GPU Mining I have either a really bad idea, or a pretty meh idea

I have either a really bad idea, or a pretty meh idea

Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:43 PM PST

Hello there!

First off, I'd like to state that I am not a miner. I have never mined, even with my hefty desktop, as I always believed it was not worth the effort when factoring in electricity, upfront cost, etc.

But I have spent the past couple of days reading articles, doing calculations on various components, and compiling information in an attempt to wrap my head around the specifics of mining cryptocurrency as a side-gig.

My idea is this: a mining rig that uses GPUs to mine Ethereum and a CPU to mine Monero, simultaneously.

I could not find much, if any, information on this, so I have absolutely no clue if it's viable. So I figured I'd come to you guys and gals :)

Here are the most cost-effective and efficient specs I could come up with:

(A quick note, the electricity in my community is average - $0.0902/KWh, the prices for ETH were done at $265 and XMR at $93)

GPU: Radeon VII

- Hashrate: ~90MH/s (ballpark average after reading benchmarks from somewhat sketchy sites)

- Wattage: 300w

- Price (at time of writing): $550

Conclusion: The Radeon VII seems to be the most efficient GPU for mining currently, price and performance wise. I compared it with the RX Vega 64, GTX 2070 SUPER, the Radeon 570, the GTX 1070, the P104-100, and the GTX 2080 SUPER. Main comparison points were the dollar per hashrate and the hashrate per watt. The Radeon RX570 beat the Radeon VII in the dollar/hashrate category with $4.89, compared to $6.11 by the Radeon VII. However, the Radeon VII reigned supreme in the next category with a hash per watt rating of 0.3, with the second best being the P104-100 at 0.28.

CPU: Ryzen 3900x

- Hashrate: ~14000H/s (again, ballpark)

- Wattage: ~150 (based on more benchmarks)

Price: $470

Conclusion: I compared the 3900x to its big brother, the 3950x, and used dollar per hashrate as comparison. I decided not to throw in a ton of CPUs in for comparison, being that I can only have one on the rig. The 3950x beats the 3900x in hashrate (no surprise) by around 5000H/s. However, when calculating $/hashrate, I found the 3900x was at $0.03, while the 3950x was a cent higher ($0.04, if you don't want to do the math).

When taking these results into consideration, along with electricity costs, overall price, estimated profit per year, and years it would take to pay off (at current market price), I came up with the ideal rig, and here she is, along with some info.

(Another quick note, I left out a couple of minor parts and the prices aren't exact, please don't crucify me)

GPU: 4x Radeon VII \@550/ea ($2200)

CPU: Ryzen 3900x ($470)

Mobo: ASRock X570 Extreme4 ($210)

SSD: Crucial P1 3D NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB ($130)

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2400 C16 2x16GB ($130)

PSU: EVGA Supernova 1600 P2 80+ Platinum ($450)

GPU risers ($30)

Basic open air case ($40)

Electricity monitor ($30)

Peripherals and other parts ($50)

Total: $3740