Bitcoin Discussion Thread Part 2

Spare-Flair said:
Hoarding and not selling but are you still mining?
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Yup, definitely still mining. I've been selling my coins as I've been mining them while it was over about $5.50. I'll keep mining at least until I have to turn on the AC (since mining offsets heating costs right now) or Bitcoin crashes completely. I'd actually like the see the price drop a good bit and lower the difficulty for a while.

I have about 100 BTC hoarded up since the price fell from $7. Not sure if I should sell.
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No point in selling low.
 
I have had my machines off for over a week since I moved. I need to find a place to set them up :(
 
I'm getting really low Mhash/s out of my 7970 at stock.....right around 295Mhash/s. To my understanding, I should be getting around 600.

Any ideas? I'm extremely new to this entire mining operation, so any advice is valued.
 
Sounds like your 7970 is running at desktop speed rather than 3d speed. Reboot and use afterburner to manually set your clocks.
 
DooKey said:
Sounds like your 7970 is running at desktop speed rather than 3d speed. Reboot and use afterburner to manually set your clocks.
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It really shouldn't do that, but yeah, I'd definitely check your clocks.

Also, make sure you're using the latest DiabloMiner with no flags set along with the 12.2 drivers.
 
jasondean98 said:
you can also set clocks in cgminer: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0

You'll get different results depending on what version driver/SDK you're using.

flags for 7970 would be something like

--auto-gpu --auto-fan --gpu-engine 450-1179 --gpu-memdiff -150 --gpu-powertune 20 -q -I 12 -k diakgcn -d 0 -v 2 -w 256
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Looks like cgminer has Diablo's latest kernel available as well, so that would be another (and possibly faster...haven't checked within the last week or so, but Diablo has always been faster for me) option. I'll have to do some testing to see for sure, but I would imagine it's just "-k diablo" with no other kernel-related tags.
 
So, anybody do any playing around with the few options available for GCN and find what configuration works best? I'm running the latest DiabloMiner (no flags) and am getting 672 MH/s on my 7970 at 1125/815. Gonna see about trying cgminer with the various kernels and some different settings and see if I can beat that.
 
So far as I know, the Diablo kernel is the best to use with GCN / the 7xxx series at the moment, but Diablo hasn't suggested any particular flags for the 7970. I've tried a few of the recommendations from the DiabloMiner thread (-v 1; -w 256), but they don't seem to have a significant effect on hash rate.
 
Anyone getting into the BFL singles? I'm considering it but it seems that they aren't shipping many out.
 
tunatime said:
idk sounds like a dating site or some thing lol. big fat losers singles? or i think this crazy thing? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=65752.0
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LOL your second guess was right, though I might have to invest in a dating site that takes BTC as payments.

Butterfly Labs Singles make 832 MH/s at 80W and produce minimal heat and sound. They cost $600 each. Considering that it costs ~$400 base price plus video cards to get into mining with GPUs this is pretty viable. The only single card solution that I can think of that gets anywhere close to that hash rate is a 6990. Those will cost you ~$700 new and you might be able to snag one for less then $500 used but it's rare. They also draw 300W at full load per card.

I'm considering purchasing as few as 3 and as many as 6 of these things. My only concern is that not very many are showing up in the wild. Many people have ordered them as early as November and only a few have confirmed that they have received their order this month. That's a long wait to have $1800 to $3600 investment sitting idle. It could be half paid off in that time frame. If they could abide by their 4-6week time frame I would have less concern.

Anyways I was just wondering if anyone here has had any experience with these FPGAs.
 
Well, over $5 again. Guess we'll see where this goes. Hopefully it spikes above $7 or so again. Got a nice lil' pile of coins to cash in.
 
I may get back into bit coin with those butterfly labs singles. Pretty impressive for 80watts. I'm going to email about time frame and will post back if i get a response. Planning on picking up 3 if the wait is reasonable.
 
Kardonxt said:
I may get back into bit coin with those butterfly labs singles. Pretty impressive for 80watts. I'm going to email about time frame and will post back if i get a response. Planning on picking up 3 if the wait is reasonable.
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I have to say they are quite responsive to their emails. I asked them about time frame and they said that the initial delay was due to a last minute design change and a change in manufacturer.

Said it was resolved and they will be ramping up production and the 4-6 weeks should be a solid time frame now. If any delays come about they will give you an option to stick with it or get a refund.

I had placed an order with paypal but never followed through with the actual transaction. About 3 days later I got an email following up about my unfinished order.
 
I got the same email was just about to post back lol.

After doing some math i'm second guessing the investment. It would take almost a year to recoup my investment.

Since difficulty seems to have no relation on price like many people thought it would when I got into bitcoin the December drop to 25coins per block would really suck.

I have been out of the game for a while tho what has the market been doing? Pretty steady at $5 or regular fluctuation between 5 and some higher / lower number?
 
I'm by no means a serious miner -- I have a 6970 and 6950 mining for me. I've probably cashed in about 19.5 BTC over my "career" the past few months.

I would guess that I've probably cashed in about 80 to 100 dollars into my pocket. i remember getting 25 dollars worth of amazon money and then about 75 dollars in hard cash via paypal. I'd have to do a bit of calculations but when I factor in electricity something like 8 cents/kwh i barely make any profit.

It was a great way to keep my apartment warm for "free" during the winter months though, we are already hitting 80F here in North Texas, so I've actually stopped mining the past week or two.

With only two cards - hot weather, it makes no sense for me to spend the money heating up my place, and then spending more to cool it back down.

I've eyed the walls of my apartment before wondering if it would be possible to tap into the neighbors sockets :-p haha even though I'm good with wiring and all that, I'd probably electrocute myself.
 
omg... punch the drywall, identify back of neighbor's duplex receptacle, carefully tap on hot

...

...

profit?
 
send them to me and I'll send you $200 gifted via paypal. Still too much of a hassle?
 
I cash in about 50 BTC a month and it's still taken over half a year to recoup my investment costs and pay for electricity also so those Butterfly singles, if they take half a year to recoup would be comparable except you don't get the noise and heat also.

And it's not like I got "free" hardware out of it because there's not much else use to these rigs if I'm not mining.
 
Spare-Flair said:
And it's not like I got "free" hardware out of it because there's not much else use to these rigs if I'm not mining.
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That's my #1 main concern really. At least if the bottom falls out from under BTC, PC hardware can be sold to get yourself out of the mess. Having lots of money invested in those Butterfly Singles would hurt bad if BTC crashed before paying them off.

Kardonxt said:
I have been out of the game for a while tho what has the market been doing? Pretty steady at $5 or regular fluctuation between 5 and some higher / lower number?
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It moves from $4.30 to $5.30 regularly. Christmas time last year it spiked to $7 and stayed for about 2 weeks.
 
Kardonxt said:
Do i start enjoying the profits or invest in more mining hardware?
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Good question! How many Mhash you at now?

Here is the way I see it: Summer is around the corner: what is your power cost? I'm at $0.06 KWH so I can cool and mine without a problem. I was using it for heating this winter.

Would you buy new hardware or go cheap and throw stuff together? I assume you are going to stick with GPU mining.

I dunno, in my mind spending $600 on new 6x/7x series cards makes very little sense IMNSHO. Now finding used 5X series cards for cheap still does. I hope for $1/day/card payback and try to get my GPUs to pay off in 3 months or less (hint: buying 5830s for $90 each and throwing 4x in a rig gets me 1.2Ghash in a rig that costs very little)
 
I think the post of mine you quoted is pretty old. I sold all of my mining hardware a long time ago. I was at 5ghash with a combination of 5970, 5870, 5850s, and 5830s.

I made a good chunk of money but I got into bitcoins when i was able to make back my investment in the first 2 months. At a full year to see returns i'm not sure its worth the risk.

Like mentioned above the butterfly singles have no resale value if bitcoin goes bust. At least with 5 series gpus they are still decent gaming gpus that can be resold.
 
Kardonxt said:
I think the post of mine you quoted is pretty old. I sold all of my mining hardware a long time ago. I was at 5ghash with a combination of 5970, 5870, 5850s, and 5830s.

I made a good chunk of money but I got into bitcoins when i was able to make back my investment in the first 2 months. At a full year to see returns i'm not sure its worth the risk.

Like mentioned above the butterfly singles have no resale value if bitcoin goes bust. At least with 5 series gpus they are still decent gaming gpus that can be resold.
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Depends on the angle you look at it from.

I don't have a farm or anything like what you are describing, but I do have a 6950 with unlocked shaders as my video card in my homes main PC. This PC stays on all the time, the difference between the 6950 at idle and load is ~130Watts draw at socket (slight overclock and decent undervolt). Since the PC is on all the time I'm only interested in idle vs load draw, that's the delta in power I'm working with.

My electric here after delivery and taxes is ~10.5 cents KWH. The card pulls ~350 M/hash, I get a bit coin every ~3.7 processing days.

The high cost of AC Cooling isn't an issue, I live in the Northeast and can just open up a window and turn on a box fan, it will keep the room adequately cool (<80 except on the hottest summer days)

It's my main PC, so it only really mines ~22-23 hours a day on average. I wrote a little program that automatically starts my miner when I'm not using my PC, and stops it when I'm using it. Based on this it takes me about 4 days in real time to get one BTC.

I bought the unlocked 6950 for $220, sold my old card for $85. So my cost of upgrade was $135, and it is a big upgrade.

So by my math I figure:
&#9658;130 watts x 24 hours processing = 3.12 KWH used per day, 32.7 cents per processing day for electric.
&#9658;32.7 x 3.7 (at current difficulty) = $1.21 in electric to mine 1 bitcoin, so that's the break even point, as long as bitcoins are above that mark I have profit.
&#9658;In an average month (30 days) I'll make ~7.5 bitcoins (at 4 days per coin). If I can sell around the $5 mark, I'll make ~$37/month - $9 for power., which should pay off the upgrade in about 4.5 months. Sold at $4 will take 6 months.

Obviously the above calculations will change over time (difficulty increases, fluctuating BTC value, etc.), but considering my delta on power is so low, I anticipate that it will be worth it to me to mine for a long time.

The way I look at it is I'm getting a "free" upgrade to a much better video card that I likely would have upgraded for gaming anyways, so I really wasn't investing in hardware that only fills one purpose.
 
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I'll paypal or Amazon giftcard/payments anyone wishing to get rid of bitcoins mined
 
Ok, I finally do not have time to bitcoin mine anymore. Far too busy with work and house stuff. Have not had my btc rigs powered on in two months, so it is going for sale. I will make a thread later today.

4 x 5870
2 x 5850
8 x 5830
3 x Corsair 750w PSU
1 x CM 1000w PSU
2 x ASRock mobo + AMD Sempron 145 + 2gb ram
2 x Biostar mobo + AMD Sempron 145 + 2gb ram
4 x Spotswood cases(I never even got to use these :( )

I will post pics and more info in the fs thread. PM me with offers if anybody is interested.
 
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Anyone here tested these new HD7770's?
I'm kind of interested in trying mining now that I will have a AMD card.
How about a 5670? Worth the hassle of setting it up? I got Win7 running on the 5670 rig and it's used as media center so if you can schedule the mining to run only during nights I could do it.
E: well I did do some calculations based on the card comparison at wiki and those two aren't so productive but it is still something. Might not run the 5670 at all, so little mhash so no point. 7770 on the other hand should net something like 200mhash and if my card oc's well maybe even more. I gotta look into this more.
 
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lagittaja said:
Anyone here tested these new HD7770's?
I'm kind of interested in trying mining now that I will have a AMD card.
How about a 5670? Worth the hassle of setting it up? I got Win7 running on the 5670 rig and it's used as media center so if you can schedule the mining to run only during nights I could do it.
E: well I did do some calculations based on the card comparison at wiki and those two aren't so productive but it is still something. Might not run the 5670 at all, so little mhash so no point. 7770 on the other hand should net something like 200mhash and if my card oc's well maybe even more. I gotta look into this more.
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if you are only getting 200Mhas out of a 7770 then it's really not worth it either. My 6950 unlocked and overclocked and overclocked modestly will get 350Mhash, and cost wise (used) would only cost about 25 to 30 dollars more per card. 7770s look to be 170 on newegg after rebate, I know for a fact you can pick up 6950/70 cards here for 190-200 shipped. (got mine for 190 months ago)

Back to general bitcoin discussion - I was a 24/7 miner with my small setup 6970 and 6950 running all the time. I was able to heat my place and get some money during the winter - but here in Texas with the summer coming and 110F days, no way in hell am I going to dump another 500W of heat into my apartment. I pay an average price for power, but even in a small apartment if I ran bitcoin over the summer my cooling bill would be 150 dollars EASY (and this is with excellent insulation, no direct sunlight, and not being on the top floor) Normal electricity bill for me is in the 40 dollar/month range.

I wish I had my old job - I could setup several bit coin rigs without anyone asking me anything and run them 24/7 getting free power and free cooling. *sigh* alas my job now our computer room has a much stricter setup.
 
In Texas it would be a fire hazzard. Every thing in the summar is so dry and hot; I think just thinking of hot would create the fire :eek:
All joke aside; what sort of MG/h you are getting with 6950 or 6970
 
mir said:
How this works ?
Any body has tried yet ?
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I do it quite frequently, actually.

You initiate an order with the e-mail address you want the money sent to (Amazon Payments account). Once you initiate the order, it tells you the exact amount of coins to send to a Bitcoin address. Send the coins and within a couple of hours, they send you the money. Quick and easy.
 
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