Bitcoin Mining Hardware

**createdcreature** · April 19th, 2013

Hi!

I am interested about mining Bitcoins. Which of this hardware will give the most bitcoins per second with the standard miner? Electricity no object. All will have a stable 60Mbps cable unfiltered internet connection, and antivirus if required. I know graphics cards are very important, and ATI are better in this case, but I need some help. It doesn't matter if it is CPU or GPU mining, I just want the fastest!

Acer laptop V3-771G bought in February 2013-1TB 5400rpm SATA mechanical hard drive, Intel Core i5@2.50GHz hyperthreaded (4 logical processors) 64 bit, 8192MB RAM, nVidia GeForce GT630M graphics card (1024MB VRAM). Will be connected to the internet via WiFi 130Mbps. Runs Windows 8 64 bit. Cost $1000
Samsung Netbook N110 bought in June 2009-80GB 5400rpm SATA mechanical hard drive, Intel Atom@1.66GHz hyperthreaded (2 logical processors), 2048MB RAM, Intel Integrated Graphics (I don't know the model, but it doesn't even support OpenGL!) (128MB VRAM). Will be connected to the internet via WiFi 130Mbps. Runs Windows XP 32 bit (looking forward to April the 8th 2014, are you?). Cost $400.
Self-assembled machine (assembled in 2008) revamped in 2010-160GB 7200rpm SATA mechanical hard drive, Intel Pentium 4@3.20 GHz 32 bit (one of the later ones and top models), 2048MB RAM, nVidia GeForce 6600 (256MB VRAM) connected via PCI Express 16x. Will be connected to the internet via Ethernet 100Mbps. Runs any Linux/BSD that you want it to, but NOT windows. Cost $350 to assemble at the time. I don't like this one because it clocks in at 65db! Anyone who comes in when I have it on thinks that there's an atom bomb going off in that room.
Packard Bell iMedia 5116 SE bought in 2002-40GB 5400rpm IDE mechanical hard drive, Intel Pentium 4@2.66GHz 32 bit (one of the very early ones, expensive model), 512MB RAM, ATI graphics card (I don't know the model, but VERY old [about 2001]) (128MB VRAM) connected via AGP (oh I miss those days of setting jumpers and wildly guessing the IRQ for your sound card). Will be connected to the internet via Ethernet 100Mbps. Runs any Linux/BSD that you want it to, but NOT windows. Cost $1500 at the time.
Dell laptop Inspiron 1501 bought in October 2006-160GB 7200rpm IDE mechanical hard drive (brand new), AMD Turion 64@2.00GHz 32 bit, 2048MB RAM, ATI graphics card (I don't know the model) (256MB VRAM). Will be connected to the internet via WiFi. Runs Windows XP 32 bit. Cost $500 at the time. Serious problems with monitor and battery (but runs off the mains fine).
HP Pavilion dv8000 bought in 2005-80GB 5400rpm SATA mechanical hard drive (failing badly), AMD Turion 64@2.50GHz 32 bit, 1024MB RAM, ATI graphics card (I don't know the model) (128MB VRAM). Will be connected to the internet via WiFi. Runs Windows XP 32 bit. Cost $1000 at the time. Serious problems with overheating and battery (but doesn't run off the mains fine).
Dell Dimension 4500 bought in 2001-Exactly the same hardware and software configuration as the Packard Bell above, but has 64MB VRAM in the same graphics card instead of 128MB, and a slightly slower motherboard and a processor @3.2GHz of the same type instead of @2.66GHz

That was a bit of a mouthful wasn't it! I appreciate your help!

**3rdalbum** · April 20th, 2013

All of those are worthless for bitcoin mining. Sorry.

You need pretty much a top-of-the-range ATI card (not mobile). Nvidia cards are suboptimal for Bitcoin mining - really not worth bothering with.

Even graphics cards have had their day for bitcoin mining. The most successful miners are using FPGAs and ASICs which offer vastly better performance than any GPU.

If you want to do GPU mining you should get a recent high-range ATI graphics card and put it into the most recent desktop. Even so, it wont pay for itself EVER so the whole thing is a total waste of time sorry.