Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Tue Nov 16 15:00:01 UTC 2010

Its not all i7's, only the i7-980X (extreme series) about $1000.

Here's the benchmarks - see the AES256 results

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclocking-phenom-ii-x6-efficiency,2633-8.html

Of course, the i5 also had this, but it is still slower.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i3-530-overclock-lga-1156,2626-6.html

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anon Mus" <my.green.lantern at googlemail.com>
To: <or-talk at freehaven.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation

> Kyle Williams wrote:
> > Coderman sent this to me, and I'm a little upset because the extra
> > $60.00/month for 0 bitcoins is very annoying.  I have since stopped
> > trying to generate bitcoins, because it's just wasting electricity.
> >  More comment inline below debating this point.
> >
> >
> > For those who are wondering if it's worth trying to generate
bitcoins,
> > here is something to think about.
> > I've had a single Quad-Core (2.6GHz/core, 12MB L2 cache) server
> > crunching on bitcoins for about 6 months now.  About 2-3 months ago,
> > it stopped generating bitcoins.
> > Someone is out there with a lot of GPU's, crunching away at the
> > bitcoin network and is hording/generating all the bitcoins.  I say
> > this because the amount of chatter on the bitcoin forums in regards
to
> > GPUs vs CPUs has exploded, and new GPU clients are being released.
> >
> >
> >     ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >     From: Jeffrey Paul <sneak at datavibe.net
<mailto:sneak at datavibe.net>>
> >     Date: Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 11:22 AM
> >     Subject: Re: Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation
> >     To: coderman <coderman at gmail.com <mailto:coderman at gmail.com>>
> >     Cc: Sarad AV <jtrjtrjtr2001 at yahoo.com
> >     <mailto:jtrjtrjtr2001 at yahoo.com>>, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org
> >     <mailto:eugen at leitl.org>>,
> >     cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net <mailto:cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net>
> >
> >
> >     -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >     Hash: SHA256
> >
> >
> >     On 15 Nov, 2010, at 19:19 , coderman wrote:
> >
> >     >
> >     > the cuda cards are killing bitcoin, why bother?
> >     >
> >     >   (i suppose it is an interesting footnote...)
> >
> >
> >
> >     Nothing could be further from the truth.  Mining/Minting
operations
> >     have little/nothing to do with the viability of the network
itself.
> >
> >
> > That's correct, it has to do with the number of operations per
second
> > you CPU/GPU can do.  The network is based on the number of
supporters.
> >  Apple's and oranges.
> >
> >
> >     It's a novel way of dealing with inflation, but, if anything,
the easy
> >     availability of cheap and fast GPUs is accelerating adoption.
> >
> >
> > You're twisting facts together here, again apple's and orange's.
> > Inflation aside, GPUs will generate bitcoins much, much faster than
a
> > CPU.
> >
> >
> >
> >     Opportunists will quickly drive the profit from generating down
to
> >     almost exactly that of the power costs, but that's to be
expected.
> >
> >
> > No, the value of bitcoins starts to be cut in half as the more
> > bitcoins are generated.
> >
> > "The number of blocks times the coin value of a block. The coin
value
> > is 50 bc per block for the first 210,000 blocks, 25 bc for the next
> > 210,000 blocks, then 12.5 bc, 6.25 bc and so on."
> > -- 
http://www.bitcoin.org/faq#What-s_the_current_total_amount_of_Bitcoins_in_existence
> >
> > So when the value of BTC's starts to be cut in half, and with
> > INFLATION now at a record high, the cost of electricity is NOT GOING
DOWN.
> > Hence, the chance of you generating bitcoins will go down because a
> > CPU can not compete with someone else's GPU, more power/electricity
is
> > being used to generate (or not generate) bitcoins, and after the
last
> > six month's of running bitcoin, I haven't generated a single block
in
> > over two months because someone has already cornered this market
with
> > GPU's.
> >
> >     They are also the driving force behind a free market.  Or do you
think
> >     they are killing those, too? :)
> >
> >
> > Of course someone quotes the "free market" when they have a large
> > corner of it.  Free market's always FAIL when someone is hording all
> > the (bit)coins, and while it may support free market's, it certainly
> > is not a fair market today.  If 2,000,000 bitcoins are spread about
a
> > few thousand people, and 19,000,000 coins are held by 1 person, your
> > "Free Market" goes down the drain because one person could out-buy
> > anyone else.
> >
> > One last point; by looking @ the #bitcoin channel on IRC, it shows
> > that about 600 people are wasting their CPU cycles because someone
has
> > most likely has a cluster of GPU's working away at this.  This is
the
> > wasted cost of TRYING to generate a bitcoin.  If only one person can
> > generate the block (ie, 50 Bitcoins right now), then 599 people are
> > wasting their electricity and time.  So the ~$60 a month (increase
in
> > my electric bill) * 599 = $35,940.  Even if we decide to be really
> > conservative (not realistic in this case) and cut this cost down by
a
> > tenth, it's still ~$3,594 being wasted per month while someone else
> > get's the coins.  How "green" or "eco-friendly" is that?
> >
> > Now I ask the community, If your chance of generating a bitcoin
block
> > for yourself is slim-to-none,  would you want to waste your time and
> > money trying to generate bitcoins?
> >
> > Don't get me wrong, I hate what is happening to the USD, and love
the
> > idea of crypto currency, but I see some serious flaws with bitcoin.
> > He who has the biggest cluster will win the day, and leaves the rest
> > of us with next to nothing.
> >
> > - Kyle
> A few months ago I saw this as well using a dual core 2.666, but I
found
> a little trick which increases the coin production. Just re-boot every
> 2-3 days, then you usually get a flush of coins.
>
> At the time I considered getting an i7, just out, which has on chip
> hardwired encryption circuits. Its lightning fast on generating the
> hashes and even half a dozen of these were generating bitcoins then
> anyone with lesser technology doesn't stand a chance.
>
> http://www.intel.com/products/processor/corei7/index.htm
>
> It sounds to me like these are now being used. Time to upgrade. It
would
> be interesting if anyone had experience of using the i7.
>
> On the question of cost. If you have a machine which already has to
run
> 24/7 (say a Tor node) then the extra cost of max CPU usage is about
> $5-15/mo. (My dual core costs about $15/mo without bitcoin)
>
>
>
>
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