Everyone is mining, teach you step by step how to use idle graphics cards to earn thousands of yuan a month

Original author: Rhythm0x49

On the one hand, global semiconductor production has dropped sharply, while on the other hand, the price of cryptocurrency has continued to rise. The decline in production capacity, but the increase in demand has pushed up the price of graphics cards.

The main reason for the increase in demand for graphics cards is the surge in the price of Ethereum. As Marx said, once there is a proper profit, capital becomes bold. If there is a 10% profit, it is guaranteed to be used everywhere; with a 20% profit, it becomes active; with a 50% profit, it takes risks; for 100% profit, it dares to trample on all human laws.

Not only are desktop graphics cards out of stock, but many laptops equipped with RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 mobile graphics cards have also been sold out by miners. In addition, on second-hand platforms, a large number of individual users and scalpers have also participated in this graphics card buying and selling craze. The second-hand price of some graphics cards produced many years ago even exceeds their original launch price.

Nowadays, the profits from graphics card mining have exceeded the imagination of most users. For idle graphics cards, without considering the cost of graphics cards, this may be a business with a profit of more than 1000%.

BlockBeats will explain in detail the preliminary preparations, benefits, risks and subsequent impacts of mining from the perspective of users with idle graphics cards.

Preliminary preparation

Currently, the mining algorithm used by Ethereum 1.0 is "Ethash", which is a memory-intensive algorithm. The DAG file generated by mining will be directly stored in the graphics card memory. This means that the graphics card memory needs to be larger than the size of the DAG file when mining.

Currently, the DAG file is larger than 4GB. Therefore, you need to prepare a graphics card with at least 5GB of video memory to mine Ethereum. Due to the growth of DAG files, 5GB video memory graphics cards can no longer mine Ethereum under Win10 system, and you need to switch to Win7 or a professional mining system. Rhythm lists the graphics cards that ordinary players may have and can be used for mining:

In order to provide you with a more detailed mining test, this time, BlockBeats tested the graphics cards of Inno3D GTX 1070 Ice Dragon Super Edition and Inno3D RX 5700 XT, and the test software was "Easy Miner". Generally, mining software has water pumping, so in addition to Easy Miner, you can also choose minerOS, open source miner, PhoenixMiner, Bminer, lolMiner, NBMiner and other software for mining according to your personal preferences.

After preparing the graphics card and mining software, users also need to select a mining pool. This test will use the Spark Mining Pool, which has the largest computing power on the Ethereum network, as the test mining pool.

The reason for choosing a mining pool is that it is almost impossible to mine results alone. The purpose of a mining pool is to combine everyone's computing power to work together.

Mining profit margin exceeds 1000%

Inno3D GTX 1070 Ice Dragon Super Edition

GTX 1070 is a graphics card based on the Pascal architecture released by NVIDIA in 2016. As a graphics card that has been released for nearly 5 years, its default Ethereum mining power is 25 MH/s and its power consumption is 122 W.

By default, GTX 1070 mining details

Based on the current difficulty of Ethereum, GTX 1070 can mine 0.001435 ETH per day. ETH is calculated at 1,800 US dollars, which is equivalent to 16 yuan per day. At the same time, based on 122 W power consumption and 0.5 yuan electricity fee, the daily electricity cost is about 1.5 yuan, and the daily net profit is 14.5 yuan. If the cost of the graphics card is ignored, the profit margin exceeds 1000%.

GTX 1070 mining power breakdown in the past 24 hours

On a well-known second-hand platform, the price of GTX 1070 is about 2,100 yuan. If you buy a second-hand GTX 1070 and use it for mining, the payback period is about 145 days at the current difficulty and price. Therefore, it is not recommended to buy it just for mining.

Yeston RX 5700 XT

RX 5700 XT is a graphics card based on RDNA 1 architecture launched by AMD in July 2019. Its default Ethereum mining power is 54MH/s and its power consumption is 180W. In this test, by limiting power consumption, the average daily power is about 46 MH/s and the power consumption is 110W.

RX 5700 XT mining details after limiting power consumption

According to the calculation of computing power and power consumption after voltage reduction, 5700 XT can mine 0.00264 ETH per day, which is equivalent to about RMB 30. The electricity cost is about RMB 1.5, and the daily net income reaches RMB 28.5.

RX 5700 XT mining power breakdown in the past 24 hours

On second-hand platforms, the price of 5700 XT has exceeded 5,000 yuan, and the payback period is about 170 days, which is longer than the payback period of GTX 1070. Therefore, it is not recommended to buy it for mining, but to make full use of idle graphics cards in hand.

risk

For users who have old graphics cards, using them for mining will be a good choice. Contrary to what most people understand, Ethereum mining does not damage the graphics card core. Since Ethereum uses the Ethash algorithm, it needs to constantly access the video memory. Therefore, when a graphics card is used for Ethereum mining, the most vulnerable hardware is the video memory. However, at present, Huaqiangbei can already repair and replace the graphics card memory.

BlockBeats does not recommend that ordinary users buy graphics cards specifically for mining. Buying second-hand old graphics cards means the lack of official after-sales warranty. At the same time, it is also difficult to sell them again in the future.

Based on the current Ethereum price, network difficulty, and civilian electricity costs, an RTX 3080 (about 12,000 yuan) will take 200 days to fully recover the cost. Considering the subsequent second-hand discount rate, it may only take 100 days of mining to recover the cost.

Of course, for users who want to buy the latest graphics cards but don’t want to pay a premium, they may be able to further reduce the premium through mining.

After July, miners’ income may decrease by 20%

On March 5, EIP-1559 was officially included in the Ethereum "London" hard fork upgrade, which is expected to be launched in July. EIP-1559 attempts to reduce transaction fees by introducing fixed fees and destruction mechanisms. According to miners, after EIP-1559 is passed, miners may reduce the amount of Ethereum they mine daily by 20%-30%.

According to BlockBeats’ actual test, mining transaction rewards account for about 45% of the total mining rewards. Once EIP-1559 is implemented, the impact on mining income may be more than just 20%.

Daily Mining Rewards

At the same time, individuals who use their idle graphics cards to participate in mining must also pay attention to the minimum withdrawal amount of the mining pool. For example, some mining pools require 0.1 ETH to be mined before withdrawals can be made. Therefore, multiple people can use the same address to mine or choose to directly mine in the mining pool of the trading platform address.

For users who have idle graphics cards, using them for mining is a good thing for the current frenzy of the graphics card market and the cryptocurrency market. However, if you buy a high-premium graphics card specifically for mining, you may need to make a more rigorous profit and loss calculation.

It is still impossible to buy graphics cards at the original price in the short term

Seeing the hot mining market, Nvidia and AMD also want to participate in this market and share a piece of the pie. Nvidia said that all 30 series high-end graphics cards produced in the future, including RTX 3060, will be equipped with Ethereum mining restriction functions. At the same time, mining-specific graphics cards without video output ports will also be launched. According to spy photos exposed by VideoCardz, the highest-specification mining-specific card has a computing power of 86 MH/s and the lowest is 26 MH/s.

Image source: VideoCardz

However, some users have found that the RTX 3060, which was restricted from Ethereum mining, can achieve full-speed mining after flashing the recently released GeForce developer driver 470.05. It is reported that the RTX 3060 needs to be plugged into the display output and a PCIe x8 or higher channel is required to achieve full-speed mining. According to the test, the computing power of the RTX 3060 at full speed Ethereum mining is about 46 MH/s.

When most professional miners mine in clusters, they use adapters to switch out multiple interfaces and connect 8 graphics cards through a motherboard for mining. However, RTX 3060 needs to use PCIe x8 or above channels to mine at full speed. At the same time, the full-speed driver still comes from NVIDIA. For this reason, some users joked that "this is a benefit that NVIDIA gives to ordinary users to participate in Ethereum mining."

Obviously, Nvidia's series of actions show that it does not care about the type of users who buy graphics cards. As Linus Tech Tips, the user with the most views on YouTube's technical channel, said, Nvidia does not care about gamers. The launch of mining-specific cards will not alleviate the graphics card shortage crisis. On the contrary, under limited production capacity, the launch of mining-specific cards will lead to a reduction in the shipment of graphics cards for normal use.

This also means that it will be a long time before you can buy a graphics card at the original price.