Hi,

Most guides will show you simple CPU mining with programs like Minergate etc.  They are ok but there is better programs. This is a guide to Dual mining CPU and GPU.  Mining CPU only will net you a loss because of power costs unless the power is free.  I will give you all the information you need and with a very simple setup guide any gamer or anyone with a top of the line GPU card can set themselves up within 15-20 minutes. 

Most gamers will have the gear already but anyone can do it really.  I will post a brief guide and show you some of my setup plus more to come.  My blog will allow any gamer with a recent video card such as a AMD RX 570 to pay off their GPU within 3-8 months.

AMD cards are generally not worth while anymore (other than for ETH but the payout is almost too low to bother now) you can still follow my guide and test for yourself as some of the new ones still pay themselves off over time and allow you to upgrade your card or invest in cyprto currency.

The best cards currently to get a fast return on your investment are Nvidia GTX 1060, 1070, 1080 and my personal favourite 1080ti, one of the best cards on the market.  You can also use any card that is similar to those cards.   All you need is one card.  All 4 of those cards will pay for themselves in a similar amount of time.  But once it is paid off it is all profits so you may as well go for the best card.  

I personally got into mining because I for once went for the best video card in the lineup 1080ti.  Someone told me about ming and I was hooked.  Here is a sneak peak of the mess I have got myself into.  I am waiting on gear so everything is stitched together at the moment.  Your setup will not require touching the hardware at all and it will be nicely in the case.
![First case.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdNjPzGLhRWoiqgwngQUhXjuk8qxv3FL9mgcC1DpUKYDp/First%20case.jpg)

So you already have the hardware (you must have windows 7, 8 or 10 x64bit version not 32bit).  Now all you need is a BTC wallet address if you don't have one already and mining software.  Plus some software to adjust your video card settings so it runs power effecient).

You can go crazy and get complicated and earn around 1-3 USD more a day if you really really get into this but for a simple set and forget guide this is the way to go.

(please note some steps may be different as they are in the process of upgrading their website and program)
**1.  Goto** Nicehash.com and click on getting started.
Scroll down and click on "I would like to sell hashing power".
Click and download nicehash miner.
Now go here and download MSI afterburner -  https://www.msi.com/page/afterburner
![Afterburner.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWfPotRFxoxBXgBuUX1tFy1oMaYsRnWZq3S5NtLZCYDWz/Afterburner.jpg)

**2.  This** is all you need.  If you don't already have a BTC wallet you can get  web wallet by registering with nicehash.com.  This is fine for what you are doing but eventually you may want a personal wallet or BTC address on your own personal computer so it is more secure but you really don't need it as this point.

**3.  First** run MSI afterburner.

Goto settings > user interface and chagne the skin to Cyborg Red by drerex design.  Under general settings > Compatibility properties make sure all of them are seleted.  Click ok.  Nothing  is changed on your card at this time and you will have a box like this up.
![Afterburner settings.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdMi9RBrftYPP3CT3zJEaq4RFc7GFH4cQnW4XvnALNsvM/Afterburner%20settings.jpg)
Note, we will not be overclocking your card but you can if you are an advanced user and can find the settings for your own card.  The picutre above is an Aorus 1080 ti.  So the first setting you can see is power limit %.  This is the over all power your card is outputting.  With mining there is a sweet spot where your card outputs the most hashing power (or mining power) per Watt used.

On most cards this is around the 65-80% mark.   So you will actually be under powering your card in most cases to save on power cost as you must factor that in.  So I recommend setting this setting at 75%  Never go over 85% as you are just burning power.  If you have free power even then probably only stay at around 90% to keep your card cool if it is getting hot.

Temp Limit.  Always set this to 65C  or 70.  I prefer to keep my cards under 60C all the time but alot of miners are happy for it to be under 70 24/7.  If your card goes over this temp limit it will automatically under power your card to cool it! nice.

Core clock.  Most of the models I listed can easily overclock anywhere from +50-+200.  On 1080ti I recommend +50 as this works on most model.  Google your model and fide what others are doing or just leave it at default.  Is fine to play it safe.

Memory clock.  This can be left at zero or clocked from 0-600+.  Again same deal leave it where it is or do your research to get a little but more extra out of your card.  For a newbie leave these overclock settings on zero.

Fan Speed.  I like to set this manually,  move it up and down until you card stays under 60C.   If you find it is getting too hot even at 100% fan then you  need to lower your power limit from 75 - 65 and see how it is.  You will adjust this once you start mining.

Now click the disk icon in the botton right corner > then click 1 and it will save those settings in profile one and you can click to pick those settings.  Please note if you use 100% power during summer and you dont set the fan speed for 100% your card will likely run at 84C.  Which is actually fine but ideally you dont want to run a card this hot 24/7.

**4.**  **Now** run nicehash miner.  It might install some other programs it requires to run, just say yes, they are microsoft programs.  It will then take 5 mins to download some files and setup. Say yes to whatever it asks.   

Once started, enter the location that is closest to you then add your BTC wallet address if it asks or set it in configure.  You may have to click on wallet to enter your BTC address.  It looks like this "3Dz5TNYhKHf19XJBXkjGY6fdYALpEwVkUy"  This is mine, dont use this it will give me free BTC.

At this point you can click start and read the rest of this guide as it will take 10 minutes to run some tests.  PLEASE MAKE SURE you have msi afterburner running and your power is set to 75% and your fan to 55-75%  if you dont it will use default settings.  The default settings will cause your card to get hot but they will not cause it any damage.  Plus we want it to benchmark you card at the correct settings.

**5.  So** what is the program doing?  I personally rarely use this program as I actually manually choose what coin to mine and what settings and what server and what pool and which algroithm to use as some give you more money and more hashing power.

What nicehash does is it monitors all the coins you can mine throughout the day and keeps an eye on their prices.  Then automatically switches between the different coins and in some cases different programs that can mine certain coins.  It also has several different programs that do exactly the same thing and right now it is benchmarking or testing all the programs with your card to find out which one is the best and also set a reference point to switch during the day as it now knows what your card is capable off.  While it is doing the tests do not use your pc for anything else other than basic browsing or reading this blog as you want it to get the most accurate score it can.

It will mine all sorts of coins and stuff you wont understand but it auto converts everything to BTC.  Which is perfect.

Here is a video of it doing its thing.  So remember my top of the line video card which costs around $7-800 USD  Can earn $5-6 per day and your CPU can earn around $1  per day if it is a new model.  I suck at videos and I have a cold so hope it is not too terrible.  I say in the video that the CPU doesn't really use more power the the cards,  what I mean is the CPU uses almost no extra power load to have it mining.
https://youtu.be/TDoJ9pkhhJU

This price goes up and down daily.  Only three weeks ago I was earning near 10$ per card.  This is because the coin market has ups and downs but mostly it is the BTC value that is important.  But don't panic you can actually just hang onto your BTC and wait for it to go up in price before you sell it.  So even if you are mining at $6 today it can actually be worth more when BTC recovers and it will recover.  So right now is a near worst case senario (though it could get worse).

**6 So** here is how to work out how much power it will cost you and how long it will take to pay off. 
https://whattomine.com/coins/166-zec-equihash?utf8=%E2%9C%93&hr=720.0&p=400.0&fee=2.0&cost=.187&hcost=700.0&commit=Calculate
The link I post is for Zcash coin.  It is an average coin that generally keeps up with whatever nicehash is mining so it is a good one to use.  The price right now is not great but you can get a rough idea.

So I have entered the HASHING power of a 1080ti with the power it plus all the other bits in the computer use adds upto around 400 Watts.  And the price in my country is really cheap 0.187 cents per KWH.  So just enter yours in here.  I belive in US its cheaper in winter and more expensive than that in summer in most states.

You can see day, week, month, and year earnings for one of my cards.  One week is $26, one year is $1360 that is enough to almost pay off two cards.   That is profit after power.  Before power it is $2000.  It also tells you return on investment or break even point which is 187 days or 6 Months.  That is at the worst price I have every seen.  But also most CPU will make 1$ a day so that would reduce it a further 35-45 days.  So the total time to pay off your GPU is 4.5months.

Remember you must convert this BTC to USD yourself or ask someone to do it for you which is generally pretty simple in the US. I will blog on that later.  Also by the time you sell the BTC you would pick a good time and likely the price of BTC will continue to go up and up.  Or you can cash out weekly or monthly to minimise the risks involved with BTC (IMO very little risk).

I personally paid off my first card in 1 month and 29 days, but that was when BTC was at its all time peak.  I immediatly went out and bought several more cards which are all going to take around 3-5 months to pay off. 

As a gamer you already have all the bits you need so it costs you nothing other than power.   Please post your questions and what you want me to go into more detail on for the next blog where I will show you my setup and how to exchange BTC and maybe even use an exchange like Bittrex.

Another photo of some of the things you can do with running cards outside of the computer.

![20170629_204050.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmckqZasANC8pMcBNo9SRiKC2RpAYwmVpvE5pba92ZDQCZ/20170629_204050.jpg)

Link to next guide which is more advanced.
http://steemit.com/mining/@evilmonkey/gpu-mining-guide-how-to-make-a-profit-begginers-and-advanced-users