If you had a friend/relative that had never mined anything before and wanted to learn --- would you have them start with a Crap CPU on their desktop (not a gamer, so no GPU of any merit available), buy a GPU to mine with, or buy an asic to mine with?
*** In this individual's case an asic is likely the best long term option due to their power costs, location, time, etc...***
*** In this individual's case an asic is likely the best long term option due to their power costs, location, time, etc...***
Your statements somewhat conflict. Wanting to learn is at odds with buying an ASIC for convenience. I don't think anyone would really recommend buying hardware just for mining in this economy, but if we are talking about strictly something to learn with, then any 4+ core processor (new enough to have aes-ni) and GTX 1050 ti or better. That should be enough to mine any coin in existence. As for asics, generally there isn't much learning involved, unless you are troubleshooting hardware problems or have a large installation. At this point in time I don't think any are worth buying for long term use unless its a sha-256. My 2 cents
