Have you ever ask yourself these vital question How to mine using a video card? What program is needed for cryptocurrency mining? What to consider when choosing mining equipment? How to mine bitcoins and ethereum using a video card on a computer?

It turns out that powerful video cards are needed not only by fans of spectacular computer games. Thousands of users around the world use graphics cards to earn cryptocurrencies! From several cards with powerful processors, miners create farms – computer centers that extract digital money from almost the air!

We will tell you what mining on a video card in 17-18 is, how to choose the right device for making cryptocurrency, and why mining bitcoins on video cards is no longer profitable.

You will also learn where to buy the most productive and powerful graphics card for professional mining, and get expert advice on improving the efficiency of your mining farm.

. Mining on a video card – easy money or unjustified expenses

A good graphics card is not just a digital signal adapter, but also a powerful processor that can solve complex computational problems. And including – calculate the hash code for a chain of blocks (blockchain). This makes graphics cards an ideal tool for mining – cryptocurrency mining.

Question: Why a video card processor? After all, does any computer have a central processor? Is it not logical to carry out calculations using it?

Answer: P rotsessor CPU can also calculate blokcheyny, but makes it a hundred times slower than graphics processor (GPU). And not because one is better, the other is worse. Just the principle of their work is different. And if you combine several video cards, the power of such a computer center will increase by several times.

For those who have no idea how digital money is extracted, a small educational program. Mining is the main, and sometimes the only way to produce cryptocurrency.

Since this money is not minted or printed, and it is not a material substance, but a digital code, someone has to calculate this code. This is what miners do, or rather, their computers.

In addition to computing the code, mining performs several more important tasks:

• support for decentralization of the system: lack of attachment to servers – the basis of the blockchain;
• transaction confirmation – without mining, operations will not be able to enter a new block;
• the formation of new blocks of the system – and entering them into a single registry for all computers.

Immediately I want to cool the ardor of beginner miners: the mining process becomes more and more difficult every year. For example, mining bitcoins using a video card has long been unprofitable.

Only hardcore amateurs are now mining GPUs since specialized ASIC processors have replaced the video cards. These chips consume less power and are more efficient in terms of computing. Everyone is good, but they cost about 130-150 thousand rubles.

Fortunately for miners, bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency on the planet, but one of hundreds. Other digital money – Ethereum, Zcash, Expanse, Dogcoins, etc. still profitable to mine with graphics cards. The remuneration is stable, and the equipment pays off in about 6-12 months.

But there is another problem – the lack of powerful graphics cards . The excitement around cryptocurrency led to the rise in price of these devices. Buying a new, suitable for mining video card in Russia is not so simple.

Beginning miners have to order video adapters in online stores (including foreign ones) or purchase used goods. By the way, I do not advise you to do the latter: mining equipment becomes obsolete and wears out at a fantastic speed.

On Avito, they even sell entire farms for cryptocurrency mining.

There are many reasons: some miners have already “played enough” in the extraction of digital money and decided to engage in more profitable operations with cryptocurrency (in particular, exchange trading), while others realized that they could not compete with powerful Chinese clusters operating on the basis of power plants. Still others switched from video cards to ASICs.

However, the niche still brings some profit, and if you start cryptocurrency mining using a video card right now, you still have time to jump onto the bandwagon of the train that is leaving for the future.

Another thing is that there are more and more players in this field. Moreover, the total number of digital coins from this does not increase. On the contrary, the reward is getting smaller.

So, six years ago, the reward for one blockchain of the Bitcoin network was 50 coins , now it is only 12.5 BTK . The computational complexity has increased by 10 thousand times. True, the value of bitcoin itself has grown many times over this time.

2. How to mine cryptocurrency using a video card

There are two options for mining – solo and in the pool. It is difficult to deal with single mining – you need to have a huge amount of hash (power units) so that the calculations started have the probability of a successful close.

99% of all miners work in pools (English pool – pool) – communities engaged in the distribution of computing tasks. Joint mining eliminates the randomness factor and guarantees a stable profit.

One of my acquaintances, a miner, expressed this opinion about this: I have been mining for 3 years, during this time I haven’t talked with anyone who mined alone.

Such miners look like 19th century gold prospectors. You can search for your nugget for years (in our case, Bitcoin) and never find it. That is, the blockchain will not be closed, which means you will not receive any reward.

“Lone hunters” have more chances for ethers and some other crypto coins.

Due to the peculiar encryption algorithm, ETH is not extracted using special processors (they have not been invented yet). They use exclusively video cards for this. Due to the ethereum and other altcoins, numerous modern farmers still hold on to.

One video card to create a full-fledged farm will not be enough: 4 pieces – a “living wage” for a miner counting on a stable profit. Equally important is a powerful cooling system for video adapters. And do not lose sight of such an item of expenditure as electricity charges.

Step-by-step instructions will protect against errors and speed up the process setup.

Step 1. Choose a pool

The largest cryptocurrency pools in the world are deployed in China, as well as in Iceland and the United States. Formally, these communities do not have state affiliation, but Russian-language pool sites are a rarity on the Internet.

Since you will most likely need to mine on a video card Ethereum, then you will need to choose a community engaged in calculating this currency. Although Etherium is a relatively young altcoin, there are many pools for its mining . The size of your income and its stability largely depend on the choice of the community.

We select the pool according to the following criteria:

• performance;
• working hours;
• fame among cryptocurrency miners;
• positive feedback on independent forums;
• convenience of withdrawing money;
• amount of commission;
• profit accrual principle.

In the cryptocurrency market, changes occur daily. This applies to course jumps, and the emergence of new digital money – forks of bitcoin. Global changes are happening.

So, it has recently become known that in the near future broadcast will switch to a fundamentally different system of profit distribution. In a nutshell, miners who have “a lot of ketse,” that is, coins, will have income on the Etherium network, and beginner miners will either have to cover the shop or switch to other money.

But such “little things” enthusiasts have never stopped. Moreover, there is a program called Profitable Pool. It automatically tracks the most profitable altcoins for mining at the moment. There is a search service for the pools themselves, as well as their ratings in real time.

Read more about ETH mining in the article “ How to start mining Ethereum ”.

Step 2. Install and configure the program

After registering on the pool website, you need to download a special miner program – do not manually calculate the code using a calculator. Such programs are also sufficient. For bitcoin, this is 50 miner or CGMiner , for ether, Ethminer .

Customization requires attention and certain skills. For example, you need to know what scripts are, and be able to enter them in the command line of your computer. I advise you to clarify the technical points with practicing miners, since each program has its own installation and configuration nuances.

Step 3. Register the wallet

If you do not have a Bitcoin wallet or Ethereum storage yet, you must register them. Download wallets from official sites.

Sometimes the pools themselves provide assistance in this matter, but not for free.

Step 4. We start mining and follow the statistics

It remains only to start the process and wait for the first arrivals. Be sure to download an auxiliary program that will monitor the status of the main nodes of your computer – workload, overheating, etc.

Step 5. We display cryptocurrency

Computers work around the clock and automatically, calculating the code . You just have to make sure that cards or other systems do not fail. Cryptocurrency will flow into your wallet at a speed directly proportional to the amount of hashrate.

How to convert digital currency to fiat? A question worthy of a separate article. In short, the fastest way – exchange offices. They charge themselves interest for services, and your task is to find the most profitable rate with a minimum commission. A professional service comparing exchangers will help to do this.

BestChange is the best resource in Runet of such a plan. This monitoring compares the performance of more than 300 exchange points and finds the best quotes for the currency pairs you are interested in. Moreover, the service indicates the cryptocurrency reserves at the box office. The monitoring lists contain only proven and reliable exchange services.

3. What to look for when choosing a video card for mining

You need to choose a graphics card wisely. The first one or one that is already on your computer will also mine, but this power will be negligible even for ethers .

The main indicators are as follows: performance (power), power consumption, cooling, acceleration prospects.

1) Power

Everything is simple here – the higher the processor performance, the better for calculating the hash code. Excellent performance is provided by cards with a memory capacity of more than 2 GB. And choose devices with a 256-bit bus. 128-bit is not good for this.

2) Power Consumption

Power, of course, is great – a high hash rate and all that. But do not forget about energy consumption indicators. Some productive farms “eat” so much electricity that the costs barely pay off or do not pay off at all.

3) Cooling

A standard mining farm consists of 4-16 cards. It produces excess heat, harmful to iron and undesirable to the farmer himself. In a one-room apartment without air conditioning, living and working will be, to put it mildly, uncomfortable.

Therefore, when choosing two cards with the same performance, give preference to one that has a lower thermal power indicator ( TDP ) . The best cooling parameters are demonstrated by Radeon cards. The same devices work longer than all other cards in active mode without wear.

Additional coolers will not only remove excess heat from the processors, but also extend their lifespan.

4) Overclocking capability

Overclocking – a forced increase in the performance of a video card. The ability to “overclock the card” depends on two parameters – the frequency of the GPU and the frequency of the video memory . It is them that you will overclock if you want to increase computing power.

Which video cards to take? You will need the latest generation devices, or at least graphics accelerators, released no earlier than 2-3 years ago. Miners use AMD Radeon , Nvidia , Geforce GTX cards .

Take a look at the payback chart of video cards (data relevant at the end of 2017):

4. Where to buy a video card for mining – an overview of the TOP-3 stores

As I said, video cards with the growing popularity of mining turned into a scarce product. To buy the right device, you have to spend a lot of time and effort.

Our review of the best online sales points will help you.

1) TopComputer

Moscow hypermarket specializing in computer and household appliances. Has been operating in the market for more than 14 years, it supplies goods from around the world at almost producer prices. The operational delivery service, free for Muscovites, is working.

At the time of writing, there are AMD , Nvidia (8 Gb) cards and other varieties suitable for mining on sale .

2) Mybitcoinshop

A specialized store that sells exclusively mining products . Here you will find everything for building a home farm – video cards of the desired configuration, power supplies, adapters and even ASIC miners (for new generation miners). There is a paid delivery and pickup from a warehouse in Moscow.

The company has repeatedly received the unofficial title of the best miner store in the Russian Federation. Prompt service, friendly attitude to customers, advanced equipment are the main components of success.

3) Ship Shop America

Purchase and delivery of goods from the United States. A brokerage company for those who need truly exclusive and most advanced mining products.

A direct partner of the leading manufacturer of video cards for games and mining – Nvidia . The maximum waiting period for goods is 14 days.

5. How to increase mining income on a video card – 3 useful tips

Impatient readers who want to start mining right now and receive income from tomorrow morning will certainly ask how much miners earn ?

Earnings depend on equipment, cryptocurrency exchange rate, pool efficiency, farm capacity, hash rate and a bunch of other factors. One manages to receive up to 70,000 rubles a month , others are satisfied with 10 dollars a week. This is an unstable and unpredictable business.

Useful tips will help increase revenue and optimize costs.

Tip 1. Follow the course of cryptocurrencies

You will mine the rapidly growing currency in the price, you will earn more. For example, ether now costs about 300 dollars , bitcoin – more than 6,000 . But you need to consider not only the current value, but also the growth rate for the week.

Tip 2. Use the mining calculator to choose the best equipment.

The mining calculator on the pool website or on another specialized service will help you choose the optimal program and even a video card for mining.

In general, such resources are full of useful chips for calculating the profitability of the enterprise. Use them before starting mining – there will be less disappointment and problems in the future.

Tip 3. Install multiple graphics cards

The more cards, the higher the hashrate. Pools distribute profits according to capacity, which is true. However, not only the number of graphics adapters affects the hash rate, but also the quality of the equipment.

If there is no money for new cards (and they, for a moment, cost 30-50 thousand rubles each), and you really want to mine, buy good used cards, but only those that have not yet exhausted their resources. And at a price of half or 2/3 less than the cost of a new one.

And remember – mining equipment, and especially video cards, often breaks down. To the farm did not get up due to lack of funds, you need to have a financial reserve for depreciation of equipment.

6. Conclusion

If you are not afraid of technical wisdom, and you are a dock in computer hardware – welcome to the world of amateur cryptocurrency mining. Mining on a video card is still a profitable business available to everyone.

However, the general trend is this: the niche is gradually filled by professional companies engaged in industrial mining. They have a completely different level of equipment and energy consumption.

Question to readers

Do you think cryptocurrency is recognized at the state level in Russia or, on the contrary, is banned?

Mining on video cards: how to choose equipment

The income from mining directly depends on the capabilities of the equipment, so it is better to buy the latest models of video cards. Do not use old models or used cards, otherwise you run the risk of not recouping the investment. Fresh versions of graphics cards are not cheap, but they have a certain margin of safety, which is enough to get a good income.

How to choose cards for mining?

Choosing a video card for cryptocurrency mining is a crucial task. They cost a lot and your profit directly depends on them, so when buying, consider the main technical characteristics.

Memory

The larger the memory card, the higher the mining performance. The minimum allowable value is 2 GB. In particular, mining ETH on a card with such a volume gives excellent payback indicators.

Memory speed

The optimal choice is considered to be models with DDR5 memory, which, by the balance of power consumption and computational speed, have no competitors in 2018.

Tire capacity

128-bit tires no longer meet the parameters necessary for productive mining. Their speed is much lower, and it is completely impossible to start production from scratch on a card with such capacity. The current option is a 256-bit bus.

Cooling

An important indicator on which the performance of a video card depends. The best intensive cooling systems have video cards for mining Radeon. Due to the exclusion of overheating, they not only show higher performance, but also are less subject to wear during 24-hour operation.

Overclocking

There are video cards that lend themselves well to overclocking. Despite this, when choosing a particular model, you should ask in advance how it behaves during mining in overclocked mode. Proper overclocking can provide from 20 to 40% increase in declared power, but for this you need to correctly configure the card settings.

How many graphics cards do you need for a farm?

When assembling components for mining farms, they often use the option with four identical models of video cards. Such systems show stable operation and cause less problems during setup and use. The popularity of this particular configuration is due to the fact that motherboards with four PCI slots are more often found on sale and have an affordable price.  

In this case, you need to be aware that the more the number of video cards, the greater the profit. For farms with 6 and 8 cards, you will need a special motherboard, a more powerful system for cooling equipment and an expensive power supply. New cards can be connected in stages, the main thing is to accurately select all the components and initially correctly assemble the farm. 

Rating of video cards for mining 2018

For efficient operation, the following video cards manufactured by NVIDIA and AMD are recommended:

• Nvidia Geforce GTX1080;
• AMD Radeon RX470;
• AMD Radeon RX480;
• AMD FuryX;
• Nvidia Geforce GTX1070;
• AMD Radeon RX580;
• Nvidia Geforce GTX1060.

Currently, Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 3GB and Radeon RX 470 4GB models based on the Equihash algorithm are considered the most profitable for cryptocurrency mining.

Calculation of the profitability of mining on video cards

On the Internet, there are two popular online calculators for calculating mining profitability with an error of no more than 10%.

• What to Mane – http://whattomine.com/
• Nice Hash – https://www.nicehash.com/

To calculate, you must specify the model of the card and the cost of 1 kWh of electricity in your city.

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