mining gpu: 4 or 8 GB of RAM?

[sara8877]

Hi everyone,

I'm new on this forum (and new to cryptos).  I'm gonna buy some hardware tomorrow to start mining, I don't want do build a rig but just have 1 (or maybe later 2) GPU in my computer.  I've done some research on what hardware to buy, so far I think I will buy

PSU:

• Corsair RMi Series RM750i (111€)

One of those GPU's:

• MSI RX 470 GAMING X 4G (173€)
• MSI RX 480 GAMING X 4G (187€)
• MSI RX 470 GAMING X 8G   (187€)
• MSI RX 480 GAMING X 8G   (221€)

As for the GPU I can't decide yet (and I know there are many topics about the rx 470 vs rx 480 with the 480 havin a 10% higher hash rate), but my main question here is: would it be a shame to still buy a card with 4GB of RAM?  Right now 4 GB seems to be fine for mining (all / most) of the altcoins, but what's the chance that in the near future 4 GB will not be sufficient anymore and the card would be useless?  Or will 4 GB remain sufficient for a long time?

Any advice welcome

[RentGPU]

Hi everyone,

I'm new on this forum (and new to cryptos).  I'm gonna buy some hardware tomorrow to start mining, I don't want do build a rig but just have 1 (or maybe later 2) GPU in my computer.  I've done some research on what hardware to buy, so far I think I will buy

PSU:

• Corsair RMi Series RM750i (111€)

One of those GPU's:

• MSI RX 470 GAMING X 4G (173€)
• MSI RX 480 GAMING X 4G (187€)
• MSI RX 470 GAMING X 8G   (187€)
• MSI RX 480 GAMING X 8G   (221€)

As for the GPU I can't decide yet (and I know there are many topics about the rx 470 vs rx 480 with the 480 havin a 10% higher hash rate), but my main question here is: would it be a shame to still buy a card with 4GB of RAM?  Right now 4 GB seems to be fine for mining (all / most) of the altcoins, but what's the chance that in the near future 4 GB will not be sufficient anymore and the card would be useless?  Or will 4 GB remain sufficient for a long time?

Any advice welcome

This topic was discussed alot before , the 4gb cards will be sufficient for not a long time also the resell will be low, if you are building now go for the best resell gpus which are in my opinion the 8gb , 470 is doing good , but you may wait for the 570 for best resell it will be out to the markets in couple of days or so , there is ppl already get it .

[Elder III]

Personally, at least as far as the Rx 470 is concerned, I don't think that there is enough of a difference in the hashrate to matter one way or the other. If there is a really good sale on an 8GB one I would definitely get it, but if there's a difference of $40-50 or more I'd just buy the cheaper one.

For resale value - if a gamer buys your used RX 470 they won't (or shouldn't) necessarily have any use for 8GB of VRAM since games that would actually use that much VRAM will not be playable with a lower mid range GPU, so for gaming resale value it's a non issue. My 2 cents. Cheers!

[mirny]

Definitely buy 8GB versions, no question about it.

[GabryRox]

If you can really get a 470 8gb for 187, i would totally go for it... especially since it's only 14 more than the 470 4gb.  i personally own over 20 MSI 470's but they are the 4gb variety because when I was buying most of them here in the US, the price difference was like $40-$50. To be able to future-proof with 2x VRAM for only 14, it's a no-brainer in m my book.  also, imo, the 470 8gb is by far the best buy in this list at those prices. it wouldn't make sense to go with the 480 4gb for same 187, and imo, not worth the extra 34 to go 480 8gb.  For most people, there will only be a slightly better hash-rate with 480 vs 470, but the 480 also suck more wattage so the actual profitability between the 2 is almost a wash, aside from initial cost.

[not.you]

I don't have any MSI's but there are some threads around here expressing discontent with the quality of the MSI rx 4xx cards.  Just FYI.

[philipma1957]

I don't have any MSI's but there are some threads around here expressing discontent with the quality of the MSI rx 4xx cards.  Just FYI.

the armor sucks

the red led gamers are fine


as to the op are you in the uk?

I know this may sound  off the wall.

 but  go with the nvidia   1070, 1080 or 1080 ti  and mine ZEC coin.

I would even say  if they are too pricey get a nvidia 1060 with 6gb ram

this is decent  for a low end nvidia

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-NVIDIA-GeForce-GDDR5-Graphics/dp/B01IA9FEOO/ref=sr_1_1?

Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB Mini GDDR5 Graphics Card - Black



this is the next jump up the 1070

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Nvidia-1070-GDDR5-PCI-E/dp/B01GXZ7Q3Y/ref=sr_1_4?

Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1070 G1 8GB GDDR5 PCI-E


mine zec  with them.

[reelen]

I don't have any MSI's but there are some threads around here expressing discontent with the quality of the MSI rx 4xx cards.  Just FYI.

the armor sucks

the red led gamers are fine


as to the op are you in the uk?

I know this may sound  off the wall.

 but  go with the nvidia   1070, 1080 or 1080 ti  and mine ZEC coin.

I would even say  if they are too pricey get a nvidia 1060 with 6gb ram

this is decent  for a low end nvidia

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-NVIDIA-GeForce-GDDR5-Graphics/dp/B01IA9FEOO/ref=sr_1_1?

Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB Mini GDDR5 Graphics Card - Black



this is the next jump up the 1070

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Nvidia-1070-GDDR5-PCI-E/dp/B01GXZ7Q3Y/ref=sr_1_4?

Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1070 G1 8GB GDDR5 PCI-E


mine zec  with them.

Curious, why have you been so all in on Nvidia and Zec all of a sudden?

[sara8877]

good advice, thx everyone!

This topic was discussed alot before , the 4gb cards will be sufficient for not a long time also the resell will be low, if you are building now go for the best resell gpus which are in my opinion the 8gb , 470 is doing good ,
 but you may wait for the 570 for best resell it will be out to the markets in couple of days or so , there is ppl already get it .

Thanks for the useful info about the 570 which will be released indeed one of these days.  I think I won't wait for them, they'll probably be more expensive and there does not seem to have changed a lot that would give a spectacular performance gain.

as to the op are you in the uk?

Belgium

I know this may sound  off the wall.
 but  go with the nvidia   1070, 1080 or 1080 ti  and mine ZEC coin.
I would even say  if they are too pricey get a nvidia 1060 with 6gb ram
this is decent  for a low end nvidia
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-NVIDIA-GeForce-GDDR5-Graphics/dp/B01IA9FEOO/ref=sr_1_1?
Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB Mini GDDR5 Graphics Card - Black
this is the next jump up the 1070
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Nvidia-1070-GDDR5-PCI-E/dp/B01GXZ7Q3Y/ref=sr_1_4?
Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1070 G1 8GB GDDR5 PCI-E
mine zec  with them.

Thanks for pointing me out these cards. I checked the prices but they are all more expensive (except  the 1060 6GB ).  To be honest, through what I've been reading about mining, it appeared to me that people were always advising AMD cards to go for if you wanted to mine...  For now, I think my preference would be to go for the RX470 8GB.

[philipma1957]

I don't have any MSI's but there are some threads around here expressing discontent with the quality of the MSI rx 4xx cards.  Just FYI.

the armor sucks

the red led gamers are fine


as to the op are you in the uk?

I know this may sound  off the wall.

 but  go with the nvidia   1070, 1080 or 1080 ti  and mine ZEC coin.

I would even say  if they are too pricey get a nvidia 1060 with 6gb ram

this is decent  for a low end nvidia

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-NVIDIA-GeForce-GDDR5-Graphics/dp/B01IA9FEOO/ref=sr_1_1?

Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB Mini GDDR5 Graphics Card - Black



this is the next jump up the 1070

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Nvidia-1070-GDDR5-PCI-E/dp/B01GXZ7Q3Y/ref=sr_1_4?

Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1070 G1 8GB GDDR5 PCI-E


mine zec  with them.

Curious, why have you been so all in on Nvidia and Zec all of a sudden?

Zec   has a tiny market cap

http://coinmarketcap.com/


# 12  just under 80 miilion


1   Bitcoin Bitcoin---   $19,726,021,089------   $1211.66---   16,280,162------- BTC-----   $279,562,000
2   Ethereum Ethereum   $4,493,149,901--------   $49.47-----   90,824,282------- ETH-----   $58,390,900   
3   Ripple Ripple-----   $1,267,992,282-------   $0.033784   37,532,331,339--- XRP *   $6,844,360   
4   Litecoin Litecoin-   $543,990,574---------   $10.73-----   50,691,482------- LTC   $101,200,000   
5   Dash Dash--------   $536,637,315---------   $74.14------   7,238,084-------- DASH   $12,362,600   
6   Monero Monero--   $296,715,962---------   $20.73-----   14,313,568------- XMR---   $6,275,570
7   NEM NEM--------   $245,396,700---------   $0.027266--   8,999,999,999---- XEM *   $1,687,750   
8   Ethereum Classic--   $240,451,683---------   $2.65-------   90,678,313-------- ETC   $3,881,150   
9   Augur Augur-------   $133,762,200---------   $12.16-----   11,000,000-------- REP *   $1,549,600   
10   PIVX PIVX---------   $100,231,002---------   $1.89------   53,036,205-------- PIVX *   $1,434,310   
11   MaidSafeCoin-----    $94,788,460-----------   $0.209453   452,552,412------- MAID *   $1,142,330   
12   Zcash Zcash-----   $79,162,833-----------   $71.16-----   1,112,419---------- ZEC   $3,159,980
13


Only 80 million

Nvidia has a market cap over 59 billion

https://ycharts.com/companies/NVDA/market_cap

AMD has a market cap of over 12 billion

https://ycharts.com/companies/AMD/market_cap

Nvidia is clearly on-top  at the game of gpu building and making profit.

Until Zec  was created last year  AMD was a clear  winner in one area  over Nvidia  and that was mining coins.

I believe  (no hard proof) that Zec was built  for Nvidia  so they could beat amd in some not all of the mining game.

Nvidia  1060  6gb  vs Amd  rx 480 8gb

 the Nvidia hashes higher  320h vs 300h 
 the Nvidia uses less power
 they  each cost about 240 usd

So to me  mining Zec  using Nvidia is the way to go.

Note I never go all in   

nvidia   1161.00 Sol/s   0.00 Sol/s (0.00%)   1024.0   1182   
nvidia2   1248.00 Sol/s   0.00 Sol/s (0.00%)   512.0   637   
nvidia3   798.00 Sol/s   0.00 Sol/s (0.00%)   256.0   788

   below are all rx 480 8gb rigs

panda1   928.00 Sol/s   29.00 Sol/s (3.03%)   512.0   417   
panda1   653.00 Sol/s   0.00 Sol/s (0.00%)   256.0   628   
panda1   711.00 Sol/s   0.00 Sol/s (0.00%)   256.0   587   
panda1   609.00 Sol/s   0.00 Sol/s (0.00%)   256.0   589   
panda1   783.00 Sol/s   0.00 Sol/s (0.00%)   512.0   590   


I mine at nice hash
i have about 4000 h  in nvidia cards.
i have about 4000 h  in  amd cards.

the op really wants a 1 card miner as I read his post.

So I think he should do nvidia and mine zec.  he could start with the  1060  and he could use nicehash to convert to btc instantly  he card would pay off 100% in arounf 110 days.
he could sell it here  for say 125 usd which would be 250 in roi with coin  in 110 days  the sale for 110 makes for a 125 usd profit.
I think no other card makes sense for him.

[Gedtamin]

I would definitely go 8gb just due to long term usage. We saw 7950s mining for a long time. The current GPU mining algorithms use a lot of vram and it is planned for it to increase. The 4gb cards are next to hit the obsolete mark for mining when they do the resale market for crypto will be zero and the market for local selling will be spammed.

8gb has quite a time and no one is going to make them obsolete until a main stream 12gb or more is around.

I will buy the ;8 GB version. The only <4 GB cards I have are the 7970.

[Malbo]

6go 1060 is more like 300€ in my country(France), so it's 50€ more expensive than a rx480 8gb .

My rig is ready to receive 4-6 GPU but actually i'm really stuck for choice...

[leon0207]

How about using rx500 series ? rx500 series better than 400 series
plus , 8gb have more hash than 4gb

[Malbo]

How about using rx500 series ? rx500 series better than 400 series
plus , 8gb have more hash than 4gb

It's not true they have same hashrate for the moment.

[GabryRox]

Phil makes a good point about ZEC/Nvidia but at least to me, getting into that side really only makes sense if you have multiple rigs to spread your hash among.  This is because, as far as I know, ZEC is the ONLY coin you're going to get better hash-rate using Nvidia on... and even with that extra h/r comes higher initial costs (in most cases), so your ROI may not be as good as it seems on the surface.  But, even if you can get a great deal on Nvidia to lower your ROI, you are still somewhat painting yourself into a corner if you go ONLY Nvidia, because almost all other minable coins on the market are better mined with AMD GPUs.  You not only have ETH, DCR, & XMR, but there are a bunch of other profitable coins using the ETHash algo (so options after ETH goes POS), not to mention the other secondary coins like LBRY/PASC/etc, that can be mined in conjunction with ETHash using Claymore dual.  I am not down on ZEC by any means... in fact, if I build another rig I might go nvidia to maximize in that area. I'm just saying that if you only have 1, probably AMD is more flexible because it offers better hash-rates on more algos... at least on a dollar for dollar basis.