The rapid surge in the popularity of cryptocurrencies in the market provoked a great interest in video cards. Top shelves and not only devices are literally swept away from the shelves. But are they all suitable for cryptocurrency mining? This article will review the rating of video cards for mining.
Currency Mining
The principle of mining is to select hashes of the target level of complexity. In the Bitcoin system, this level is recalculated every 2 weeks. It can increase or, conversely, decrease, depending on how much the time for creating hashes differs from a certain constant.
For the selection of values, the performance of processors and video cards is used. The more powerful the configuration, the faster the process. The reward can be received after 120 matches, that is, after about 20 hours. Thus, the reliability and stability of the cryptocurrency is guaranteed.
Today, methods of mining cryptocurrency using networks are becoming popular. The site owner or attackers can embed a special script in the code of their page that will use the resources of the computer of the user who has visited the site. In this, several highly visited sites have already been noticed and it must be assumed that this trend has the right to development.
Platform Evolution
At first, mining was carried out due to the computing power of ordinary processors. Then it was found that the parallel computing technique is ideally suited for cryptocurrency mining. And GPUs did a great job of this. And mining switched to video cards. As the complexity of the algorithms increased over time, the use of central processors came to naught.
With the advent of special architectural solutions - ASIC, mining speed has increased significantly. From that moment, cryptocurrency mining even on productive graphics cards became unprofitable due to electricity costs. However, many still sell entire farms consisting of only video cards.
Rating of video cards for mining
In the world of graphics adapters, two manufacturers hold the lead - AMD and Nvidia. Before choosing a video card, miners evaluate not only the general parameters - the amount of RAM, processor frequency, but also the hashrate - processing power. It shows how many hashes the system can enumerate per second. An equally important parameter is the energy efficiency of the card. It shows how cost-effective it will be. The final result, which should be guided in the ranking of video cards for mining, is profitability. It is worth considering interesting specimens to which the "miners" pay special attention.
Gigabyte Radeon R9 Fury X
Probably one of the most powerful video cards for mining from the rating. The graphics processor was developed by AMD. Its production capacity is estimated at 27Mh / s. Features of the model are that the cooling is structurally separated, which allows you to seamlessly integrate several cards into one system. However, this gadget is made using 28 nm technology. And this has a great impact on energy efficiency and, as a result, on the increased payback period.
Sapphire Nitro OC Radeon RX 470
The 470th model is popular in the ranking of Ethereum mining graphics cards. The hash rate is 24 Mh / s. At the same time, this adapter, in fact, like all others from AMD, can be overclocked by 30-40%. Specifically, this model consumes only 120 watts, which means the card can pay off much faster.
Sapphire Nitro OC Radeon RX 480
This card in the performance rating of video cards for mining can rightly be called the best among AMD products. It is made using 14 nm technology. However, at the same time, its power consumption is quite high - 170 watts. It has a large number of universal processors that give good overall performance.
MSI Geforce GTX 1060
This card is ideal for use in video games. However, for mining, this is a controversial decision. Its cost is slightly lower than its analogues and its closest competitors. At the same time, the service itself and the cost of electricity are much lower, because the consumption is only 120 watts. Although it’s not so profitable to mine ether, but in the rating of video cards for mining Zcash shows good values - 310 Sol.
Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1070
The video card has a performance of 27 Mh / s and 440 Sol. High frequencies of the processor and memory at 1620 and 8008 MHz allow you to effectively mine cryptocurrency. The triple cooler located on the board steadily cools the video card, preventing it from overheating during operation. The energy efficiency of 480 is 150 watts. With such high performance, this is not so much. Therefore, this video card is perfect for both beginner miners and professionals. In the rating of video cards for mining ether, this card can be called the best.
User reviews
Among all the miners, both professionals and beginners, the RX 470 and Nvidia 1070 attract special attention. Users rate them for their low cost and energy consumption. This allows you to quickly enter the mining sphere with a small starting capital, while earning income in a short time. It is worth noting that such a large demand for video adapters has affected their cost and availability. To date, their price has increased significantly. But the problem is not only this, the fact is that when compiling a farm, several maps are used. Therefore, they are bought in large quantities, and it is difficult to purchase them now in the store, since they simply are not there.
The future of mining
Simple fans to break into the world of mining is not so simple. The main capacities remain for large companies that are able to invest a lot of money in this business and equip farms with professional ASICs. The increase in production capacity also increases the complexity of computing hashes. And this creates additional obstacles for beginner miners. Most likely, in the future, mining will be hijacked by manufacturers of high-tech boards and devices.
Conclusion
In the end, I must say that for the first time bitcoins appeared in 2008. As of the end of 2009, for about 1000 bitcoins, you could get only 1 dollar. During the development of the system there were many ups and downs of the course. Now, at the beginning of 2017, you can earn about $ 1,000 for 1 bitcoin. Those who started mining on time have already become millionaires.