Gold vs Diamonds in Minecraft: Which is better?

While mining underground in their Minecraft worlds, players will likely encounter quite a sizable amount of gold and diamonds, but they might wonder which material is better.

Though both materials are found in a relatively similar way in Minecraft, gold and diamonds offer considerably different uses. However, there are also some similarities that these two materials share when using them in crafting.

In most situations, diamonds are considered the superior material when creating tools and gear. This is due to their high durability, diamond armor's high protection value, and diamond pickaxes' ability to break very tough blocks like obsidian.

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Minecraft: Why diamond is better than gold in most situations

Diamond creates improved gear and tools over gold in most situations (Image via Mojang)

There are a few things to consider when comparing diamond gear to the same items made of gold. Diamond tools and armor have vastly improved durability over soft gold items. Gold tools and armor are considerably weak by comparison and in general.

However, gold tools do sport a very rapid block-breaking speed. Regardless, gold tools' utility is limited because they break very easily. Diamond tools and armor don't share this issue and can last a remarkably long time before breaking even without being enchanted.

However, Gold ingots have more uses than creating tools and armor. Gold can be used to craft clocks, golden apples/carrots, gold nuggets, golden blocks, powered rails and can even be combined with netherite scraps to make netherite ingots.

However, diamonds can be used in some impressive crafting recipes as well. For example, diamonds can be used to create jukeboxes, firework stars, blocks of diamond, and the incredibly important enchanting table block.

Even though diamonds are tougher to find while mining, their benefits far outweigh the extra time it takes to find them in Minecraft. On the other hand, Gold ore is easier to locate, but it doesn't provide the impressive utility that diamonds do.

With that in mind, if players have the opportunity to upgrade their tools and armor to diamond quality, they should certainly do so. Gold tools can certainly be nice for collecting blocks and lower-rarity ores, but the time and materials invested in keeping these tools from breaking isn't really worth it.

Aside from Netherite gear, diamond tools and armor are far above the best a player can utilize in Minecraft. They possess exceptional durability, high attack power as weapons, and the ability to break very sturdy blocks reasonably fast.

When enchanted, the benefits of diamond tools expand even further, quickly dwarfing the use of most gold items in the long run.