Mine or Buy?

A big question that is asked by people new to Bitcoin. There are reasons to do both and the answer is dependent on your current setup. Bitcoins have a mining goal in mind and that is to only allow a block to be discovered every 10 minutes. The way that Bitcoin accomplishes this is by increasing the difficulty to find the blocks. With more and more publicity about Bitcoin, more people are mining and blocks are being discovered at a rate faster then every 10 minutes causing the difficulty to increase. So with that in mind, it is now harder then ever before to mine Bitcoins.
First, we’ll cover reasons to mine.
It really depends on how close to having a mining rig pre-established rig. The first thing you need is an ATI/AMD graphics card. With current difficulty it is near impossible to generate Bitcoins with a CPU or an Nvidia GPU. CPUs and Nvidia GPUs simply don’t hash well. The best you can expect from them is around 20Mhash per second and that will get you about a bitcent per day if you’re lucky. On top of that, you will max out power usage. So using either of those 2 options will cost you a lot more then what you make unless you have free electricity. Even then, I would recommend buying Bitcoins over mining them inefficiently.
Some ATI/AMD cards are better then others. The best reference is at the Mining Hardware Comparison page. You can go there to figure out what card is the best for you when it comes to mining. You can also learn the best way to configure your card to maximize your hash rate on that card. I used that information to get my dual 6870s from around 220 Mhash to around 280. It makes a big difference putting the right flags into your mining software.
If you currently don’t have a motherboard that can support more then 1 card, don’t have at least a 750w power supply or a case that can keep 2-3 cards cool while they are running at 100% you should look into buying Bitcoins.
The big factor that will determine whether or not you should mine is your electricity costs. A lot of people are selling off their mining rigs because mining can cost more in electricity then you can currently make in Bitcoins. Another theory is that the increase in mining related costs/Bitcoin will increase their value as miners are unwilling to sell them for a loss, Making now a great time to buy.
Bitcoin investment is a great opportunity. There is no minimum amount to buy and right now they are very cheap. Because of the increasing demand for Bitcoins is increasing there is a possibility of them rising in value exponentially. There is also a possibility of them dropping. It’s speculation.
Right now the best 2 places to buy Bitcoins are:
Trade Hill
MtGox
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