Mining is one of the most profitable enterprises in 2020-2021.
The return on investment in a mining farm (for example: $5,000, $15,000, etc.) started from 5 months
and reached 1+ years!
Any business can envy such indicators. It is not surprising that during this period many newcomers appeared on the market, and almost all available video cards on the market were bought up.
But is mining really that profitable now? Will this crazy mining boom continue into 2022?
Which video cards are the most profitable and will pay for themselves the fastest? We will answer these and other questions further in this article!
Payback of mining on all video cards - cost calculation
If you are only interested in the payback of a particular video card, then in the table below we have made a calculation for all the most profitable video cards.
The calculation goes to a farm of 6 video cards, with a full package - power supply, motherboard, CPU, RAM, cooler, case/frame, SSD.
In our calculations, we chose a card (from one series, for example, 3060) with a good cooling system, but not the most expensive one - that is, the middle price segment.
But if you are interested in how much you need to spend on components, what components are needed, how much this or that AMD or Nvidia farm will bring per year and how quickly it will pay for itself, and much more, then be sure to read the article to the end!
Payback on Nvidia video cards (new hardware only – NOT
boo):
| Card name | Total farm cost | Profit per year Dirty/clean* | Payback |
| Nvidia1660 | 4970$ | 3055$ / 2848$ | 1 year and 9 months |
| Nvidia 1660 Ti | 5707$ | 3721$ / 3514$ | 1 year and 8 months |
| Nvidia 1660 Super | 6034$ | 3892$ / 3659$ | 1 year and 8 months |
| Nvidia 2060 | 6115$ | 4325$ / 3988 $ | 1 year and 7 months |
| Nvidia 2060 Super | 7588$ | 5492$ / 5140$ | 1 year and 6 months |
| Nvidia 2070 | No cards available | 5285$ / 4925$ | — |
| Nvidia 2070 Super | 8569$ | 5705$ / 5342$ | 1 year and 7 months |
| Nvidia 2080 | No cards available | 7109$ / 6616$ | — |
| Nvidia 2080 Super | No cards available | — | |
| Nvidia 2080 Ti | No cards available | 8981$ / 8411$ | — |
| Nvidia 1060 (6 GB) | No cards available | 2970$ / 2737$ | — |
| Nvidia 1080 Ti | No cards available | 5927$ / 5409$ | — |
| Nvidia 1050 Ti | 2576$ | 1496$ / 1289$ | 2 years |
| Nvidia 3090 | 24586$ | 15103$ / 14273$ | 1 year and 9 months |
| Nvidia 3080 | 13953$ | 12194$ / 11598$ | 1 year and 3 months |
| Nvidia 3080 LHR | 14853$ | 9315$ / 8693$ | 1 year and 9 months |
| Nvidia 3080 Ti | 19678 $ | 11304$ / 10552$ | 1 year and 11 months |
| Nvidia 3070 | 10272$ | 7724$ / 7387$ | 1 year and 5 months |
| Nvidia 3070 LHR | 10272$ | 6802$ / 6336$ | 1 year and 8 months |
| Nvidia 3070 Ti | 11663$ | 8192$ / 7544$ | 1 year and 6 months |
| Nvidia 3060 | 7261$ | 4650$ / 4365$ | 1 year and 8 months |
| Nvidia 3060 LHR | 7261$ | 4641$ / 4330$ | 1 year and 8 months |
| Nvidia 3060 Ti | 8897$ | 7671$ / 7334$ | 1 year and 3 months |
| Nvidia 3060 Ti LHR | 8897$ | 6451$ / 5959$ | 1 year and 6 months |
Payback on AMD video cards (new hardware only – NOT
boo):
| Card name | Total farm cost | Profit per year Dirty/clean | Payback |
| AMD Rx 570 (4 Gb) | No cards available | 2685$ / 2270$ | — |
| AMD Rx 570 / 580 (8 Gb) | 5680$ | 4028$ / 3691$ | 1 year and 6 months |
| 5700XT | 9714$ | 7267$ / 6930$ | 1 year and 5 months |
| 5700 | No cards available | 7255$ / 6918$ | — |
| 5600XT | No cards available | 5340$ / 5055$ | — |
| 5500XT | No cards available | 3428$ / 3195 | — |
| 6900XT | 14622$ | 8439$ / 8050$ | 1 year and 10 months |
| 6800XT | 13150$ | 8424$ / 8035$ | 1 year and 8 months |
| 6800 | 12986$ | 8425$ / 8036$ | 1 year and 8 months |
| 6700XT | 9714$ | 6316$ / 5953$ | 1 year and 8 months |
| 6600XT | No cards available | 4262$ / 4055$ | — |
| 6600 | 5870$ | 3782$ / 3583$ | 1 year and 8 months |
Profit per year Dirty/clean* is the profit taking into account the deduction for electricity (clean) and without taking into account the deduction for electricity (dirty). The calculation was carried out with a price per socket of $0.05 and a commission of 1%.
For interest, compare the payback of the farm in 2022 with the payback in 2020-2021 (the same article, with the same tables for 2020-2021).
Where is your iPhone made?
If a situation of shortage occurs in another market (for example, in the production of clothing), then this is solved simply: prices in the sphere rise, which is why excess profits are formed. Then enterprising people open many new textile workshops to get even more money, the shortage disappears, prices return to normal - everyone is happy. Unfortunately, in the microelectronics market everything is a little more complicated...
The main problem is that production is insanely expensive. A new production plant using modern technological processes (5-7 nanometers) costs from 5 to 12 billion dollars! For comparison: this is approximately the twentieth part of the annual budget of the Russian Federation. At the same time, you need to invest in the development of technology (otherwise you will fall behind your competitors), specialists, equipment upgrades...
Because of this situation, the microchip market is dominated by a giant monopolist - the Taiwanese company TSMC. It produces approximately 4 out of 5 modern microchips—more precisely, blanks for them. And then these “semi-finished products” end up at the production facilities of AMD, Apple, Nvidia, etc., turning into smartphones, video cards and processors.
The lower the technical process, the more expensive the production and the smaller the market. The most advanced chips of 5-7 nanometers can be produced by only a few companies in the world.
I think you already understand why video cards have not become cheaper for quite some time. If competition is minimal, then why try? Because of the chip shortage, all technology companies are making super profits against the backdrop of a general decline. And on top of this are miners, a change in console generation, and the technological war between the USA and China. In the microchip market, the so-called “perfect storm” is a situation where all the circumstances are stacked against you and me: ordinary consumers.
Mining in 2022 – calculations and theory
Setting up a mining rig in 2022 is much more expensive than it has ever been, but this is not surprising given how the mining fever has taken over the whole world!
This is due in large part to the huge increase in the price of cryptocurrencies such as:
- Ethereum
- Ethereum Classic (especially for video cards 3 and 4 GB of memory)
- Ravencoin
- And other mining coins
In this regard, prices for video cards and all components have skyrocketed. In the summer of 2022, it even happened that there were no video cards in stores at all - everything was sold out!
Even now everything is not so good - some video card models are not available (see table above).
Plus, Nvidia has released LHR video cards - these are special GPUs with mining protection, and they cost the same as without protection (however, without protection, without LHR, it is not so easy to find a card in 2022 - we are talking about the 30 line).
For example, there is an Nvidia 3070 video card, and it does not have any restrictions on mining, but there is an Nvidia 3070 LHR video card, and now it already has restrictions on mining - its hashrate is halved.
However, in 2022, a partial bypass for LHR video cards was found, thanks to the NBMiner program, which partially unlocked the original GPU performance of LHR accelerators.
Although NBMiner does not remove all restrictions, it can be used to unlock up to 70% of the performance in mining the Ethash (Ethereum) algorithm.
That is, in fact, in 2022 there are a number of problems that a novice miner, or a user who wants to collect 1 more rig, will have to face:
- High prices for video cards and components
- Hardware limitation in mining – LHR from Nvidia
- Quite a long payback period for video cards – more than 1 year.
- Growing network complexity
Not an isolated case
The price drop affected not only GeForce 3060 cards and not only the Gigabyte brand. The MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming Z Trio accelerator has also become much more affordable, selling for 1029 euros (88.7 thousand rubles). On June 4, 2022, it cost 1,699 euros (146.4 thousand rubles).
Some cards are now more than half as expensive as a month ago
One of the record holders in terms of price reduction was the Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC card (index TUF-RTX3080-O10G-GAMING). On May 20, 2022, Europeans could buy it only if they had 3,433 euros (295.9 thousand rubles) available. A little more than a month later, the card has lost 1,934 euros (166.7 thousand rubles) in price and is now selling for 1,449 euros (129.2 thousand rubles).
In Russia there has also been a decline in prices for graphics accelerators
In Russia, a number of large distribution networks are also seeing a reduction in prices for new Nvidia cards. It is not yet known what it is connected with, but some cards have fallen in price by tens of thousands of rubles. For example, in Citylink the Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 accelerator (index GV-N3090GAMING OC-24GD) cost 366 thousand rubles, and now it can be bought for 280 thousand rubles. It is possible that such a sharp decline is temporary.
What is needed for a mining farm?
If you do not know how to assemble a mining rig, then first we recommend that you read the detailed instructions for assembling the rig, which shows in detail what components are needed and how and in what order you need to connect all the parts.
First, let's list all the components for a mining farm:
- Video card
- Mining motherboard
- power unit
- CPU
- RAM
- SSD
- Raiser
- Additional cooling (coolers/fans)
Now let's talk about something you should never skimp on.
What should you not save on in mining?
The first thing you definitely can’t skimp on is the power supply. The power supply is the heart of your farm; current passes through it to the video cards, so buy only good power supplies, at least 80+ bronze.
The next thing you can’t save on is the video cards themselves, or more precisely, their cooling system. Below in the video we have listed some of the best video cards based on cooling system.
Yes, taking into account the current prices for video cards, and their spread in only 1 model (for example, 3060) for about $20-$200 for one or another cooling system, buying a more expensive video card of the same model, but with a better cooling system For many it may seem crazy - not everyone can overpay for just 1 card from $70.
However, you shouldn't buy cards with a bad cooling system! This is a waste of money, nerves and time, since such cards will overheat, which means you need to think about good additional cooling and you will also need to constantly monitor the video cards.
Of course, you can get a cheap card with good cooling at a discount!
Therefore, before buying a particular video card, read reviews on it and be sure to look at the thermal images and the internal cooling system!
Now we can talk about what you can safely save on.
What can you save on in mining?
In short, you can safely save on the following:
- CPU
- RAM
- SSD
- Frame
- Motherboard (but there are nuances)
Now let's look at all this in more detail.
CPU
It’s definitely worth saving on a processor, but only if you don’t additionally mine on it.
However, this is not so profitable, since the most profitable CPUs for mining are processors from AMD; you can also mine on Intel, but the income will be less. For example, mining on a mid-budget processor “AMD RYZEN 5 5600X”, Monero cryptocurrency:
Why is this actually not profitable and why is it not worth overpaying for the CPU? The thing is that the processors themselves are quite expensive, and motherboards for AMD are not cheap either!
Personally, we use the cheapest processors from Intel to assemble mining farms, for example, for LGA 1200, the most budget processor is suitable: Intel Celeron G5905 (costing ~ $62).
Such a budget processor will not affect GPU mining in any way!
RAM
You can safely save on RAM; buy the cheapest sticks.
However, in 2022, it is better to assemble farms with 8 GB of RAM, since there are demanding algorithms, and with 4 GB you may not be able to mine certain coins, and in general, let there be a reserve for the future. By frequency - take the cheapest one.
SSD/HDD
An SSD is no longer a luxury, and a very small overpayment for an SSD is worth it: you will load and open faster.
However, among the SSDs themselves, there is no point in overpaying - take the cheapest 128 GB (for example: Goldenfir 128 GB T650, Silicon Power Ace A55 128 GB. The price of these SSDs is ~ $21).
There is no need to take less, as you need:
- Install an OS that requires disk space
- Make a swap file (most likely you will have to)
- Install drivers
- Install programs
- Download several miners at once, for several algorithms, so that in case of hype, you can quickly rearrange your rigs!
All this actively consumes disk space, so in 2022, take a 128 GB SSD, there is no point in more, less is also the golden mean.
Housing/frame
There are hundreds of options for collecting housing for mining.
These can be floor-standing buildings, shelving, various exhaust hoods (with homemade hoods), and so on.
Assemble the case based on the following considerations:
- Where will the farm be located?
- How much farm space can you allocate?
- What will the farm be made of?
- What kind of additional cooling system will go with it?
- And so on
If the farm will be located in an apartment, in one of the rooms, then the best option is to assemble a rack. Just buy everything you need at a hardware store and assemble it yourself.
You can also consider the option of floor frames - they can also be easily assembled from any hardware store.
To save money, you can use a wooden frame.
Motherboard
You can also save money on a motherboard; you should not overpay for the brand (however, there are cheap models among branded motherboards).
The nuance here is that you should not take completely unknown Chinese models, as they can quickly fail.
Innosilicon
Intel is not the only one who decided to take advantage of the moment and fill the gap in the market. In November 2022, Innosilicon announced its own graphics card. The GPU family will be called Fantasy 1. The British Imagination Technologies took part in the development of the chip. Interestingly, in the past Innosilicon was engaged in the production of special equipment for mining, and the announced video cards are announced with a memory capacity of up to 6 GB of GDDR6X type. Thus, miners may become the target audience for Innosilicon, which will partially cover the demand on their part.
In any case, the emergence of several large players in the market will lead to competition and increased supply in the long run. And as you know, competition in business primarily benefits the end consumer, that is, you and me. But how long do miners generally plan to mine crypto and when will it all end?
Why did the payback on video cards increase in 2022: did it take longer?
To the question of why the payback on video cards / mining farms has increased (become longer) in 2022, there is a very simple answer!
- Firstly, this is due to a huge jump in prices for the video cards themselves.
- Secondly, ( most importantly
) - this is due to a huge increase in difficulty in the Ethereum network (the most popular cryptocurrency for mining on GPUs).
The complexity increased by 3.2 times in just 1 year!
It turns out that the number of new video cards in mining has increased by exactly that amount!
Now, in order for the payback on video cards to become again as “attractive” as in 2020-2021, at least 5 months is necessary:
- Cryptocurrency growth (reaching new heights)
- Exit of some video cards from mining
Intel graphics cards
Intel is currently preparing to release its own graphics solutions. It is known that the series of video cards will be called Arc and that they will compete in the mid-budget price segment. Thus, the Intel Arc A380 will likely be equipped with 6 gigabytes of GDDR6 memory. Overall performance is claimed to be on par with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Super, and the official price is rumored to be around $200 (retail price will likely be higher).
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Conclusion on payback: is it worth starting mining in 2022?
Going into mining in 2022, with such cryptocurrency rates, is very profitable. However, it is worth understanding a couple of very important things:
- Hype does not last forever and correction must begin sooner or later. Ethereum, Ravencoin and other mining coins have increased in price very much over the past 2 years. For example, ETH rose from $260 in 2020 to $4812 in 2022! This means that the payback can be very long, 2, 3, 4, 5 years or more (as it was in 2018-2019).
- The difficulty of coins has also increased greatly. If it continues to increase, and cryptocurrency rates stand still / or fall, then the payback will be even longer
- LHR cards from Nvidia that bring slightly less profit
- Ethereum transition to POS - it will no longer be possible to mine it on video cards
- The emergence of powerful ASICs in the Ethash network, which will also increase the complexity of the network, and therefore increase the payback period for farms
If the above points do not scare you, then you can consider mining as a means of investing your capital. However, remember, you cannot enter mining with your last money or with credit money! Enter only with free money that you are not afraid to lose!
Always count on the fact that the payback on the farm can be 2, 3 or more years! If it pays off quickly, great, but don’t hope for the best in this matter, crypto winter can always come suddenly!
Happy mining!
Nvidia vs Radeon
In the mainstream discrete graphics card market, GPUs are supplied by two companies: Nvidia and Radeon (which is actually owned by AMD). There is, of course, also Intel, but for now it specializes more in integrated graphics. So, over the past year, prices for cards have literally increased several times. The anti-record price growth falls on the expensive graphics segment. Due to large amounts of built-in memory and cool performance, premium solutions are best suited for mining.
For example, if at the start of sales the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 was asked for about 45 thousand rubles, now at retail it costs about 120 thousand. GeForce RTX 3080 was sold for about 63 thousand rubles back in September 2020. Now in retail, many sellers offer it for 170 thousand. And one of the most productive video cards, GeForce RTX 3080, increased from 137 to 270 thousand. We did not make up the old prices; they are documented on the official website.
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The same applies to video cards in the mid and budget price segments. By the way, GeForce is not found in all stores, however, neither are solutions from Radeon. In addition to high prices, consumers are faced with another problem - a real shortage of video cards. Moreover, the shortage also affected the secondary market with graphics that were released in past years. Finding Radeon RX 400 and 500 series on sale is not easy, especially the RX 470/570 - cards that have seen significant demand from average buyers.
Nikita Zuborev, senior analyst at BestChange.ru:
“For the last one and a half to two years, miners have been creating a shortage in the market, causing a sharp rise in the price of video cards - at the peak, the price rose three to four times higher than the manufacturer’s recommended price. By mid-2022, the situation may change, as demand from miners is expected to decline. The reason for this may be two fundamental factors: the main cryptocurrency for mining will finally switch to another operating technology - from PoW to PoS; The end of the four-year growth cycle of the cryptocurrency market, which most analysts and traders are focusing on, is predicted.
Why and how much have video cards become more expensive?
As noted>
And although these data are given for the American market, nevertheless, they generally reflect the current state of the industry (including in Russia, Belarus or Ukraine). Some sources report that new arrivals of video cards to stores are “closing” orders for the fall. You may be lucky if the buyer does not pick up your order within 2 days - then it will go on sale. There is also an opinion that some batches do not even arrive in stores, as they are intercepted by “well-connected” miners and outbids.
What are the reasons for this situation?
Bitcoin growth
The second half of last year turned out to be incredibly successful for the first cryptocurrency. Yes, and for the second one too. The update of the historical highs of Bitcoin and Ethereum could not pass without a trace. The sharp increase in assets led to both an increase in the popularity of mining and an increase in the capacity of those who were already in the know.
Graphics cards have become a convenient target for scalpers and miners. The former began to buy goods en masse at a low price in order to resell them at a higher price, while the latter simply needed new hardware to develop mining.
The graph above shows that particular activity in the growth of value appeared in February 2022. Then Elon Musk said his weighty word (and more than one) in the crypto world. Bitcoin marked even higher levels and continued its growth.
By the way, the shortage of video cards for private buyers has also appeared because large miners are becoming more and more interested in purchasing mining equipment. In 2022, we have written more than once about similar large deliveries of miners from Bitmain.
New Year holidays
Another likely reason for the delays is the Chinese New Year, which is celebrated on February 12. Traditionally, everyone returns home and celebrates the holiday together, so almost all production stops during this period. Taiwan also celebrates Chinese New Year, so TSMC is also stopping production for a while.
In Korea, there is a similar tradition, however, the Korean New Year ends on February 12, and therefore the downtime periods here are slightly different, but they still exist.
As soon as the holidays are over, employees return to their jobs, and production returns to previous volumes of work.
Supply problems due to coronavirus
The coronavirus seems to have hit every industry like a hurricane. China was one of the first to bear the brunt of the new pandemic. However, manufacturers did not postpone the release of the announced models. As a result, many productions slowed down and stopped altogether, and supply and order stories experienced disruptions and downtime.
There was so little equipment produced that even a 100% advance payment could not guarantee that in the near future you would become the owner of new hardware.
The coronavirus also affected gamers, whose demands increased sharply during lockdowns. Many of those who had not played before even began to play. In turn, those who played earlier began to play more. It is precisely this area that was able to profit from self-isolation, lockdowns and remote work.
