The year 2021 was, and still is, the most profitable year for mining cryptocurrencies, especially for those that are mining with graphic cards, as opposed to mining with CPUs or ASICs.
Before going into more details about these GPUs, it’s important to note that all the hardware mentioned in this article does not include the newest models that Nvidia locked out of the factory and that cannot be unlocked by any miner or operating system so far. The Nvidia models mentioned here are all from the past year, when they were not nerfed yet.
The main reason this year is so profitable for miners is that Ethereum has gone up in price significantly, reaching an all-time high of over four thousand dollars in May. It’s previous high reached just over one thousand four hundred dollars back in 2017, which means that in four years it tripled in price. The profitability this year is so good that old GPUs, such as Polaris 470,480,570,580, are very profitable to mine with, even after we consider the fact that they came out over four years ago and their efficiency is weak when compared to newer models that can mine at double the speed using the same wattage.
In this article, we will go over the top 5 most efficient GPUs for mining, however it’s important to note that we only considered the Ethereum algorithm and we calculated the Megahash speed per Watt.
AMD 6800XT
Released in November 2020, at the price of $699 it can mine Ethereum at just over 63mhs OOTB, without doing any bios modifications.
That mining speed can be achieved with using only 100-110w at the wall, making this graphic card the most efficient, when compared by the mining speed and watt usage. Calculating its efficiency, we see that it’s mining 0.608 Megahash per Watt, making around four dollars per day at current price and difficulty.
While the 6800XT is the most efficient one, it’s little brother 6800 version, is the second most efficient with 0.56 Mh/w, because it can mine at 61Mhs while using the same power as it’s bigger brother 6800XT.
Nvidia 3700
The 3070s is very close to the 6800 mentioned above, with an efficiency of 0.542 Mh/w, the 3070 can easily mine at over 62Mhs while using 115Watts at the wall. The 3070 came out in late October 2020, with the price under $500, making it a very good option. At this speed and power usage, this GPU can make nearly four dollars per day at current price and difficulty.
Nvidia 3060TI
The 3060TI can easily achieve approximately the same speed as the 3070 mentioned above. With an efficiency of 0.499 Mh/w this graphic card can mine at over 62Mhs OOTB while using only 125W.
With the release date of December 2020, at the price of under $400, this GPU is best buy for any miner that is looking for get his return on investment quickly. At the current price and difficulty, this graphic card makes almost four dollars per day.
AMD RX 6700 XT
After Nvidia took the second and third place for most efficient GPUs, it’s time for AMD to get back into the game and earn some spots.
The RX 6700 XT release date was not too long ago, in March 2021, with the market price of $480. This graphic card can mine at almost 47Mhs while using around 100Watts at the wall OOTB without bios mod, making it very efficient for Ethereum mining. If we calculate its performance, we see that it mines 0.479 Mh/w, making us around $3.50 per day at the current market price.
AMD RX 5700XT
As the final place, we have another AMD GPU, however this one is an older model, compared to the others mentioned above. The 5700XT came out in summer of 2019 and OOTB it can mine at around 53Mhs. However, with an easy bios mod, it can achieve over 56Mhs while using only 130W at the wall, resulting in an efficiency of 0.452 Mh/w. With this power usage and mining speed, we can achieve around $3 per day.
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