LiteCoin Causing Historic High Demand For AMD Radeon GPUs

The next "never settle" bundle should include CGminer and batch files for mining settings... ;)

Never settle, litecoin edition.
 
tangoseal said:
Cryptocurrencies will fail because they have no physical value.
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Most of the money around the world has no physical value. We run on credit and money printed from thin air with some assurance from the gov. that its worth something although most govt. cant even back their currencies.
 
So the vendor that offers the best value is currently over inflated thanks to the latest bitcoin mining trend and the only other vendor refuses to drop its prices into realistic ranges.

Great..
 
Godmachine said:
So the vendor that offers the best value is currently over inflated thanks to the latest bitcoin mining trend and the only other vendor refuses to drop its prices into realistic ranges.

Great..
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Go blame Nvidia's shitty ALUs that take 3 processor cycles to perform the same operation.
AMD GPUs tend to have lower-end ALUs but make up for this by packing more ALUs onto the card overall. For most hash algorithms this is preferable.
AMD GPUs uses ALUs which can perform the 32-bit integer right rotate operation in a single instruction - Nvidia's ALUs take three processor cycles to perform the same operation. SHA256 uses this operation heavily, therefore Bitcoin mining uses this operation heavily.
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Source

DiabloMiner author here. Nvidia keeps claiming they produce a product for GPGPU compute, yet they keep failing on integer performance. Bitcoin is not the only use of integers out there, and its not even limited to crypto research either.

There is zero reason for Nvidia to have made this fundamental mistake generation after generation. This is why I don't support their product, its too slow to be useful and Nvidia doesn't seem to care. I repeatedly tried to reach out to that company, and I never got a response.
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Source

Nvidia doesn't give a shit because this sharp demand in AMD cards is causing "gamers" (i.e. the people that only game and don't care about anything else) to turn to Nvidia for the cheaper alternative.
 
Cool Vibrations said:
Source

Nvidia doesn't give a shit because this sharp demand in AMD cards is causing "gamers" (i.e. the people that only game and don't care about anything else) to turn to Nvidia for the cheaper alternative.
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Holy Shit, forgot I was in that discussion, with DiabloD3, if you read my comment and look at how FAH Core 17 works you will see that on NVIDIA cards the NVIDIA driver starts to use a whole tread just to run OpenCL on the GPU.

They still haven't fixed any of the GPGPU issues that plague their cards, they haven't fixed the ALU issue or the OpenCL issue.
 
it's pretty funny to watch some people come to threads like this and blubber on how it's a scam, and that bitcoin has no real value. (ProTip: the dollars in your pocket have no REAL value either when you boil it down, it's backed by a promise from a government that's increasingly corrupt, that's it, just a promise, nothing more).

Or the people that don't understand the finer points of SHA-256 vs scrypt mining, the fact that there are (as of yet) no ASIC's for scrypt in existence).

I'm pretty content with my little 6 card mining operation, even when mining full tilt for a month my electric bill was only 105 dollars. (plus the free heat thrown off the rigs in the winter is nice)

I don't ever expect litecoin to reach the heights of bitcoin, truth be told I'd probably cash out my measly collection of LTC if it hit 50 dollars. For now I will just mine and hold.

If a company does ever come out with an ASIC scrypt miner -- the fact is in that world it's a gamble if you are going to get it in time to make your money back before difficulty skyrockets from previous shipments. Just 1 week can mean the difference between breaking even in 1 month, vs 6 months.
 
This is turning into an entertaining thread.

Good, bad, good, bad.

Gaming or working, gpus are being used more & more. That is diversification, and a good thing for everyone involved. Mine do both! :)
 
Jumped ship to AMD for its versatility with entertainment, cracking passwords and generating money. Been Nvidia forever prior. Surprised AMD doesn't market it that way.
 
mi7chy said:
Jumped ship to AMD for its versatility with entertainment, cracking passwords and generating money. Been Nvidia forever prior. Surprised AMD doesn't market it that way.
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You know, you have a solid point.
 
Right now it appears that Bitcoin itself is at an impasse - those without at least a whole host of AMD GPUs, or ASICs aren't going to make much progress mining any longer. Prices of ASICs have risen exponentially along with the price of Bitcoin, so the barrier to entry is even higher - I'm seeing $1000+ cards as the starting point right now for latest generation fabrication ASICs. I was considering buying one of the $150-200 Butterfly Labs miners back when they were available, but they've poofed - are they no longer even worth the investment? Newcomers to the system are going to be unlikely, and the system will only be basically permissive enough (and draw enough users in who really won't be making/mining many coins) to faciliate cashing out for those who already have coins.

I guess my question is, will this cycle repeat with other cryptocurrencies? Okay, so apparently right now there are no ASICs for Litecoin/Feathercoin etc, so thus high-end AMD rigs are still viable. How will any of these cryptocurrencies "last" and actually become used as currencies? Right now, it seems that it is a rush to pick the best one (or hedge your bets with many), mine as long as it is profitable, try to jack up the price etc..and cash out and move onto the next one when either 1) the price to "real world money" exchange rate is sufficiently high and/or 2) it becomes too difficult to mine/acquire more coins. I know the original idea was that Bitcoin was to eventually be exchanged and "live" on transaction fees, but it doesn't seem things are moving this way.

This isn't the behavior of a currency as a store of value. It almost seems like a scheme where the early-comers amass all the wealth and depend on late-comers to join to jack up the viability so that exchange rates can skyrocket - the later you join and the less processing power you have, the less of a chance you'll get anything meaningful. Bitcoin's own exchange rate may be an anomalous bubble, but I see this same series of events playing out with every cryptocurrency, overall. It doesn't seem to be a true currency in any sense of the word, but rather a get-rich-quick betting scheme where those that come early and/or bring increasing amounts of mining power can do well, while most everyone else flounders or is inconsequential. What's the end-game? Everyone who doesn't make out in a given coin just jumping to the next? This will make it impossible to actually use the damn things as a currency - Hell, very few "legit" vendors accept Bitcoin for payment at the moment...even fewer use any of the others!

I'm happy that for the moment there's no ASICs for scrypt-based currencies, and hope that there won't be, as it may mean the wealth can be spread around a bit more. However, I just am not sure where this whole thing is going. Perhaps Namecoin or similar, that actually have a use outside as a token to exchange for $ when the time is right, will be different. Maybe someone will design a cryptocurrency that avoids the same problems as existing ones. However, for the moment I'm none to happy that prices on AMD cards have skyrocketed because of these developments; I was looking forward to a R9 290X this holiday.
 
I love looking an newegg, its a ghost town for high end cards.

Still a month ago they were barely worth the price of electricity. Now people are sinking several grand into setups hoping to break even in 90 days if the price stays stable.
 
I think GPU will always remain popular over FPGA and ASIC due to:

- off-the-shelf availability
- more easily reconfigurable to do different mining, password and hash recovery, etc. compared to ASIC which is hardcoded and throw away
- better resale value as worse case they can be used for gaming
- bonus byproduct is heat for winter season

What I'd like to know is why isn't R9 270X selling like crazy since it's the best bang for the buck with current pricing per Newegg? Also, 2 x R9 270X CF performs the same as R9 290X for 2/3 the cost and with the benefit that it's less likely to suffer overheating and throttling.

http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page4.html

Litecoin mining rate
R9 270X $200 420kH/s $0.48/kH
R9 280X $400 570kH/s $0.70/kH
7950 $450 580kH/s $0.78/kH
R9 290X $600 720kH/s $0.83/kH
 
mi7chy said:
Litecoin mining rate
R9 270X $200 420kH/s $0.48/kH
R9 280X $400 570kH/s $0.70/kH
7950 $450 580kH/s $0.78/kH
R9 290X $600 720kH/s $0.83/kH
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Those mining rates are a bit off from what I've seen around the web. A 270x getting 420 is medium-high end, I've heard of them hitting 450kh/s and even maybe 470, but that was a high OC, and high OCs means more heat and power consumption.

My 7970 can get ~730Kh/s after an hour of messing around with settings, but it runs too hot and loud in my room where my computer is (it's a reference cooler so it can get jet engine loud if I'm too aggressive with the fan profile). Most 7950s get ~620-670 without OCing too much and some undervolting. Idk much about the 290x, but litecoin mining LOVES memory bandwidth, so I imagine they can get pretty decent hash rates (compare a 7950 with a 7870xt, I've been using one to see what I can get and am stuck ~390kh/s).

Combine power consumption plus the fact that most miners are trying to be dense about their kh/s generation (more cards means more motherboards), and that's why I'd assume they're not super popular for the guys who have farms in their garages/basements.

That's what I'd imagine anyways, I don't mine hardcore like they do, so take everything I say with a grain of probably-wrong. I actually have a 270x coming today to compare with the 7870xt I ordered and will send whichever one I don't use back, and really the deciding factor is Kh/watt (and for me noise as well since it's in my server). Anyone farming big time would (I imagine) be all about Kh/watt since they're in it for the long term ROI.
 
How much money are people making in the long term?

A way to calculate would be:

(Price of hardware + Electricity costs ) - $ Amt earned for crypto currencies.

Just curious about it since I can put my 7970 in a back up rig. But California electricity costs too much during winters.
 
madgun said:
How much money are people making in the long term?

A way to calculate would be:

(Price of hardware + Electricity costs ) - $ Amt earned for crypto currencies.

Just curious about it since I can put my 7970 in a back up rig. But California electricity costs too much during winters.
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Considering the difficulty has gone up 3 fold in the last month, it will take you 3x longer and 3x more electricity as it did the end of October.
 
Look at this young man's arsenal with (108) R9 290's being set up at a hosting provider.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=361992.msg3881993#msg3881993

Long term? Time is of essence due to difficulty rising. Even with the newish litecoin I see it more as a winter project because if you're not already crunching away you're too late and severely underpowered. And, if you want to play you sort of have to buy whatever is in stock and it's just 270X and lower.

Thinking about indirectly profiting from this by buying AMD stock.
 
mi7chy said:
Look at this young man's arsenal with (108) R9 290's being set up at a hosting provider.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=361992.msg3881993#msg3881993

Long term? Time is of essence due to difficulty rising. Even with the newish litecoin I see it more as a winter project because if you're not already crunching away you're too late and severely underpowered. And, if you want to play you sort of have to buy whatever is in stock and it's just 270X and lower.

Thinking about indirectly profiting from this by buying AMD stock.
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wwwaaayy ahead of you *looks at 100 shares of AMD stock*

It's not only the fact their gpus are selling like crazy, it's also that they produce the chips for all the consoles right now. I think their 4th quarter results are going to crush the expectations.
 
osrk said:
wwwaaayy ahead of you *looks at 100 shares of AMD stock*

It's not only the fact their gpus are selling like crazy, it's also that they produce the chips for all the consoles right now. I think their 4th quarter results are going to crush the expectations.
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Hehe yeah I have a few hundred shares that I bought at $4 a share. I hope 4th quarter is a good one so I can sell that crap off. Intel has been pretty good to me and I would have made a decent amount more if I had sunk that into Intel instead of AMD
 
Why does everyone think the profits aren't already baked into the $4 price. The news that AMD was chosen for both the PS4 and XBone is 6 months old.

Any unexpected revenue would come from the R9 series. But the graphics division is only 1/3 of the company, the remaining 2/3rds is still floundering. No server, desktop, mobile market share.
 
mi7chy said:
Look at this young man's arsenal with (108) R9 290's being set up at a hosting provider.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=361992.msg3881993#msg3881993

Long term? Time is of essence due to difficulty rising. Even with the newish litecoin I see it more as a winter project because if you're not already crunching away you're too late and severely underpowered. And, if you want to play you sort of have to buy whatever is in stock and it's just 270X and lower.

Thinking about indirectly profiting from this by buying AMD stock.
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Well, I guess we'll know who to blame if his city blacks out.
A bit amazed that an ordinary home system can support it without something blowing/melting.
 
TMCM said:
Hehe yeah I have a few hundred shares that I bought at $4 a share. I hope 4th quarter is a good one so I can sell that crap off. Intel has been pretty good to me and I would have made a decent amount more if I had sunk that into Intel instead of AMD
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Watch it pop after you sell it. I made that mistake last pop but, fortunately, got back in soon enough to ride it up. I think AMD is due for another pop.


Yakk said:
Could easily all be a small part of early btc profit... some people made A LOT of money.
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Sounds like it. And, he's making sure he's maximizing litecoin early in the game.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345507.msg3774164#msg3774164

"I'm 21, I made $10,000 from selling 2x BFL Singles I bought (I was within the first month). That's about the most I've made at one time. It felt good XD.

At one point I had 1000BTC back in 2011. I would be a BTC millionare.

Funny thing is that I tried to get so many people into BTC but no one wanted to invest/make GPU rigs. They kept telling me BTC was a scam, blah blah blah. Then when it hit the news, everyone came back to me wanting to know more info. Too bad."
 
madgun said:
How much money are people making in the long term?

A way to calculate would be:

(Price of hardware + Electricity costs ) - $ Amt earned for crypto currencies.

Just curious about it since I can put my 7970 in a back up rig. But California electricity costs too much during winters.
Click to expand...

i mined bitcoin for over a year. i always sold the coins as i mined them (DOH!) just over 300 coins. i quit bitcoin when it was around $15 and i made a total of $2000 when it was all said and done.

I started litecoin under 2 weeks ago and made $470 so far, but i didnt cash out. i traded for other cryptos that might take off, and one i put most of my money against plummeted so right now im sitting around $300 (faster profits then i ever made with bitcoin)
 
buttons said:
i mined bitcoin for over a year. i always sold the coins as i mined them (DOH!) just over 300 coins. i quit bitcoin when it was around $15 and i made a total of $2000 when it was all said and done.

I started litecoin under 2 weeks ago and made $470 so far, but i didnt cash out. i traded for other cryptos that might take off, and one i put most of my money against plummeted so right now im sitting around $300 (faster profits then i ever made with bitcoin)
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So I assume that the amounts you mentioned above are all profits ( by subtracting monthly electricity cost + initial hardware investment).
 
my 3 290's and the z87/case/psu/cpu/mem/hdd are about 1 or 2 litecoins away from paying for them self. so soon its all proffitttsssssss

most likely going to just sit on coins from now on tho.
 
Wildace said:
my 3 290's and the z87/case/psu/cpu/mem/hdd are about 1 or 2 litecoins away from paying for them self. so soon its all proffitttsssssss

most likely going to just sit on coins from now on tho.
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Sitting means you are gambling. Obviously it is your choice but I would cash out, unless you are rolling in bens, and go from there. Then you aren't really out anything other than electricity.

Or if you like the gamble gamble, invest in another rig. Haha.
 
i have no bills and dont pay for electricity. so its all good. worst case scenario is mining goes bust and the coins are worthless, and i end up having a 290 i can sell, and move the 1200watt psu back into my main pc along with 2 290's and turn the rest of mining box into a stream box/media server. and i am ok with that.
 
Anyone have any thoughts on what coin will be he next litecoin?

worldcoin? feathercoin?


the difficulty is pretty high on litecoins now and will only get worse, if you were betting on the second best scrypt coin to go with, what would it be?
 
Just mined my first full Litecoin! Hot damn I'm gonna be a LTC hundredaire some day I can feel it!! :p
 
tybert7 said:
Anyone have any thoughts on what coin will be he next litecoin?

worldcoin? feathercoin?


the difficulty is pretty high on litecoins now and will only get worse, if you were betting on the second best scrypt coin to go with, what would it be?
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FTC because its a pump and dump.

WDC because its actually the best option (but FTC will be pumped..)
 
45454asasa said:
FTC because its a pump and dump.

WDC because its actually the best option (but FTC will be pumped..)
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People called BTC a pump and a dump and guys thought they made off like Bandits selling their 1000 BTC at 10 bucks a pop.
 
since i dont care for mining, im loving it....

bought my MSI 7950 OC on sale for $180 about 6 months ago.. just sold it for $380 on craigslist and funded a new GTX 770 for $260!
 
mi7chy said:
Look at this young man's arsenal with (108) R9 290's being set up at a hosting provider.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=361992.msg3881993#msg3881993

Long term? Time is of essence due to difficulty rising. Even with the newish litecoin I see it more as a winter project because if you're not already crunching away you're too late and severely underpowered. And, if you want to play you sort of have to buy whatever is in stock and it's just 270X and lower.

Thinking about indirectly profiting from this by buying AMD stock.
Click to expand...

Haha oh brother.

Wish I had a spare 43 grand to blow away on litecoin mining.
 
DeadSkull said:
Haha oh brother.

Wish I had a spare 43 grand to blow away on litecoin mining.
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He probably spent more than that for the rest of the supporting hardware. I wonder what the minimum cost is to field all of those cards.


How many gpus can you attach to a mb? I've seen that you don't need a full pci express 16 so maybe those MB with 6 pci expresses on each board would do.


You'd need around 18 of those boards, with 18 cpus and hard drives of some sort, I wonder if you could use flash storage for the systems and a network drive to house the main data for all the boards?

gets the wheels turning as to how one would set all of those cards up.
 
tybert7 said:
How many gpus can you attach to a mb? I've seen that you don't need a full pci express 16 so maybe those MB with 6 pci expresses on each board would do.


You'd need around 18 of those boards, with 18 cpus and hard drives of some sort, I wonder if you could use flash storage for the systems and a network drive to house the main data for all the boards?
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They go cheap and low power on cpu, most I've seen use very slow cpus, a small usb stick, and then they put the cards on risers for better cooling. The problem some of them are having is that they're trying to literally put a card in every slot, which is fine in a sense, but a lot of those pci-express slots aren't meant to supply 75 watts. You can look at your motherboard in HWinfo and see it; on my board I just put a card in there were 4 pci-express slots. 2 supported the full 75 watts required for a card, and 2 didn't. They have to use powered risers for the ones that don't supply the full power or else you end up with this :

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.imgur.com/mkTKa.jpg&fnr
 
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