Now that I got my first GPU miner up and running, I have been doing some research into the build for the next mining rig.
From my research for the first rig, I was pretty set that AMD>NVIDIA but after I have done more research, NVIDIA GPU mining has its own strengths compared to AMD. I would like to make a comparison for anyone interested and also for my future reference.
I will be using RX 580 4GB as a benchmark for AMD and 1070 for NVIDIA. IMO, these are the best bang for the buck GPUs today. If you know cards that gives out a better return on investment than these two, let me know in the comments! I would surely be interested! :)
From what I found out, the pricing of the GPU and hash rates change so often that most current sources are unreliable. So, that is why I decided to do my own research as shown above. Also, I'm going to stick with only mining more well known coins(Ethereum for AMD GPUs and Zcash for NVIDIA). This is because there are some new coins that you can mine for more profit but you never know how long that will last and I think that Ethereum and Zcash will provide better stability for days to come.
AMD RX580
MSI Radeon ARMOR brand RX580 4GB is available for $264.99 on Newegg(They were $249.99 4 days ago). I chose the 4GB because both 4GB and 8GB keeps the same speed of 30mh/s for Ethereum mining as long as they have Samsung memory (Hynix/Elpida/Micron memory does not perform as well). Also, the DAG epoch issue for Ethereum mining on these cards have been fixed with the AMD mining bios update. These cards are also very good at dual mining but for simplicity sake, lets just say that it is only mining Ethereum.
Initial Cost: $264.99
Ethereum Mining Hash Rate: 30Mh/s
Power: 115w
Daily Profit@$0.16/kwh: $2.13
ROI: 124 days
NVIDIA GTX 1070
NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1070 is available straight from NVIDIA for $399.00. NVIDIA cards are better suited for mining equihash than ethash. Surprisingly, with the mining hash rate of 470sol/s and 120w power consumption, you can achieve ROI 3 days quicker than the AMD RX580! I think I will go with the NVIDIA GTX 1070 for my next build. The only problem is getting more than 2 GPUs since there is a limit of 2 per customer on NVIDIA site and everywhere else is very overpriced.
Initial Cost: $399.00
Zcash Mining Hash Rate: 470sol/s
Power: 120w
Daily Profit@$0.16/kwh: $3.29
ROI: 121 days