Following the massive growth of Ethereum in 2017, many consumers have purchased or built mining rigs.
While Bitcoin is prohibitively expensive for casual miners, cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, ZCash, and Dash are more accessible to those with a budget.
Ethereum’s price has increased dramatically this year, making it one of the favourite cryptocurrencies among miners due to the high returns.
How much Ethereum your mining rig brings in each month is based on the power of its graphics cards, measured in hashes-per-second. A higher hash rate means your set-up will be better at mining Ethereum.
Hardware and Performance
If you plan to build an Ethereum mining rig, you will need to purchase graphics cards to drive the device.
Both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards can be used to mine Ethereum, and the latest GPU generation is more cost-efficient than older cards.
We used mining performance benchmark data collected by BuriedOne to compare the latest generation of graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia.
The reported hash rates and South African pricing for AMD’s Radeon RX series and Nvidia’s GTX 10-series graphics cards are below.
| Card | Hash Rate | Price |
|---|---|---|
| AMD | ||
| Radeon RX 580 8GB | 26.8MH/s | R4,692 |
| Radeon RX 570 8GB | 26.5MH/s | R4,445 |
| Radeon RX 480 8GB | 26.9MH/s | R4,847 |
| Radeon RX 480 4GB | 26.4MH/s | R4,367 |
| Radeon RX 470 8GB | 25MH/s | R4,098 |
| Radeon RX 470 4GB | 24.5MH/s | R3,267 |
| Nvidia | ||
| GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | 28-32MH/s | R12,399 |
| GeForce GTX 1080 | 23MH/s | R8,999 |
| GeForce GTX 1070 | 25-30MH/s | R6,799 |
| GeForce GTX 1060 | 17-19MH/s | R4,445 |
AMD vs Nvidia
AMD graphics cards are generally more efficient at mining Ethereum than similarly-priced Nvidia products, but Nvidia cards are currently easier to obtain.
BuriedOne also recorded the hash rate of Nvidia’s upcoming dedicated mining graphics card, the GTX 1060 GP106-100.
This card is not yet available, but is set to launch in the near future to meet the demand for mining GPUs.
AMD will also launch cost-efficient graphics cards aimed at cryptocurrency miners soon, according to reports.
While the performance metrics reported above serve as a useful guideline for hash rates, actual performance may vary per product depending on stock overclocking settings, video memory, and numerous other factors.
This article first appeared on MyBroadband and is republished with permission.
Loading ...
My gaming by the time SA get cards in stock, it will be so hard to mine etherium that this article will be pointless.