How I Determine The Efficiency of a Particular Bitcoin Mining Rig

There are plenty of ROI calculators that can speculate potential profit/loss of a particular mining rig, but how can you effectively pair up one miner against another to see which one is more cost effective right from the start?  I like to do a simple calculation that I like to call power factor rating.  Power factor rating measures up the three key points that are of interest when purchasing a mining rig.

  • Cost (the cost of the mining rig including shipping)
  • Hash Rate (measured in GH/sec)
  • Power consumption (measured in watts)
The formula I use for measuring a miners power factor rating goes like this...

WATTS
                         --------------------  = Power Factor
COST / Hash Rate

The higher the PF factor the more efficient the device is at making BTC $$  

For instance, a 333MH Block Erupter at the time of this post might be selling for around $15 and consumes 2 watts of power.  
The effective power factor of this device would be measured as
2 (watts) / ($15 / .33GH) = PF 0.044


As compared to a typical ASICMiner Blade at 10.7GH selling for around $150 and consuming 83 watts would be..

83 (watts) / $150 / 10.7GH) = PF 5.921

We can now compare a 200GH Antminer consuming 520 Watts at a cost of around $1500
Antminer 180 - 200GH
520 (watts) / ($1500 / 200GH) = PF 69.333

So, before considering a purchase of a mining rig, plug it's specifications into this formula and give it a rating that can be used to easily compare it to other devices on the market.  Hope this helps in your quest for BTC

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