Now that my GPU mining rig will be made obsolete, where to turn?

With the return from GPU mining likely to be affected by ASICs, where can miners turn their machines? Should I become a pro gamer? Join a rendering farm for cash (do they exist?) and let Disney use my rig to make toystory 4? Donate it to SETI@HOME or FOLDING@HOME? Donate it to an Anonymous botnet? Join a spamming farm used to bombard Bitcoin dev's with requests to switch double-SHA256 for double-MD5 in the code?

In short, what serious alternatives are their for profit or just putting to good use mining rigs?

gesell

Posted 2013-01-25T04:08:13.280

Reputation: 645

I am interested in joining a rendering farm, can someone tell me if it actually exist? – tommyip – 2014-10-05T09:48:06.040

Answers

Vanity mining for example over at my Vanity Pool. Thanks to split-key vanity addresses anyone can request a vanity address without compromising their security, set their own bounty, and anyone with a mining GPU can try solving the work and claiming the bounty.

ThePiachu

Posted 2013-01-25T04:08:13.280

Reputation: 41 594

Yes I've seen this referenced but imagine it is a very small market in comparison the amount of mining resources being freed for such application. So the return on investment is questionable and probably miners are going to be looking for more options. – gesell – 2013-01-25T15:05:27.823

1@gesell Well, I bet a lot of people would want to have their own vanity address, so if the pool will get popular with the miners, they might in turn spread the word to other people to use this. – ThePiachu – 2013-01-25T19:26:06.390

Folding@home can run calculations on your GPU, Seti@home at least support nvidia.

There's also gpugrid.net, which seems to be specialized on using GPUs for medical research.

Philip Frank

Posted 2013-01-25T04:08:13.280

Reputation: 414

not really comparable to bitcoin and no financial return, or are they paying for cycles at these projects now? – gesell – 2013-04-05T15:49:21.113

Unfortunately, none of those other uses are worth the power your GPUs consume. I'd say sell it and use the money to find a new hobby, like skiing or flying model helicopters.

David Schwartz

Posted 2013-01-25T04:08:13.280

Reputation: 46 931

you could mine litecoins; the advantage of having a GPU over a CPU is not as pronouced as with bitcoin but it could still be profitable. you may have to run those numbers though. ltc-charts.com for exchange rates.

leximus prime

Posted 2013-01-25T04:08:13.280

Reputation: 425

heres a comparison of mining hardware https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison

– leximus prime – 2013-01-26T19:47:53.330

You certainly could mine Litecoins and the return is similar to BTC – BitCoin New Guy – 2013-01-27T07:25:25.203