Can you overclock a Bitcoin miner? Here’s how and results
As the cryptocurrency industry continues to expand, crypto mining is one of the most popular ways to earn passive income, and many crypto mining enthusiasts are wondering how they can increase the amount of Bitcoin (BTC) they generate.
One of the options is running an overclocked mining machine. However, while overclocking a Bitcoin miner by putting a second power supply on it seems like an attractive idea, a question arises as to whether this is actually worth it, especially when taking into account the variable electricity costs.
With this in mind, crypto YouTuber Drew Vosk has decided to put an overclocked ASIC miner to the test, to check how much Bitcoin he can mine with it, as well as how much electricity it uses up, demonstrating the results of this experiment in a video published on January 10.
Overclocking Bitcoin miner
To overclock a Bitcoin miner requires adding an additional power supply, which requires an additional power supply cable. For this purpose, Vosk used a miner with such a capability – MicroBT Whatsminer M30S+, which originally comes with a 3,400w power capable of producing 100 terahashes (T/s) per second.
This miner is then tuned to produce 139 T/s at 5,500w, in order to demonstrate the overclocking capability. M30S+ uses dual power modification. In other words, it comes with pre-installed Manifold Mining dual PSU modification, which results in a maximum power availability of 6,000w.
When running a mining machine of such power, it is always important to keep in mind the level of noise it produces, especially when it is used in the highest setting. Therefore, its location is of tremendous importance.
Is it worth it?
Since putting the miner on the highest overclock setting, Vosk reported achieving a reliable and stable daily result of over 134 T/s. Taking into account the current BTC price and the ViaBTC mining pool fees, this earned him about $8, which isn’t profitable from a residential mining point of view but can still be if super-cheap electricity is available.
If it isn’t, then a non-2PSU version of the miner might be a better-suited and more economical option. Finally, as Vosk concludes, mining with an overclocked machine is basically a numbers game that boils down to comparing one’s electricity rates and the value of Bitcoin generated.
Elsewhere, ASIC mining is among Vosk’s suggestions of various options to mine Bitcoin as an alternative to mining using graphics cards or graphics processing units (GPUs), others being hard drive mining, 5G mining, and Equihash mining, as Finbold reported.
On the other hand, if independence from the local grid and offsetting the energy waste produced by mining Bitcoin is what you’re looking for, then using solar power instead might be the right choice, although the results might vary.
Watch the entire video below:
