Specially for new miners, its very hard to choose graphic cards. There is so many different models and types. Some of them are better doing then others on different mining algorithms. Amd is usually better from memory hard mining and NVIDIA usually for core hard algorithms. Simplest is to choose when you know which coins you want to mine. As im recommending to mine top market-cap coins because they will be your safest and most stable mining investment. Just because they have large size network, larger network means they are also more popular and most likely needed.

My current review in June 2020 which graphic cards to use are two types. From Nvidia graphic cards from value range 1660Ti and from AMD RX5700. Both of these graphic cards has quite impressive performance on mining Ethereum and Ravencoin. Which are the top GPU mine-able coins currently. Bot of these graphic cards are at around the same price range where RX5700 is slightly more expensive averaging at 330 euro per card. And 1660Ti is at 280 euro price tag. You choice of graphic cards depends also of course from the graphic card price you can get. someone might get better deal then others.

So to calculate which cards will do your ROI the fastest you’ll need to calculate.

• how much hash-rate you’ll get with this card?
• how much power uses my graphic card?
• how much revenue it will bring?
• how big profit it will make daily?

The main question is how much profit it will make, because when you devide this number with the GPU price you paid. You will get your ROI timing.

To calculate which GPU is better ill take 2 exactly the same mining rigs, just with different graphic cards:

1. 12xgpu mining rig in closed case with 12xRX5700
2. 12xgpu mining rig in closed case with 12x1660Ti

Where RX5700 will be mining Ethereum as they are most efficient on ETH. 1660Ti will be mining Ravencoin, as best results it does have on mining Raven-coin.

• Performance mining Ethereum 12xRX5700 670 mh/s @1800w power usage. Graphic cards bios has been modified, OC settings- Core clock 1340 – mem 910mhz – core voltage 760 – watt 119

• Performance mining Ravencoin 12x1660Ti 180 mh/s @1400w power usage. Graphic cards OC settings mem +1200 – Power Limit 105

Both of these mining rigs uses hiveOS mining software.

When inserting all this data in mining calculator we are getting results, profit results for you might be different if you use different electric rate:

• RX5700 revenue is 10.40usd in 24 hours and profit is 6.08usd

• 1660Ti revenue is 7.36usd in 24 hours and profit is 4.03usd

Keep in mind Crypto currencies are extremely volatile , and these numbers can show different stats different day. But calculating averaging winner winner chicken diner is RX5700.

So my absolute best choice would be RX5700 they are just better earner, also they are not bad on mining RVN coin. Hasrate is about the same as 1660Ti, just uses slightly more power then the 1660Ti.

1660 Ti is amazing performer in mining , its great by price per hash and watt per hash. The low power usage keeps the graphic card very cool. So i decided to compare which is the best coin to mine on these graphic cards .Two most profitable coins currently for mining are Ethereum and Ravencoin .

System setup:

• all in one 8xgpu mining rig case
• 8x Zotac 1660Ti graphic cards
• hiveOS

Testing Ravencoin

• OC – (+150core, +1400mem, 115PL)  Performance 123-128mh/s @1090w
• OC – (+150core, +1400mem, 100PL) Performance 123-128mh/s @650w

Testing Ethereum :

• OC – (+150core, +1600mem, 100PL) Performance 232mh/s @650w

After inserting this data in profit calculator Whattomine, clearly can see that these cards currently is the best to use for mining Ravencoin (ETH -3.57us , RVN-4.88usd)

Even the GPU mining profit is still very low, these would be the one of the best graphic cards choice for mining. Specially if you electric price costs over average electric rate.

This is very important, even more when profitability is very low. Here are the steps we did:

Tools needed :

GPU-Z – https://bit.ly/32LonaI

flasher – https://bit.ly/2TlZlMl

BIOS editor – https://bit.ly/2IcYNSC

GPU BIOS collection – https://bit.ly/3crXCfV

So for test purpose we have had 2x RX5700 non XT version. We have edited timings and also upgraded nonXT version to XT.

Follow the steps:

• Download you gpu bios to backup with gpu-z

• Extract flasher to your C: drive

• Download Original XT version from GPU BIOS collection

• Open XToriginal.rom with BIOS editor and edit timing straps and save bios in your flasher folder. Straps edited copy 1500mhz to lower 1850…..etc (similar way as RX570 4gb cards) . These cards does have 2 bios, so edit both of them, after each time editing you need to save. This tool doesnt allow you to edit 2 bios at the same time.

• Now you need to upload these to your graphic card. Open command prompt as administrator . Navigate you you flasher folder  (cd => cd flash => amdvbflash -i ) this will give you information of the gpu connected in your system.

• Next you need to unlock gpu ROM to upload new BIOS type in cmd( amdvbflash -unlockrom 0 ) 1,2,3 if you have more then one gpu

• Last upload new BIOS to you GPU type in cmd ( amdvbflash -p -f 0 newBIOS.rom ) newBIOS is your saved .rom file name

After flashing, the computer must be restarted. We can already admire the new data in GPU-Z. In this case I had set the boost clock a bit higher. Now the value is no longer 1925 MHz, but 2104 MHz. In real terms the card reaches 2050 MHz with the right cooling.

Easy as that, reboot your system and your hash-rate should increase. If you have done everything explained here. Other flasher versions wont work , download links provided on top of the post.

Video here:

There will be changed prof of work mining algorithm, to something called RandomX. Current data shows that it will be the most efficient to mine with CPU. AMD latest generation CPUs should be most efficient. Few weeks ago we where testing out most of the Intel CPU, you can read about it here.

After getting our hands on Ryzen 9 3900x and Ryzen 7 3800x , we can approve that it is true. AMD Ryzen series CPUs outperforms Intel i series CPU by a mile mining RandomX.

Test bench setup :

• Ryzen 9 3900x with stock air cooler
• 2x Gskill 3000 16gb C15 RAM modules
• MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX motherboard
• 1xRX5700 for image
• Superflower 750w GOLD powersupply

As there are few of the coins switched to RandomX mining algorithm already and one of them is Loki. So on stock settings everything out of the box we where hashing Loki at 11500 h/s. Which is about 5x then in our previous best tests with Intel i7 8700k out of the box 2360 h/s. Power usage from wall is 260w.

So we tried to push little more speed on the Ryzen 9 CPU , by overclocking it in motherboard BIOS. Changes done :

• OC Explore mode to expert
• CPU OC ratio to 4100 mhz
• A-XMP to enabled
• Precision Boost Overdrive to disabled
• Play with DRAM timings (lower the values)
• CPU core voltage to 1.250v
• Increased Dram voltage 1.300v

This setting got me up to 12650 h/s mining RandomX. I was playing around with different kind of ram stick , and seen significant mining performance decrease with lower performance ram. So i have on the way 4x3600mhz 8gb stick and will do a proper performance test when they arrive.

So the 12650 h/s if you would be available mine monero today would be 3.5 usd , even that it got 10% price drop today. But you know it is not the case, impossible to predict what kind of total network hashrate will be when Randomx launches. As the total network mining structure will change and the current hardware will be unprofitable. Current Monero network hashrate is around 300 mh/s.

Profitability with Ryzen 9 mining Loki which is also RandomX mining algorithm. Daily profitability is 0.70usd

Im eager to see what RandomX mining will bring to Monero mining. What is your thoughts?

Useful benchmark link : https://randomx.monerobenchmarks.info/