Mining Rig

What Is a Mining Rig?

The term “mining rig” can be a rather broad one to say the least. It could refer to a single computer that has been dedicated to mining cryptocurrencies — or refer to an expansive setup featuring a number of graphics cards that are tasked with discovering new blocks.

As awareness about cryptocurrencies has risen, so too has the competitiveness between miners to track down the next block — and receive a juicy reward in the process. All of this makes the process of mining harder and means more advanced rigs are required.

Unfortunately, this means that the infrastructure included in a mining rig may need to be updated regularly to ensure it provides the computing power needed to be successful.

A mining rig consists of all of the usual elements you would find in a computer. The only difference is that crypto enthusiasts seek to personalize each of these components to give them the greatest chance of success.

You’ll need a CPU, a motherboard, a decent amount of storage and some RAM. However, as we alluded to earlier, the stars of the show are the graphics cards — as this is the part of the mining rig that’s responsible for doing all of the heavy lifting.

Typically, mining rigs consist of more than one graphics card. This can make the process of building one a lot more expensive than you may have anticipated.

Over the years, we’ve subsequently seen a heightened amount of competition for graphics cards between gamers and cryptocurrency miners. Some manufacturers have responded to this by making modifications to their GPUs that make them impractical for mining.