General discussion / recommendations re: Bitcoin mining

Onus

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Jan 27, 2006
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I've been reading a lot about bitcoins and bitcoin mining. A good place to start learning about various configurations seems to be here: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/07/13/bitcoin_mining_gpu_performance_comparison/
What little I see around the Forums here seems to be mostly moaning about all the high-end AMD cards being scarfed up by bitcoin miners. I'm not out to inspire a flamewar or cursing, but I am curious as to whether or not this might be a worthwhile thing to start doing, even on a small scale.

I would appreciate the general thoughts, comments, and recommendations the community has to offer on this topic. Any of you doing it? What kind of return might be reasonable to expect?
 

Onus

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Jan 27, 2006
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Update: I tested some bitcoin mining off and on this weekend, using a single HD6790. I couldn't run it with a real high OC because the case it's in (a PC-Q08R) doesn't get rid of heat too well (GPU at ~85C, mostly idle i5-650 at ~61C), but it looks like so far I've probably netted about $1.50-$1.75. At this rate, but run steadily, it will likely pay for itself in just a few months, so I may get another HD6790 and put them in another box.