Review of Recommended Products for Ethereum Mining

This page will be a detailed review of the products that I believe are best for cryptocurrency mining.

This will NOT be a review of their gaming capabilities (Sorry Gamers).

Ethereum and cryptocurrency mining is becoming more and more popular as the cryptocurrency market continues to increase in value.  With every increase in Ethereum's price there seems to be a new wave of cryptocurrency enthusiasts ready to start their own mining rig.

Luckily for you, I have already made a list of the 11 things you will need to start your very own cryptocurrency mining rig. The link to the post can be found here: https://worldofcryptocurren.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-11-things-youll-need-to-start.html

Remember, when starting a cryptocurrency mining rig you should operate it essentially as a business.  The idea of it is to build an efficient mining rig for the least amount of money possible.  For example, buying the best, state of the art motherboard is a waste of money when it comes to mining ethereum or any other alt coin. It is important to maximize hash rate and minimize cost as much as possible!

Now lets get started with some product reviews!

MSI Radeon RX 570 DirectX 12 GAMING 4GB

The MSI Radeon RX 570 is one of my favorite graphics cards when it comes to mining for multiple reasons. These cards have relatively good power consumption compared to many RX 580s which helps cut down on electricity costs.  Although it does not have as high of a hash rate as its RX 580 counterparts, it makes up for it with the product price and lower electrical consumption. RX 580's will almost always have a higher hash rate but do not confuse this with  RX 570s being inferior. These cards on average will pull 28 Mh/s with bios mods.

The one major disadvantage of this card is the current price. This is not a disadvantage of the graphic card itself, but a disadvantage of the overall market and shortage with graphics cards. Getting your hands on one of these for a good price could take a lot of patience and monitoring. Many of these graphics cards are currently listed at around $400-$500. You should thoroughly consider whether ethereum mining would be profitable before spending thousands of dollars on a rig.

If you wanted to build a rig with just six of these cards, the cards alone would cost you $2,700 at an average price of $450 per card.  That's $2,700 before even considering energy costs and the rest of the mining rig! It may be best for a new miner to wait until prices come down to where they were before the shortage. The hard question to answer is when that will be but it is better to wait than be stuck in a financial whole

Now lets move on to another favorite graphics card of mine.

MSI Radeon RX 570 DirectX 12 ARMOR 8GB

This is also one of my favorite graphics cards to use for ethereum mining for a few simple reasons. The pros are very similar to the previous MSI Radeon RX 570 GAMING 4GB.  This card is great when it comes to electricity consumption. If you are mining in an area with high electricity costs it may be beneficial in the long run to purchase RX 570s over RX 580s.  This graphics card also has a slight but significant advantage over the previous graphics card above.  This graphics cards runs just slightly below 30 M/hs with modded bios.  It is a difference of just 2 M/hs but if you are running a rig with 10 of these cards compared to 10 of the previous card it comes out to a 20 M/hs difference. That is almost one full card!

The negative with this graphics card is also the price and availability. Much like all graphics cards, it is extremely difficult to find one of these at the manufacturer suggest retail price (MSRP).  It is available through second hand sellers at the relatively high price of $500. Six of these would set you back $3,000. About a $300 difference between a set of these cards and a set of the 4 GB Gaming version.

Stepping away from graphics cards, lets look at the ASUS B250 Mining Expert Motherboard.

This motherboard is specifically designed for cryptocurrency mining, hence the product name. The main advantage of this motherboard is the 19 PCI-E Riser slots. This means with just one motherboard you are able to connect a total of 19 graphics cards. With a reasonable price, this product is absolutely perfect for any miner that is looking to create a powerful mining rig of 19 graphics cards. Many other motherboards support relatively few PCI-E Riser slots such as 6, if not fewer. I would only recommend this product if you are in fact looking to fill all of the PCI-E Riser slots. If not, it may be financially sound to buy a cheaper motherboard with fewer slots to accommodate your specific needs when it comes to building a mining rig.

This is an example of what it could potentially look like if you built your own cryptocurrency mining rig using the products above.

This mining rig is currently using all of the products mentioned above. The motherboard can be seen slightly below all of the graphics cards. The second, fourth, fifth, and two far right cards (From left to Right) are the MSI Radeon RX 570 DirectX 12 GAMING 4GB graphics cards that was reviewed first. The 7th and 8th cards are the MSI Radeon RX 570 DirectX 12 ARMOR 8GB that were reviewed second.

There are many other products that can be used to build a cryptocurrency mining rig. These products can just be the start of your search. I recommend looking at the dollar per hash rate ratio. $10 per hash rate for graphics cards is usually what I look for. With the current prices that will be extremely hard to find but it is doable. Products are usually sold out within 30 minutes when they come back in stock.  Be sure to closely monitor sites and set availability notifications for the best chance of snagging a graphics card at a good price.

Good luck!

Here is a article on comparing graphic cards: https://gpuformining.top/