CPU Mining. What Is It and What Is the Benefit of This Kind of Mining?

With the popularity of the cryptocurrency, the interest of people in such activities as

mining

is growing. However, it should be noted that this is by no means a passive source of income, as it may seem at first glance. In order to succeed in the mining industry, one must have in-depth knowledge, since as in any other field of activity, there are a lot of small nuances that must be taken into account.

If you are interested in this topic, then you already have a certain amount of knowledge and probably heard about the mining of cryptocurrency using video cards and ASICs. Indeed, the articles devoted to these types of mining are plentiful on the Internet. Absolutely the opposite situation awaits for you regarding the topic of mining using processors, the most that you can hear is that it is not quite profitable. In this article we are going to fix this and expand on the topic in detail, find out whether there is any sense in mining on CPU. This article will be useful for beginners and people with an average level of knowledge, experienced miners can hardly find out something fundamentally new here. So let's begin.

Contents:

(please, click the topic to scroll down to it)

1. What is CPU mining?

Generally speaking, the extraction of coins is carried out by solving a huge number of complex mathematical problems by searching all available parameters in order to find a hash with the necessary properties. This process requires a large amount of processing power, that’s why these days mining is carried out on fairly powerful equipment. When the era of cryptocurrency was just beginning, when the number of participants in the network (miners) was small, and the complexity of the system was weak, you could mine on a normal home computer. In our time, the situation has radically changed, and many miners do not even consider CPU as a tool for mining coins. This is quite reasonable when it comes to mining as the main source of income, but if we are talking about a small home enterprise that does not require any additional expenses from a person, then why not? CPU mining is the optimal solution to try mining out and understand whether it is worth doing or not. Of course, if you have a desire to earn impressive amounts, then you should consider more powerful equipment.

2. What kinds of mining CPU exist?

The central processor (CPU) is the main part of a personal computer and any other equipment in general. It is an integrated circuit that acts in the role of the main hardware node of the device. Powerful processors are installed in modern computers, laptops, smartphones, etc. They have a high frequency of operation and consist of several cores.

Such a concept as the best processor for mining simply does not exist. The fact is that the work of each individual CPU is individual. Some processors are better at mining some coins, but others suit better for other coins. Everything depends on the very algorithm of the coin, which is mined. We want to point out that trying to mine Bitcoin on a CPU is not a very good idea, since its algorithm is too complicated for a technique of this rank. However, mining, for example, Zcash, Monero, Litecoin, Dash, etc. using a CPU is quite possible.

The most popular processors are:

Intel;

Xeon;

AMD.

3. What are the ways to mine coins on CPU?

We have already sorted out what is mining, how it is set up and what tools you can use to do it. Now, let's briefly discuss the existing methods.

Personal or solo-mining. In this case, only the computing power of your own equipment is used.

Mining pools . Working with a pool means uniting a certain amount of equipment within a single server in order to search for the necessary blocks together. In this case, the system evenly distributes the reward among all members of the pool.

Multicurrency pool. This is a server which makes it possible to mine several cryptocurrencies at once. Switching occurs for the most profitable coin automatically.

4. How to choose the right CPU for mining?

The only correct answer to this question does not exist. For example, mining on the i5 processor will be more profitable today for obtaining Monero, and tomorrow it will be more cost-effective to mine

Zcash

using it. In general, the choice of CPU for mining depends on the huge number of nuances. The only universal indicator is power. The higher it is, the greater the hash rate and, thus, the profit from mining are. Before buying a processor, you need to consider two main indicators:

number of cores;

clock frequency.

Nowadays the most promising processor for this purpose is CPU Zeon. However, intel core i3/i5/i7 processors for mining are also quite good.

5. Conclusion

CPU mining was very popular at the dawn of cryptocurrency development. In 2009-2011, it was possible to mine Bitcoin using the computing power of a personal computer without any problems. Now the situation is completely opposite. Nowadays using CPU for Bitcoin mining will not only be irrelevant, but also simply unprofitable, as the cost of electricity will exceed the profit from this enterprise. However, some coins (Monero, Litecoin, Dash, ZCash, etc) can still be mined with a profit using CPUs. Anyway, you should not refer to this as the main source of earnings, because the installation of a powerful CPU will not be enough to reach a decent level. In this case it is necessary to buy specialized equipment (video cards or ASICs).

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