My start with mining

Surely everyone in this community heard about mining cryptocurency, but how many of you actually have the resources to do this? Myself, I got interestedin cryptocurrency couple months ago, did a research and started figuring out the best way to obtain it. The first thing I checked after getting basic knowledge about the blockchain is what good pools are. My friend suggested me Nanopool so I listened to him. 

At the beginning, we need to mention that I can't and don't want to run my PC 24/7 and you cannot do this on internal GPU. Also most time I spend on my PC is gaming or working in programs that need a lot of GPU speed. In the evenings I watch Netflix and chill so this is the usual time when I power on the miner. Also, my setup looks like that: 

• Gigabyte GTX 1060 6GB
• Hasswell Intell i5 4,5Ghz (clocked)
• 16RAM
• 250 GB main SSD
• Others are irrelevant

Time for some research... 

At the time the most efficient and fitting me currency available on Nanopool was ZCash. So I started to mine... 

After testing couple mining software I started to use Excavator from Nicehash for good. Mainly because I got the best performance with it. First couple of days I was firing on miner every single second my PCs GPU was not used so about 4-6 hours daily. I was getting about 300 H/s and made about 0.002 ZEC in 4 days. 

More than 1 machine test!

After 5 days of solo mining I teamed up with my friend who has exactly same GPU as me. We powered on our machines at the same time in the same pool for the day to measure how much we can earn. From 7am-4pm we doubled the profits. I was tracking it on my phone when we started and finished as you can see on the screenshots below. 

We continued like that until the end of the week, sonext 1-2 days I think. We finally got 0,01 ZEC and it was possible to withdraw it. 

ZCash summary

We made 0,01 ZEC in 4 days solo GTX 1060 home PC + next 1-2 days whole days on 2x GTX 1060. On the monthly scale if I continued mining ZCash I would make about 5$ or less profit. Of course after taking away energy cost, which by the way is not cheep in my country, but at the same time I would be using my PC anyway so It's not much of a difference. 

Step ahead?

My research came to the point when I decided that mining Ethereum will be more profitable as I had read in the quosh's post on steemit (btw. I was not aware of steemit, what it is or anything connected to it at the time.) So I started mining Ethereum using Claymore and also via Nanopool.

Technical difficulties

I found mining Ethereum  harder than ZCash because my beloved Excavator was not working with Nanopool. I needed to either change my pool to Nicehash or change my miner to Claymore to work in Nanopool. Somehow Excavator was not working with Nicehash either in my case so I sticked with Nanopool.

Big disappointment 

Unfortunately, in my case it was not going as well as written in quosh's post. I was mining (solo) almost every day when I was chilling in the evening, so about 4-6 hours daily. My speed was something about 16Mh/s. In a nearly week or more I got only 0,0015 ETH, so about 1$ or less at the time. I found It highly less profitable than ZCash. 

Performance test again (overclock)

I decided to overclock my GPU just a little bit.

• Clock speed +100
• Memory speed +450
• Power limit to 90%

It upped my mining speed to about 19Mh/s.

As I did this I teamed up with my friend once again for the whole day (9 hours). Unfortunately, I did not make screenshot after we finished, but you need to trust me, It rose only by about 0,0010 ETH or less. 

Expanding the team

After all of this I decided that it is not even worth, but just for curiosity we teamed up with our friend who has Gigabyte GTX 1080. We just wanted to check how fast can we mine using 2x 1060 machine + 1080. And It was also a big disappointment. Base performance of 1080 was about 20Mh/s so  not a lot more than 1060. After some clocking he managed to get max 23Mh/s.

Overall decision

In my opinion, it can be useful as a hobby. What we need to mention is that doing this the GPU life can be decreased. If you have spare time using a PC, but not stressing GPU, for example, watching films or listening to music, and also you are not worried about your GPU, you can power on the miner. Maybe in a year you will make about  0,2 ETH or not even this much.
If you ask me, better mine something that you will be able to withdraw in a small amount and wish that price of it will  drastically  rise one day. Anyway, you can make some profits while watching films. If energy in your town is cheep you can give it a shot. :) 

Quick facts

• My temperature never went pass 71°C with both miners.
• On the long run It can shorten the life of your GPU
• Overclocking on your own risk (I overclocked too much once and my GPU got cut off for safety)
• Remember, you  cannot mine on PC with integrated GPU
• I used Jaxx wallet

Thanks for your time,
Spyrox