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Excuse my ignorance. I'm new to this. When trying to start mining, does it matter which client I choose to do the mining? If so, to what end?
Do mining clients affect efficiency of mining?
Answers
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The mining clients does heavily affect the efficiency of mining.
Different mining software has a various developer fee, some are better written than others, and some are working better for nVidia while other are better for AMD.
The GUI miners are usually just a GUI wrap up for console miners, so different GUI miners also perform differently on different algorithms and hardware.
The loss you can experience if mining with wrong software can be from 0.1% to as much as 100%+.
That's why you should: -have updated drivers(or best if latest aren't the best), -do a research on your mining hardware potential, -test as many compatible mining clients as possible.
1That depends on what kind of mining you are planning to do. If you are doing CPU mining, then yes, some clients are more efficient than others. If you are doing GPU mining, then probably not, since it is the speed of your GPU that is the limiting factor. – Greg Hewgill – 2014-02-28T01:37:30.107
Why isn't the speed of the CPU the limiting factor for CPU mining? – Adam Johns – 2014-02-28T04:51:43.240
Well, it is, very directly. But assuming you have a given computer (so you don't get to choose the CPU) and are using different software miners, the software is what matters. If you're experimenting with different CPUs, then that adds a whole new dimension. – Greg Hewgill – 2014-02-28T05:49:51.967
So if I have only a given computer with one graphics card, does that mean the gpu software would be what mattered also? – Adam Johns – 2014-02-28T14:17:49.460
Possibly, but not as much as for CPU mining. For GPU mining, the software is giving the work to the GPU to do (and then waiting for it to finish). For CPU mining, the software is doing the work itself. At this point, I suggest downloading some clients and trying things, because it's hard to predict what might be best for you. – Greg Hewgill – 2014-02-28T18:25:02.093