Profitable ERGO mining on old Nvidia and AMD video cards

Information about the material Published: 08/19/2021, 00:27
The ERGO cryptocurrency is currently one of the most profitable for mining on video cards, competing in profitability with the well-known Ethereum. ERGO, unlike ETH, has significantly lower hardware requirements, because Even 2Gb of video memory is enough for mining ERGO. To mine Ethereum, let us remind you that your video card must have at least 5Gb of built-in fast memory. If you are the owner of old video cards with 4Gb of video memory or less, then you should pay attention to the ERGO cryptocurrency. ERGO is worth a look especially for those miners who still have AMD Radeon HD 7970, R9 280X, R9 380X, Fury, R9 290X video cards, which cannot mine Ethereum due to the small volume of the video buffer, but at the same time have quite powerful GPUs, which will allow to get them a fairly large income when mining ERG.

In addition to the small size of the video buffer, owners of old AMD video cards (Fiji, Baffin, Hawaii, Tonga) are faced with the problem that almost all modern versions of miners do not support AMD video cards older than RX480 (Polaris core).

To start mining ERGO cryptocurrency on old AMD video cards, SRBMiner Multi is best suited. You can also use Teamredminer and Nanominer miners, but the hashrate for older AMD video cards when using these miners will be lower. For modern video cards, all miners show almost the same results.

In addition to good optimization for outdated video cards, SRBMiner Multi has several more nice features that will also increase your income from mining:

  • Mining on GPU and CPU. For example, on the video card you started mining ERGO (autolykos), and on the processor you started mining the cryptocurrency Monero (RandomX)
  • Simultaneous mining of ARGO and Zilliqa (ZIL) cryptocurrencies on a video card. Read more about setting up double mining here

For Nvidia video cards and ERGO mining using the Autolykos 2 algorithm, use NBminer

To trade ERGO, use the Kucoin exchange, where there are currently maximum trading volumes for this cryptocurrency

Bitcoin or Ethereum, which is better to mine?

Regarding the choice of cryptocurrency for mining in 2022, there have been no significant changes. This year, most GPUs can still mine Ether (ETH) or its forks. As for Bitcoins (BTC), mining the world's first cryptocurrency ceased to be available to ordinary people several years ago, as it requires serious investments, special equipment and access to large amounts of cheap electricity.

This is especially true now, since Bitcoin (BTC) mining generates half of the income after the reward was halved in May. Mining difficulty continues to rise, and in September it updated to a record level of 19.31 trillion at block 649152.

As a result, many popular devices such as the Antminer S9 have become obsolete. After the halving, the most profitable miners were the Whatsminer M30S++ from the Chinese company MicroBT, which can provide a hashrate of up to 112 terahashes per second and generate a profit of just over $8.50 per day, and the Antminer S19 Pro from Bitmain, which can reach a hashrate of 110 TH /s and make a daily profit of just under $8.50.

But the prices for this hardware are pretty steep: A Whatsminer M30S++ costs $1,800, and the Antminer S19 Pro comes in at $2,407.

When it comes to Ethereum and its forks, GPU mining is becoming popular again for several reasons. Firstly, over the past two years, the Ethereum hashrate has decreased by 15% (compared to August 2022) and is now 256.221 TH/s. This means that it is now easier to mine ether.

Secondly, both modern and old card models can still be used for mining. For example, the Nvidia 1050 Ti, released in October 2016, and the Radeon RX 580, released in April 2022, are still very popular.

The prices of such old cards are constantly decreasing as new cards are released, which encourages miners to return to the market. But most importantly, the price of ETH tripled from the beginning of 2022 to the beginning of September, making Ether still very profitable to mine.

There is another factor that is attracting the interest of miners: the upcoming transition to Ethereum 2.0 and the Proof-of-Stake algorithm, which is expected to begin before the end of the year.

A representative from WhatToMine, a popular web-based calculator for estimating the profitability of cryptocurrency mining, told Cointelegraph that demand for ether will continue to be in demand not only this year, but also in 2022:

“In this cycle, we can expect a further expansion of DeFi projects, which in turn will make the ETH network increasingly popular. As a result, the block reward for ETH (the fee portion) should increase cyclically with an overall upward trend, making ETH mining the most profitable for GPU miners.”

Which video card to choose

After testing video cards from two major manufacturers, Nvidia and AMD, Nvidia video cards showed the best capabilities. However, given the fact that Ether mining has received a new life, AMD cards should not be written off as the company's Vega and RX generations are still very suitable for Ethash algorithms.

Regardless of the manufacturer, the most important factor is the return on investment, as any miner must first invest a decent amount of money before making any profit.

A standard setup requires six graphics cards, and as a result, a miner can spend more than $9,000 buying the popular Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti with 8 or 11 GB of RAM. But what about those who cannot afford the upper limit, but still want to make a profit?

Here are the most popular video cards for mining ether at the moment, which cost less than $400.

1) Nvidia GTX 1660 Super

This card was released in October 2022, which means the technology is still fresh. The graphics card has 6 GB of memory and Turing architecture, which runs at higher clock speeds, consumes less power and has 20% better performance than the GTX 1660. The price of this model ranges from $240 to $250.

2) AMD Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT

In the summer of 2022, AMD introduced a new line of RX 5700 series graphics cards to the market. These cards use FinFET technology, which provides better energy efficiency during mining due to the reduced size of electronic components and lower current consumption.

The RX 5700's specifications include 8GB of GDDR6 memory and 180W power consumption. The RX 5700 XT has a power consumption of 225 W, but the base frequency is also 10% higher than the RX 5700. These cards are a little more expensive at about $430, but they can be purchased at a discount, the price will be around $400.

3) Nvidia RTX 2060 Super

The RTX 2060 Super may not be an obvious choice since, other than 8GB of memory, it is no different from the RTX 2060. But at the same time, it uses five different algorithms - GrinCuckarooD29, GrinCuckatoo31, DaggerHashimoto, X16Rv2 and BeamV2 - which makes it more stable, safe and suitable for mining.

It's essentially a mid-range option between the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070, but can be found online for as little as $399, while the RTX 2070 will cost you around $530, and the $130 difference is serious money in this business.

4) AMD Radeon RX 580

The AMD RX 580 was released back in 2022 and is still one of the best low-budget GPUs for mining, with prices ranging from $180 to $230. The card is used mainly for Ether mining and has 8 GB of memory, but consumes little power - only 150 W.

A photo of a new video card from NVIDIA for cryptocurrency mining was leaked online

In addition to the photo, technical specifications of a new video card from NVIDIA for cryptocurrency mining have also appeared on the Internet.

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The new video card for cryptocurrency mining from NVIDIA in factory settings produces a hashrate of up to 164 MH/s. This was reported by NotebookCheck.net with reference to a user who tested the video card. Also, along with the technical specifications, photos of the new video card appeared.

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Sponsored Source: notebookcheck.net

According to them, the new product has a passive cooling system. The card integrates 8 GB HBM2e memory based on the A100 graphics accelerator. Memory bandwidth is almost 1.5 GB/s, which is more than double that of the RTX 3080.

Source: notebookcheck.net

Also, due to its purpose, the video card does not have connectors for connecting a screen. At the same time, the video card has only 4480 CUDA cores. The GA100 GPU, for example, as part of the A100, has 6912 of them. The PCIe interface is limited to 4 lanes, and the GPU core can increase to 1410 MHz with a maximum power of 250 W.

Source: notebookcheck.net

The video card has a base frequency of 1140 MHz and a maximum boost frequency of up to 1410 MHz. The board is identified as Device ID 20C2 and uses NVIDIA 471.41 drivers. When exactly the new product will go on sale remains unknown.

What is the payback of video cards?

How long will it take for these budget cards to recoup the initial price? For comparison, one of the most popular mining cards today, the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti, earns about $1.66 per day when mining Ether. If you buy this video card at an average price of about $1,400, it will take about 28 months to pay for itself, excluding the cost of electricity.

So here's what the calculations say:

An Nvidia GTX 1660 Super , which can be purchased for $240, will generate $0.65 per day and pay for itself in 12 months.

AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT costs $400, the payback period is 8.5 months, while bringing in $1.56 per day.

The Nvidia RTX 2060 Super can be purchased for $399 and will generate $0.92 per day when mining Ether. This card will pay for itself in 14 months.

The Radeon RX 580 is a very popular card due to its fairly low price of around $200, and this card will pay for itself in just 7 months, bringing in almost a dollar - $0.96 per day.

Designed specifically for mining, the Nvidia P106-100 will bring in $0.85 per day, and at $320, it will pay for itself in just over 12 months.

  • However, this is not an exact science, prices can change significantly and every miner should keep in mind that the algorithms of any cryptocurrency are constantly becoming more complex, which makes mining more difficult and increases the payback time for the equipment invested in mining.

What new video cards are on the horizon?

Given the hype surrounding decentralized finance, a crypto boom is once again looming on the horizon, and upcoming new products could push it further. In September, Nvidia released a new generation of GeForce RTX 3000 graphics cards, and some pros were already saying that they could produce 81–89 MH/s while mining Ether.

The top-end model, the GeForce RTX 3090, is expected to deliver 120–122 Mh/s. If this is the case, Nvidia could face a card shortage as miners buy everything, leaving gamers with nothing.

But AMD is not far behind and at the end of October will introduce the Radeon RDNA 2 line, which will directly compete with the 3000 series from Nvidia.

The appearance of new cards will be of great interest to the cryptocurrency miners community. Andrey Shkraba, head of marketing at NiceHash, a platform for mining and trading cryptocurrencies, is confident that technological innovations from AMD and Nvidia will increase .

Source

3) Nvidia RTX 2060 Super

In the summer of 2022, AMD introduced a new line of RX 5700 series graphics cards to the market. These cards use FinFET technology, which provides better energy efficiency during mining due to the reduced size of electronic components and lower current consumption. 2) AMD Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT

Which video card to choose

The prices of such old cards are constantly decreasing as new cards are released, which encourages miners to return to the market. But most importantly, the price of ETH tripled from the beginning of 2022 to the beginning of September, making Ether still very profitable to mine.

The appearance of new cards will be of great interest to the cryptocurrency miners community. Andrey Shkraba, head of marketing at NiceHash, a platform for mining and trading cryptocurrencies, is confident that technological innovations from AMD and Nvidia will increase productivity:

Mining on professional video cards

I often ask the question: is it worth mining on professional video cards? Will Tesla or Quadro, Radeon PRO produce better results than regular consumer graphics cards? I think it's time to open up this issue. If you don’t really understand what mining is, it’s better to read more detailed information about it on the website: https://spzp.ru/ Many aspects of working with cryptocurrency are covered there.

But, as a person working with professional equipment, I will try to explain why professional video cards are a bad option for mining. The exception is if you got it for free, but then it’s more profitable to sell and buy a bunch of regular video cards.

UPD for those who write “look at the prices of regular video cards”: this article was written in 2022, respectively, then the prices for video cards in the user segment were adequate.

Efficiency

Yes, at the moment Tesla V100 is one of the most productive cards for mining. Why? It's quite simple. TDP – 250 W, 14 teraflops for single precision operations and 7 for double precision, and even more if you use NVlink. This graphics card is built for computing. And mining, in essence, is high-performance computing.

For example, various tests in Ethereum mining show results from 8 0 Mh/s with a TDP of 150 W and up to 92 with a TDP of 250 to 300 W. Looks serious. It turns out that the Nvidia Tesla V100 is the most energy-efficient card at the moment. But there are aspects that can confuse - the cost is about $8,000, poor availability in retail. In fact, from an economic point of view, a professional computing board is not feasible. Expensive, very long payback period.

Please look at the table below.

For example, the results of the GTX 1080ti, which gives 35 Mh/s in stock, and can be overclocked to 50. At the same time, for 8000 bucks you can buy about 8 video cards, with some change remaining. Of course, the energy efficiency of the solution will be lower. But even at stock, 8 video cards will give about 260 megahashes per second, and this includes losses. That is, at the same cost, the efficiency will be higher, the payback period will be lower, and accordingly, the energy consumption will pay off better than from a Tesla alone.

And if you look at the 1070, which gives 28.5 in stock and costs about $400? Even more interesting, because you get 20 video cards, which will give about 480 hashes, taking into account losses. Energy consumption has increased, but the payback rate has decreased. Gorgeous.

Nvidia Grid k1 16gb Gddr5 in Mining

NVIDIA GRID technology is built on the basis of technical and software solutions in the field of graphics acceleration; the development of such solutions began 20 years ago.

NVIDIA GRID technology: virtualization solutions (read more...)

NVIDIA GRID technology is built on the basis of technical and software solutions in the field of graphics acceleration; the development of such solutions began 20 years ago. With the help of NVIDIA GRID K1 and K2 video cards, it is now possible to achieve high-quality graphics on virtual computers and applications.

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