Easter morning and things were quiet, so for fun I ran a couple of tests. One machine, an Alienware Aurora with 4 GHz i7-6700K with 16 GB DDR3, and an 8 GB Radeon Vega RX 64 (driving three screens, two-4k, and one-8k for a total of 50 Mpixels) with driver 18.3.4. The other machine—an Alienware Area 51 with a 3.3 GHz i9-7900X with 16 GB DDR4, and an 8 GB GTX1080 (driving one-4k, and one-2460×1440 screens) with driver 391.24. Given the display load and processor, the Aurora system would seem the underdog.
I then launched Claymore’s dual Ethereum and Decred GPU Miner hash mark test and let it run a while on both machines.
I did this on April first — but this IS NOT an April Fool’s joke.
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In the Decred test, the AMD AIB got 328% higher MH/s than Nvidia, with 6% less fan speed and 16% lower temperature.
We have a pretty good internet connection here at Mt Tiburon testing labs, 181 Mbps down, and 24 Mbps up, and 6.8 kWh of solar panels (and Easter was a very sunny day here) so we’re in pretty good shape for mining testing.
We didn’t change any of the pool sizes, or any parameter in the test, and used the latest drivers. Both machines have the latest Windows 10 updates.
I was quite frankly astounded at the difference.
However, in the Ethereum test, the two AIBs were pretty well matched in MH/s, with the AMD AIB having a slight 0.1% advantage.
However, if we do a Pmark comparison, using today’s prices, the Nvidia AIB jumps way out ahead in Ethereum, while the AMD leads in Decred.
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| Nvidia's GTX 1080 and AMD's Vega RX 64 |
So what?
So when talking about cryptomining, onc has to be very specific about what crypto coin is being discussed. A case in point is the recent furor about ASICs replacing GPUs for cryptomining. That is only true for Bitcoin, and that happened over a year ago. A GPU is still the best machine for other coins.
Decred (decred.org) was created by some of Bitcoin’s original developers to solve what they saw as one of blockchain’s biggest issues – governance. Unlike other altcoin projects, the focus is around community input and open governance. Decred, says its developers, ensures that a small number of people cannot dominate the network by using a hybrid Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake model.
In terms of value, Decred rose from a low of $0.42 in January 2017 to a high of $108.32 in December, which equates to just over a 257x increase – or a rise of over 25,700%. This means Decred outperformed almost all other cryptocurrencies including Ethereum (9,162%), Litecoin (5,046%) and Bitcoin (1,318%) in 2017.
Epilog
If you want to read THE BEST April fool joke I saw, take a look at this story, “AMD RTG Project Canis Flagship Leaked” by Usman Pirzada. I had to get to the last paragraph before I got it.
https://wccftech.com/amd-project-canis-flagship-intel-joint-venture/