell and buy and that a crash is about to happen. So absurd. Whoever came up with the idea to put a chatbox on a money exchange site should be taken out back and be shot.
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Sometimes it's an entertaining read while you watch whatever coin you're into start to skyrocket.

On a side note, what I have found is there are a few people who genuinely think there is no room in a world market for alt coins because these coins steal the spotlight from Bitcoin. I must admit, I sometimes find myself feeling that way when I see something like PPC or NMC or, of all things, NVC getting pumped while LTC just sits there or quietly drops a bit. But then I look at it and think things would be way more boring if things were limited to just 1 or 2 coins.
 
Carbon_Rod said:
Sometimes it's an entertaining read while you watch whatever coin you're into start to skyrocket.

On a side note, what I have found is there are a few people who genuinely think there is no room in a world market for alt coins because these coins steal the spotlight from Bitcoin. I must admit, I sometimes find myself feeling that way when I see something like PPC or NMC or, of all things, NVC getting pumped while LTC just sits there or quietly drops a bit. But then I look at it and think things would be way more boring if things were limited to just 1 or 2 coins.
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Bitcoin is simply the "first mover" in the market. Long term, it'll end up similar to how we have EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, etc... today in forex.
 
Carbon_Rod said:
It's an OC model... I think it's clocked at 1070 out of the box.

EDIT: Just a couple further questions... have you tried the Gigabytes? Gigabyte seems to be another one of those brands I have had a lot of exposure to that I trust. The only thing I don't trust about Gigabyte is that they're usually quick to cheap out and start locking voltages. If I were to buy a couple of their 280X's, I'd want the ability to adjust voltages. But it seems to be one of the highest clocked out of the box at 1100. Apparently, there's a couple different revisions of Gigabyte 280X's floating around out there too... not sure if I want to take a chance at the lottery at this moment.
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this is my gigabyte http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125490 and it is a fantastic card. It might actually be my favorite since there haven't been clearance issues and its not crazy large like an asus

Carbon_Rod said:
Sometimes it's an entertaining read while you watch whatever coin you're into start to skyrocket.

On a side note, what I have found is there are a few people who genuinely think there is no room in a world market for alt coins because these coins steal the spotlight from Bitcoin. I must admit, I sometimes find myself feeling that way when I see something like PPC or NMC or, of all things, NVC getting pumped while LTC just sits there or quietly drops a bit. But then I look at it and think things would be way more boring if things were limited to just 1 or 2 coins.
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I'm literally buying every coin exchanged on cryptsy to sit on. after my last cashout I had some oddball "change" sitting in some pools that I transferred into various coins. The value of them was ~$25 without adding any of my newly mined money it is over 2 BTC. I apparently sold several coins just too early. As I was looking over some of the coins I cashed out on because I had 5x or more value from when I bought they quickly went up another 5x so I'm sitting longer on these various coins I pickup. General rule for me is .01BTC or less of each and every coin. Some it gets an insane number of coins and then I just sit. I have like 100k+ on quite a few coins and if any ever are worth like $1 then I pay off my frickin house.

I view the oddball coins as the lottery. There's going to be some winners but you can't win if you don't play.
 
mkrohn said:
General rule for me is .01BTC or less of each and every coin. Some it gets an insane number of coins and then I just sit. I have like 100k+ on quite a few coins and if any ever are worth like $1 then I pay off my frickin house.

I view the oddball coins as the lottery. There's going to be some winners but you can't win if you don't play.
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Can you explain this for a newb?
 
mkrohn said:
this is my gigabyte http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125490 and it is a fantastic card. It might actually be my favorite since there haven't been clearance issues and its not crazy large like an asus
Click to expand...

Voltage locked? Or have you had to adjust the voltage at all?

The Gigabyte 7970's I'm currently using are voltage locked to 1.250V. That makes them run crazy hot when in close proximity, but I can actually say they are the most stable cards I have.

EDIT: I see what was meant about the different revisions now. The second revision cards are actually being sold as REV2. That's actually encouraging because there is no lottery when shopping for cards... not knowing which revision you'll end up with. If you, or anyone else, can confirm whether they are voltage locked, then I can scribble my name on a couple of these while my favorite retailer is waiting to get them in. I've also heard the Sapphire Dual-X cards are cheap and effective as well, but I've always preferred the Gigabyte coolers with the triple fans... they are much quieter.
 
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Pocatello said:
Can you explain this for a newb?
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Imagine investing 100k in all kinds of IPO stocks and thinly traded penny stocks during the dot-com bubble, and then boasting about your "day trading skills" on message boards due to strong emotional investment and excitement...
 
ucsb_otaku said:
Imagine investing 100k in all kinds of IPO stocks and thinly traded penny stocks during the dot-com bubble, and then boasting about your "day trading skills" on message boards due to strong emotional investment and excitement...
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How have I called that day trading skills? I've constantly stated things like crossing my fingers and used the word LUCK. When a person is talking about good LUCK that is completely different from SKILL. Right now spreading things around is the smart thing to do because just watch... there will be quite a few pops. I've watched a large chunk of the ones I got into with pocket change more than double overnight. Many of the coins just don't have the volume to do anything so I just dont put much in those. I look for low price and take a look at the buy/sell prices. When the buy and sell have massive gaps the coin has no support at all. If I see a block of like 30BTC sitting as the lowest sell then it has hit a wall and will likely drop back down.

I honestly don't even watch the various coins throughout the day and I certainly don't buy/sell a coin through the day like a day trader does. I have confidence in the system and the establishment of BTC and LTC. I have no idea what third tier will actually be but when you see the coins on multiple exchanges like the ones on btc-e those are all coins with considerable levels of support.

Carbon_Rod said:
Voltage locked? Or have you had to adjust the voltage at all?

The Gigabyte 7970's I'm currently using are voltage locked to 1.250V. That makes them run crazy hot when in close proximity, but I can actually say they are the most stable cards I have.

EDIT: I see what was meant about the different revisions now. The second revision cards are actually being sold as REV2. That's actually encouraging because there is no lottery when shopping for cards... not knowing which revision you'll end up with. If you, or anyone else, can confirm whether they are voltage locked, then I can scribble my name on a couple of these while my favorite retailer is waiting to get them in. I've also heard the Sapphire Dual-X cards are cheap and effective as well, but I've always preferred the Gigabyte coolers with the triple fans... they are much quieter.
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I haven't touched the voltages. I just set them at stock clock and go at most 10% over. I have found tinkering too much to be a waste of time. When you crank the voltages up and overclock them like mad if you watch the throughput over time its not as stable and has more spikes but ends up about the same overall as the "stock" which is why I'm getting the cards that are stock above 1ghz. I apparently passed on the saphire. I picked up extra HIS though. I wish I had a ton of gigabyte but they were out of stock and lucked into the one i got because it flashed back in stock
 
mkrohn said:
I haven't touched the voltages. I just set them at stock clock and go at most 10% over. I have found tinkering too much to be a waste of time. When you crank the voltages up and overclock them like mad if you watch the throughput over time its not as stable and has more spikes but ends up about the same overall as the "stock" which is why I'm getting the cards that are stock above 1ghz. I apparently passed on the saphire. I picked up extra HIS though. I wish I had a ton of gigabyte but they were out of stock and lucked into the one i got because it flashed back in stock
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You misunderstand. I don't want to overvolt. I want to undervolt. The last 7950's and 7970's Gigabyte produced were voltage locked to 1.250V. Those cards don't need 1.250V to run. Sure they run stable, but they run hot and ultimately it's just a waste of power. There have been a number of folks that have been able to get their 7950's running at as little as 1.09V on models that allow modifying the voltage. Reducing the voltage like that will ultimately reduce the power consumption... and we're not talking peanuts here... it's quite significant. Think in the range of 40 to 50W per GPU. And ultimately, in the end, they also run cooler. Again, it's not insignificantly lower we're talking here... in the range of around 10C lower. And everything still runs completely stable at those reduced voltages.
 
If your WF3 is locked (mine is) you can flash an official bios that lowers it to 1.09v. It will still be locked, but it will be 1.09v instead of 1.25v.
 
blade52x said:
If your WF3 is locked (mine is) you can flash an official bios that lowers it to 1.09v. It will still be locked, but it will be 1.09v instead of 1.25v.
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I may have to take a look into that at some point. Thanks.
Right now they're fine... I have each of them in their own machine where they stay cool and quiet. That will be changing shortly though as I make changes to expand my mining setup.
 
Dark Shade said:
I also use btc-e. Ignore the idiotbox
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Addblock easy filter works great.

I can also confirm the Gigabyte 7970 WF3 bios flashing. I had their 7970OCs, and for kicks i went and flashed the GHZ Ed. bios [1.256v] (which worked) and then back to the OC bios [1.17v] no problem.

Their 7970s (and 7950s?) do have dual bioses, so it's fine to play with one.
 
Bad thread for this, can anyone PM me a good LTC server??
 
Dogs said:
The bitcoin exchange does crazy things on Friday afternoons...
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investors always cash out on fridays because crazy crap tends to happens on weekends so if we get invaded by Canada they aren't invested
 
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