Mining Graphics Cards Nvidia vs ATI

[Computer Stuff]

I would expect the performance gap to be smaller. Can anyone explain why Nvidia is doing so pooly compared to ATI ? Might the gap close with new drivers and code tweaks? I prefer Nvidia cards and I suppose I could build a rig with both, but I prefer not to.

[jgraham]

I would expect the performance gap to be smaller. Can anyone explain why Nvidia is doing so pooly compared to ATI ? Might the gap close with new drivers and code tweaks? I prefer Nvidia cards and I suppose I could build a rig with both, but I prefer not to.

It's explained rather well here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Why_a_GPU_mines_faster_than_a_CPU

[Computer Stuff]

Thanks.

I work with Hi-def video so it would be nice if I could build a video editing workstation that could also mine efficiently, but I guess that's not in the cards yet.

[jgraham]

Thanks.

I work with Hi-def video so it would be nice if I could build a video editing workstation that could also mine efficiently, but I guess that's not in the cards yet.

Similarly, I run a top 500 folding team and as of yet the ATI client is not nearly as good as the NVidia one so at first I was just diverting GPU from my folding efforts to mining.   In the end I picked up a 6990 and popped it in my main folding box.  It mines about twice as well than the three GTX4/580's I was diverting.  It's almost paid for too, but that was because I cashed out some BTC @ $29/ ;-)

[billiophile]

I often thought, just when will ATI show their GPU / APU is as competitive as nVidia's. Cuda and PhyX have been fairly well received (in gaming and video editing). I for one went 'red' because of bitcoin mining, having purchased 2x 5850 last week and 2 x 5830 today.



William

[BitCoinsForGold]

Its just something to do with the way they are coded or made or something. As for the why, thats a hard question, i always thought the extreme difference was odd too

[jgraham]

Cuda was well received for GPGPU work for one reason really: it was there.  ATI's API was broken from the start and the OpenCL implementation was in poor shape for a long time.  Now that the platforms have matured we see ATI pulling ahead in places like brute-forcing hashes.

[jgraham]

Its just something to do with the way they are coded or made or something. As for the why, thats a hard question, i always thought the extreme difference was odd too

Ceterus paribus the more closely your instruction set models your problem the more efficient your hardware will be at solving it.   Another example is the Core i7's with AES instructions and those without.  You get 10x the performance on the same clock when your CPU has silicon dedicated to the task.  Another example would be "Deep Crack" the ASIC based DES cracker the EFF built in 1998 it could crack the DES keyspace in an unheard of (at that time) 9 days.

[Endeavour79]

Just adding the harware comparison from the Wiki.. In case another newbie does not know it ;-)

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison