Is it worth it to buy a better GPU?
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I am wondering if it is actually worth it to buy a better GPU. I currently mine on my laptop(GTX 950m) which gives about 130 KH/s. I am thinking of either buying a used Radeon HD 7950 or a Radeon RX 480 when it becomes available again. To save money, I’m thinking of mounting the GPUs on an old desktop I have. However, the desktop uses 200 watts before adding the GPU, so I’m not sure that the GPUs can make up for the power costs(electricity is 16 cents/KW). Also, is there any difference in mining performance between the RX 480 4GB and the 8GB version?
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As you have already figured out, with your main rig just needing 200w to run itself you wont be nearly as efficient.
How many watts does your laptop draw in total when mining?
The more GPUs you can put under one rig the higher efficiency you can achieve. When I mine on my main PC it uses like 750 watts total for 1MH/s or I can use my 6x 280x rig and get 3MH/s on 1200 watts or less.
My plan for GPU mining 3+ years ago was to start with one and snowball it into as many as possible without spending money. I started with 1 msi hd 7970 and now I have 25 GPUs. I did alright mining but where the big profits came was leveraging trading to increase my profit margin a few % points.
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I agree, after you’ve burnt out a few power supplies, the question becomes which is the most efficient?
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@RIPPEDDRAGON My laptop uses approximately 90 watts. So basically I just need to find the hashrate of the GPUs that I want to put in the rig and put everything into a calculator and see which turns up with the most money earned, right?
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@LightningJimmy said in Is it worth it to buy a better GPU?:
@RIPPEDDRAGON My laptop uses approximately 90 watts. So basically I just need to find the hashrate of the GPUs that I want to put in the rig and put everything into a calculator and see which turns up with the most money earned, right?
pretty much, try a few configs and see whats better for your $
a lot of the guys here would also just suggest investing into crypto rather than mining as you can actually see higher payouts for your original investment
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@RIPPEDDRAGON What GPUs do you think I should get? I think I am going to start with two GPUs. I found a XFX Amd Radeon HD 7950 on ebay for $110. However, I messed up on the power costs. The power costs are 16 cents at night at 34 WHOLE FREAKIN CENTS during the day per KW!!! Now I’m thinking of making a new separate build that is more power efficient, rather than the old desktop. I’m also over complicating my brain with ways to try to get the power costs down and… yeah
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@LightningJimmy said in Is it worth it to buy a better GPU?:
@RIPPEDDRAGON What GPUs do you think I should get? I think I am going to start with two GPUs. I found a XFX Amd Radeon HD 7950 on ebay for $110. However, I messed up on the power costs. The power costs are 16 cents at night at 34 WHOLE FREAKIN CENTS during the day per KW!!! Now I’m thinking of making a new separate build that is more power efficient, rather than the old desktop. I’m also over complicating my brain with ways to try to get the power costs down and… yeah
Depending on where you live you can change what subscription you have for electricity. If you use time of day its typically pretty expensive on peak hours and cheap during the night. If you use fixed residential rates you can have them be the same 24/7/365… they are higher than the night time rates but far cheaper than day time usage rates. When I was mining in another state before I moved last year I had a residential home with general service rates as if I was a company. General service meant I paid more per month if I used less than $250 in service but higher than that it was cheaper for me to go with general service.
I still remember the phone call with the utility company asking for general service. The woman on the other end of the line was like “You need to really use a lot of electricity… are you sure you want to sign up for general service, you live in a residential home”. I had no issue letting her know that I am really into IT and computers and I tend to use a LOT of electricity to maintain my own servers. I also had to explain to my propane company why one winter I registered 0.0 on their meters and they had to issue a deposit refund.
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I think FPGA is better.
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@lizhi said in Is it worth it to buy a better GPU?:
I think FPGA is better.
If I ever find myself with enough free time to program one!
