Welcome to another edition of Cryptocurrency Mining for Dummies!
Battle of the GPUs
Today I will be doing a cost/performance comparison of the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X GPU verses the EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 Superclocked GPU. While the 1080Ti outperforms the 1060 significantly, it also has a much higher price tag. So today we will analyze which card would be better for a small mining rig build at a cost of about $1200.
Checking on Newegg.com, the regular price for the 1080 Ti is $790 and $260 for the 1060. So I could get 3 of the 1060 GPUs for the same price as 1 1080 Ti GPU with $10 left over. The extra $10 will go toward the cost of risers to support the additional 1060 GPUs.
Performance Test
I have previously listed the performance tests run on the EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 Superclocked GPU in this post. So all that remains is to run the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X GPU through the same tests using the same mining software. Let's begin.
First I tested Equihash
then Cryptonight
followed by Neoscrypt
Lyra2REv2
LBRY
Bitcore
and Keccak.
These are the algorithms I mine most of the time and will give me an idea of the actual profit each card is capable of producing.
The table below shows the actual hashrates of the two cards and the percent advantage the EVGA Superclocked card had over the MSI 1060.
| Algorithm | 1060 x3 | 1080 Ti | Winner | % Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equihash | 870 | 720 | 1060 | 20.8% |
| Cryptonight | 1305 | 761 | 1060 | 71.5% |
| Neoscrypt | 1887 | 1440 | 1060 | 31% |
| Lyra2REv2 | 66 | 63 | 1060 | 4.8% |
| LBRY | 525 | 491 | 1060 | 6.9% |
| Bitcore | 31.2 | 26.4 | 1060 | 18.2% |
| Keccak | 1359 | 1319 | 1060 | 3% |
As you can see, 3 Superclocked 1060 GPUs outperform a single 1080 Ti Gaming X GPU in every algorithm. Although Lyra2REv2, LBRY and Keccak algorithms were so small a difference that the 1080 Ti should be declared the winner when the cost of electricity is factored in.
However, mining the other three algorithms, Neoscrypt, Equihash and Cryptonight, can produce significant profits with 3 1060 GPUs verses a single 1080 Ti depending on which coins are most profitable. Currently, the three 1060s outperform the 1080 Ti by just over $3 a day when mining Neoscrypt.
In Conclusion
Since the only real added cost between building the two mining rigs is the need for a more expensive motherboard to handle the additional 1060 GPUs. These figures should scale fairly well. You can easily add a second 1080 Ti or 3 additional 1060 GPUs to a small rig if you have planned ahead and purchased a motherboard and power supply that can support the additional cards.
So, how much money would our $1200 small mining rig generate? Well right now, mining Trezorcoin, a Neoscrypt based crypto, should generate about $12.97 daily profit. This would see a return on investment of about 93 days.
Until next time...
