Ethereum is the second most know cryptocurrency today after Bitcoin. Many of them keep on asking how to mine Ethereum? Even if you know the basic mining – then the next question would be: Is it the best card for ethereum mining?
Keeping questions like – best ethereum mining hardware & software, we have compiled this article for you.
Being decentralized assets, cryptocurrencies open up a lot of possibilities. Primarily, you have the option to invest in it or trade it. But in the case of a mineable cryptocurrency, you can take a more active role and mine that cryptocurrency.
Mining can be a very profitable side hustle if done properly. By mining the cryptocurrency, you are not only making some quick bucks, but you are also helping the cryptocurrency. As the mining process verifies and adds transaction blocks to the public ledger and create new currency units.
Ethereum is the 2nd most popular cryptocurrency in terms of raw market capitalization. Ethereum is just after Bitcoin and has over $130 billion worth of market cap. Currently, one Ether or ETH equals about –
Ethereum (ETH)
So this makes Ethereum one of the best cryptocurrencies to invest in right now. Ethereum is also a good cryptocurrency to mine. Because it is ASIC resistant – so you will be competing against other GPU miners.
Suppose you have not taken a look at our best ethereum mining rig. This article will guide you to build your own Ethereum Mining Rig!
BEST GPU FOR ETHEREUM MINING
Now let’s talk about the graphics cards I suggest mining Ethereum with. These cards are the best in the market. In terms of raw performance, payback period, and resale value.
I have placed the cards in ascending order of price to performance ratio. So the last card has the most potential and a shorter payback period.
Graphics Card | Hash Rate (Mh/s) |
Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti | 30.5 |
Nvidia GTX 1070 | 30 |
AMD RX 570 | 28 |
AMD RX 580 | 30 |
Contents
1. AMD RX 580
At the top of your list, we have the ultimate budget king – the RX 580 from AMD. AMD cards have shown great potential when it comes to mining Ethereum. And this card is not an exception either.
This card is an updated version of AMD’s extremely popular RX 480 graphics card. AMD launched this card in 2017 to replace the old RX 480. The RX 580 is built upon AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture.
The GPU has 2304 stream processors. AMD stream processors are comparable to Nvidia CUDA cores. So the more, the merrier! The card is available in an 8GB model with a 256-bit memory interface.
Although the gaming performance is satisfactory, the Ethereum mining performance of this card is more than satisfactory. Personally, I have been able to achieve as high as 30 – 30.5 Mh/s hash rate while mining Ethereum. It is quite impressive for a card that is effectively at least $300 cheaper than the GTX 1070 Ti!
Considering the current market price, the payback period will be within a year. So the card will pay itself back within a year of operation if Ethereum’s price remains the same. But expect a shorter payback period since I expect Ethereum’s price to increase.
#Update- AMD RX580 is the cheapest and most profitable card that you can buy right now. It has the same hashrate as GTX 1070 but is lot cheaper. So I suggest you buy RX 580. Today you could mine about $2 profit per day making $60 per month.
2. AMD RX 570
In the second place, we have one of the most popular graphics cards for mining Ethereum. The AMD RX 570 is a refresher of their RX 470 model. The RX 470 model was and continues to be a huge hit among miners.
Launched in 2017, the GPU onboard RX 570 has 2048 stream processors. For most partner cards, the base clock is somewhere around 1300Mhz. At the same time, the boost clock can be somewhere around 1310Mhz.
There are two variants of this card – the 4GB variant and the 8GB variant. For most cases, the four gigs card will be enough. You will be getting 4GB GDDR5 memory with a 256-bit memory interface.
This card can mine Ethereum at a hash rate of 28 Mh/s! And immediately, you can feel how cost-effective this card is while mining Ethereum. And that is the reason why it is so popular among budget miners.
The power draw is also minimal. You are looking towards a power draw of about 120W.
That is why this card can make about $1.2 in profit per day. So the card will take about a year to pay itself back.
#Update – Sometimes you could grab this card for $150. Making it the cheapest ethereum mining graphics card.
3. GTX 1070 TI
We will kick off our list with one of the recent launches from the green team. It’s none other than the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti. Nvidia promoted this as a budget gaming card between the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080.
But we know for sure that this is a direct competitor to the AMD RX Vega lineup. The RX Vega models are hands down one of the best graphics cards launched in 2017. They perform exceptionally well in both graphics related works and mining.
The GTX 1070 Ti features Nvidia’s Pascal architecture. The onboard graphics chip has 2432 Nvidia CUDA cores. The GPU has a base clock frequency of 1607Mhz. And this can boost up to 1683Mhz.
The GTX 1070 Ti comes in one variant only. It has 8GB GDDR5 memory with a 256-bit memory interface. So the memory is capable of providing 256 GB/s bandwidth. The actual memory speed is 8Gbps.
Undoubtedly, the GTX 1070 Ti performs very well in graphics-related tasks. But let’s find out how good is it when mining Ethereum.
Read –
It turns out this card is not really an improvement over the stock GTX 1070 when it comes to mining Ethereum. It can mine Ethereum at a hash rate of 30.5 Mh/s. And for that, it consumes up to135 watts of electricity.
Considering the current price of Ethereum and difficulty, you will make about $2 in profit per day. Nvidia launched this graphics card for only $450. But right now, the pricing is totally insane. So expect to pay at least $250 – $300 more for this.
Read-
GTX 1070 Ti VS GTX 1080 Ti Mining Comparison
4. Nvidia GTX 1070
The next entry in our list is GTX 1070 Ti’s younger sibling, the GTX 1070. This budget gaming card is an all-time favorite of Equihash miners. But can it mine Ethereum with the same effectiveness? Let’s find out!
This card is also based on Nvidia’s Pascal architecture. So expect top class performance with lower power draws.
The GPU has 1920 CUDA cores. This means it has 512 fewer CUDA cores than the GTX 1070 Ti. The base clock is set at 1506 Mhz. And the boost clock can go up to 1683Mhz. But usually, custom models will overclock even further.
This card uses the same memory interface as the GTX 1070 Ti. So you are getting 8 gigs of GDDR5 memory upon a 256-bit memory interface.
As I have mentioned above, the GTX 1070 Ti is not really an improvement over this card when mining Ethereum. You will be getting a 30 – 30.5 Mh/s hash rate with this graphics card too. But the power consumption is a bit lower than the 1070 Ti.
Considering the current difficulty and price of Ethereum, you will be making about $1.15 profit every day. Which means you are going to make about $35 a month. Of course, if the price of Ethereum remains the same.
Originally Nvidia launched this graphics card for $400. You will still be able to find the founder’s edition on the Nvidia website for that price. But the quantity is capped at two units per customer. So it’s not particularly good for miners.
Read –
AMD RX VEGA VS AMD RX 580! Which should you choose?
FINAL WORDS
Before we end this article, let us summarize the information in tabular form.
So as you can see, RX 580 from AMD is the best choice for mining Ethereum. The next best thing would be the RX 570. If you are going to mine Ethereum, then, in my opinion, you should completely avoid Nvidia cards.
Nvidia cards perform better while mining Equihash based cryptocurrencies like Zcash, Zclassic, Hush, etc. So if you own an Nvidia card, my advice will be to mine those.
I hope you liked this informative article. Please let us know your thoughts down below in the comments section.
Actually, the 1060 6GB gives an even shorter time to break even.