As we all know, there are 4 different kind of crypto mining rigs in crypto mining field: Asic mining rig, GPU mining rig, IFPS mining rig and FPGA mining rig. Do you know the difference between them? Today, let’s learn the difference between these 4 kind of crypto mining rigs.
Asic Mining Rig
ASIC mining rig refers to mining rig that use ASIC chips as core computing parts. ASIC chip is a kind of chip specially designed for a specific purpose. It must be noted that it is not only used for mining, but also has a wider range of applications. The characteristics of this chip are simple and efficient.
For example, Bitcoin the SHA256 algorithm is used, the Bitcoin ASIC mining rig chip is designed to only calculate SHA256, so in terms of mining, the performance of the ASIC mining rig chip exceeds that of the current top computer CPU. Because ASIC mining rig have absolute advantages in computing power, computers and graphics cards are mining rig gradually eliminated.
GPU Mining Rig
GPU mining rig, the simple explanation is the crypto mining rig mining through graphics card (GPU). After the Bitcoin, some other cryptocurrency assets appeared one after another, such as Ethereum, Dashi, Litecoin, etc. Some of them used different algorithms from Bitcoin.
In order to achieve higher mining efficiency, the miners did different tests and finally found that the SHA256 algorithm used ASIC mining the highest efficiency. However, the cryptocurrency of other algorithms such as Scrypt uses GPU graphics cards to mining the most efficient, thus giving birth to a special GPU mining rig.
IPFS Mining Rig
IPFS is similar to HTTP and is a file transfer protocol. To run IPFS, there are many computers (storage devices) in the network as nodes. Therefore, in a broad sense, all computers participating in IPFS can be called IPFS mining rig. In order to attract more users to join as nodes and contribute to the network, IPFS network has designed a cryptocurrency called Filecoin, which is distributed to participants (nodes) as rewards according to the amount of storage space and bandwidth contributed.
In a narrow sense, computers designed specifically for the purpose of obtaining Filecoin rewards are called IPFS mining rig. Because IPFS network needs storage space and network bandwidth, in order to obtain the highest revenue ratio, IPFS mining rig usually strengthen storage space and reduce the power consumption of the whole machine. For example, equipped with more than 10 large-capacity hard disks, equipped with gigabit or higher speed network cards, using ultra-low power architecture processors, etc.
FPGA Mining Rig
FPGA mining rig uses FPGA chip as the core. FPGA mining rig is one of the earliest mining rig. It first appeared at the end of 2011. It was once favored at that time, but the active period was not long, and it was gradually replaced by ASIC mining rig and GPU mining rig. The whole name of FPGA is Field-Programmable Gate Array. A more popular understanding is that FPGA is to package a large number of logic devices (such as AND gate, NOT gate, OR gate, selector) in a box. How to connections the logic elements in the box is all determined by the user (writing program).
If the mining program is written in FPGA, then the FPGA mining rig is created, and due to the high flexibility of FPGA, it can not only support the Bitcoin SHA256 algorithm, but also support the scrypt algorithm which GPU mining rig is good at.
In the period when FPGA mining machines were active, compared to the CPU and GPU mining machines of the same generation, although FPGAs did not have superior computing performance, their power consumption was much lower, and the overall power consumption ratio was very high.
