Mining Hardware Specs?

Mining Mining Support
1

Hello fellow enthusiasts.
I need a lot advice and prediction comparison.

I am investing at minimum $10,000 in hardware to mine Zcash and renting out storage from a local data center in Fort Myers. (http://www.t3com.com/index.php/services/colocation-disaster-recovery/)

I am also considering a similar setup as Zeropond and renting out hash power. The setup will be simple, since that’s my profession, but I’m at a loss on best hardware.

Here are my questions:

  1. CPU or GPU mining?
    I assumed GPU, and purchased 5 R9 295x2s already, as they are the proven best GPU for almost every GPU mined currency.

  2. If GPU, how much value does the processor in these rigs matter?

  3. Is any other crypto’s hashrate comparable for GPU or CPU analysis?

  4. Assuming everyone’s hashrate per dollar is equivalent, does anyone have any projections of what the initial hashrate will be?

Mining Prediction (assumption/hope really)

$10,000 will be 2% of total mining on D-day, (Total $500,000 in mining equipment running)
0.2% of total mining by end of month 1, and (Total $5,000,000 in mining equipment running)
0.02% by end of year 1. (Total $50,000,000 in mining equipment running)

Obviously people will be using different algorithms and have different hash per dollar amounts… This is just a guess on averages to theorize possible returns. My numbers assume linear increases/decreases…

1.1% total hashing month 1 (mean of 2 & 0.2)
0.11% total hashing months 2-12 (mean of 0.2 & 0.02)
172,800 ZEC total per month (after “tax”)

Using the numbers above:
Month 1 yields 1900.8 ZEC
Months 2-12 yield 190.08 ZEC each
Thus, Year 1 = 3991.68 ZEC

Financial Prediction

ZEC will come out of the gates strong due to hype, so within the first week or few weeks, I’ll be selling what I mine as long as it’s over $40.

Assuming I can squeeze 7 rigs out of $10,000 and each rig costs ~$1 per day to run - about what my BTC miners are costing me. Let’s be generous and call the end of life of a rig 2 years.
Our 10k setup costs $417/month hardware + $210/month electric = $627.

Mining and exchanges always have a tendency to reach a certain equilibrium where the miners make a small profit. Again, using the numbers above(5m end of month 1 and 50m end of month 12), the mining cost should be:

Our setup is 0.2% of the total mining. $627 gets us 345 ZEC.
Break even miner value $1.82, so market may balance around $2…

Our setup is 0.02% of the total mining. $627 gets us 34.5 ZEC.
Break even miner value $18.17, so market may balance around $20.

This all assumes that the adoption of the coin will not be as crazy as I think the founders and investors are expecting and they do have a good amount of power players… The investor value at $15.24 scares me. I think they’ll have a lot more miners(and maybe even better algorithm’s) running than I’m hoping…

Mining may start at 10x my prediction… I’m hoping to get my hands on at least 10k of these before it goes bananas.

Advise and critique.

-Brian

2 Likes
2

@trolloniex @abromide
You guys seem like you’d have insight.

Outside of my first 3 questions, speculation and predictions welcomed.

3

Let me have a look tomorrow.

If you don’t have custom GPU software don’t bother (yet) IMHO.

Note: Zeropond has 268K to invest in hardware and a custom GPU miner of roughly ~9000 dual core CPUs, if my calculations are correct.

4

Great.
I firmly believe that 30k bounty will yield a GPU miner well before Dday. If not, or if CPU mining proves to be the winner, I can easily sell/return what I purchased.

Where are your calculations coming from on Zeropond?

5

Total BTC invested ~450 and the 37.5BTC 1000x0.1h/s package

6

So anyone know roughly how much faster say an R9 280X is compared to a Quad core Intel CPU ?

7

That depends on the processor in question? Generation? Xeon or i7?
I’d assume you’re talking like a 6th gen like i7-6700K.

I don’t know enough about the algorithm to even speculate.
From all the forums I’ve been reading, consensus looks like GPU by a lot.

I would hit eBay and buy R9 295x2’s used if you’re on a budget - make sure it’s coming from a gaming machine and not a miner that’s been running for a year or so…
I don’t know how long these things can live when they’re basically running a stress test forever. My guess is 2-year EoL.

I’m hoping our fearless leaders haven’t developed crazy ASIC miners that we’re going to have to compete with.

8

How much stock do you place in the consensus of people that haven’t done their homework?

9

Have you done your homework?

10

@trolloniex Where’d you go?

11

Im here. Do you have a private miner ?

R9-280X at current rates is around 4.5-6x max

12

Not yet. Will have one before release even if I have to pay for it.

13

Hello Miner I need help I am a ETH Miner got about 2.6 gh/s now on ethpool you think GPU will be available for Z and is CPU mining based on the RAM and not the CPU it self

I need help mining on test net how did you do yourself can we help eachother and I am ready to support in btc if I can find someone to help me millions thx

14

From what I’ve seen a few people have made a lot of headway on GPU miners and some have completed ones, ready to go. Consensus looks like GPU crushes CPU for Equihash, so I haven’t been looking at CPU mining.

@Shawn put together a tutorial for it.

Only CPU and only Linux. I’ve avoided even testing it, as I’m sure I won’t have to use it.
If nothing GPU ~3 days before D-Day, I’ll be forced : )

1 Like
15

Thank You so Shawn is the guy

16

comparing a CPU with a GPU is like comparing 8 Semi-trucks with 5,000 little electric mopeds. For cypto, the little mopeds are better because they all operate in parallel (at the same time), vs a CPU which can only handle 16 or 32 threads at a time. Those threads are each very powerful, but GPU’s are able to break down the process into smaller pieces and distribute it amongst many different (x100) processors.