How to mine Monero with GPU

As explained in our How to mine Monero on Windows or Linux (Fedora or Ubuntu) with CPU guide, Monero is one of the few cryptocurrencies which can still be mined using a CPU; nevertheless, GPUs can provide significant performance improvements and often, more value. In this guide we will first elaborate on some Monero GPU mining topics and then continue with a step-by-step guide on mining Monero using GPU in the Fedora and Ubuntu Linux distributions.

Advantages and Disadvantages of GPU mining

a. Support for multiple GPUs

A computer or server may support two CPUs, but with the right hardware, it can support up to 19 GPUs. According to monerobenchmarks.info the highest performing CPU is an Intel Xeon E7-8867 v4 (around 4000 hashes per second), which has a recommended price of $4672 USD. Add the cost of a supported motherboard and additional required hardware and the entire mining rig will be near $6000 USD. Such a rig cannot be expanded in the future with additional CPUs.

Buying an inexpensive motherboards, and multiple GPUs can provide more hashing power for the price. Check out monerobenchmarks.info to compare GPU performance when considering GPU mining. For example, using six Nvidia GTX 1060 GPUs can generate nearly 3000 hps, and it can cost around $300 for each card. A mining rig can be completed with a single GPU and as the budget increases, additional GPUs can be added.

b. Expandable and Flexible

Most motherboards have a limited form factor and will only support specific types of CPUs. New, higher performing CPUs will likely require a completely new build for an upgrade.

GPUs interface using the PCI-e specification and nearly all modern motherboards support this specification. GPUs can be added, removed, and replaced with different models as desired.

c. Specific use case

While a CPU is a general purpose machine and could be re-purposed for nearly anything (e.g. home server), a multi-GPU rig built for mining is less useful if not used for this purpose. One or two cards could be used for a gaming machine, but a 19 card rig may only be useful for niche cases such as machine-learning.

d. Purchase options

GPU mining is popular, historically profitable, and the demand for GPUs is high. Online as well as brick and mortar stores often place limits on the number of GPUs available for purchase and the prices reflect accordingly. Finding enough GPUs for a build can be challenging.

GPU mining on Linux vs Windows and Mac

Windows has excellent support for both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Drivers are readily available, configuration software works well, and overclocking is fairly simple. Mining using Windows with GPUs is an excellent choice with purchased Windows licensing, experience in the Windows environment, and availability of a GUI based setup.

Mac also has robust support for both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. The hardware is often more expensive, but if already available, can be re-purposed easily for mining Monero.

On the other hand, Linux has historically struggled to support GPUs but currently works well with nearly every modern GPU architecture. Drivers for both Nvidia and AMD are widely available, multiple mining software options support Linux, and most Linux distros work well. Linux requires no licensing, can be changed easily, and works very well in headless environments (can connect over a network).

Solo vs Pool mining

Solo mining requires connection to a full Monero node and a fairly large mining environment to be feasible. Miners will likely go long periods of time with no rewards but will not be required to pay any fees once a block is found. For example, using the six GTX 1060 GPUs mentioned before, a solo miner has about a 1% chance of finding a block every 24 hours. Mathematically, this means a miner will get a reward every 100 days. As mining difficulty changes, this may become more or less likely.

A pool is a collection of miners who combine their hashing power and then share the rewards. Individual miners are not required to maintain a full Monero node, but just connect to a mining pool using mining software. Miners are rewarded more frequently, but in smaller amounts. For example, rather than receiving 1 XMR on day 100 solo mining, a miner receives .01 xmr every day for 100 days.

Additionally, pools often have fees associated with them to cover the overhead of running the pool. Pools also may have minimum payouts to reduce the overhead and network fees of frequent, low payments. Most mining software are configured to use a pool by default.

If you would like to know how much can you earn by mining Monero then use our Monero mining calculator.

Minergate

The Monero community is very skeptical of Minergate due to many reports of lowered hash rates. There are numerous options for highly regarded, high quality Monero pools and the use of Minergate is not recommended.

GPU mining Monero on Fedora 24 and above

To mine with Nvidia, both Nvidia drivers and Cuda toolkit are required.

Downloading and Installing the Nvidia Drivers

Download the Nvidia drivers from here.

Install the requisite packages for driver compilation and making the project. The installation assumees the driver is located within the /tmp directory.
Nvidia won't install unless the conflicting Nouveau module is disabled. By adding this line to the blacklist.conf file, the kernel won't load the Nouveau module.
Edit the grub menu to blacklist nouveau by appending to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX variable value.
Update the grub2 configuration.

For BIOS:
Or for UEFI:
Remove xorg-x11-drv-nouveau. Note that this may or may not be required depending on the installation environment.
Additionally, remove any exclusion reference in dnf.conf if it exists.
Back-up the old initramfs nouveau image and create a new one.
Reboot to runlevel 3. Note that the GUI (desktop environment) may be unavailable. Save this guide for reference outside of the Fedora machine updating.
After the reboot is completes, run the driver installation.

Downloading and Installing the Cuda Toolkit

Download the Cuda toolkit from here.

Install the Cuda toolkit and reboot the system. The installation assumees the installation file is located within the /tmp directory.

Mining Monero using xmr-stak

xmr-stak supports both CPU and/or GPU mining. It can be configured to run CPU, Nvidia GPU, or AMD GPU modes, or any combination of the three.

Install dependencies, get the source, and make the project. The default values will enable both CPU and GPU mining. To disable CPU mining, add the -DCPU_ENABLE=FALSE flag to the cmake line. If you are not using AMD GPUs also add the flag to disable AMD, -DOpenCL_ENABLE=FALSE.
Configure the software by running xmr-stak for the first time. Dual mining configurations are supported.
xmr-stak will prompt for values as shown below. It will also automatically generate default values which work well.
xmr-stak.com has community submitted configurations for increased performance. To optimize for a particular CPU/GPU, view the configurations there. Optimization will require some trial and error.

To use both CPU and GPU mining, enable the dependency for hwloc and hugepages.
To run the mining software, execute xmr-stak a second time.

Mining Monero using ccminer-cryptonight

ccminer-cryptonight is another option for mining using an Nvidia GPU. It is more specific than xmr-stak.com as it only supports Nvidia GPUs. It does not support CPU mining nor AMD GPUs.
ccminer-cryptonight expects some specific libraries included in OpenSSL v1.0. Therefore, the Autoconf file needs to be adapted to check for the 1.0 or 1.1 library.
Make and install the software.
Cuda requires gcc version 5 or lower. Modify the MakeFile to use backwards compatibility by appending -Xcompiler -std=c++98.
ccminer-cryptonight executes a check to determine if the version of gcc is old enough.
Now, make.
ccminer-cryptonight is also configured by default to use a pool. Start mining by executing the file.

GPU mining Monero on Ubuntu 16.04 and above

To mine with Nvidia, both Nvidia drivers and Cuda toolkit are required.

Downloading and Installing the Nvidia Drivers on Ubuntu

Ubuntu supports the installation of Nvidia drivers from the package manager. Determine the required driver for the Nvidia GPU used by searching the Nvidia driver web page. Take note of the version as it will be used for the package installation candidate. For example, the driver for a GeForce GTX 1060 is 390.25 so the package to be installed would be nvidia-390.
Alternatively, download the correct driver from the Nvidia driver web page and install it by the following commands which assume the driver is located in the /tmp directory.

Downloading and Installing the Cuda Toolkit on Ubuntu

Download the Cuda toolkit from here.

And install the Cuda toolkit. The installation assumees the installation file is located within the /tmp directory.

Mining Monero using xmr-stak on Ubuntu

xmr-stak supports both CPU and/or GPU mining. It can be configured to run CPU, Nvidia GPU, or AMD GPU modes, or any combination of the three.

Install dependencies, get the source, and make the project. The default values will enable both CPU and GPU mining. To disable CPU mining, add the -DCPU_ENABLE=FALSE flag to the cmake line. If you are not using AMD GPUs also add the flag to disable AMD, -DOpenCL_ENABLE=FALSE.
Configure the software by running xmr-stak for the first time. Dual mining configurations are supported.
xmr-stak will prompt for values as shown below. It will also automatically generate default values which work well.
xmr-stak.com has community submitted configurations for increased performance. To optimize for a particular CPU/GPU, view the configurations there. Optimization will require some trial and error.

To use both CPU and GPU mining, enable the dependency for hwloc and hugepages.
To run the mining software, execute xmr-stak a second time.

Mining Monero using ccminer-cryptonight on Ubuntu

ccminer-cryptonight is another option for mining using an Nvidia GPU. It is more specific than xmr-stak as it only supports Nvidia GPUs. It does not support CPU mining nor AMD GPUs.
ccminer-cryptonight expects some specific libraries included in OpenSSL v1.0. Therefore, the Autoconf file needs to be adapted to check for the 1.0 or 1.1 library.
Make and install the software.
Cuda requires gcc version 5 or lower. Modify the MakeFile to use backwards compatibility by appending -Xcompiler -std=c++98.
ccminer-cryptonight executes a check to determine if the version of gcc is old enough.
Now, make.
ccminer-cryptonight is also configured by default to use a pool. Start mining by executing the file.

Mining with AMD GPUs on Ubuntu

AMD released GPU drivers suitable for mining and they are available for Ubuntu. Download the AMDGPU-PRO driver from the AMD Driver website.

Install the AMDGPU-PRO driver. Assuming the installation file is located within the /tmp directory.
xmr-stak supports mining with AMD GPUs. Ensure the -DOpenCL_ENABLE=TRUE flag is set. If no Nvidia GPUs are present, also set the -DCUDA_ENABLE=FALSE flag.