GPU mining is trending due to a large number of ASIC-resistant altcoins. So, miners of every size are looking for good GPUs to mine their coins and make a profit.
Let’s learn whether Tesla GPUs can get the job done.
Are Tesla GPUs good for mining?
They are not optimal and certainly not among the most popular GPUs for mining. However, some of the Nvidia Tesla graphic cards can get used to mine. If you already have a Tesla GPU and want to mine with it, you need to check if your card is supported.
If you look around online, you will see plenty of divergent opinions about the usability of Tesla GPUs to mine crypto coins.
The fact is that some older cards of the Tesla series simply can’t get the job done.
Why is that? Well, Tesla GPUs are not intended for gaming (as most of the GPUs used for mining are), but for data processing.
They have different architecture and initially didn’t feature video output.
Some products of the series have been tested for mining, and miners had good results with them.
The K80 graphic card, for example, has been tested by some people that made a profit mining Ethereum with it.
However, it is not the most common to find people that bought a Tesla card to mine or that had a Tesla card laying around and found it useful to mine a few crypto coins.
Even though Tesla cards are powering supercomputers around the globe and are super useful for data scientists, their whole design makes some of them not so useful for mining.
This shows that excellent hardware doesn’t necessarily mean hardware that is useful for mining.
Nowadays, it is also harder to find info about mining with Tesla GPUs simply because this line of products has ceased being called that way.
Even though “Tesla” is an obvious reference to the fascinating scientist Nikola Tesla, who dreamed of free electricity for everyone, nowadays there is already a company that adopted his surname.
Because of that, Nvidia decided to drop the name.
Recent processing units that would be follow-ups to the Tesla GPUs are in the A-series (they have the Ampere architecture), such as the A100 GPU accelerator.
Is GPU Mining Still Profitable In 2021?
Yes, it definitely is. Although you can’t mine Bitcoin with GPUs because ASICs took over the whole BTC network, many altcoins are ASIC-resistant.
That is good news if you have a powerful gaming GPU and want to make a profit off of it when you are not gaming.
However, something to consider is how much you pay for kilowatt on your electricity bill, when deciding to mine.
If you live in a region where electricity costs too much, mining can be a tough enterprise that will require you to:
- Find the equipment that can mine with the least electricity possible
or
- Do the right calculations to choose a crypto coin to mine that will make you a profit before you spend too much on electricity
Another thing to take greatly into consideration when setting up a mining rig is that common GPUs designed for gaming can burn out due to working 24/7.
Perhaps not the whole GPU will get damaged, but only some components such as the fan or VRM.
If you set up everything right, though, the GPU can last more for mining than gaming.
When your rig is adjusted correctly for the task, there are no temperature spikes that will prejudice your GPU immediately.
Discover new ways of mining using radio waves.
What Is The Most Profitable GPU For Mining?
Here you will find out about the three current best GPUs you can get to mine altcoins.
The comparisons used as a basis for this topic are courtesy of Kryptex, a service that does several things: it has mining software, has mining pool servers, and even offers cloud mining.
More than that, they have this page where they show their monitoring of the best GPUs for mining.
On Kryptex, GPUs are compared not on the mining of only one coin, but various types of coins.
Some payback quicker mining Ethereum, while some payback mining Ravencoin.
Their page has plenty of data, so we are bringing it simplified to you and looking at the three top GPUs that make the most profit monthly.
It will take a long period before you get the money you invested back. But once you get it back, you will make a lot of money every month.
AMD VII
The AMD VII retails for about $2000 and is the cheapest GPU on this shortlist. Since it is the cheapest here, it also pays back what you invested the quicker.
However, it won’t make the most profit in the long run, after it finally paid its price back.
- Days for payback on ETH: 194
- Monthly profit on ETH: $318.06
- 95.0 MH/S on ETH
NVIDIA RTX 3080
RTX 3080 has a higher price than the first graphic card on this list.
You can find it for around $3200.99, so here is where you will start questioning whether it is worth paying the difference.
To be frank, according to Kryptex, this GPU only pays a bit more monthly than AMD VII.
- Days for payback on ETH: 296
- Monthly profit on ETH: $334.80
- 100.0 MH/S on ETH
NVIDIA RTX 3090
Compared to the 3080, the 3090 is much better for mining if you compare the monthly profit and the difference of only a few days before paying back its full price.
However, it is very expensive. If you don’t have $4199.00 simply laying around, you might get scared by the cost.
- Days for payback on ETH: 311
- Monthly profit on ETH: $418,50
- 125.0 MH/S on ETH
Can you solo mine Ethereum?
Yes. Many people do it. It takes a fine GPU and much electricity to do it, but you can get a result anyway. However, sometimes it is more rewarding to join a mining pool.
On solo mining, you depend only on your hardware’s capacity to validate the new transactions that show up on the network.
On a competitive network such as that of Ether, this is hard if you don’t have a powerful mining rig.
Pool mining, on the other hand, combines the computing power of all individuals that join it.
You can easily join a mining pool and contribute to validate new transactions. You will not get the full reward, but you will get a part of it.
Is It Worth It To Mine Ethereum?
Absolutely. Ether is currently one of the most traded altcoins. As of May 6th, it was trading for $3,526.84.
So, even if you join a mining pool and only get a part of the reward for each new block mined (the reward is 2 ETH), you still get a lot of money.
Keep in mind that Ether is a volatile coin, meaning its price can go up and down all the time.
Which Is The Easiest Coin To Mine?
Probably Vertcoin. While a whole bunch of miners went professional and made most crypto coins’ networks impossible for new miners to join, Vertcoin was designed to be attractive for new miners.
It is a cryptocurrency that gives everyone the option to make a profit off of making the network safe for new transactions.
The whole structure of Vertcoin makes it very light on any decent processor, meaning that you don’t need to invest thousands of dollars just to start mining.
Vertcoin’s developers made the coin in a way that it can get mined either with GPU or CPU. However, some guides will tell you that you can’t mine it with a CPU.
Do you want to know how to start mining Vertcoin? This guide has everything you need.
Vertcoin’s technical info:
- Algorithm: Lyra2REv2
- Hashing Function: Verthash
- Price: $1,44 (May 6th)
- Block Mining Reward: 25 VTC
Learn more: Is Litecoin Easy To Mine?
Which Cryptocurrency mining is most profitable?
Some would say that Bitcoin is the most profitable due to its high cost.
However, it depends on an early investment in a good mining rig. If we want to explore altcoins, then we can pick Ether as one of the most profitable right now.
Read: Does Bitcoin Mining Consume GPU?
It is not easy to start mining it since you need more than average hardware to make a profit, but the effort should pay back eventually.
However, you need to pay attention to which Ether you want to mine. Some time ago, a hard fork split up the Ethereum network, and right now, you can mine ETH (called simply Ether) or ETC (Ether Classic).
Anyway, here is an excellent guide on how to start mining Ether.
Ether’s (ETH) technical info:
- Algorithm: Proof-of-Work
- Hashing Function: Ethash
- Price: Ethash$3,377.89 (May 6th)
- Block Mining Reward: 2 ETH
Final Thoughts
Tesla GPUs are not optimal for mining. They are great for data scientists. But if you are after a mining rig, you can look for other types of GPUs, even for CMP (Cryptocurrency Mining Processors).
As long as many crypto coins are ASIC-resistant, there is still plenty of room for GPU miners.
Developers behind Vertcoin and other altcoins also ensure that the whole crypto world doesn’t get taken over by big miners with the most powerful hardware.
