Most profitable crypto mining

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Not surprisingly, Nvidia's LHR model cards tend to do far worse overall. Break-even times currently range from just under days to as much as days, depending on the GPU. Unless the current Ethereum pricing trend reverses, you can expect it to take even longer, especially when you factor in the other hardware you'd need. For pure graphics card power, you should divide the numbers in the table by your PSU's efficiency rating e.

If you're running multiple GPUs off a single PC, total waste power would be somewhat lower, though it really doesn't impact things that much. If you take the worst-case scenario and add 60W to every GPU, the time to break even increases by 20—30 days. It's also fair to say that our test results are not representative of all graphics cards of a particular model. VBIOS mods may help use at your own risk , and some models simply run better and faster. Most of the remainder of the article hasn't been touched since around July , though we did tweak a few of the prices and break-even time estimates.

The problem is that the above table has no way of predicting the price of Ethereum, other coins, or mining difficulty. Guessing at the price is like guessing at the value of any other commodity: It can go up or down at a moment's notice, and Ethereum, Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies are generally more volatile than even the most volatile of stocks. On the other hand, mining difficulty tends to increase over time and only goes down when people stop mining like with the China mining crackdown , as the difficulty is directly tied to the network hash rate i.

The above is something of a best-case scenario for when you'd break even on the cost of a GPU. Actually, that's not true. The best-case scenario for miners is that the price of Ethereum doubles or triples or whatever, and then everyone holding Ethereum makes a bunch of money. Until people start to cash out and the price drops, triggering panic sells and a plummeting price. That happened in with Ethereum, and it's happened at least three times during the history of Bitcoin. Like we said: volatile.

Still, there are obviously plenty of people who believe in the potential of Ethereum, Bitcoin, and blockchain technologies. Even at today's inflated GPU prices with mining profitability slumping, some people are likely still making a go at mining. At least if the value of the coins drops, you still have the hardware that's at least worth something provided the card doesn't prematurely die due to heavy mining use.

That means, despite the overall rankings in terms of time to break even , you're generally better off buying newer hardware if possible. Our table above includes 'current' eBay pricing estimates and the associated profitability. Even when profitability drops, GPU prices tend to take longer to come down.

There's also a balance between time to break even and daily potential profits, but at this point we strongly advise against anyone investing more money into GPU mining. Okay, sure, you can try to get ahead of the next wave, whenever that happens if that happens.

For those still interested, we've considered the options and come up with this list of the best mining GPUs for Ethereum right now — things can change rapidly based on pricing and availability, not to mention the valuation of Ethereum and Bitcoin. Make sure you get one of the non-LHR models, though, or mining profitability with Ethereum is a lot lower.

The GeForce RTX is also worth a look, provided you can find one of the earlier models where the LHR lock was accidentally broken with older drivers for a good price. Mining performance is lower but efficiency and break-even time are basically the same as the XT. Just don't get the 4GB models! Of course these could be five years old cards by this point, and buying a used graphics card presents some obvious risks!

The RX is generally cheaper than the others and used a bit less power, making it the clear winner. Plus, when you're not mining, it's a very capable gaming GPU. The time to break even is pretty bad, but if you do get into the black it will end up with the highest profitability from that point forward.

One final topic worth discussing is ASIC mining. Many crypto coins and hashing algorithms have been created over the years, some specifically designed to thwart ASIC mining. Usually, that means creating an algorithm that requires more memory, and Ethereum falls into that category. Still, it's possible to optimize hardware to hash faster while using less power than a GPU.

Take the RTX Ti as an example. From the first S3 Virge '3D decelerators' to today's GPUs, Jarred keeps up with all the latest graphics trends and is the one to ask about game performance. Tom's Hardware Tom's Hardware. Jarred Walton. Topics Graphics. See all comments Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or are the columns in the chart a bit mixed up!! One of the columns was missing Days to Break Even and everything else was shifted over one slot.

It should be correct now. Just an error getting things from Excel into our CMS. That means you'd break even in about days. And then by the time you actually start turning a profit, a new set of GPUs will be released. Makes sense. Kudos for the info! There's really nothing else that comes to mind What's the opportunity cost of mining, I wonder.

If instead of buying a RTX graphic card to mine Ethenum, someone had simply spent the money on Ethenum coins, the return could actually be higher. Chung Leong said:. Hot algorithms use both core and memory, and that is why we increase core clock CC and memory clock MC.

The main characteristics of such algorithms are high power consumption, high core temperature, and high memory temperature. We compared mining algorithms in the table below. We chose Nvidia Ti overclocking settings as an example. The table shows GPU hash rate, core temp, memory temp, and power consumption. Note that depending on the algorithm power consumption changes as well.

This might be important to consider when choosing which coin to mine. Then you should choose ETC. Hot algorithms are highlighted in orange, cold algorithms — in blue. In Ravencoin RVN became the second most popular coin among GPU miners due to the increase in its exchange rate, its simplicity, and low hardware requirements. High rig stability, presence on most exchanges, and a relatively stable exchange rate made this currency popular among miners.

Here is an example for Gminer:. Plus, many cryptocurrency exchanges list the coin, so you can easily exchange it into other cryptocurrencies or fiat money with minimum expenses. Approximately 90 thousand miners in the world mine Ethereum Classic.

Here is an example for lolMiner AMD graphics card :. Read our guide: How to Mine Ethereum Classic. ERGO is the youngest coin on our list. The estimate is vague due to a significant difference in types of cards on the algorithm. T-Rex is for Nvidia:. It also generated significant Internet traffic for the pool and miner: each share reached KB which is hundreds of times more than a share of any other algorithm.

Every 1. Here is an example of the bat file for T-Rex Nvidia :. New Algorithm — FiroPoW. How to Prepare? Mining on this algorithm is highly dependent on GPU memory. If you can switch your mining powers to this coin for several hours once its mining difficulty drops or exchange rate increases, Cortex is for you. What makes CuckooCortex unique is that the algorithm offers a variety of ways to adjust mining energy efficiency.