I caught another lucky break today. The defective Gigabyte board re-started its RMA process today, and I mailed it back for free and they are sending another one 3 day shipping, or so they say.
I almost bought a dual-GPU slot Intel OEM motherboard on eBay, the seller gets them in 10 packs right from Intel. Asking $60 each. But I held off to think about it, and I'm glad I did.
I called a PC repair shop I know of and was telling him about the problems. He wasn't sure, but when I asked if he had any multi-GPU motherboards available, he said he has a load of 50 desktop PCs coming in next week. 480-500 watt power supplies, ATX size cases, Asus motherboards with dual GPU slots, Core 2 Duo E7300 cpus, and DVD burners. I can have as many as I want for $60 each, and all I have to do is add ram, hard drive, and GPUs! And extra power supplies.
I'll go look at them when he gets them in, he said next week sometime.
I'm not sure if anyone dabbling with Bitcoins back in May had ANY idea that they would be worth over a grand each before the end of the year was up. Those that did, apparently are now driving nice cars. =P
I'm not sure if anyone dabbling with Bitcoins back in May had ANY idea that they would be worth over a grand each before the end of the year was up. Those that did, apparently are now driving nice cars. =P
I'm not sure if anyone dabbling with Bitcoins back in May had ANY idea that they would be worth over a grand each before the end of the year was up. Those that did, apparently are now driving nice cars. =P
At one point (I forget how long ago), BTC was trading for $3/BTC. The difficulty rate was (comparatively) absurdly low. A coworker stopped mining because the exchange rate was just covering his power bill for the extra computing power. He's kicking himself now.
For lulz (and with @thrax's prompting), I'm testing one of my rigs as an LTC miner. GPU0: 1100/1575 (BIOS max), 1.170V (not yet adjusted), 555Kh/s GPU1: 1100/1650 (BIOS max), 1.170V (not yet adjusted), 565Kh/s GPU2: 1100/1850 (higher RAM speed crashes), 1.170V (not yet adjusted), 568Kh/s
Current average rate: 1683MH/s Mining rate per day/month: 0.58/17.35LTC Given the current exchange rate is around $29/LTC, I could expect a gross of around $500 per month. Of course this assumes the exchange rate holds and doesn't account for difficulty increases.
Edit: I should also add that this is a water cooled system, and the hottest GPU sits around 68C with 22.2C (72F) ambient.
With a bit of manual tweaking I was able to push beyond what Catalyst Control Center would let me use for settings. Any higher settings than these cause problems for me (still on stock voltage). GPU0: 1150/1800, 590-605Kh/s GPU1: 1125/1800, 584-600Kh/s GPU2: 1175/1800, 613-625Kh/s
Think I've figured out why GPU 0 acts the way it does... It's the last GPU in the loop (yes, I know it's the stupid way around). Everybody is sitting at 78C, so it may be a heat throttling thing when that one goes faster.
...I should probably get some better fans. ...and maybe a refrigerator.
I'd ballpark it at less than four months when using purchase price for every part at the time of purchase. I've had the CPU for around three years. I've had the motherboard, RAM, and two of the three 7970s for well over a year, along with the water cooling equipment. I bought a third 7970 on Ebay recently thinking one of the GPUs wasn't working (turns out Sapphire's cooler was too heavy for the card) for far less than retail and before the prices spiked again. I purchased the third water block and backplate recently to add the third GPU to the loop.
Factoring in electricity costs ($0.11 per kWh), I'm profiting about $17.59/day at the current difficulty rate.
Yeah, there's that too. It'd take 5xGTX 780i to match. Not sure how many Titans or Quadros (Quadri?) that translates to, but NVIDIA just can't hang with the mining crowd.
The point wasn't really "can you make more money from ltc with nvidia than amd", it was "hey, maybe it would be more $ efficient to not-mine (no paying for electricity) and just upgrade your video cards".
That's how I understood your question (and how I answered it). Tushon brought up the side benefit of mining, which widens the gap even further. It would be way too expensive to switch at this point for equivalent gaming performance and for a while I'll be able to recoup the cost of hardware until the value of LTC plummets.
Yeah I actually though you'd be able to get more than that for the 7970, as i saw a few 7950s going for $400. (All while rueing the fact that I gave Laura my old 7950)
How much are you guys netting at those Kh/s rates? I found a neat little LTC calculator that factors in electricity costs, and I'd lose about $2 per week by mining (with my HD7750 I was able to run at around 50 Kh/s average).
How much are you guys netting at those Kh/s rates? I found a neat little LTC calculator that factors in electricity costs, and I'd lose about $2 per week by mining (with my HD7750 I was able to run at around 50 Kh/s average).
Comments
I almost bought a dual-GPU slot Intel OEM motherboard on eBay, the seller gets them in 10 packs right from Intel. Asking $60 each. But I held off to think about it, and I'm glad I did.
I called a PC repair shop I know of and was telling him about the problems. He wasn't sure, but when I asked if he had any multi-GPU motherboards available, he said he has a load of 50 desktop PCs coming in next week. 480-500 watt power supplies, ATX size cases, Asus motherboards with dual GPU slots, Core 2 Duo E7300 cpus, and DVD burners. I can have as many as I want for $60 each,
I'll go look at them when he gets them in, he said next week sometime.
California issues cease and desist warning to Bitcoin Foundation
If you went in there with the equivalent in Euros / Silver / Gold / Dinar they would still take it. What does the exchange rate have to do with it?
For lulz (and with @thrax's prompting), I'm testing one of my rigs as an LTC miner.
GPU0: 1100/1575 (BIOS max), 1.170V (not yet adjusted), 555Kh/s
GPU1: 1100/1650 (BIOS max), 1.170V (not yet adjusted), 565Kh/s
GPU2: 1100/1850 (higher RAM speed crashes), 1.170V (not yet adjusted), 568Kh/s
Current average rate: 1683MH/s
Mining rate per day/month: 0.58/17.35LTC
Given the current exchange rate is around $29/LTC, I could expect a gross of around $500 per month. Of course this assumes the exchange rate holds and doesn't account for difficulty increases.
Edit: I should also add that this is a water cooled system, and the hottest GPU sits around 68C with 22.2C (72F) ambient.
GPU0: 1150/1800, 590-605Kh/s
GPU1: 1125/1800, 584-600Kh/s
GPU2: 1175/1800, 613-625Kh/s
Average rate: 1781Mh/s
GPU 0: 825/1375, 578-593 Kh/s
GPU 1: 990/1650, 692-708 Kh/s
GPU 2: 912/1600, 630-640 Kh/s
For some odd reason, GPU 0 so far runs best at 825/1375. Anything higher and production drops. It's weird, but my data backs it up.
GPU 1 and 2 seem to respond well to higher RAM speeds. I'm still looking for their maximum stable rates.
...I should probably get some better fans.
...and maybe a refrigerator.
Factoring in electricity costs ($0.11 per kWh), I'm profiting about $17.59/day at the current difficulty rate.
NVIDIA equivalent: 2-3 GTX 780i. Cost: $1400 plust water blocks
Result: I'd lose money on that deal instantly.
(Steal that card back and give her something else.)