Which type of hardware is the most efficient for mining Monero?

Question

I'm not looking for any specific product recommendation, but I'm just curious in terms of type of hardware which has been proven as the most efficient in terms of mining Monero.

Is it GPU, CPU, ASIC, or is there anything else?

Answer 1

Monero could be mined by ASIC. The Bitmain Antminer X3 is U$1255, ships Aug. 21-31 2018, and weighs 7 kg, it does 220000 H/s using 465 W +7% (2.27 J/kH +7%) - but they clearly mention:

• There are financial risks associated with mining cryptocurrencies. These risks can be related to changes in exchange rate of the cryptocurrency or to changes in the algorithm that is used to mine the cryptocurrency. Please deliberate well before making a purchase because we will not accept any requests for refund for orders of this batch.

• One major cryptocurrency which is using CryptoNight hash function is about to change their PoW algothrim, and according to their public statement, it is purposely to brick ASIC mining rigs including X3. When you buying it, you are betting that they are wrong.

Monero core developer Riccardo Spagni’s Github post from March 24, "Lithium Luna" says:

"Overview - This is the v0.12.0.0 point release of the Monero software, and it is part of the v0.12 network wide update. This major release is due to the April 6th network update, which in turn increases the minimum ring signature size, sorts inputs so as not to leak wallet choice by inference, and slightly changes the proof-of-work algorithm to prevent DoS attacks by ASICs.".

So those results are more theoretical than practical, but it's the fastest hardware.

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Patrick at STH mines Monero when his Servers are underutilized, to pay for operating costs.

He has lots of Equipment on hand and regularly tests new Setups and updates this Thread: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/monero-mining-performance.12116/ .

He doesn't test ASICs or FPGAs; which once both constructed and provided with the necessary Software are certain to be faster.

Currently FPGAs with AES-NI and the necessary Memory are available but there's no Software (for Monero, there are Dev Boards and SDKs if you are inclined).

Currently there is no GPU Card and Software that beats a CPU.

Here's an excerpt from Patrick's List (recently updated: Sep 28, 2017):

• CPU Results (wolf's) Using (MB L3 cache/ 2) for threads
4x Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 = 5100H/s
2x AMD EPYC 7601 = 3100H/s 332w
4x Intel Xeon E7-8870 V3 = 2600H/s (NB drops to 2000 over time)
2x Intel Xeon Gold 6152 = 1965H/s (44 threads)
2x Intel Xeon Gold 6148F = 1903H/s (40 threads)
1x AMD EPYC 7601 = 1786H/s (196W)
2x AMD EPYC 7281 = 1753H/s (258W)
1x AMD EPYC 7551 = 1734H/s
2x Intel Xeon E5-2699 V4 = 1723H/s
1x AMD EPYC 7501 = 1720H/s (205W)
1x AMD EPYC 7451 =1652H/s (210W)
1x AMD EPYC 7401 = 1598H/s (210W)
2x Intel Xeon E5-2698 V4 = 1572H/s
...

• ARM CPU Results (thanks Fractal)
ARM Cortex A53 (Pine64) 12.5 H/s @ 4.1W (AES, thermal limited) 3H/W
ARM Cortex A53 (Odroid-C2) 7.2 H/s (no AES)
ARM Cortex A7 (Odroid-C1) 5.9H/s (no AES)

• GPU Results (ccminer NVIDIA, Wolfs AMD)
1x GRID M40 GPU = 880H/s
1/4x GRID M40 GPU = 220H/s
1x AMD RX 480 8GB Gigabyte = 620H/s
1x AMD RX 470 4GB ASUS = 535H/s
1x NVIDIA GTX 1080 (EVGA Reference) = 475H/s
1x NVIDIA GTX 1070 (ASUS STRIX) = 475H/s
1x NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB (ASUS dual fan) = 431H/s
...

• Depreciated CPU Results (wolf's) Using (nproc - 1) for threads

4x Intel Xeon E7-8890 V4 = 2280H/s
4x Intel Xeon E7-8870 V4 = 1585H/s
...

Currently x86 CPUs lead the way, the Fujitsu SPARC64-M3 and IBM POWER9 are faster and available CPUs but there isn't mining software developed for them to the same extent (and optimization) so other Architectures don't "lead" but they could.

The current (and tested) leaders are:

4x Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 = 5100H/s
2x AMD EPYC 7601 = 3200H/s 332w 

It is possible put the Intel 8180 on an 8-way (socket) Motherboard, once someone makes one, while AMD's CPU is limited to 2 sockets.

Buying 8 Intel 8180's will cost $80K while 2 AMD 7601's (with motherboard) should cost under $10K.

See these Threads for Solutions that might be faster IF the Software were developed: How can I Mine Monero using a Processor in Memory PCIe Card? and At what stage is the Monero mining race at right now? which contains this Comment:

The AES-NI Instructions can be implemented using IP for the Xilinx Kintex UltraScale and Virtex FPGAs, see: Server Encryption With An FPGA Offload Boost and Data Center IP - Also IBM has the 4767 PCIeCC2 - It's just a matter of writing the Code and Monero could be accelerated for x86 or ran on an FPGA. – @Rob

So, CPU now and probably FPGA soon, ASIC when it's worth it (and they incorporate large and fast Memory that's tightly coupled to the processing that implements AES - so, not "soon").

Short version: You need a big L1.

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Barreleye POWER9 Hardware is available, but you'll be writing some Code or recompiling existing Source (with non-optimal performance). With CAPI 2.0 it will accept NVidia Volta Cards (with NVLink 2.0). It has 48 PCIe G4 Lanes and the 120 MB L3 runs at 7 TB/s with 512K L2 per SMT8 Core. On-Chip Acceleration for AES/SHA2 (and many other things, along with support for outbound Accelerators).

Quote from this page - Nvidia's NVLink 2.0 will first appear in Power9 servers next year:

Each NVLink 2.0 lane in the Power9 chip will communicate at 25Gbps (bits per second), seven to 10 times the speed of PCI-Express 3.0, according to IBM. Power9 will have multiple communication lanes for NVLink 2.0, and they could provide massive throughput when combined.

I won't got on because the running joke is:

You'll need to be ORNL to get one" - but that's an exaggeration, it's OpenCompute (plenty of Vendors, Source, Help - but sell your inexpensive Car). This is first rate Server Hardware.

Answer 2

In terms of power efficiency, the reigning champ was the Nvidia 750Ti. That GPU will get you 250H/s and use about 30-40W power. For efficiency, that puts it around 6H/s/W.

With the optimized ARM64 code I've been working on, a small ARM64 box (like a high end TV box) can get you 22H/s using less than 5W power. Much slower mining, but much higher efficiency, at 4.5H/s/W.

Answer 3

There are no ASICS yet, and GPUs are about 2-4x faster than CPUs. Monero's PoW algorithm has a large memory requirement that would make it difficult to use an ASIC and less advantageous to use a GPU over a CPU than in Bitcoin.

From the Monero Missives:

We're also quite happy to announce the addition of a new feature to Monero: Smart Mining. This is a feature that will evolve over time, but at its most basic it is something that will allow everyone running the client software to support the network in an unobtrusive manner. Smart Mining detects your CPU usage, and if your CPU is idle and you aren't on battery power (for laptops and/or connected UPS devices) it will begin mining. As soon you switch to battery power or your CPU activity picks up it will pause mining until it sees it is safe to start again. You still set your Monero address for Smart Mining, as always, and whilst your chances of solving a block may be relatively small (for now;) it is still an easy way to support the network without needing to purchase expensive equipment. This work is complete (for Linux) and is currently being tweaked to work on our other supported operating systems. Ongoing process can be followed here: https://github.com/oranjuice/bitmonero/tree/smart-mining

Answer 4

People visiting this question in the future will find the answers provided are out of date. This website lists user-submitted hardware benchmarks that include Monero mining hashrate, power consumption, and configuration settings. The creator told me they were adding features to make it easier to search and sort the data.

EDIT: the original bytehost5 URL seems to have been hyjiacked by hackers. The new domain is at http://monerobenchmarks.info/

Answer 5

It's worth mentioning that the mining hardware with the highest raw performance is an ATI/AMD 290X or 390X graphics card, earning 750 H/s or more. However, they are not nearly as efficient as the Nvidia 750Ti mentioned earlier.

Answer 6

Currently the rx400 series is the most efficient, powerful, and cost-effective mining equipment. I have gotten an rx470 to 700 h/s using about 80-90 watts. It required many hours of bios modification, but this is all doable with readily available software.

Answer 7

This depends on whether you refer to "performance per watt" or "performance per purchase price".

Raw hash rates for different CPUs and GPUs can be found, for example, at http://monerobenchmarks.info/index.php

In terms of performance per watt (which is easiest to measure/calculate):

• a Xeon Phi 7210 gets 2770H/s @ 225W, that's 12.3 H/J
• a Dual AMD Epyc gets 3500H/s @ 335W, that's 10.4 H/J
• a Dual Xeon E5-2699 gets 1910H/s @ 290(2x145)W, that's 6.4H/J
• a Dual R9 Fury X gets 1890H/s @ 550W, that's only 3.4 H/J

etc. From what I can gather, in terms of performance per watt (or, performance per power bill, if you want), the Xeon Phi is best.

In terms of purchase price, though, things may be quite a bit different...

Answer 8

This Google docs spreadsheet has a nice list of GPU/CPU hash rate reports to help you make up your mind!

Here are top-10 CPUs:

CPU ~H/s    Threads TDP, W  Miner app / version Settings / command line
AMD Opteron 32x6276 15000.00    400+    115 wolf    -a cryptonight -t25 (x16)
Intel Xeon E7-8880v3    1805.00 27  150 wolf's latest cpuminer  
AMD Opteron 6272    815.00  30  2x115   wolf's cpuminer -a cryptonight -t 30
Intel Xeon 2xE5-2680v2 (Amazon c38xlarge)   610.00      2x130   cpuminer-multi dev tree (1.0.3 with minor optimisations)    -a cryptonight
AMD Opteron 4x8389  430.00  16  4x115   LucasJones cpuminer / 1.0.3 -a cryptonight -t 16
AMD FX-8320 420 4/8 145 xmr-stak-cpu 1.1.1  -t 4, -lpm:false
Xeon L5640  390.00  12  2x91    wolf's cpuminer -a cryptonight -t 12
AMD FX-8350 370.00  7/8 200 wolf's latest cpuminer compiled from src    -a cryptonight -t 7
Intel i7-5960x  360.00  15  140 wolf's latest cpuminer compiled from src    
AMD FX-8320 4.0GHz  305.00  8   125 cpuminer 5/30/14    -a cryptonight -t 7

And top-10 GPUs:

Graphic Card    Memory, GB  ~H/s    Memory manufacturer Power Usage(W)  H/power ratio
XFX Radeon 7990 3   910     375 2.426
Sapphire RX480 Nitro+   4   900 Hynix   100 8.75
XFX RX470   4   869 Hynix   100 8.55
Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X    4   850 Hynix   175 2.74
Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X    4   800 Hynix       
MSI RX580 Armor OC  8   750 Samsung     
Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Tri-X   4   745 Hynix   220 3.36
AMD Raedon R9 390   8   730     275 2.901
Sapphire Nitro+ RX480   4   724 Hynix   150 4.82

Answer 9

The most efficient hardware for mining Monero, at this time, are AMD GPU cards. High hashrate power and low power consumption is the perfect combination.

Truly, the more cost-efficient hardware for Monero mining is the AMD Radeon Vega card. Both 56 and 64 VEGA cards are notably profitable in mining Monero.

Radeon VEGA 56 can mine with stock BIOS around 1850 H/s at ~140W.

Radeon VEGA 64 can mine with stock BIOS around 2050 H/s at ~160W.

On r/MoneroMining, you can find all the instructions to make VEGA performing that values.

Apart from VEGA cards, the RX series is also efficient in mining Monero. RX550 and RX560 have very low power consumption and RX570/RX580 can do (with BIOS modifications) around 1000H/s at ~100W.

Answer 10

I think for monero that ram is very important, and the clock speed of the gpu is less so.

I have a rx470 and it is very good, I will change the bios for major fixed parameters for mining.

Answer 11

Most powerful hardware is to use GPU and CPU.

CPU

Most leading CPUs are:

1. Intel Xeon (E3/E5)
2. Intel i7
3. AMD Opteron

Read also: Best CPU Mining Guide for Crypto.

GPU

The most leading GPUs are:

1. nVidia Quadro
2. nVidia GeForce GTX
3. AMD HD

See also: Best GPU Crypto Mining Equipment - The 1080 TI Rig

Mobile

For mobile, the following mobiles can be used:

• Huawei Honor 8 Pro, 40 h/s (minergate)
• Lenovo A806, 20 h/s (minergate)
• Samsung S8, 20 h/s (chrome+Coinhive)
• Xiaomi 4A, 14h/s (minergate)
• Iphone 5S, 7 h/s (coinhive)

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Source: Monero configurations spreadsheet.