Is GPU mining still viable ?

zechs

zechs

New member
Hello

Ok maybe I'm a little late and this post might seem outdated as soon as I post it. But from what I read, X11 coins are supposed to be ASIC proof and to be mined by GPU for a long while. After breaking a tooth on Bitcoins, and then another one on Litecoins, I thought I finally had found the coin that I would be able to mine.
I kind of guessed that my GTX560TI wouldn't make it to the first Darkcoin, but did some testing with it. Result is, 1400Kh/s : after one whole day, I earned 0.03 DRK and spend $0.44 in electricity.

So yeah, I definitely need a new GPU. Let's say I get a Gigabyte R9 290 BF4 Edition
- 5.63 Mh/s, seen here: http://wiki.darkcoin.eu/wiki/Mining_Darkcoin#GPU_Mining_Performance_Charts
=> at best 0.24 DRK ($0.48)
- 300W probably underestimated after reading some tests.
=> $0.77/day

I'm loosing $0.29 a day using such a good GPU. So where is the trick?!
 
Indeed, a GTX750TI, with its 60W would actually make some money. Only $0.07/day though, but like you said, it's a start. I'm at least heading the right direction now :smile:
I didn't know ATI GPUs where so power greedy compared to Nvidia.

edit: $0.07 according to this site http://www.coinwarz.com
 
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zechs said:
Indeed, a GTX750TI, with its 60W would actually make some money. Only $0.07/day though, but like you said, it's a start. I'm at least heading the right direction now :smile:
I didn't know ATI GPUs where so power greedy compared to Nvidia.

edit: $0.07 according to this site http://www.coinwarz.com
Click to expand...

First curious how much elecrtic rates are for you?

For me @ .13 per kwh i thought my amd 270x cards are pretty power efficient i have 5 cards running at 600 watts total including motherboard, cpu and hard drive they run 3.2mhs each thats pretty much 2x the speed of 750ti with jus a bit more power draw.
 
5 cards at 600 Watts, that 120W per card (ignoring the other parts of the pc). So my first mistake was to do calculation based on the max. power advertised in the specifications. Which in your case would be 180W. I will think about investing into some measuring device.

So far, I used a wrong electric rate, because I forgot to add the 20% taxes, it's now corrected, but I'm not gonna like the result. With those taxes added, i get to $0.13 rate, exactly like yours.

I inputed your data in coinwarz:
http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurre...5.00&lyra2repc=0.1000&lyra2rec=false&e=CEX.io

It doesn't look good to me: $1.87 for electricity(confirmed below) and only $0.91 earned.

Just to confirm
we have a 0.6kW rig, $0.13 electric rate

0.6 x 24 = 14,4 kWh
14.4 x 0.13 = $1.87
The rig would cost $1.87 every 24 hours

1 DRK = $1.98 so it would have to mine 0.94 DRK to pay off the electricity.


Is it the "difficulty" that makes it hard to mine the coins we need? Are we mining in a hope that the DRK value in $ is gonna go up?
 
zechs said:
I will think about investing into some measuring device.
Click to expand...

If you really want to get into mining, that's actually the FIRST thing you should do...you can't calculate profit based on estimated numbers.

zechs said:
Is it the "difficulty" that makes it hard to mine the coins we need?
Click to expand...

It's the network hash-rate. When you mine, you get (on average) your percentage of the network hash-rate from each block found, no matter whether you mine in a pool or solo. When the network hash-rate goes up your earnings go down.
Currencies like Darkcoin where the reward per block gets less with increasing network hash-rate make things worse of course.

I started mining back in 2013 when you could still make a lot of money with it (I even built a dedicated little building just for my mining rigs), but when the first serious Scrypt-ASICs were available the hash-rate went up, the profit went down and I sold most of my hardware.
Today I only have about 100 MH/s worth of mining equipment left for sentimental reasons.

zechs said:
Are we mining in a hope that the DRK value in $ is gonna go up?
Click to expand...

This, and of course to secure the blockchain.
 
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That is clearing up a lot. And it explains why a GTX750 TI is a good choice to start mining.
Little investment, so not much to loose, and if DRK's value goes up, they will already be in the wallet.
The question is: is DRK going to be worth more in a the futur? As it is the most popular X11 coin, I tend to think it probably will ;)

Thank you both for your help and advices :)
 
R9 295X2 mines at 17500 kH/s using 450W of electricity with PC at the wall. That's 39 kH/J. I tested this personally.

Assuming Nvidia 750Ti uses only 60W and you have 5 of them in the system and you account for system overhead you will have entire system using approx 400W ( my calc is (5*60_cards + 70_system) * 1.1_psu ) of electricity while the hash rate will be 5*250 kH/s = 1250 kH/s. That is 3.1 kH/J.

Again I have not tested 750Ti but it seems to me from what you have posted and what I have tested NVidia is 12 times less efficient than AMD.

For comparison my car (diesel admittedly) does 38 mpg which is quite decent and similar number to the AMD efficiency number from above. No imagine what would it be like to have a car that does 3 mpg. A Hummer perhaps. You'd spend a fortune at the gas station.
 
qbit said:
R9 295X2 mines at 17500 kH/s using 450W of electricity with PC at the wall. That's 39 kH/J. I tested this personally.

Assuming Nvidia 750Ti uses only 60W and you have 5 of them in the system and you account for system overhead you will have entire system using approx 400W ( my calc is (5*60_cards + 70_system) * 1.1_psu ) of electricity while the hash rate will be 5*250 kH/s = 1250 kH/s. That is 3.1 kH/J.

Again I have not tested 750Ti but it seems to me from what you have posted and what I have tested NVidia is 12 times less efficient than AMD.
Click to expand...

My 750Ti have about 3000 kH/s, and 4 of them need (at the wall) about 270W, that's 44.4 kH/W.
 
qbit said:
That's more like it. Can I ask you if you use "power risers"?
Click to expand...
I've tried with and without different risers on various systems (16x -> 1x / 16x -> 8x) and there is a drop in hashrate but it is very minimal - maybe 100KH/s at max iirc

As far as a money making venture, mining dark is not very high on the list, however I keep doing it because it interests me and I believe the value of the mined coins will increase sooner or later (emphasis on the later).

I'd only build a mining rig with money you can afford to lose.
 
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