A mining rig is a special hardware system, usually based on the design of graphics cards, used for mining cryptocurrency.
Surely, you have heard or read the word "rig", and have you wondered What is a Mining Rig?
A mining rig is an arrangement of hardware elements, either CPU, GPU, FPGA or ASIC that have been arranged to perform cryptocurrency mining.
Simple, don't you think?
The truth is that yes, it is a very simple concept, but making it a reality is much more complex.
Because? Because it is not enough to just put these elements together just like that, you have to do it in the best way so that the investment you make has a long journey and you can recover with profits.
Types of Mining Rig
Mining Rigs can be classified depending on the type of mining hardware that they use. In this case, the existing types of mining rigs so far are:
CPU
One of the easiest mining rigs to install and set up are the CPU, since they are nothing more than several computers installed together to mine a specific cryptocurrency that can be extracted using these devices.
At first, miners were looking for multi-core processors or multi-CPU motherboards, in order to maximize mining power in his favor. Computer clusters were even built, small supercomputers that made optimal use of the computing power of all the smaller computers separately.
However, the advent of GPU, FPGA and ASIC mining quickly replaced them, although there are cryptocurrencies such as Monero (XMR) that still profit from CPU mining.
GPU
The rigs of GPU are among the most popular today, because they can be used to mine cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum Classic (ETC), Zcash (ZEC), Among others.
In a GPU mining Rig, what we have is a computer to which we connect several GPUs or graphics cards to use them as mining accelerators. Each GPU acts as a mining node offering enormous power, and that power is multiplied by each GPU installed in the Rig.
Due to their ease of assembly and low maintenance, GPU Rigs are the favorite mining element of small cryptocurrency miners. They are also highly versatile. For example, miners who were mining Ethereum with a Rig, can use it to mine some other cryptocurrency by changing the mining program and directing it to another cryptocurrency.
FPGA
The FPGA They are another widely used tool to mine cryptocurrencies at the time, since they offered a good mining capacity for different cryptocurrencies, but the optimization of GPU mining and the arrival of ASICs ended up displacing them completely.
ASIC
The tool most used today by miners are the ASIC or Integrated Circuits for Specific Applications.
They are hardware devices specially designed to perform a very specific task. That is why ASIC miners are so powerful, since they have been designed to get as much power as possible for this purpose.
How to build a mining rig?
At this point, surely the big question that is on your mind is how do I create a mining Rig? The answer to this question is a bit complex because it depends on different factors that you must take into account.
For example, ask yourself the following: Do you plan to mine from home? Do you want a very high electricity bill and your electrical configuration allows it? Do you have space to put a mining Rig that will not disturb you or the neighbors? How much do you plan to invest? What knowledge do you have about the elements that can form a Rig? What coins are you going to mine exactly? How much mining viability do you want to achieve?
The truth is that there are many questions, but they are necessary because the answers you give to each of them will give you an idea how you should assemble your Rig to get the most out of it.
To give an example, it is not the same to mine Ethereum Classic from your room using a Rig with four GPUs, than doing it with a Rig with four ASICs, among other things because you will not be able to sleep due to the noise of the ASICs.
In addition, the investment and the profit of money are not the same. A GPU Rig for Ethereum Classic using four AMD RX 580s can cost you around €1500. A Rig of this type can give you a profit of about €1,3 of daily profit. Also, you can install it in your home and it will be viable at least until the end of 2021.
By comparison, a 3 MH / s AntMiner E190 ASIC miner costs about € 1300, consumes much more electricity (790 Watts), and will be no longer viable by the end of 2020. At this point, the ASIC has higher power but is limited by the hardware that composes it. But instead, the Rig GPU will give you greater flexibility, you can update it by changing the graphics cards and you can do it gradually without problems.
Factors to consider when building a rig
Once you are clear about what you want to do, we can tell you that there are a series of common factors that you have to take into account when assembling a Rig:
- Mining control point. If you plan to mine with a GPU or ASIC Rig you will need to have a control point that allows you to control all mining. In a Rig ASIC this role can be played by a computer that serves as a control interface for each of the ASICs. But on a GPU Rig, the same computer that drives the GPUs can do this task. In any case, you must be especially careful with the Rig GPU, since it will depend on this equipment to handle all the GPUs. So make sure it's relatively powerful and with good RAM capacity (at least 512MB RAM for each GPU in the Rig).
- GPU or ASIC selection. The most important point is to select the GPUs or ASICs to use. In both cases, you don't get any GPU or ASIC. Instead, you should study the models, the power supplied, the energy consumed, the approximate profit subtracting electrical and maintenance costs, before choosing any equipment. This is important because it will depend on whether you can recover your investment. And many times choosing the most expensive GPU or the most expensive ASIC does not guarantee you superior profits, in fact, it can lead to the opposite.
- Mining software. The software that you will use for mining is another important point. This should be optimized to get the most out of the mining equipment you use. If a GPU it must be optimized for your GPU. If it is an ASIC, it is the same story. In any case, the optimizations seek to give you the best performance, with more or less energy consumption as the case may be.
- Power supply. Feeding this whole set with energy is vital. ASICs are avid consumers of power, and GPUs follow to a lesser extent. In both cases, you must guarantee stable power for both teams. This is vital to preserve the life of your equipment and keep it in good working order at all times.
- Refrigeration. All electronic equipment heats up, and miners get very hot, so cooling will ensure that your device works properly, avoiding any type of overheating and extending its life.
- Cabinet or Shelf. This is our last element to consider, but not the least. And the reason is very simple: the best refrigeration in the world is worth nothing if you lock everything in a box. Rigs should be installed in places with great ventilation, so that they take full advantage of the air conditioning. Another important point is that this space must provide you with some level of soundproofing. This is important to isolate yourself from noise, and is not an option when mining with ASICs.
How Much Does It Cost To Build A Mining Rig?
Another complex question regarding Rigs, and the answer as always is: It depends on what you use to create your Rig. For example, a GPU Rig will generally be cheaper than an ASIC Rig, although the ASIC Rig will obviously be more powerful.
It will also depend on other factors as we have previously indicated: Have you assembled the Rig at home? That way you save renting a space to mine, but you will surely have to invest some money to soundproof the place. Do you have an abandoned basement or mezzanine? You will not spend on soundproofing, but you may have to spend something on air conditioning.
As you can see, there are many factors that affect the final price of an investment to build a Rig. However, a simple GPU Rig can cost around €1300 (4 AMD RX 580 GPUs). You can keep this in your room, without problems, it will make noise but not so much to be boring. If you already increase power or add more powerful (and noisy) GPUs, it will be time to spend on a soundproof box, or directly prepare a space for your Rig. And that could well cost you about €500 if you put effort into DIY.
A Rig ASIC on the other hand will be more expensive. An ASIC like the Innosilicon A10 Pro (500Mh / s for Ethereum) costs around € 1300. This ASIC doesn't consume a lot of electricity (750 Watts), but it is quite loud and you don't want to have it in the same room all the time.
Mining with Mining Rig: What can I mine?
Another question that depends on exactly what you implement on your Rig.
If you rig a GPU Rig, you won't be able to mine cryptocurrencies where ASICs are the norm. This includes cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, among others. The reason? GPUs they will never give you the necessary power to mine with profit on said blockchains, because ASICs are much more powerful. In those cases, you must use an ASIC Rig, and invest enough in powerful equipment to be able to mine with guarantees.
If you plan to mine with a GPU Rig, your options are more limited. Cryptocurrencies like ZCash, GRIN or RavenCoin are your best options. Of course, you will be at the profit limits, so do not expect that situation to continue for a long time.
The Future of Mining Rigs
That being said, mining rigs will still be by far the easiest way to mine crypto for “low cost”. They are not as powerful as a farm, but they can still make a profit, if you know how to give optimal answers to all the questions that arise around their creation.
That said, little by little we will see how the GPU rigs look more and more displaced. ASIC mining is fast becoming the queen of mining across all cryptocurrencies. And with exceptions such as Monero and its algorithm RandomX, homegrown GPU or CPU mining could be gone in a few more years.
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