Tom's Hardware's Optimized GPU/GDDR5 Settings
In addition to recording the performance of each card at stock clock rates and after memory overclocking, we also tried to optimize the GPU/GDDR5 frequencies and GPU voltage to achieve the highest hash rate possible at the lowest power consumption. In other words, we shot for the best possible efficiency in a search for each board's sweet spot.
The table below includes all of the settings we used. Of course, each card is different, so these parameters are specific to our samples. Still, they roughly illustrate what each architecture is capable of.
It's definitely possible to push efficiency even further. For example, you can fight for lower voltages, reducing power consumption at a given clock rate. But your success rate is going to be situational, and largely dependent on luck.
Optimal Settings For Each Card
| Model | MH/s | Power Consumption | GPU | GDDR5 | |
| MSI GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X 4G | 14.6 | 53W | 1366 MHz(1.043V) | 2125 MHz | |
| Gigabyte GTX 1060 3G | 23.3 | 71W | 1152 MHz(0.843V) | 2275 MHz | |
| MSI GTX 1060 6G | 24.1 | 100W | 1442 MHz(0.981V) | 2304 MHz | |
| Asus GTX 1060 Strix OC 6G | 23.5 | 74W | 1177 MHz(0.762V) | 2352 MHz | |
| Asus RX 580 OC 4G | 24.0 | 120W | 1140 MHz(0.937V) | 1900 MHz | |
| BIOSmod | 24.7 | 120W | 1140 MHz(0.937V) | 1925 MHz | |
| MSI RX 580 Gaming 4G | 22.3 | 120W | 900 MHz(0.943V) | 2000 MHz | |
| BIOSmod | 29.1 | 143W | 1155 MHz(0.943V) | 2075 MHz | |
| Asus RX 570 Strix Gaming OC 4G | 23.9 | 109W | 1040 MHz(0.931V) | 1925 MHz | |
| BIOSmod | 27.4 | 112W | 1020 MHz(0.887V) | 2000 MHz | |
| MSI RX 560 Aero ITX OC 4G | 11.2 | 38W | 949 MHz | 1750 MHz | |
| BIOSmod | 14.6 | 48W | 1094 MHz | 2000 MHz | |
| Sapphire RX 560 Pulse OC 4G | 11.3 | 42W | 949 MHz | 1750 MHz | |
| BIOSmod | 12.5 | 43W | 949 MHz | 1775 MHz | |
| Sapphire RX 550 Pulse 4G | 9.7 | 47W | 999 MHz | 1975 MHz | |
| BIOSmod | 10 | 47W | 949 MHz | 1975 MHz | |
| XFX RX 480 8G | 26.8 | 136W | 1075 MHz(0.987V) | 2225 MHz | |
| BIOSmod | 29.6 | 140W | 1075 MHz(0.987V) | 2150 MHz | |
| MSI RX 470 Gaming X 4G | 21.8 | 115W | 1125 MHz(0.987V) | 1750 MHz | |
| BIOSmod | 24.8 | 120W | 1125 MHz(0.987V) | 1750 MHz | |
| Sapphire RX 470 Mining 4G | 22.6 | 117W | 900 MHz | 1850 MHz | |
| BIOSmod | 30.2 | 143W | 1170 MHz | 2150 MHz | |
| XFX R9 390 8G | 22.6 | 182W | 800 MHz(1.047V) | 1500 MHz | |
MORE: The Ethereum Effect: Graphics Card Price Watch
MORE: How To Mine Ethereum Now
MORE: Experiment: Build a (Profitable) Ethereum Mining Rig From Spare Parts
MORE: Top 25 Cryptocurrencies By Market Cap
MORE: Best Graphics Cards
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
fat chance.
A titan V would have handily crushed any of the cards here with its 70+ MH/s Eth rate.
https://hothardware.com/reviews/nvidia-titan-v-volta-gv100-gpu-review?page=5
But when it comes to making your money back you use:
Cost of graphics card / Megahashes per second (Easy to understand formula, real formula at the bottom)
For the Geforce 1060 that comes out to roughly
$400 / 25MH/s or 16 dollars per megahash (I was able to buy 4 1060s for about $300 each a few months ago. Score!!!)
For the Geforce Titan V that comes out to roughly
$5000 / 82MH/s or 61 dollars per megahash.
As you can see it would take at least 3.8 times as long for a Titan V to pay itself off, not including the power cost.
This isn't the most true comparison due to not taking power into account, but still gives an easily understandable way of seeing why a $5000 GPU isn't worth mining with.
You could have simply bought 3 Geforce 1060s and had a similar hash rate for cheaper.
The goal here being to make back the price of the graphics cards, then everything else is gravy.
Ideally I would have used the formula of
Cost of graphics card / Spreadsheet calculated monthly income taking power and other fluctuations into account.
to calculate on average how long a graphics card would take to pay itself off.
You can also use the calculator on https://whattomine.com/ to quickly calculate the "Spreadsheet calculated monthly income"
Tom's gave you all the information needed for you to decide whether to mine or not.
Let me paint it a bit simpler.
Lets assume you believe the price of Ethereum is going to stay at what it is today, currently $709, forever.
Plugging in all that information into whattomine.com gives us:
https://whattomine.com/coins/151-eth-ethash?utf8=%E2%9C%93&hr=22.5&p=90.0&fee=1.0&cost=0.06&hcost=400&commit=Calculate
(0.06$/kWh is my power cost in my area)
Or $38.78 monthly profit or a 309 day repayment.
If you are confident that Ethereum's price will stay the same or maybe even rise then you could expect to recoup your $400 purchase in at max 309 days.
If 309 days is too long to wait or you are unsure about cryptocurrencies then stay out of the water.
I don't think that Tom's is going to advance mining much; our longtime enthusiast members mostly won't get into it and it's widely enough known already. A little extra knowledge for those of us on the sidelines and, who knows, maybe miners will concentrate on the most efficient cards and the price of the rest will go down. Not an issue for me, I'm running a fanless GT430, so what do I care about current prices?