In the middle of the mining bubble where everyone is using their graphics cards for the mining of the Ethereum cryptocurrency, more than one will have wondered how to prepare their NVIDIA GeForce RTX card to mine said cryptocurrency. To do this is not enough with a standard configuration, that is why we have prepared a guide so that you can put your NVIDIA RTX graphics cards to mine Ethereum.
One thing that we recommend first of all when mining is that you keep in mind that your hardware will suffer extreme wear, that is why we remind you to think if it is worth sacrificing your main PC to be able to mine with it. If you have an NVIDIA RTX it is possible that in certain cases, if not in most, it will cost you much better to use it to give you hours of leisure in the latest video games for PC. The PC to mine Ethereum with an NVIDIA GPU
If you think you need a state-of-the-art PC to mine Ethereum let us tell you that this is not the case, since outside the graphics card you will need especially modest components in terms of CPU, so you can mine without problems with an Intel Pentium or an AMD Athlon as a CPU.
What you can not neglect are details such as cooling, since what interests you is to be able to keep the GPU running at the highest possible clock speed and that does not suffer speed drops due to temperature. That is why a system with good liquid cooling is preferable. The choice of a low-end processor may make us think that it is not necessary, but we have to ensure that the graphics card can work without problems.
The third point to take into account is the power supply, here we can not skimp on either and it is totally advisable to use a power supply with 80 Plus Platinum certification, since a source of lower efficiency can generate greater heat and have a greater energy consumption. NVIDIA GPUs mining Ethereum: the parameters to consider
Ethereum mining becomes more efficient if we take into account two parameters:
- Bandwidth with VRAM: Ethereum mining comes out much better if the graphics card bandwidth is higher, which is why the GeForce RTX 3000 with GDDR6X memory sold out in one fell swoop, given its higher bandwidth.
- Power consumption of the card: the most important element for many people of all, because certain clock speeds can be achieved through GPU overclocking tools with lower voltages end up manipulating the graphics values.
So the perfect combination is to keep the speed of the VRAM as high as possible, within a stable environment, and the clock speed of what is the graphics chip as high as possible, but at much lower voltages as long as the mining/consumption ratio is kept as high as possible, which is important for profitability when mining
For this we recommend the use of MSI Afterburner, a tool that through software allows us to manipulate the voltage and clock speed values of the GPU, as well as the memory. Recommended variations on NVIDIA GeForce to mine Ethereum
We have chosen a series of NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards, both standard models and custom models from different manufacturers and we have organized a table of the recommended speed variations in the different variable parameters of the graphics card.
All variations are made using the MSI Afterburner overclock tool, although you can use other overclock tools from other manufacturers. Of course, make sure they are compatible with your graphics cards to vary the different parameters. Graphics CardVRAM speed variationVariation GPU speedRatio mined EthereumNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founder Edition+ 250 MHz- 502 MHz106 MH/sNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition+750 MHz- 502 MHz94 MH/sNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition+1200 MHz-502 MHz61 MH/sNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti+ 1200 MHz- 400 MHz60 MH/sNVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti+ 1100 MHz- 400 MHz60 MH/sNVIDIA RTX 2060 Super/RTX 2070+ 1100 MHz- 400 MHz44 MH/s
We recommend that if you see that you can reach a specific clock speed with a lower voltage then use that voltage value. In the case of graphics card fans, in the case that you are using one with air cooling try to keep the fans at maximum use, since it is important that the temperature of the graph does not rise to maintain power.
In the case of the NVIDIA RTX 2000, we recommend you to mine with the GPUs based on the TU106 chip and therefore with the RTX 2060 Super and RTX 2070, both with 256-bit GDDR6 bus, since the RTX 2080 Super does not give a great advantage in performance when using the same memory bus. On the other hand, with the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti, its performance resembles that of an RTX 3060 Ti, making it the top of the range of the NVIDIA Turing. The cost of energy is also important
Unfortunately energy does not cost the same in all countries of the world and a watt of consumption can have a much higher value in one country than another. In Spain where the cost of energy is much higher than other countries due to the tax burden on electricity consumption can make the profitability when it comes to mining much lower. It is in countries where the cost of energy is cheaper where mining is much more profitable (and that is why many gigantic mining farms were located in China).
In any case, let’s not forget that mining farms are far above in complexity and cost of what an ordinary user can afford, not only when it comes to getting the material to set up the farm, but also when paying the monthly electricity bill. A single graphics card can give a very small profit margin, but overall a huge profit.
Finally, mining with a graphics card is a personal decision. There will be people who are reading this article who will be against mining for lawful reasons such as the increase in the prices of graphics cards and the problem of massive energy consumption, which leads us to the problem of climate change.
