Gaming System or Ethereum Miner? Why not both!

Can you make money cryptocurrency mining without having to buy and build a dedicated mining rig?

You sure can!

First, I am not a certified financial planner nor licensed investment advisor, so please do not rely on any of this information to make hard fast investment decisions. Seek out the counsel of financial professionals for their binding advice.

If your desktop computer case and motherboard have the ability to place 2 or 3 GPU’s, then you can make some decent coin, pardon the pun, with your home computer. Granted, you may need to mitigate against heat build-up by either upgrading to a water-cooled system or just take off the side panel to allow the heat to escape quicker.

So how much money could one make in today’s current market and network difficulty of mining Ethereum (ETH)?

Let’s have a look at some specifications and then we will build a theoretical system and determine its profitability.

Let me help you understand the aforementioned chart. The nVidia RTX 3060 Ti out of the entire RTX 20 and 30 series GPU’s is the most efficient and cost-effective GPU to mine ETH today. It does it all by having a low entry point (cost), consumes very little power (1 8-pin power connector), and its hashrate is remarkable at 60 MH/s; even when power limited to 55-60% !!!

Depending upon the GPU you currently own, and if it’s an nVidia 20 series or AMD Radeon 5000 series, you could potentially resell it on Mercari, Fb Marketplace, or eBay for 80-90% of the value of purchasing a 3060 Ti from the same websites. Not only would you instantly increase your hashrate capacity, but you would also lower your power consumption during the mining process which would boost your profits.

So how much electricity is used and what is the associated cost of mining?

If we were to mine 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and at a rate of $0.12 kW/hr, at 120W for the RTX 3060 Ti, you would consume in 1 year, 1,051.2 KW of power costing you $126.15. Compare that to 300W per RTX 3090 and that cost increases to $315.26 for a difference of $189.21 per GPU (3060 Ti vs. 3090).

Now, you will earn ~$3.45 more per day per RTX 3090 versus that of the RTX 3060 Ti, but the entry point is so much higher and potentially needing to purchase either an additional PSU or getting a larger capacity PSU to power your desktop computer with 1 or 2 RTX 3090’s which would increase your entry point even higher. Therefore, the return on investment will be much longer compared to a system with 2 RTX 3060 Ti’s.

So go out and buy up those RTX 3090’s so that I can continue to build out my RTX 3060 Ti rigs!!!

Now that we have decided on the GPU to mine with, let us calculate what you could potential earn with 2x RTX 3060 Ti’s with today’s current market value and network difficulty to mine ETH.

If you currently own an RTX 2060 Super, go ahead and auction that off on your favorite site and you could potentially get $400 for it. Now take that $400 and add an additional $800-900 to your budget and pick up 2x RTX 3060 Ti’s.

Using the high end of what additional money you had to spend and assuming you have a PSU large enough to power both GPU’s, how long will it take to get your return on investment and how much profit could you make in the 1^st year of mining ETH?

According to cryptocompare.com, you could be looking at (additional 50W for base computer power consumption):

Now subtract your $900 investment from $2,430.43, and you could earn $1,530.43 in profit for your first year, or keep the 2.28 ETH in your portfolio that’s worth $2,814.55 at market value $1234.45/ETH in the calculation above; don’t forget to account for your mining pool fee and electric cost on top of your initial cash investment to purchase a 2nd GPU to produce your ETH when you do cash out and figure out your profit!!!

Your return of investment could be 4.5 months.

Why are you not looking up how to sell you current GPU and sourcing 3060 Ti’s right now in this Blockchain Gold Rush and leaving all that money out there that could have been in your virtual wallet ready for you to invest it how you see fit?!?!

Seriously, stop reading and get mining!

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Scott

Latest posts by Scott (see all)

• Gaming System or Ethereum Miner? Why not both! - January 20, 2021
• The Blockchain Gold Rush And How EIP-1559 May Change Everything - January 17, 2021