Title: Basic Knowledge: Why is the GPU important for mining? Post by: narotes on June 01, 2011, 04:44:55 PM Hey there!
I'm a total newbie here and I fundamentally wondered why it is important to have a powerful GPU for the hashing. I didn't totally get the hashing procedure as well but i can read the wiki for it. Since i didn't find any information on this basic level I would appreciate any hint to get a better understanding of the whole systematic procedure. BTW: Do I have any chance to at least generate one bitcoin with my Apple MacBook Pro? I'm already getting a bit frustrated because there is no effect after hours ;) Title: Re: Basic Knowledge: Why is the GPU important for mining? Post by: Enochian on June 01, 2011, 05:36:43 PM Hey there! I'm a total newbie here and I fundamentally wondered why it is important to have a powerful GPU for the hashing. I didn't totally get the hashing procedure as well but i can read the wiki for it. Since i didn't find any information on this basic level I would appreciate any hint to get a better understanding of the whole systematic procedure. BTW: Do I have any chance to at least generate one bitcoin with my Apple MacBook Pro? I'm already getting a bit frustrated because there is no effect after hours ;) Hashing generates a 256 bit pseudo-random integer from the contents of a block. A part of the block, called a "nonce", can be varied each time this is done. A legal block will have a hash which is less than a specified 256 bit integer, called the "target." By making the target sufficiently small, the average CPU/GPU time required to generate a block can be made arbitrarily large. The target is periodically reset, so that blocks, on the average, are generated approximately every 10 minutes. The blocks are hashed into a chain, so that rewriting a block that is followed by other blocks would be computationally infeasible if there are more than a few blocks after it. GPUs are important, because they are specialized processors with lots of cores. A GPU can execute many Tera-Ops, whereas a CISC CPU can only execute many Giga-Ops. Because Bitcoin mining is dominated by GPU power, it would take years before you could generate coins on your MacBook Pro CPU. Title: Re: Basic Knowledge: Why is the GPU important for mining? Post by: CydeWeys on June 02, 2011, 12:48:32 AM See here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Why_a_GPU_mines_faster_than_a_CPU
Title: Re: Basic Knowledge: Why is the GPU important for mining? Post by: benjamindees on June 02, 2011, 01:18:45 AM That wiki description is a very good explanation.
Title: Re: Basic Knowledge: Why is the GPU important for mining? Post by: narotes on June 02, 2011, 11:48:17 AM OK, thank u guys! :)
Title: Re: Basic Knowledge: Why is the GPU important for mining? Post by: Pitabred on June 02, 2011, 04:19:35 PM With just CPU power, your best bet is to join a pool. It's about the only way to get any kind of payout.
Title: Re: Basic Knowledge: Why is the GPU important for mining? Post by: narotes on June 02, 2011, 07:05:40 PM Done, thx for the hint :)
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