Comment by Matsta | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Matsta | Hacker News Reader

I imagine these will be popular with CPU based mining such as primecoin?

I've heard there's a shortage of Xeon L5639 servers (6 core CPU, usually ex-lease) as people are using them to mine cryptocurrencies. I tried out a primecoin mining calculator and it claimed it was pretty profitable (don't think the calculator is very accurate however).

According to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=255782.msg3025191#ms... a dual L5639 server does 3.77730295 chains per day, which actuates to 19XPM which is 58.55USD a day. I've seen these server being rented for $85/month, so it could be worth it.

Can't find out much about mining with the 6300 series, but I'm guessing it would be around the same, so I'm guessing if you built a mining box for under $1500, you can break even in under a month.

price performance wise the amd processor is in the lead, but if price is not an issue intel still leads. also check the memorycoin performance database: http://agran.net/memorycoin2_calc.html

Does price performance count when talking about directly earning money from the computation?

In that case, performance/watt is more important. You still have to take the upfront cost, but first-order effects tend to dominate 0-order effects over time :)

It factors into the length of the breakeven (on the hardware investment) period, which can be a big deal. Not just because return is slower, but also because in a market as volatile as Bitcoin, who knows if a projected 6-month breakeven period will ever actually break even? Breaking even sooner dramatically reduces capital investment risk.

(A low price-to-performance ratio, or conversely a high performance-to-price ratio, will mean a shorter breakeven period)

> I imagine these will be popular with CPU based mining such as primecoin?

Huh, my first thought was VM's. I guess I'm just not one of the cool kids anymore.

It's not profitable. The calculation is based on 9-chains per day. The chains per day are defined as as the chain length that required to obtain a block. At the moment you need a chain of at least 10 to get a block. floor(difficulty)

The 10-chains per day for this processor is probably more in the range of 0.06-0.09 chains per day and at these rates it not profitable or only slightly profitable if you need to pay for energy.

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