Power efficiency is a characteristic of equipment that shows how much computational work it performs relative to the electrical power it consumes. In mining, power efficiency is particularly important because electricity is one of the main operating expenses.

For ASIC equipment, power efficiency is often expressed in J/TH — joules per terahash. The lower the J/TH value, the less energy is required to produce one terahash of computational power.

Calculation

If a device consumes 3000 W and provides 200 TH/s, its specific energy consumption is:

3000 / 200 = 15 J/TH.

The same characteristic can be represented through hashrate per watt. These indicators describe the same relationship between performance and power consumption but use different units of measurement.

What Determines Power Efficiency

  • the technological generation of the computing chips;
  • equipment architecture;
  • clock frequency;
  • supply voltage;
  • power limit;
  • component temperature;
  • cooling mode;
  • equipment optimization settings.

When the operating mode changes, hashrate and power consumption may not change proportionally. Therefore, reducing frequency and voltage can sometimes significantly reduce power consumption while causing a relatively small decrease in performance.

Power efficiency is directly related to the cost of electricity and mining profitability. The higher the electricity cost, the more significant the impact of equipment efficiency on the economic result.