Wait, Aliexpress sells cryptocurrency miners?!

 

Yes, they do. Aliexpress has a large number of dedicated ASIC miners available but for the purpose of this guide, we will be sourcing parts to build a GPU based cryptocurrency miner on a budget. They offer quality video cards and parts at a discounted price that have been proven to perform well under stress tests by various popular YouTube channels.

 

A basic crypto mining frame with cards loaded

 

Why would I order from Aliexpress over an American retailer?

Aliexpress is based in China and offers low costs on all products they sell. It is the easiest way to get “factory direct” products from China. The quality is questionable on a lot of their merchandise however, so caution must be taken when ordering anything off Aliexpress.

 

Can I trust Aliexpress computer hardware?

This is a question with more than one answer but from our research there has been a lot of successful builds done with Chinese hardware purchased on Aliexpress. For this review we won’t actually be ordering the parts recommended, instead we will just be sourcing a list of suitable parts to build a decent budget mining rig.

**If any of the parts we recommend are faulty or users have experience with them, please reach out and we will amend this article.**

 

These are the parts we sourced for our Aliexpress budget GPU crypto miner:

 

Motherboard: H81-BTC V1.01 Mining Board Mining Motherboard TB250-BTC CPU LGA 1150 ($71)

GPU: iGame GeForce GTX1070Ti x 2 ($528 x 2)

CPU: Intel Celeron G1820 g1820 2.7GHz ($42)

RAM: 4G Kingston DDR3 ($26)

Power Supply: Unbranded 600W-800W PSU ($60)

Computer Case: Small Unbranded Mining Case ($85)

Hard Drive: 64GB Unbranded Flash Drive ($13)

Total cost: $1353 USD

 

Motherboard :

 

We picked the  H81-BTC V1.01 Mining Board due to the amount of PCI-E slots it has on it so we can stack more video cards in the future. The reviews were good this for this board and there has been some YouTubers using this exact model on their gaming rig builds as well. This would be our pick for a budget motherboard from Aliexpress. The only concern we would have with a motherboard in this price range is how well it manages heat and power regulation as mining crypto puts heavy stress on ALL computer parts in the build.

 

 

 

 

 

Graphics Cards:

 

 

 

The GeForce 1070TI is a classic for budget crypto mining builds, so we wanted to stay true to our roots and include the AliExpress version of the 1070TI. This card has positive reviews and decent feedback from YouTube again and should offer the hash rate you’d expect from any other 1070TI. The cooling could be a bit of an issue but that is an easy and low cost upgrade if it ever came to that. To find the hash rate of this video card simply use a GPU hash rate calculator. Two of these cards should drive more than enough power into whatever blockchain we decide to mine on to reap a healthy reward.

 

 

 

 

 

CPU:

 

This is the best CPU ever !!!! (just kidding)

….to be perfectly honest, we can’t recommend an AliExpress CPU without feeling a deep sense of guilt. The only reason we picked this Intel Celeron G1820, was because it was the lowest cost CPU we could find on AliExpress just to stay to an ALL AliExpress ordered build. Since crypto miners barely stress the CPU, you would be much better ordering the cheapest CPU you can find on NewEgg. Ordering a CPU from a reputable source is a much smarter idea for certain parts, but you’re free to test the AliExpress CPU too.

 

 

 

 

RAM:

 

 

We went for this ram because it has low power consumption and is a trusted brand name. Again, mining will not use the ram very often as it’s GPU focused so we went with this DDR3 4GB set for our budget crypto miner. If you’re feeling rich, you could push the ram up to 8GB for a smoother experience, but it’s not going to make a difference to your bottom line.

 

 

 

 

 

Power Supply:

 

Much like the CPU, we don’t recommend you source your power supply from AliExpress. The reason being is North American power supplies have strict environmental standards now that help reduce power consumption. Reducing power consumption is the key to a successful mining operation as it will help your margins long term. The money you will save getting a power supply from AliExpress will be negligible in comparison to the money you’ll save with a power efficient PSU.

Check out this modular Gold Standard Power supply by EVGA for the same price on Amazon instead.

 

 

Computer Case:

 

Buying a case like this is somewhat of a luxury if you’re looking to stay on a tight budget, however not everyone has the resources or knowhow to build their own miner case. This will work perfectly fine, however a Milk Crate works just as well, for a fraction of the price.

Unless you live in the year 1926 and have your milk delivered, you should probably just order this Milk Crate from Amazon

 

 

Hard Drive:

We chose a flash drive because there is very little to install on a cryptocurrency miner in terms of software. Most miners run in a Linux environment which would only take a few gigs of data.

We do not recommend ordering a flash drive from AliExpress just for general security reasons. If you’re wondering what those security issues could be, just do some research on hardware based malware.

Again, just stick to a cheap flash drive on Amazon, just like 64 Gig Flash Drive we found for a low price.

 

 

 

How much would it cost to order a similar build from Amazon?

Ordering from Amazon is much less risky as you can choose to deal with known brand names and reputable sellers of computer parts, but is the savings on AliExpress worth the risk? We priced out a similar GPU cryptocurrency miner off of Amazon to compare.

 

These are the parts we sourced for our Amazon budget GPU crypto miner:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-H110-D3A ($66)

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX1070Ti x 2 ($429 x 2)

CPU: Intel Celeron G3900 2.80Ghz ($46)

RAM: Patriot Memory Viper Elite Series 4G ($38)

Power Supply: EVGA 750 GQ 750W ($80)

Computer Case: Small Unbranded Mining Case ($37)

Hard Drive: 64GB Unbranded Flash Drive ($13)

Total cost: $1138 USD 

 

Conclusion:

Although this price comparison isn’t perfect (we assumed all parts were shipped via Amazon Prime and didn’t account for CPU/general cooling in either build) it does not appear to be worth ordering any computer parts from AliExpress. At one point when video card prices were surging, you may have been able to save some money but it’s no longer the case. When we wrote this article we didn’t actually expect that Amazon would be so competitive with AliExpress for computer parts, but we are happy to see a domestic company keeping pace with a direct from China retailer. Our advice would be to stick with Amazon, or mix and match parts from bothe retailers if the savings are substantial.