Cryptocoin Mining?

[Mir96TA]

Mir96TA, what HD7970 card do you have? Your GPU temperatures are decent. 82*C is nothing to worry about. Your VRM temperatures are excellent. My VRMs are 15*C higher than yours on the Sapphire DX.

Its a VisionTek 7970 (Reference Design Model)
You know the Exhaust out Design with Single Blower fan
I am also runing at 1125Mhz with 15% PWR Tune Setting via MSI O.C

 

[Elfear]

Congrats on adding 2 more 7970s to your stable. $450 for all 3 with water-blocks would be a smashing deal. It's interesting how so many people on our forum simply ignored this bitcoin mining perk/feature and instead spent $1000-1500 on GTX670 Tri-SLI / GTX680 SLI / GTX690. This is like getting 3 top-of-the-line cards for the price of 1 and waterblocks

Thanks. Makes a lot of sense to me too to use AMD cards this round with mining taken into account. My computer just sits there for 22hrs in the day so why not put it to work?

BTW, are your voltage readings from HWInfo64/GPU-Z sensors? Not from MSI Afterburner I am assuming. It looks like many 79xx cards actually undervolt despite setting higher values in MSI Afterburer/Sapphire Trixx. I can't confirm with certainty since that would mean using a multi-meter to check the voltage points on the physical PCB but from what I see a lot of these cards are stable at 1.175V or lower per software readings despite setting 1.2-1.25V+ in MSI Afterburner.

The voltage readings I listed were from AB. Using GPU-Z I get:

#1 7970 - 1.068V
#2 7970 - 1.025V
#3 7970 - 0.992V

AB seems more accurate in this case but I'd have to use a multimeter to check for sure.

 

[RussianSensation]

If it takes $2.01 of electricity to mine one bitcoin, and you can buy them on the open market for $2 of less, there is no scenario where it makes sense to run a miner.

Before anybody starts analyzing the actual cost to mine, I'm obviously not giving a real cost. The $2 part is ONLY an example. Pick any number you want.

It takes about 3.5 days to mine 1 BTC on a 7970 OC. Even if the electricity cost is $2.50-$3 over that period of time, 1 BTC = $10+ today. I'll take free $7-7.50 I didn't have to do any actual "work" to earn every 3.5 days with my gaming GPU when I am not using it for games. With my real $, I'll invest it into stocks or something else. I am not going to buy $5-10k of ASICs when I'd rather buy Apple stock before iPhone 5 launch. It's just diversification. You don't put all your eggs in 1 basket: mining, real estate, stocks, bonds, etc. If 1 fails, you have other asset classes to make $. Right now bitcoin mining still makes $, so it makes perfect sense to keep doing it, especially since AMD cards don't give up anything in performance over NV cards.

People didn't ignore it, but BTC crashed to $2 and took forever to crawl back up. At the time of 7970's release for instance it was something like $5 or less and could not even cover electricity costs for some people. So mining was discredited. Sure it's easy to say NOW that you could have been mining back then, but back then people were wondering if the entire thing was gonna collapse.. with hacks and scams all over the news every month and the huge crash, it was easier to imagine BTC failing rather than rebounding.

Sorry, bitcoin mining has been profitable with HD7970 since Day 1. I was mining with my HD6950 back then. The price was around $6-7 when 7970 launched and mining difficultly was much lower than it is today. So if anything mining with a 7970 was more profitable back then that it is now.

http://www.bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg360ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

Many people like Elfear did mine all that time since 7970 launch. Also, for months after, NV users ignored mining, they ignored it since day 1 actually. Since that time many people took the risk and are now walking away with free AMD hardware. Even now for the next 1-2 months, it's still worth it to buy a 7900 series card for bitcoin mining over a 670/680 since it'll still make $50-100.

Everything else in your post regarding risk factors, difficulty changes and all other aspects you mentioned were not ignored by people as you seem to imply. Instead it was more like should I spend $500 on a GTX680 or $500 on a 7970 and come out with a free or nearly free 7970 card? You seem to ignore that people were gaming and bitcoin mining when not gaming. So there was no negative side-effect to getting a 7900 series card for people who are already gamers. So there was no "risk" involved for the gaming community for those users who were already looking to upgrade in the first place. This is especially true since the 670/680 cards aren't even faster in games than OCed 7970 was.

I agree. I would add this: Those people who think higher difficulty will lead to higher prices (which I hope I've disproven by now in my previous posts but apparently some people hopelessly cling to their fantasies anyway), simply buy bitcoins directly. Screw the mining and all the associated heat and setup headaches and cards burning out and depreciation, just buy up a ton of bitcoins.

Using a GPU to mine coins is risk management. You can make $ and when it fails, sell the GPU or use it for games. Buying bitcoins with real currency is pure speculation. It's not the same thing managing risk.

 

[taltamir]

You are just making up an arbitrary definition of what a 'currency' is but that is not how currency is legally defined./QUOTE]

I am not making up definitions.
Coins made out of precious metals have been minted throughout human history. The ones claiming that currency must be made out of paper are the ones making up definitions.

And lets look up some definitions:
Wikipedia:

In economics, currency is a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply

Meriam Webster:

1
a : circulation as a medium of exchange
b : general use, acceptance, or prevalence <a story gaining currency>
c : the quality or state of being current : currentness
2
a : something (as coins, treasury notes, and banknotes) that is in circulation as a medium of exchange
b : paper money in circulation
c : a common article for bartering
d : a medium of verbal or intellectual expression

Nowhere does it say "if it has intrinsic value instead of being a fiat currency then its not really currency but an asset". Nowhere does it say "coins cannot be minted out of precious metals".
You accuse me of making up definitions but its your side of the argument that is doing it.

Coins made of precious metals are not legal tender currency

This is false.
If a coin is minted by a specific country it is legal tender for that country. And throughout human history countries minted coins out of precious metals.
The united states in the year 2012 MIGHT (I am not sure either way) be minting precious metal coins in the year 2012, and it might not consider precious metal coins it had minted in the past as legal tender in the year 2012. But the USA in the year 2012 isn't humanity as a whole nor the sum total of human history.

Being made out of precious metals does not automatically make a coin ineligible for being legal tender.

 

[RussianSensation]

I never once said coins cannot be made of precious metals. You said that. I made 2 points: (1) You buy precious metals as a hedge against inflation, not other fiat currencies; (2) I used various legal and business definitions to show you that precious metals are not a real currency in today's society. The main point you missed is that you cannot buy "currencies" to hedge against inflation since all currencies in the world lose purchasing power due to inflation. Thus, you do not buy currency to hedge against inflation, you buy other asset classes, such as Precious Metals. It's economics 101. You can buy other currencies if you think they will appreciate in value against your country's currency via a foreign-exchange currency transaction. That has 0 to do with hedging against global inflation.

Precious metals are not a currency, but an asset class. The reason the precious coins are worth anything at all is because of their intrinsic value associated with scarcity of natural resources. You can make a pen out of gold and it'll be worth the same as a coin made out of the same gold composition and weight. Would you call a pen out of gold currency? The value of the Silver, Copper, Gold, Platinum or other coin has everything to do with the value of the precious metal and nothing to do with what they stamp the value of the coin. They can call that coin a $10, $50, $5,000 coin, it's meaningless. That's exactly what you are doing though. Coins made of precious metals are not accepted by law by all creditors, banks, or debtors. Thus precious metals are not a fiat currency, and thus cannot be called a real currency in the 21st century. You can live in your own world thinking a $1,700 gold coin is currency; what it is is gold in the form of an item - a coin in this case, could have been anything a button, a zipper made of gold. It really doesn't matter. If you stepped into a bank with people who have actual university degrees in the fields of economics, finance or accounting and you said precious metals = currency, people would laugh at you.

Precious metals used to be accepted as currency but are now regarded mainly as investment and as an industrial commodities asset class. The demand for precious metals is driven not by their use as currency but due to their practical use in engineering/manufacturing and by their role as investments and a store of value.

This is Business School 101. You confuse an asset class that is used as a hedge against inflation and economic downturns, and often is sold for convenience in the form of coins, with the historical function of such asset as a currency millennia ago. If not all creditors and the government of the said country are obligated by law to accept precious coins as payments for debt obligations, it cannot by definition be considered legal tender currency in that country.

 

[taltamir]

Precious metals used to be accepted as currency but are now regarded mainly as investment and as an industrial commodities asset class. The demand for precious metals is driven not by their use as currency but due to their practical use in engineering/manufacturing and by their role as investments and a store of value.

So just because a few countries stopped doing something they used to do before it means it cannot be done again?

Also, its not ME melting a gold bar into 100 coins, its minted by the official US treasury mint. Now, it might or might not be legal tender, but I am guessing it is. Courts have ruled that USPS stamps are legal tender in the USA due to how the laws are phrased.

(1) You buy precious metals as a hedge against inflation, not other fiat currencies;

For the long term avoidance of small amounts of inflation. And to completely eliminate it.

In the short term you can switch out from a fiat currency undergoing hyper inflation to any fiat currency that isn't to protect yourself from inflation. Protect doesn't mean eliminate 100% of inflation.
And if you switch to a fiat currency actively going deflation you can actually completely eliminate losses due to inflation.
Also, precious metals are not always going up in value either.

 

[RussianSensation]

And if you switch to a fiat currency actively going depreciation you can actually completely eliminate losses due to inflation.

You mean appreciation? If your currency depreciates in value, you suffered a loss in purchasing power due to inflation or that currency's loss of value in the context of other world's currency. Technically speaking the currency does not "appreciate" or "depreciate" in value. Either the exchange rate of that currency has depreciated or appreciated against other currencies, or its real value has changed as a result of a change in purchasing power. The actual nominal face value of the currency stays fixed.

 

[chimaxi83]

I remember Unwinder (the developer of Afterburner) saying that with the 7900 series, the voltage reading would show the actual voltage after Vdroop, not the target voltage (that you set in software). He then changed it back because of some people not understanding the difference. This was from AB 2.2.0 release:

Now MSI Afterburner displays target VID instead of real voltage sensor reading on "GPU voltage" graph on graphics cards equipped with CHL8228 voltage regulators. These changes are implemented to avoid confusing the beginners and prevent the hysteria about voltage drop on AMD RADEON 7970 series graphic cards spreading across different discussion forums. Experienced users, understanding the difference between target and real voltages, may still unlock the previous real voltage monitoring mode via editing the hardware profiles

So this means that Afterburner is just showing you the voltage you set in software, not the actual voltage the GPU is using. HWiNFO64 shows you actual voltage after Vdroop, as does GPU-Z.

Source

 

[Elfear]

I remember Unwinder (the developer of Afterburner) saying that with the 7900 series, the voltage reading would show the actual voltage after Vdroop, not the target voltage (that you set in software). He then changed it back because of some people not understanding the difference. This was from AB 2.2.0 release:



So this means that Afterburner is just showing you the voltage you set in software, not the actual voltage the GPU is using. HWiNFO64 shows you actual voltage after Vdroop, as does GPU-Z.

Source

Thanks for the info. I knew Unwinder had changed AB to reflect target voltage but I didn't know GPU-Z and HWiNFO64 show actual.

 

[RussianSensation]

Thanks a lot for clarifying this point chimaxi83. I had a feeling for a while now that GPU-Z and HWInfo64 were showing real voltage because many people in the MSI TF3 7950 thread and those who overclocked 7970 were achieving great overclocks despite lower voltages, but didn't have an official confirmation until you pointed this out. Also, the power consumption numbers I measured with my P3 didn't align at all with reviews where 1150mhz 7970 cards were hitting 235-240W of power at 1.2-1.25V, but my card is drawing 188-193W using P3 and accounting for PSU inefficiencyMy actual voltage in GPU-Z averages 1.08V, with max of 1.174V.

 

[taltamir]

You mean appreciation

Sorry, mistype. I meant to type deflation not depreciation.
Yes, Inflation causes depreciation. Deflation causes appreciation.

 

[philipma1957]

I have a question about bit coins. I just started mining them. I have been buying amazon cards with the ones I earned. About 1 coin for a 10 dollar gift card.


I sell a lot of items on ebay. i have been seeing bitcoins for sale on ebay.

They seem to go for 14 bucks or 2 for 28. This is a lot higher then the going price I am getting via amazon giftcards.



Listing would be free. Shipping is free. fees are around 10%. So 3 coins selling for 42-45 would be net 38-41 instead of 30 or 31 via amazon gift cards. I am new at the coins but I am a longtime ebayer.


Sooo;
Have any miners on this site tried selling them on ebay? If so any luck?

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

If it takes $2.01 of electricity to mine one bitcoin, and you can buy them on the open market for $2 of less, there is no scenario where it makes sense to run a miner.

Before anybody starts analyzing the actual cost to mine, I'm obviously not giving a real cost. The $2 part is ONLY an example. Pick any number you want.

Speaking of which, what happens when it becomes too difficult to make mining bitcoins practical? Are there ways of investing, or skimming off transaction fees, to make bitcoins?

 

[SickBeast]

Speaking of which, what happens when it becomes too difficult to make mining bitcoins practical? Are there ways of investing, or skimming off transaction fees, to make bitcoins?

You could just buy one of those silly Butterfly Labs things or else (hopefully) a Radeon 8xxx card when they come out if they are compute beasts.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

You could just buy one of those silly Butterfly Labs things or else (hopefully) a Radeon 8xxx card when they come out if they are compute beasts.

I'm talking a bit longer-term than that. I know the theory is that the value of a coin should appreciate, but I'm not an economist and I don't know if there should be any reason why deflation needs to keep up with the difficulty increase for any length of time. So soon it will be uneconomical to run on 69xx hardware, then 79xx, then GPUs altogether, and finally only people running FPGAs will be able to mine effectively. So in this situation, it's unreasonable for everyone to run out to buy an FPGA to continue to mine; so what are the other viable methods of making bitcoins (apart from exchange from other currencies)?

By 'making bitcoins' I mean accumulating them, not creating them from nothing. Basically my question is, are there services people could perform, or things that people could do (such as invest bitcoins) that currently could allow someone to make bitcoins without ever having to mine?

 

[SickBeast]

Sit down with a calculator and do some math. :biggrin:

 

[philipma1957]

I'm talking a bit longer-term than that. I know the theory is that the value of a coin should appreciate, but I'm not an economist and I don't know if there should be any reason why deflation needs to keep up with the difficulty increase for any length of time. So soon it will be uneconomical to run on 69xx hardware, then 79xx, then GPUs altogether, and finally only people running FPGAs will be able to mine effectively. So in this situation, it's unreasonable for everyone to run out to buy an FPGA to continue to mine; so what are the other viable methods of making bitcoins (apart from exchange from other currencies)?

By 'making bitcoins' I mean accumulating them, not creating them from nothing. Basically my question is, are there services people could perform, or things that people could do (such as invest bitcoins) that currently could allow someone to make bitcoins without ever having to mine?

Buy and hold. There is an ebay seller that is selling large blocks.

100 coins at 1149. It is an auction and is too rich for my blood.

He also lists 50 at 599 and 25 at 300.


So for the sake of argument. I buy the 25 coins at 300. No one out bids me. After the few discounts I get at ebay my net cost is about 288 for 25 coins. or 11.52 a coin.


I sit on the account and hope for the coins to go up to 16 or so and sell. I used to buy silver bars when the price would go under 10 per oz I would buy. I would continue to buy until price went to 30. I would sell the 9 dollar bars at 30. I did it at slow rates buying about 350 ozs. starting at 9 it kept dropping to 6 per oz. I kept buying for years until it reached 30.

I started selling when to got to 30 per oz . It took me more then a year to sell it off some as high as 42 an oz.
You could do the same with a good seller of bit coins. The catch is bit coins can drop to 0 and die. Silver is not going to do that. I feel mining at a profit and selling quickly is a better move.

 

[RussianSensation]

You could just buy one of those silly Butterfly Labs things or else (hopefully) a Radeon 8xxx card when they come out if they are compute beasts.

Radeon 8xxx series is not going to change much. Even if it adds 50% more shaders (not going to happen most likely), by the time it comes out, those ASICs might just make GPU mining unprofitable. After all the specs on a single Jalapeno are 3.5 Ghash/sec for $163 shipped. HD8970 would need 5x more shaders than an HD7970 to even come close to that level of hashing speed. Maybe in 5 years AMD will have a videocard with 10,000 shaders, but they won't cost $160ish when they get there. I am expecting 2560 SPs for 8970, with more focus on improving the front-end / ROPs and geometry engines. AMD has enough shaders, but what it needs is 48 ROPs and higher tessellation throughput.

HD7970 @ 1150mhz x 2048 SPs x 2 Ops/clock = 680 Mhash/sec or so
HD8970 @ 1250mhz (OC due to a more mature node process) x 2560 SPs x 2 Ops = only 36% faster hashing speed vs. 5x the performance increase from a Jalapeno.....

 

[Vesku]

Throwing around BFL ASIC numbers is like predicting a new CPU or GPU architecture, mostly pointless.

 

[Zargon]

sold some for 11.80 this AM

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

After all the specs on a single Jalapeno are 3.5 Ghash/sec for $163 shipped.

That's the scary part. A single friggin' Jalapeno (purpotedly) has the hashing power of my entire BFL Singles array (x4), at less than 10% of the cost ($2000+ vs. $163)

 

[RussianSensation]

That's the scary part. A single friggin' Jalapeno (purpotedly) has the hashing power of my entire BFL Singles array (x4), at less than 10% of the cost ($2000+ vs. $163)

Right, but I am guessing you already placed the order to trade those $2k 4 Singles for 2 new Singles @ 40 Ghash/sec each, right? 80 Ghash/sec...:biggrin:

Throwing around BFL ASIC numbers is like predicting a new CPU or GPU architecture, mostly pointless.

IIRC, the current singles are rated at 832 Mhash/sec and from what I've read they do give you 800-830 Mhash/sec, seems pretty reasonable, no? Even if a single Jalapeno delivers 75% of the promised throughput, it'll stop to make sense buying new GPUs only for mining. After difficulty rises, if bitcoin mining with Jalapenos still works, I'd rather buy 3x Jalapenos than a $500 8970.

 

[ensign_lee]

I have a question about bit coins. I just started mining them. I have been buying amazon cards with the ones I earned. About 1 coin for a 10 dollar gift card.


I sell a lot of items on ebay. i have been seeing bitcoins for sale on ebay.

They seem to go for 14 bucks or 2 for 28. This is a lot higher then the going price I am getting via amazon giftcards.



Listing would be free. Shipping is free. fees are around 10%. So 3 coins selling for 42-45 would be net 38-41 instead of 30 or 31 via amazon gift cards. I am new at the coins but I am a longtime ebayer.


Sooo;
Have any miners on this site tried selling them on ebay? If so any luck?

I would highly caution AGAIN selling on eBay. You have literally no recourse if your buyer charges back against you on paypal for failure to deliver goods. Since you didn't actually mail them anything, you have no confirmation of delivery and paypal will automatically side against you.

So, for instance, I could buy 100 btc from you for $1k (or 1.4k if they're going for $14 on ebay). then say item not received as described, still have my 100 btc and have my $1k back.

 

[Binky]

Anybody buying bitcoins on ebay for much more than they are worth is clearly not a genius. You should avoid selling to them.

Of course, this logic applies to most of the items I've sold on ebay...hmmm.

 

[SuPrEIVIE]

wow so this became an interest again?, started to read bitcoines when i heard the whopping hike in its worth last year, would it be worth getting into this now? I recall the 5000 series ati card where the best bet is it now the 7000 series? I live in an apartment complex where electricity is a flat fee and not by consumption lol !!(this might change in near future though) Because of that I am seriously considering getting in to this just need to know what video card will be the best value in pumping coins quickly.