Before diving into the topic of the article, just a few prerequisites: we will try to understand what is the key concept in mining and what you need to know if you want to enter this field. We will talk about hashrate, hardware requirements, electricity requirements (or power consumption), solo or pool mining and ROI, or return on investment.
What Is Hashrate?
Simply put, hashrate is the speed at which a computer is completing an operation, or how fast it finds a hash. It is expressed in hashes per second (or h/s) and it is the most important criterion in choosing a GPU card.
Hardware Requirements
What you often see named as being a “mining rig” is not your usual computer. Most of the time, a mining rig is a custom piece of hardware, modified so it can contain more GPUs that are usually required for a computer, from 3 to 6 or even 10. These cards are in communication with the motherboard via a “riser” or a piece of equipment which lines them up on top of a motherboard.
Power Consumption
GPU mining is electricity intensive. Although you get enormously more power with a GPU card than with a CPU, the caveat is that you also consume more power. The price of electricity is the biggest fixed cost in mining.
Solo Mining or Mining In A Pool?
When you do solo mining, you get all the rewards for mining a block, but the chances for you to achieve that are very, very small (unless you really own a mining farm). When you mine in a pool, you combine your hashrate with the hashrate of all the other miners, and split the rewards. It’s obvious that mining in a pool is better from economical point of view as it is more predictable.
With that being said, let’s move forward and see which are the best reviews for GPU mining cardsso far. We compiled this data from various reputable sources on the internet just to give you a glimpse. If you’re really serious about GPU mining, we highly recommend to make your own research and due diligence.