Which pickaxe mines the fastest in Minecraft?

Pickaxes in Minecraft are arguably the most-used tool. As soon as players enter a new world, they quickly obtain wood and craft some wooden tools, including pickaxe, axe, and more. As they progress further in the game, they upgrade these items to tools made of stone, iron, diamonds, etc. Since most of the blocks in the game can be broken with a pickaxe, it is frequently used by players.

When it comes to mining speed, players will notice that pickaxes that are made up of rarer and stronger materials are faster. However, just because a tool is fast doesn't always have to mean it's efficient. This article explains which pickaxe is the fastest, along with its disadvantages.

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Which pickaxe variant is the fastest at mining in Minecraft?

Golden Pickaxe is the fastest but with a caveat

The golden pickaxe mines the fastest in Minecraft but cannot mine certain blocks like iron ores (Image via Mojang)

After spending a while in the game, players will find gold ore, which drops raw gold. When smelted into ingots, these can be used to create gold tools. These are the fastest when it comes to breaking blocks.

When gamers use a golden pickaxe, they will understand how fast it is compared to iron, diamond, and even netherite tools. However, they will also notice that they have the worst durability among all other materials. A golden pickaxe only has 33 durability, meaning that it can only break 33 blocks before breaking and vanishing.

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Netherite pickaxe is the second fastest and the best at mining

Netherite pickaxe in Minecraft is the second fastest but can mine all kinds of blocks (Image via Mojang)

Even though the golden pickaxe is the fastest, it is practically useless as it breaks after mining a few blocks. This is where the netherite pickaxe outshines it.

Netherite is one of the rarest materials to obtain since it can only be extracted from Ancient Debris blocks, which are extremely rare in the Nether realm. During the extraction process, netherite scraps are combined with gold ingots to craft netherite ingots. Once netherite ingots are used with any diamond pickaxe, a netherite pickaxe is formed.

This variant of the tool is slightly slower than a golden pickaxe, but a casual player won't be able to tell the difference. However, it is significantly more durable. The combination of gold ingots while crafting netherite ingots and using them with a diamond pickaxe makes the tool faster as well as more durable.

A netherite pickaxe can mine over two thousand blocks, whereas a gold pickaxe can only mine 33.

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Efficiency enchantment further increases the mining speed in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

Additionally, if players want to increase the tool's mining speed even more, they can apply an enchantment called Efficiency. In order to obtain the fastest and most durable pickaxe, gamers can simply apply Efficiency enchantment level five to it.