Explained: Why You Need Graphics Cards to Mine Bitcoin?

Outline

1. Foreword
2. How Does Mining of Bitcoins Work?
3. Why People Start Mining Crypto?
4. How to Mine Crypto Using GPUs?
5. Who Manufactures GPUs for Mining Cryptocurrencies?
6. What GPU Do You Need For Bitcoin Mining?
7. Used GPUs for BTC Mining: Good or Not?
8. How Much Miner Can Earn with Crypto Mining Using GPUs?

Foreword

With the powerful advent of decentralized Bitcoin and altcoins, CPUs (Central Processing Units) were the key players in the crypto mining sector conditioned by the fact that the mining difficulty was relatively low and the processing power of a regular personal computer was sufficient to solve computational tasks related to nonce pegged to a hash function. However, the Bitcoin mining network difficulty made a leap and started to ascend with the growing popularity of BTC and using household CPUs for mining stopped being profitable per se. People realized that GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) can handle the tantalizing task of cryptocurrency mining and many crypto miners switched their efforts to graphic cards that could deploy one specific task of minting new digital assets Bitcoins with decent outcomes. The following short blog article is centered on the problem why do you need a graphics card to mine Bitcoin, how to make a wise choice and select an ideal GPU to satisfy your ever-increasing crypto mining needs.

How Does Mining of Bitcoins Work?

It is a good and logical idea to shed some light on the topic of general interest of how mining of Bitcoins work. The greater part of people believe that crypto mining is merely a way of minting new digital coins. However, it is not exactly so. Bitcoin mining needs the validation of cryptocurrency transactions on a Bitcoin blockchain network and adding transactions in to a digital ledger. Even more, one should remember that Bitcoin mining eliminates the double-spending mechanism and boosts liquidity to the coin price. You should know that BTC mining runs on proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm, whereas computer nodes compete to solve the hash function. Besides, PoW also protects the Bitcoin ecosystem from any hazardous hacks and malicious cyber-attacks. The first one to find a block and solve the hash gets the mining reward. One peculiar thing to note is that miners deploy more cutting edge machines to solve PoW hashing algorithms, therefore the difficulty of crypto equations on the BTC network propels. Concurrently, there are several ways to mine BTC (some are great and some are better for solo or pooled miners):

• CPU
• GPU
• VPU
• FPGA
• ASIC

We are not going to explain all the variants to mine BTC coins (because it would require a long read with a detailed explanatory notes and comparative statistics). Instead, we will delve in GPU mining in our further discussion and use all required illustrative sources (everything that you want and like so much).

Why People Start Mining Crypto?

The reasons behind of BTC mining are various. The majority of people, powerful, influential and successful corporations opt for Bitcoin mining due to the fact that it is a great opportunity to make money with mining hardware rigs. It is a perfect long-term investment in digital currencies and many investors have used this opportunity to guarantee passive income inflows. Nonetheless, the reasons are multifold and let us try to enumerate the major ones:

• Excellent investment.
• Educative purposes.
• Excess of energy.
• Just for fun.

How to Mine Crypto Using GPUs?

Before providing an answer to the question “why do you need a good graphics card to mine Bitcoin?”, let us explain how to mine Bitcoin using standard and customized GPUs. The conventional function of a GPU is to execute and control the rendering of visual effects and 3D graphics without involving CPU in video-rendering options. It supervises graphics-intensive assignments like gaming display, decoding of complex 3D animations and/or 3D videos. A few things that a miner would need is purchase a solid graphics card that has a minimum memory size of 6 gigabytes or more (but not less than that, of course). What is more, modern day graphics cards can be configured up to 8 gigabytes on the NVIDIA 1060 model as well as on AMD RX 480. The more hash power capacities GPU can produce, the simpler and faster it becomes for Bitcoin miners to mint crypto. At present, NVIDIA and AMD are the leaders in manufacturing high capacity GPUs. Here is the list of most popular GPUs in the crypto mining community:

Manufacturer	Version	Hashrate, MH/s	TDP, W	VRAM, GB
NVIDIA	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	60	200	8
AMD	Radeon RX 5700 XT	54	225	8
NVIDIA	GeForce RTX 3090	121	350	24
NVIDIA	GeForce RTX 2070	36	225	8
AMD	Radeon RX 580	28	185	8
NVIDIA	GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER	26	125	6

Selecting the perfect graphics card aimed for non-stop BTC mining is not as easy at it may seem at the first glance. There exist different factors come into play. The most salient one is evidently efficiency — everyone strives to possess high hash rate capabilities for less electricity expenses. For instance, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 not that bad selection for BTC solo or pooled mining due to its highly effective mining GPU — you can mine tens of different currencies with this unit. To crown it all, BTC miners can build mining rigs using many graphics cards at a time to construct an extensively powerful hardware unit. To make profit with BTC mining via GPUs, the constructed rig must generate more in BTC than the productive cost of the machine and the electricity bills. The mechanics of BTC mining with GPUs is very easy:

• Download a software suite to mine BTC.
• Open the setup folder and copy your BTC wallet address.
• Start mining BTC online with your GPU.

Who Manufactures GPUs for Mining Cryptocurrencies?

One of the major companies involved in the production of GPUs encompass AMD, ARM, Intel and NVIDIA. Due to the boom in BTC mining over the past few years, NVIDIA released Lite Hashrate GPUs in 2021 specifically for crypto mining and it sold a range of cryptocurrency mining processors (CMPs) to satisfy the crazy mania on GPUs in the crypto mining sector. When the demand for GPUs upsurges, crypto enthusiasts can buy used GPUs on eBay or any other specialized websites.

What GPU Do You Need For Bitcoin Mining?

As we have mentioned earlier, AMD and NVIDIA are the leaders in the production and distribution of GPUs and you can easily select the hardware that suits your starting capital and financial plans. It can be either very powerful and effective GPU or you can simply buy a few not so powerful and join an online cryptocurrency mining pool (Europe, America or Asia strstum servers) in order to enlarge your chances of finding a block on the Bitcoin network. Why do you need a graphics card to mine Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron or Ethereum? Well, this is all about hobby or supporting the crypto community. Unluckily, the Ethereum mining with GPUs will be soon obsolete conditioned by the facts that there will be transition to PoS instead of PoW mining algorithm (staking will replace mining) in 2022. Bitcoin mining, by and large, with GPUs, as the situation unfolds, can be profitable with high capacity mining hardware and if the person has free access to cheap, stable and affordable electricity and air immersion systems. One of the best ways to mine BTC is cloud based mining.

Case in point, Hashing24 has made access to BTC mining as easy and transparent as never before. You do not need to buy or maintain high cost mining equipment — everything is performed via the cloud. You just rent the preferred hashrate volume to mine Bitcoins (best ever investment in digital assets) and get daily mining rewards to your account balance. This scheme is smart, cost-efficient, reliable and fuss-free with Hashing24.

Used GPUs for BTC Mining: Good or Not?

If we take into an account that there is frequently a shortage of new and high capacity GPUs on the market, some miners opt for buying a used (second-hand) GPU. However, one should not ignore that there is no warranty on such hardware, the micro schemes can be damages or out of work and this poses serious problem to efficiency, financial portfolio of the buyer and serious overheat issues. Still, the best way is to wait a little and order a new GPU device with a 2-year warrant and fully operational system. The choice is up to you because it is very risky to buy used GPUs.

How Much Miner Can Earn with Crypto Mining Using GPUs?

It is not a secret that GPUs are furnished with a lot of Arithmetic Logic Units, which in turn are involved in solving zillions of mathematical computations and equations. AMD GPUs (models like Radeon RX 6600 XT) can still be used to mine profitably, as evidenced by mining profitability calculators. It may take from a half of year to one year to make it even with your expenses on electricity and mining hardware. However, GPUs are extremely outperformed by new ASICs, whereby the latter can be 100 times more productive and energy efficient that GPUs. GPUs can be useful for minting tight cornered ASIC-resistant tokens, but for mining the best peroforming forefather of all virtual assets, it is best to go for cloud based mining because it is smarter and does not require any initial expenditures of hardware, electricity, premises, next gen cooling and ventilation systems.

Final Thoughts

To cut a long story short, mining of Bitcoins with the help of GPUs can be profitable only in the case when a person can afford to acquire and maintain high cost mining hardware or alternatively join a specialized online digital asset mining pool. But keep in mind that the modern trend in Bitcoin mining is cloud based mining because it can afford easy entry and exit thresholds for investments, it is nearly instant and the miner gets a mining reward on a daily basis. The choice is yours and you are the one to choose either to be the pioneer or the follower.