Its just weird that you guys dont know about this..anyone with a radeon 58xx or 69xx series has been basically sitting on gold..well bitcoin mining isnt profitable anymore since the price has been low after the above mentioned mt. gox hack..that being said, anyone with a radeon 5 or 6 series card AND free electricity should look into it..
Yes, it's sad that people (geeks?) with high end gpu's won't look into this at all just because they don't know exactly what's going on. Tried reading a wiki? I myself have made about 600$ by using some old 5770's that were sitting around. With that cash i bought some 68xx cards and 5830's. With todays difficulty increase i'm getting about 1 coin per day. Sadly, the current exchange rates keeps me from cashing out the BTC, but i'm certain it will rise by the end of this summer. Hopefully more people will look into the Bitcoin idea, and maybe start using it, either as miners or investors. It's geeky, addictive and profitable, what's not to like?
I got a nvidia gpu and its utilizing 99% usage according to gpuz, is this because latest nvidia drivers have more support for opencl? will my gpu be slower than the equivelant amd card? Just want to know before I waste a bunch of electric.
Sorry to break the news to you, but mining with Nvidia is not worth it. You get less than 1/3 performance compared to an equal Ati card. Pick up a cheap (second hand?) 5770 or a 6850/6950 and watch those coins pour in, if you are serious about mining bitcoins. The only time mining with nvidia cards are viable, are if you live in a place with free elctricity. Good luck
Dont even bother with a nvidia card...you cant possibly profit with them... https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison
Yes it will be way slower for BitCoins it is explained in this PcPerspective article here and I will summarize: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Bitcoin-Currency-and-GPU-Mining-Performance-Comparison/Analysis-and-Conclusio Why is AMD so much faster than NVIDIA? Obviously from our testing the AMD architecture is much better suited for this mining algorithm than NVIDIA's GeForce cards, but why? It really comes down to AMD's use of smaller and simpler shader processing units compared to the design that NVIDIA uses; AMD runs more SPs at lower frequencies (1600 SPs on an HD 5870 running at 850 MHz) while NVIDIA runs fewer SPs at higher frequencies (GTX 480 has 480 SPs running at 1400 MHz). This gives AMD a better ALU output than NVIDIA: AMD Radeon HD 6990: 3072 ALUs x 830 MHz = 2550 billion 32-bit instruction per second NVIDIA GTX 590: 1024 ALUs x 1214 MHz = 1243 billion 32-bit instruction per second Source: Bitcoin Wiki While in gaming this difference is raw compute power can be offset by other GPU technologies, for the raw mathematical power need for mining Bitcoins (and other ALU-bound work like password cracking) AMD definitely has better utilization of its processing power. There is another difference between how AMD and NVIDIA operate on the SHA256 keys that affect performance. From the wiki: ...another difference favoring Bitcoin mining on AMD GPUs instead of Nvidia's is that the mining algorithm is based on SHA-256, which makes heavy use of the 32-bit integer right rotate operation. This operation can be implemented as a single hardware instruction on AMD GPUs, but requires three separate hardware instructions to be emulated on Nvidia GPUs (2 shifts + 1 add). This alone gives AMD another 1.7x performance advantage (~1900 instructions instead of ~3250 to execute the SHA-256 compression function).
So idiotic. You don't even understand the point of the thing, and look at you, throwing around insults like a child. If you took two moments to read about it, you would be able to grasp that the "mining" isn't doing anything except ensuring the security of the currency. The currency is just like any other, only it isn't administered by a central authority, it's P2P. Its given value only by the fact that people think it has value. Just like every other currency. Oh, and in before "gold standard" people. Gold only has value because people think it has value.
As far as I'm aware, BitCoin is basically like the concept of having WoW Gold in the real world. Fake money with no value except to other BitCoin users. Also can't buy very much with it.
Erm currency is generally considered to have value because it is backed by some tangible asset or government entity. Gold has intrinsic value as it has many uses. The same as other rare metals such as platinum.
Currency still doesn't have value until people value it, not because a government says so. Value is a balance between desire and rarity. Simply creation of a currency by fiat or law does not create value.
[H]ardocp did a big write up on it. But if you actually read the article it was another AMD is better promo then Nvidia article. They again went out of there way trying to show AMD/ATi cards are better. Ironically they never once showed how well Virtu would be doing this? I mean wouldn't an IGP on a sandy bridge CPU kill the pants off any dedicated GPU? But if they did that it would possibly kill the sales-pitch they are again, or should I say always doing with AMD? Funny how AMD sponsored held a gaming event with [H] just this month. A spade is a spade....but back to the topic, I think it actually takes more money in extra hydro in your home to make money. Dosen't seem really worth it if you are paying your own hydro bill.
Gold has a value that humans place upon it. We don't need gold, so gold is just a meaningless currency. Same as the dollar or the Pound or the Ruble or the Yen. I mean really, try to list the uses of gold that would make it a valuable commodity worthy of being a currency standard. It can be used in jewelry, and is sparingly used for its anti-corrosive and conductive properties. Neither particularly valuable characteristics that make it something a human being would need. The only things in this world that hold any actual tradable value to humans is food and water. Possibly also medicine and sex. Everything else is invented by us as a means of not having to trade away our food and water.
Eh actually I wasn't arguing gold as a currency but having some intrinsic value. Whereas the 'value' of currency, unless it is backed by some tangible asset or government entity, is essentially zero. It's how the system works. I don't see us returning to the barter system anytime soon.
Bitcoins - they're hard to make and impossible to fake, so they can be used as currency. It's like the natives and traders swapping animal skins for beads and stuff. Bitcoin may fail, but as long as it's accepted by traders, merchants, exchanges and miners, we're good for a while.
I don't know what hardcp wrote, frankly I don't care. AMD GPU's are better at doing the work because of how they are designed. AMD GPU's have a very high theoretical power, the problem is with some programs/games it can't properly use the all that power. That is why AMD went from VLIW5 to VLIW4 because on average only 3.5 out of 5 was being used (read anandtech article about it). The Bitcoin miner, among other things, uses 5 out of 5, thus has a higher efficiency, the way the mining works plays 100% into the strengths of AMD's design. Trying to say there is some conspiracy or something why AMD's GPUs are better at this than Nvidia's is simply a lack of understanding. There is a reason why Nvidia's compute tech is better in many other compute functions and there is a reason AMD's is better in this one instance. Different things do different things better/worse.
I am an American, and I agree with this statement. Corporate profits this quarter are at an all-time high, while wages are at an all-time low. I like how the corporate-funded media actually manages to turn us all against each other too, getting us to complain about how much money firefighters and teachers earn, and that they need a paycut. LOL! No, we need a pay raise. Today in America, worker productivity is 80% better than it was in 1980, but calculating inflation, we make less than ever. Here are some headlines. Executive Pay Up 23 Percent Over Last Year, Despite Weak Economy And High Unemployment. Corporate Profits At All-Time High As Recovery Stumbles High Worker Productivity Probably Means Record Jobless Recovery