Hashrate: how to choose your GPU for mining?
If you are interested in mining and are looking for a GPU with good computing power for mining, you are in the right place!
Remember, GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit. GPU is an essential component for doing intensive rendering work or playing video games. Most GPUs on the market are dedicated to video games or video production but they are also used for GPU mining.
Due to the popularity of cryptocurrencies, there has been a shortage of GPUs as many people buy them to mine cryptocurrencies. Mining GPUs like NVIDIAs’ and AMDs’ have become very expensive!
Hashrate is a crucial data for miners when it comes to choosing a GPU. Hashrate may vary depending on the GPU used. Some of them have specific characteristics giving the miner different options to mine. Your needs in terms of hashrate power and your budget will be key factors to make a choice.
First we will see what is the link between mining and hashrate. We will explain what hashrate is in order to choose the best mining GPU for you. Lastly you will find a selection of the most powerful GPUs for hashrate, but also the least energy-consuming GPUs to meet almost any need.
What is the hashrate of a GPU and how does it work with mining?
Mining with GPU hashrate
Let’s go back to the process of mining to understand what the hashrate is.
When a transaction is sent to the blockchain, it must be securely validated by creating a block. Each transaction is recorded on a node, i.e. a computer of the network. Finally it is registered on the blockchain with the creation of a block.
Miners compete by performing a complex mathematical calculation as quickly as possible to create a block. They must guess a string of characters, known as a hash. The fastest miner wins the right to create the block and is rewarded with cryptocurrencies. We call this process Proof of Work (PoW).
Therefore it is crucial for miners to have a good hashrate and a high computing power to be the fastest of the network. Hashrate is the measure that allows us to evaluate the level of competitiveness, the costs of the activity and the profitability of miners.
Hashrate represents the total computing power required to register a new block on a blockchain that uses a Proof of Work validation system like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Hashrate is measured in hashes per second (h/s). Current rates are in the billions of billions of hashes per second. The orders of magnitude you will often see are 1 Megahash per second (Mh/s) for 1 million H/s and 1 Gigahash per second (Gh/s) for 1 billion H/s.
It is important to note that hashrate can also be the measure of the power of all the machines dedicated to ensuring the security of a blockchain. It brings us key data allowing us to judge the level of reliability and decentralization of a blockchain.
The higher the number of miners, the less vulnerable the network will be to an attack. There is a greater distribution of mining in the world. The geographical distribution of miners is a guarantee of security and real decentralization of a blockchain.
Today GPU mining is favored and democratized by some blockchain PoW. The reason is that GPU mining can make many more guesses per second about the correct sequence of characters. The ability of a machine to make guesses is the hashrate. So the best mining GPU would be one that has a high GPU hashrate.
It is all about hashrate, but it is still an indicator to be taken with caution. Each GPU has advantages and disadvantages in mining. Indeed some GPU will consume more power but will be profitable quickly, while others GPUs will have less power but will become profitable later.
Let’s see what characteristics to consider when choosing the best GPU for mining.
Technical characteristics to choose your GPU
When choosing a GPU for mining, you should consider core clock, memory, memory clock. These elements participate in the GPU hashrate, but others are also important such as power (energy consumption):
- Core clock: It is the GPU frequency measurement that manages the graphic processing. It is expressed in Hertz and influences the speed of the graphics processor. It is possible to increase the core clock by overclocking GPU mining like AMD or NVIDIA.
- Memory: It is the dedicated RAM, which is called VRAM. Its quantity is measured in GB. VRAM is used to hold the memory of the resources that the GPU must render. Since miners are becoming more and more numerous, the memory must be at least 6 GB in order to mine today.
- Memory clock: It is the memory frequency of the VRAM. The memory clock influences the memory bandwith.
Power is also an important factor when choosing your mining GPU. Indeed the mining activity is energy consuming and costly in electricity. So the power concerns the input and output power supply. It is expressed in Watts.
Your electricity cost depends on the profitability of the mining activity and is subject to factors such as the cost of electricity, taxation or the politics of the country you live in. Hashrate can also be unpredictably impacted by weather elements such as heat or rain.
How to find out GPU hashrate?
If you are looking to mine Ethereum with your NVIDIA RTX 3090 GPU and want to know what it is hashrate and power consumption is first, you can check WhatToMine. Go to the website to select the GPU from the menu and click calculate to get information about the hashrate and mining performance of the GPU.
You can check our GPUs mining performance pages too!
As we can see, the NVIDIA RTX 3090 has a hashrate of 114.0 Mh/s when mining Ethash which is the algorithm used by Ethereum. Below the hashrate, we can notice the power consumption of the GPU: 320.0 W.
With this data we can predict the benefits of mining. Using the same GPU, we can also determine which are the best cryptocurrencies to mine to maximize profits.
Be careful: Using a GPU mining calculator like WhatToMine would only allow you to make estimates, because hashrate varies regularly.
We have used different sites to offer you a list of GPUs with the best hashrate on the market, but also a list of the least power consumption GPUs for mining. But we would like to remind you that it can be difficult to get your hands on some of them, as they are always subject to high demand.
Which GPUs have the best hashrate?
The tables that are going to be presented to you are not exhaustive and the results may differ depending on the chosen mining algorithm, your location etc.
Here the chosen mining algorithm is Ethash which allows to mine Ethereum.
The most powerful GPUs for mining
Among the most powerful GPUs as of to day we have: AMD Radeon VII, AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 and NVIDIA GeForce 3060 Ti.
Beware, these graphics cards are quickly profitable, but require a lot of power consumption.
We took one of the most profitable cryptocurrencies each time, based on the GPU hashrate result.
| GPU | Hashrate | Power | Efficiency |
|---|---|---|---|
|
93 Mh/s |
200w |
0,465 Mh/w |
|
|
64 Mh/s |
150w |
0,426 Mh/w |
|
|
114 Mh/s |
320w |
0,356 Mh/w |
|
|
91,5 Mh/s |
230w |
0,397 Mh/w |
|
|
58,1 Mh/s |
130w
|
0,446 Mh/w |
The least energy-consuming GPUs for mining
We are going to give you a list of the cheapest GPUs right now: AMD Radeon 5500 XT, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 1660 Ti and AMD Radeon RX 6600.
Unlike powerful GPUs, these will take more time to become profitable but require less power consumption when mining.
| GPU | Hashrate | Power | Efficiency |
|---|---|---|---|
|
26 Mh/s |
90w |
0,288 Mh/w |
|
|
22,5 Mh/s |
90w |
0,250 Mh/w |
|
|
23 Mh/s |
80w |
0,287 Mh/w |
|
|
28 Mh/s |
80w |
0,350 Mh/w |
|
|
28,5 Mh/s |
70w |
0,407 Mh/w |
As you can see, GPUs vary and offer different characteristics depending on the needs of each miner.
It is important to know that GPU hashrate is the most important value to consider if you want a cost-effective component. But if you are concerned about the cost of electricity, a GPU with a lower hashrate that requires fewer watts will be a better choice.
It will not help to buy a powerful and expensive GPU only to find out that the cost of electricity obliterates your mining profits. When you start mining and making profits, you need to find a secure wallet for your cryptocurrencies like Trust Wallet.
The choice will depend on your circumstances. If you live in a place where electricity is expensive, or even if you want to run several units together building a mining rig. You will have to consider all of the factors.
It is up to you to take all aspects into consideration to choose your mining GPU with the most interesting hashrate and power consumption. If you want to start mining, you can join our mining pool!
We hope you found this piece of information useful and that you can now choose the right mining GPU for you!