Litecoin mining has been quite profitable for anyone lucky enough to be mining Litecoin recently. In this article, we will look at what is currently the best Litecoin mining hardware ASIC.
Best Litecoin Mining Hardware ASIC
Unlike Ethereum, which you can mine on a DIY mining rig, Litecoin is mined using custom computer hardware specifically designed to mine Litecoin as well as other cryptocurrencies that use the scrypt hashing algorithm.
Currently, the best Litecoin mining hardware ASIC is the Antminer L3+. It is designed and built by a trusted Bitcoin hardware manufacturer called Bitmain and is the fastest Litecoin miner on the market. The unit mines at 504Mh/s while consuming a moderate 800W of power or about 1.6 watts per mega hash. As of the date this article was published, the Antminer L3+ can mine roughly $20/day of Litecoin cryptocurrency.
You can purchase the Antminer L3+ on Amazon or eBay.
If you decide to purchase one or more of these units, you will need a power supply to provide power to the unit. I recommend the reasonably priced AntMiner APW3++ power supply. Pointing a box fan at the Litecoin miner for supplemental cooling is always a good idea as well. ASIC miners are also fairly loud (similar to a vacuum cleaner noise) and produces a fair amount of heat as a byproduct of mining. Keep this in mind when you consider where to place your Litecoin miner in your home or office. For an idea of just how loud the Antminer L3+ is, check out the video below. Just be sure to turn your headphones or speakers down before clicking ‘play’.
Litecoin Mining Profitability
How much will the Antminer L3+ produce in Litecoin? You can use this Litecoin mining calculator, to check the current profitability. The current time to ROI as of the date this article was written, is a little over 100 days. When calculating the profitability of Litecoin mining, be sure to enter the correct value for your electricity costs. The average cost of electricity where I live in the US is about $0.10 per Kwh.
Storing and Selling Your Litecoin Mining Profits
For selling your Litecoin into local fiat currency, I personally use and recommend GDAX/Coinbase. I would also recommend keeping your investment portfolio Litecoins safe using the Ledger Nano S hardware wallet. This hardware wallet supports all the major cryptos including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Zcash, Dash, Stratis, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Ark, Expanse, ubiq, Pivx, Vertcoin and Viacoin.
Happy Mining!
Sidenote: If mining isn’t your thing, and you are just interested in purchasing some cryptocurrency as part of your investment portfolio, I personally use and recommend FTX Global Crypto Exchange (Use FTX US if a US resident)
I really want to build one of these rigs and get my feet wet. Do people generally join a mining pool or simply solo mine these coins? Which way would be more profitable?
Most people mine with a mining pool. You get small regular amounts of whichever coin you are mining.
Do you need a dummy plug to keep the GPU cards from idling ?
In my experience, no.
How many cards can I add eventually? Lets say I start with 3, how many can I add more?
And what limits this? Do I need better motherboard to attach more cards? If yes, which one should I get to attach the maximum number of cards.
You can run 4 GPU’s, limited by the motherboard. Check out the six GPU guide for a motherboard that supports up to six GPU’s.
when running 4x 270x, can 1000w PSU supply it?
I think 270x takes about 180w .. so 4*180 + 200 overhead?
Yes. A good quality gold rated 1000 watt PSU like the EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G2 will work great for a 4x 270x rig.
Good machine, built to spec above. Power supply is the limiting factor on adding 4th gpu. Prices were a little more closer to $1200. Am able to mine 4000+ DOGE a day after getting it configured, two environment variables are essential with cgminer… Handles multi pool nicely, jury is out on which strategy is best with pplns pools.
Thanks for such an awesome post Josh. I bought all these exact parts, and I’m putting them together. I’ve been having really struggling with it over the past 4 days. Do you have a photo of this rig setup?
Either I have a faulty motherboard because only 1 of the 4 PCIe slots showing me any signs of life, or I’m doing something stupid… because when I connect a GPU to that 1 PCIe slot, then the fan of the GPU spins, but I get no output on the monitor.
Has anyone else had this problem?
Thanks Josh and other commenters here.
Thanks for the reply dude. I don’t have the UD3H mother board. I have the ASUS M5A97.
I’m getting no output from the GPU at all.
Looking forward to your reply.
Hi Amrit, I would try swapping the GPU to ensure it isn’t the GPU at fault. Also, try re-setting your BIOS to default. If neither of those solutions work, you may need to short the presence pin as shown in this guide: http://www.gobitgo.com/articles/1001/How-To-Correctly-Use-and-Install-PCI-E-Riser-Cables/
Also, feel free to ask this support question over on the GPU mining subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/gpumining. I’m on there fairly often as well as thousands of fellow miners that may have run across the same issue and can help you troubleshoot.
Do you know how much power a 270 draws? I’ve been seeing different numbers online and wanted to be sure. Ideally I’d like to run 4 of them on the 850.
Depending on overclocking and undervolting settings, between 150-175 watts.
First off, thank you. Your website has been a big help and I appreciate the time and effort you put forth in creating it.
Now, I’ve followed your hardware guide to building a budget mining rig to the letter. Current setup is as follows.
Corsair 850 Watt Gold Rated PSU
ASUS M5A97 motherboard
(3) – AMD Radeon R9 270
AMD Sempron 145 Processor
4GB Kingston DDR3 RAM
Windows 7 64 bit
cgminer 3.72
Catalyst Software Suit 13.12 (latest drivers)
v2.7 of the Catalyst App SDK
I’m using 1x to 16x risers, and getting a hashrate of around 450 each on 2 cards but the third I can only get 65. From what I’ve read, it seems like the card isn’t getting enough power. I know it isn’t the card itself or the slot, because I’ve swapped them into different slots and no matter what, the third card ends up being 65.
Is it possible that the 850w PS isn’t enough for (3) R9 270’s?
It is unlikely to be the PSU. I would try re-installing the driver in device manager. I had this happen once on a 4 GPU rig, and re-installing the card fixed this issue.
Hello.
Thankyou for your very informative article.
A question : is mining with a pool the best option and will it return the figures you suggest above?
Is mining solo a bad option with a start-up and low GPU collective speed, ie many rigs together?
Regards,
Andy
If you are mining any of the popular alt-currencies, mining with a pool is advisable. You would need a mining farm with a lot of rigs to have a chance at solo mining.
Thank you Josh most appreciated.
I just bought this but am only starting out with one R9 280x. Do I still need a riser with the ASUS M5A97, or can I just plug it straight in? I haven’t bought risers yet and want to get started ASAP.
You can plug it straight into the x16 PCI-E slot.
Hi! I’ve got a Asus P5B motherboard. I am very new to this, and am wondering wether it could be used to make a 4 rig with the he 7950? I also just have a 500W power supply, so I probably would need an additional one? Thanks in advance:)
The ASUS P5B motherboard has three PCIE 1x and one PCIE 16x slots. This means you could run a maximum of 4 GPU’s on 1x to 16x powered risers. If you want to run four 7950’s, I would recommend adding a 750 watt gold rated PSU to your existing 500 watt unit with an add2psu adapter. Run the board and 2 cards off the 750 watt PSU and run the remaining 2 cards off the 500 watt PSU.
What is the noise output like for cooling this thing?
Fan noise is pretty loud. Most people put these rigs in their basement, garage or other non-lived-in space due to noise.