Bitcoin Forum

Hello Me and my brother is looking onwards to buy a graphic card solely for purpose of mining. We are little confused as to which one to buy. My brother recommended to buy Nvidia Gtx 1050 ti . having a 4gb memory, etc etc.

Our budget is around $160-$250.

Planning to mine ETH, ETC, XMR or LTC.

Electricity is cheap in my country so no worries. Kindly let me know some other cards that I can use for mining. Thanks

for this budget prefer GTX 1060 or RX470/480, 1050ti not worth it. Also forget LTC to be mined with GPU

RX470 with elpida or samsung memory, if prices are reasonable in your country.
~$140 in the US, 29.5mh/s ETH + 450mh/s DCR after memory strap mod and overclock, and core underclock and undervolt
It mines the big 3 algos well, ethash, equihash and cryptonight.
Hynix is ok too if the price is right, does about 26.5mh/s + 400mh/s but can be cheaper, in fact there was a deal on hardwareswap under $100 recently

Go for RX470 or RX480. RX 480 is more expensive than RX 470 and AMD are cards are efficient than Nvidia when it comes to mining. Nvidia cards are basically good for folding protein for folding coin and curecoin. They seem okay to mine ZCASH as nvidia cards have a miner for zcash. But it is best to go for RX470 or RX480 for now as you wish to mine  ETH, ETC, XMR or LTC.

You might have luck mining ETH, ETC and XMR now. I feel LTC is controlled by ASIC.

Go for rx470 4GB. If the rx480 4GB doesn't cost much more (<5%), you can go for it as well.

Your idea of mining altcoin instead of bitcoin is good because I found a topic or you can say article in the google which is saying directly that mining if bitcoin with gou card pc system is no more profitable now , but you should be careful the mining of altcoin is like a bet with your money investment in the mining .
According to him .
there is no good GPU to mine bitcoins anymore.
They’re all inferior to ASICs.
If you want to bet on alt-coins (digital currency
that isn’t bitcoin) than currently what I have
been informed by a friend who takes mining
seriously (enough to keep track of a few bitcoin
alternatives) AMD GCN cards were the best with
undervolts. And now the Rx 470/480 are the best
cards at retail cost.
Provided you spend a little time underclocking/
undervolting these cards, you can get the best
pref/watt per coin out of them.

Thanks all I will look into the options.

If you're going to buy it new yeah the rx 470 is your best guess, if you're going to buy it used i think an r9 390 would be a better case if you're mining xmr, since you don't care about electricity, its also a little better in eth mining.

Although mining softwares for NVidia have received some breakthroughs in recent years, with AMD there is certainly a better chance of getting better results. Btw, I did not know that nvidia had better performance for cryptocurrencies aimed to scientific research, certainly is something good for those who have this type of GPU.

I was always using AMD cards for altcoin mining, I don't know if anything is changed on nvidia now but I still prefer AMD because if we prefer both card, we get better result and low price with amd, amd card were always cheaper than nvidia. nvidia is good for gambling with it's structure and software development. If you are going to start mining with only one gpu, it's waste of time if you want profit from it. As some people suggested you, go and try Rx 470/480.

I was thinking of building a desktop computer with some graphic cards, so the information I received here will be useful. But the question is, is it still profitable to mine with gpus? Another question is, until when do you think this type of mining can be profitable, any estimate?

If you want to buy new card, get RX470, (Dual Mining /  Eth 28, DCR 500 / 150W)

If you prefer used then get 2xR9 290. (Dual Mining /  Eth 60, DCR 1600 / 600W)

 Forget mining LTC on a graphic card, ASIC took over all Scrypt-based coins 3-4 years back.

 In your price range, I'd recommend getting a RX 470 or RX 480 to mine with - you won't find one at $160 but the bottom end of the RX 470 range will get close to that on NewEgg sales (stick with the reputable brands IMO, like Sapphire Gigabyte perhaps MSI perhaps EVGA). The middle-to-upper end of your range would get you into RX 480 territory - at which point specifically look at cards with 8 GHz (equivalent) RAM clock speed, again sticking with reputable brands.

 Make a point of AVOIDING any graphic card that talks about fan bearings that are NOT ball bearing - "sleeve" bearing and any of it's variants like "rifle" "hydro" etc. rely on constant lubrication which tends to run out or leak over time *ESPECIALLY AT THE HIGHER USAGE LEVEL AND HEAT LEVEL INHERENT TO RUNNING A CARD FOR MINING*, they do NOT last on a reliable basis like a good ball bearing fan does.


 It can be profitable to mine with GPUs FOR NOW, but once Ethereum goes to Proof-of-Stake model (supposed to be sometime later this year per the last postings I've seen) the profitability is going to take a sudden major hit as all the folks currently mining Ethereum have to find something ELSE to mine with all those cards.

 I like NVidia but they don't compete as a general rule on mining, except for a few small niches.

Profitability depends on your electricity rates, i'd say if you have cheap electricity then yes it's worth it, there has been coins appearing and disappearing with mining capabilities for quite some time now so in my opinion whenever a coin falls another stands,

You could get 470 or 480 they do hash pretty good and uses less then other cards

How are the 470 reference cards from what I read they are easier to find roms for am I correct or is there a brand that seems to be best I'm only asking because I have older cards and what to upgrade because of power cost but out of my cards my gigabyte has been running solid now for two years with zero problems my sapphires sometimes hangs or crashes if I push it to much

Reference cards should be the one with the best build quality (except maybe high range asus, which are much to expensive for mining purposes).

If noise isn't a concern you should go for ref.
If you keep your rig in your living room you might consider custom cards, i have 6 sapphire nitro running almost silent in an open frame rig.

Either rx480 or older ones let's say 200 and 300 series. I think you can even get 2x 280x for that money on ebay.

I recommend the 8GB RX 480 graphic card since with your budget you can find it very little used (almost like new condition) in Ebay.

I suggest you spending just a bit more and go up to 280 USD and get this card brand new in the link below, it's the best bang for the buck actually.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-RADEON-RX-480-RS-Triple-X-8GB-Brand-new-and-factory-sealed-/122347950395?hash=item1c7c81913b:g:l3YAAOSwr~lYnGGb (http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-RADEON-RX-480-RS-Triple-X-8GB-Brand-new-and-factory-sealed-/122347950395?hash=item1c7c81913b:g:l3YAAOSwr~lYnGGb)

There's no point buying 8GB for mining purposes only. Draws more power, doesn't perform better than 4GB

 8GB cards usually have 8000 Mhz ram vs 7000 or slower on 4gb cards - which IS a significant speed factor on Etherium.

My bad, just took a look to the numbers again, you are right, 8GB cards yield a bit higher hashrate. Not sure it's worth it though given the price difference.