Cryptocurrency mining is a hot topic these days — with the meteoric rise of certain currencies and Elon Musk’s open support of bitcoin, dogecoin and others, a lot of people are taking a new interest in the topic. At the top of many people’s list: Mining their own cryptocurrency. Interested in doing it yourself? It’s not hard, but you’ll need a desktop PC for cryptocurrency mining.
The good news is that once you’re set up, mining cryptocurrency is essentially effortless. Your PC does all the hard work; you just need to leave it running, where it generates a small amount of income more or less continuously. Of course, you need to account for the cost of electricity, but you should, with a sufficiently powerful PC, have a net profit. And while years ago, getting set up was a formidably geeky challenge, these days there are turnkey software solutions that can have you mining quickly and easily. The easiest solutions are sites like NiceHash. Here, you’re not mining cryptocurrency directly. Instead, you’re “renting” your PC’s processing power to a mining farm. Your computer’s processing power adds to the overall pool, and the group collectively mines. You get paid for a portion of that bounty.
Either way — whether you choose to mine on your own or become part of a mining farm — the most important criteria when choosing a desktop PC for cryptocurrency mining is the GPU (graphics processing unit, or graphics card). This is the part of your computer that does the heavy lifting — not the CPU. Nor is the hard drive or any other component nearly as important in the list of specs. Whether you are getting a high-powered laptop or desktop, the graphics is the component to keep an eye on.
Ready to get on board the cryptocurrency mining train? We’ve rounded up some of the best desktop PCs for the job. This list assumes you aren’t dedicating a PC to mining operations and locking it in a closet somewhere to run 24/7. Instead, these are computers that you can use day-to-day for gaming and productivity tasks, but which are also excellent for mining. After all, unless you have a small fortune to invest in hardware, you won’t break even anytime soon — instead, mining will supplement your income and help defray the cost of a PC, so make it a desktop PC you’ll want to use for other things as well.
What Are the Best Desktop PCs for Cryptocurrency Mining For Sale in 2022?
Let’s get this out of the way right up front: The HP Omen 30L Gaming Desktop PC is not an inexpensive computer. Thanks to its rich collection of higher-end components, it is priced north of $3,000. Even so, if you buy this as a cryptocurrency mining machine, it won’t take forever to recoup your investment. According to NiceHash, its Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card should generate about $7.75 per day (using an energy cost basis of $0.15 per kWH), which adds up to $233 per month. So despite the price tag, it’ll still pay for itself in little more than 14 months. That’s impressive performance.
Mining aside, this is a powerful desktop PC. The 10th generation Intel Core i7 is great for gaming and graphics production, and more than enough to make any day-to-day operations feel smooth and efficient. 32GB RAM means that the system can handle multi-tasking operations and manipulating large graphics files, and the 1TB SSD gives you plenty of space for installing apps and storing data.
Visually, the Omen’s case is none too impressive. That’s surprising when you consider that it’s aimed at gamers, but the front of the case is a bland box, and the transparent side panel reveals the motherboard, but there’s not a lot of RGB lighting on display. Even so, a great computer isn’t about razzle-dazzle, it’s about performance. And this computer has that in spades.
The Acer Predator Orion 3000 Desktop looks like an alien spaceship — or even just an alien — thanks to the angular RGB lighting strips and aggressive grille on the front of the case. In fact, you’d be forgiven for mistaking this for an Alienware desktop. But Acer’s desktop has a personality all its own, and the Intel Core i7-9700K paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 let you know this is a serious gaming rig. Even so, despite the gamer-forward styling of the case, it has no transparent panels to see the interior. On the other hand, the system has a relative rarity: a DVD-RW drive for reading and writing optical media.
It’s the GeForce RTX 2080 that’s of interest for cryptocurrency mining, and the GPU should be able to earn you about $3.55 per day according to NiceHash (using an energy cost basis of $0.15 per kWH). That’s about 18 months to recoup your investment with continuous mining. At the same time, the system can handle most tasks you throw at it given the impressive specs. Only one significant disappointment: Acer packs this computer with a very small 256GB SSD for the system drive, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for installing apps. There’s a second hard drive — a 1TB HDD — for data.
Skytech’s Chronos line of computers has a deserved reputation for delivering solid performance at affordable prices. The Skytech Chronos Gaming PC Desktop is just such a machine. It is built around an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU and 16GB RAM, not to mention a full 1TB of storage in a speedy NVME SSD package. All that would be great on its own, but the system also has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card — one of the fastest of the latest generation of RTX GPUs, and it does it all for right around $2,000. That’s not cheap of course, but it packs better specs under the hood than you’ll find in a lot of other similarly priced systems.
It’s a great mining rig, able to produce about $4.88 per day according to NiceHash (assuming energy costs of $0.15 per kWH). If you did nothing other than mine with this machine, it should be able to pay for itself in about 14 months. But I’d encourage you to use this machine every day. The specs make it a great gaming system and suitable for other demanding tasks. Skytech doesn’t preload this computer with any annoying bloatware, so the machine will perform great right out of the box and the generous 1TB SSD is all yours, not shared with the manufacturer’s partners.
And not only is this system great for gaming, it looks like a gaming PC as well. The front panel is all glass, exposing a beautiful trio of RGB-lit fans, and the side panel is transparent as well, revealing more lighting in the chassis.
When a PC like the ROG Strix GA15DH Gaming Desktop is powered by a formidable GPU like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super, it can start to earn you some real money — to the tune of about $103 per month (estimated by NiceHash using a baseline of $0.15 per kWH for your energy cost. Unfortunately, this Asus desktop’s list price is relatively higher to account for its impressive specs, and so if you were looking for completely recover the cost of the computer, that’ll take close to two years.
But you’re probably planning to use this machine for ordinary work as well, though, and that’s where the computer’s other specs come into play. Its AMD Ryzen 7 3800X is a beefy CPU that will serve you well for almost any application. Combined with the RTX 2070 Super, you can use it for gaming as well as video production and other resource-intensive activities. The 512GB SSD system drive and 1TB HDD data drive also suggest that Asus sees you using this computer for photo editing, video production and other high-end applications.
It’s also housed in a fairly attractive case — there’s a gorgeous diagonal strip of lighting adorning the front and a large transparent panel on the side. It has a few other cool flourishes, like a handle to carry the PC around and a flip-out side hook to hold your headset.
Dell’s G5 Gaming Desktop is a formidable compromise between price and performance. No, despite the fact that Dell calls it a “gaming desktop,” it won’t blow away a truly high-end computer when comparing specs. But it has some good components where it counts, and the price is irresistible — well under $1,000. Because it comes with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super graphics card, it has the potential to earn an estimated $2.30 per day mining cryptocurrency (that’s according to NiceHash, assuming an energy cost of $0.15 kWH, which is a rough average across the US). That means this computer can pay for itself in just barely more than a year (13 months, to be precise), which is amazing for a computer you’ll probably use day-to-day for routine productivity and gaming.
Speaking of the day-to-day, this system comes equipped with a middle-of-the-road Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB RAM. That’s more than enough to feel fast and fluid for everything you’ll use a laptop for aside from gaming, and even as a gaming rig, you should get decent performance as long as you don’t push the game settings too hard. One major disappointment: Then system drive is a scant 256GB SSD, which isn’t a lot of space for installing apps. It has a second 1TB HDD for data, though.
The Skytech Chronos Mini Gaming PC Desktop is a modest little desktop computer. Equipped with a cost-conscious AMD Ryzen 3, it’s more of a “gaming PC” in name more than reality; the computer will struggle within modern gaming titles. That said, you should have no trouble playing titles like Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege, and COD Warzone. But it has a very low sticker price and can handle day-to-day productivity tasks (along with somewhat undemanding games) with ease. The case, though, punches above its weight — it has gorgeous glass front and side panels that reveal colorful LED fans. You don’t have to spend a fortune to get a computer that looks like one.
The system is also equipped with an NVIDIA GTX 1660. It’s not an especially strong crypto miner. NiceHask estimates that the GPU will earn about $1.73 per day (assuming $0.15 per kWH energy costs), which should net you about $52 per month. If those numbers hold, you’ll completely recoup the cost of the computer in under 18 months, which isn’t bad at all if you get regular use out of the computer as a day-to-day PC.
Whether you're building a PC from scratch or shopping for a desktop computer like one of the models in this article, the GPU, or graphics card, is the single most important consideration when looking for a platform to mine cryptocurrency.
In general, the simple answer is: The faster the better. An Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 will perform better than a GeForce RTX 2070, for example.
But you need to balance performance against price; for example, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 might be a superb performer, but it also bears a premium pricetag. Not only is the up-front investment substantial, but it might take longer to recoup the cost of the hardware, depending upon which graphics card you choose.
If you're interested in estimating the mining performance of a computer with a particular graphics card, you can use the calculator at NiceHash.
Here is a rundown of some common graphics cards and its annual profitability, assuming that your energy cost is $0.15 per kWH. If your energy is more or less than that, you'll need to run the numbers yourself.
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 $785/year
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 $1,175/year
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 $1,653/year
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 $2,237/year
There's one important consideration: You should avoid the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060. This is a relatively budget-conscious entry in the new 30xx line, but for that very reason Nvidia has decided to throttle the GPU's ability to mine cryptocurrency by hobbling its ability to perform the specific kinds of calculations needed for crypto-mining. If you get a PC with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, you will get very poor performance on mining operations.
Mining Resources
Perhaps the single easiest way to mine cryptocurrency is to use NiceHash. This site offers a turnkey solution that has the potential to make your PC profitable within a year or so.
Nicehash pays its users in Bitcoin, but one does not actually mine Bitcoin; one can use graphics card to mine certain types of coins, but because Bitcoin is not "ASIC-resistant" it cannot be mined without dedicated hardware. Basically, all of the Bitcoin is already being mined by farms of dedicated hardware and it's impossible for anyone to compete. With graphics cards, however, one can competitively mine for less staked-out cryptos.
This is the more potentially profitable strategy. If you're willing, you can keep an eye out for newer coins and mine them as soon as they come out. This takes more diligence and effort (you may need to even ask for help in mining some of these coins), but the rewards are potentially much greater.
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