Looking for the best mining rig for crypto-mining? Your crypto mining journey starts here. Having built GPU, CPU, and HDD-based mining rigs both professionally and as a personal hobby, and also helping others set up ASICs, I am uniquely positioned to help you hit the ground running when it comes to mining crypto.
This means highlighting that for most people looking to get started, a GPU-based crypto mining rig might be the best option due to its low entry costs, flexibility in the cryptocurrencies it can mine, and scalability over time.
Alternatively, users wanting to mine cryptocurrency on their CPUs can opt for rigs with multi-CPU or multi-core configurations that allow them the ability to mine ASIC or GPU-resistant cryptocurrencies such as Monero (XMR) or VerusCoin (VRSC).
Best mining rig overall
Finding the best CPU rig for mining crypto is a tougher choice, thanks to the variety of approaches to CPU mining. The general rule of thumb is to keep costs low and yield high in crypto mining, but given CPU mining's relatively greater challenge with the latter, one might want to mix things up —or at least have the option to do so.
For this, one would want a relatively compact solution (if scaling over time) that gets the job done without a significant upfront investment and with a focus on power efficiency.
The HP OmniDesk Desktop AI PC offers the option to do more crypto mining, with SKUs that feature up to an RTX 4060 GPU under the hood, allowing users to mine crypto on both their CPU and GPU simultaneously while focusing on the former.
Its compact size, a power CPU under the hood, and a relatively reasonable ask make it a good starting point for users wanting a powerful desktop that can also CPU mine reasonably well without breaking the bank, as opposed to approaches that leverage dedicated multi-CPU setups or older server-grade CPUs, even as power efficiency becomes a much more central theme in most cryptomining operations.
Best mining rig on a budget
For users looking to get into crypto mining with a relatively low power footprint or to scale gradually, HDD mining might be a great place to start. The Raspberry Pi 5 offers an impressive yet minimalistic option that covers one's needs, even if it may be underwhelming for users looking to start with a large number of hard drives.
The Raspberry Pi 5 might not be the ideal place to plot your Chia mining drives, given its limited compute power, but it is one of the most ideal options to host one's farm, given that it can supply power and is connected to a variety of hard drives via USB, takes up minimal space, and costs just $50 to get started.
While one can use older, cheaper Raspberry Pi SKUs, including the previous iteration, the Raspberry Pi 4, the newer model offers a significant speed bump and a much better I/O controller (RP1). The latter provides support for NVMe SSDs (albeit in a slow PCI-E 2.0 x1 configuration), in addition to quad USB ports split between USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 options, all of which enable it to mine Chia and other cryptocurrencies with a 64-bit OS in tow.
This means that users willing to tweak their storage options can hypothetically run a minimum of 4 hard drives (connected via USB) and an NVMe SSD for their needs, with potentially more if they use a powered hub, though one's success may vary, considering the Raspberry Pi recommends a 25W USB-C-based power supply.
Best mining rig with GPU
For those looking to start their mining journey with the ability to mine multiple cryptocurrencies, a low-profile option that offers both a powerful GPU and a CPU at a respectable price tag is arguably the need of the hour and also a no-brainer recommendation on our part to get your GPU mining journey started in 2025.
While the Cooler Master NR2 Pro is hardly the first solution one would consider for GPU mining, given its lack of PCI-E expansion slots for additional GPUs and a significant premium over a built-to-mine PC, it does have several advantages that make it an ideal place to start your mining journey.
With a case that is only 18.25L in volume while housing both a 280MM radiator-based AIO cooler for an Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU and an RTX 5080, the NR2 might arguably be one of the densest gaming PCs in terms of compute power available to consumers at a reasonable price point.
The two key components alone command a minimum of $1300 (~$1000 for the RTX 5080 and $300 for the Core Ultra 7 265F) without accounting for a PSU, cooler, motherboard, RAM, storage, and potentially, a PC case.
With Cooler Master's NR2 Pro, one gets a prebuilt gaming PC that can be repurposed for mining almost instantly without having to worry about building a PC, cooling requirements, or even installing Windows to hit the ground running (unless you are a Linux purist, in which case you do have your OS reinstall work cut out for you).
As one of the more affordable prebuilt RTX 5080-based gaming PCs, the NR2 Pro offers a lot of value for money for miners intending to max out their ROI by leveraging a mix of GPU and (thanks to a powerful processor in tow) CPU mining.
The Nvidia RTX 5080 is one of the best consumer-grade GPUs available to miners right now, which is why it's my top pick GPU for mining. It earns its keep for a mix of reasons, including a better-than-average ROI and well-rounded performance and efficiency across other tasks.
Prospective miners looking to save additional money can probably swap (and sell) the large SSD (2TB) and the 32GB of DDR5 RAM in the package, which the PC will not need for most mining operations.
Best mining rig for ASIC mining
People looking for a no-nonsense crypto miner that gives them significant exposure (at a considerable cost, that is) to BTC prices directly should consider the Bitmain Antminer S21 XP+ Hyd as their go-to crypto mining device.
The Bitmain Antminer S21 XP+ Hyd mines crypto that uses the SHA-256 algorithm, including Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), and Fractal Bitcoin (FB), while offering a significantly high hashrate. The ASIC is dwarfed only by Bitmain's latest offerings in efficiency (currently in pre-order), making it an excellent option for users looking to get a taste of industrial-grade mining or boost their cryptomining capacity.
It offers a relatively power-efficient approach to mining crypto compared to other SHA-256 miners, but it also has some drawbacks, including a significantly high acquisition cost (especially in the US when accounting for tariffs). Despite this, it's my top pick because of its unique price-to-performance ratio and the relatively low maintenance requirements compared to some alternatives.
Potential buyers should also note that it requires an industrial power connection, which would possibly be a limiting factor for users looking to set it up at home. For users with a lower or negligible power cost and those interested in scaling, however, the Antminer S21 XP+ Hyd offers a steady daily return in crypto, thanks to its whopping 500 TH/s of hashrate.
For users looking to get started on their cryptomining journey without having to set up a rig or routinely monitor it, however, the Antminer S21 XP+ Hyd is a superior choice as it is a self-contained mining rig that also leverages liquid cooling to keep its thermals in check, making it an excellent option for scaling in the foreseeable future - that is, if you can pay its significant ask.
Best mining rig to mine crypto: FAQs
How to choose the best mining rig for you
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While there is no singular 'best' way to mine cryptocurrency, one can aim to maximize the gains their mining rigs offer by considering some of the key factors below:
Return on investment: Miners ideally want to mine only tokens that offer the best ROI for them at the moment, while exchanging them for another cryptocurrency to meet their investment needs. Prospective miners will find that ASICs generally provide the best ROI but also require significant capital deployment to generate adequate returns, making them a double-edged sword.
Versatility: While ASICs are powerful return-maximizing options, they are also considered one-trick ponies, as they cannot be repurposed easily beyond the algorithm they are designed to mine, which is why it might be better to consider a gaming or work PC that can generate cryptocurrency returns on a variety of algorithms while also doubling as a capable option for one's regular computing needs.
Ancillary costs: While one can set up an HDD mining farm for a few hundred dollars and run it off a singular USB-C adapter in the case of the Raspberry Pi, ASICs such as the Bitmain Antminer S21 XP+ Hyd require an industrial power connection, plenty of thermal headroom in the vicinity to operate, and occupy a significant amount of space. All of this needs to be factored in, and it can result in unforeseen costs for first-time miners who are often unaware of them.
Power costs: While HDD mining does not consume much power, ASICs, for the most part (exceptions do exist), are very power-hungry, even as gaming and work PCs sit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Irrespective, one's power costs, based on how it is generated or purchased, may directly affect the long-term feasibility of any mining operation.
Is getting a cryptocurrency mining rig the right approach for you?
Cryptocurrencies, for the most part, operate on a decentralized blockchain and offer a range of unique features that make them better alternatives to fiat for many use cases.
Much of the functionality they offer is thanks to the underlying ecosystem that powers the blockchain, where crypto miners play an overwhelmingly significant role in maintaining the cryptocurrency's decentralized state.
If you want to take a deeper dive, I've explored all the essential components components you'll need, including the best motherboards for mining, the best ASICs for mining, the best GPUs for mining, the best CPUs for mining, the best HDDs for mining, and the best SSDs for mining.
