It’s been about 21 days since I first ‘deployed’ my Ethereum Altcoin GPU miner, it’s time for a followup to check in on my ROI (return on investment), and determine if I should buy more GPUs to add to my miner.
I say ‘about’ 21 days because I don’t remember exactly when on July 21 I launched my miner. I also did a bunch of testing overclocking to get the best hash rate from my 1060 GPUs so for at least half a day I was messing around with things before I reset my power meter and left things alone. Plus, my power meter says ‘day 20’ so I don’t know if that means 20 days have passed, or if we are in day 20. My apologies, this is sounding less scientific the more I explain!
My power meter says total energy used so far is 90.39 kWh. Electicity costs where I live is $0.12 per kWh in CDN, so roughly $0.010 after converting to USD. My rig has mined 0.27746 ETH which, as of now, is worth $83.52 (0.27746 * $301). After electricity costs, the total profit is $74.48, or $3.54 per day.
2 GPU Mining Rig Profit so far
- 0.27746 ETH mined in 21 days
- Worth $83.52 right now
- Electricity cost is $9.04
- Total profit $74.48
- $3.54 per day profit for mining rig
- Total cost of mining rig is $1186, which will take 335 days to pay off… as ETH mining difficulty increases, it will take longer
- Total cost of just the GPUS is $636, which will take 179 days to pay off…. as ETH mining difficult increases, it will take longer
As the prices of GPUs have gone up in the past months, many people are asking if GPU mining is still profitable? There are just too many variables to consider for someone else to tell you if its worthwhile to mine Ethereum or another altcoin.
For example, after calculating the total cost of the GPU mining rig build, it will take around 335 days to pay off the rig. That is too long to be profitable – but the cost of the build was higher because I purchased a mining motherboard that would allow me to connect up to 7 GPUs to it, so that will really lower the dollar per hash of the overall rig cost.
Another factor is power cost (which is fixed where I live at $0.10 per kWh).
Most importantly is the price of Ethereum. I am very confident in the long term viability of Ethereum as one of the main cryptocurrencies of the future, so I don’t even plan on selling Ethereum (check my post on Should I Buy or Mine Altcoins?). Let’s take a look at the return on investment if the price of Ethereum continues to go up:
Ether Price | Days to pay off above GPU Mining Rig |
Current (~ $300) | 335 |
$350 | 329 |
$391 (previous ETH high) | 250 |
$400 | 244 |
$500 | 192 |
Based on where I think ETH could head in the next year or two, with my current, lame 2 GPU mining rig, I can mine enough ethereum to get paid back in 200 days. If my rig can mine for 1 year, that would mean $1018 profit for the last 156 days of the year, which is nearly doubling my investment!
With just calculations based on the cost and hash rate of the GPUs (not including the cost of the mining motherboard, the best power supply for mining, the ram, and all other components that aren’t the GPUs), the numbers look even better.
Ether Price | Days to pay off above Ethereum Mining GPUs |
Current (~ $300) | 180 |
$350 | 151 |
$391 (previous ETH high) | 134 |
$400 | 131 |
$500 | 103 |
If my GPUs can mine for 1 year, then the profit for the other 262 days of the year would be $1624 dollars – that’s almost triple the $636 spent on the GPUs! Can you see why people are snapping up the best mining GPUs as fast as NVidia and Radeon can build them?
*Of course, with difficulty increases, it could take longer to achieve those numbers. Plus, I’m assuming/betting on Ethereum price going up in the next year or two based on a number of different factors like the DHS investment and the approval of institutional money that will flood into the cryptocurrency market in 2018
Good to know that my hash rates for this GPU are somewhat inline with what other people are getting. Thanks for sharing your experiences!
I really like it when folks get together and share opinions. Great website, continue the good work!
Hi,
I Like what i’ve read. I just convinced my self to build my own rig with a budget of $2000. I will consider your build but other options provided is much appreciated.
Best regards,
Noel
Hi Noel, what would you like to mine? That’s really a good place to start and then determine what mining GPUs to buy. Apparently (although I haven’t really been able to find), since the January downturn in the cryptocurrency market, there are some really good used mining rig buys to be had. Or, play it safe and get brand new GPUs now that the competition for them isn’t so intense.
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