The Gap Between Reported Hashrate and Effective Hashrate in ETH Mining

[Arthur Pan]

Introduction
Many people have questions and asked us why the hashrate of rigs is less than that shown by the mining pool. Though many are told that less than 5% is a normal range, miners still found it a black box. The information asymmetry problem confuses everyone except those vested interest groups. In some circumstances, mining pools are prone to be accused of stealing computing power from miners. However, things are not that simple. To figure out this, you are suggested to take 10 min reading this post. Let’s open the black box and find the truth therein today.

Before we step into the main part, you have to know that:
1. The work of the mining pools is nothing more than grouping computing power (hashrate) in order to get a quicker block. They play an important role in distribution, stability protection (anti-DDoS) and efficiency (low uncle rate).
2. The stability protection and efficiency performance depend on the technical strength of each pool. Many pools are spending tens of thousands of dollars every month in anti-DDoS and product optimization.
3. As for distribution, there’s much to say. In fact, there is no essential relationship between your payout with the calculated hashrate and the rejection rate. In other words, the payout distribution of any mining pool is a black box. As known to all, the payout distribution is based on the effective “shares” submitted, but your share proportion can be adjusted by the mining pool. How much of it depends on a pool’s conscience. So don't be fooled by a single rate, just believe the coin you actually gain.
4.The way mining pools change service fee is not the same as the mining softwares (a.k.a. clients). Each time you mine, the mining softwares occupy part of your time to mine for themselves (for example, on the claymore, 1-1.5% of the time, you are mining for the author). In the mining pool, you are charged a service fee after generating a new block.
5. Most newbies spend all day only looking at the hashrate gap and staring at the currency value fluctuation. They have been trapped in many sections by the hardware machine sales, together with hosted mining farms, the electricity, mining softwares, cloud mining and greedy pools. All is not within the scope that we mainly talk about today.
6.We don't sell mining rigs, run hosted farms or sell software to you. We just tell you the truth and the method of measurement.

Enough for warming up, here we go:
You start your rigs, however, the reported hashrate and the effective hashrate show a gap. Many veterans say that a difference of 5% is normal. Is that true? How is the gap composed?
1.You must distinguish between the reported hashrate and the effective hashrate or the calculated hashrate.
Reported Hashrate
Reported Hashrate is utilized by a client (e.g. Claymore, Phoenix, Ethminer, and other copycats), a piece of mining software. It submits the computing power (a.k.a. hashrate) of your actual hardware (what you see in your console) to the pool. For example, the RX570 could be overclocked to 26.5MH/s. This allows you to compare it to your calculated hashrate. 
Reported Hashrate is just a convenience item and not required to mine on the Ethereum pool. However, it does allow you to compare your submitted hashrate to your calculated hashrate which can be useful to you. 
Reported Hashrate does not affect payout. It is a theoretical value.
Calculated Hashrate or Effective Hashrate
Calculated Hashrate takes the number of valid shares your miner has submitted over a period of time and uses a formula to convert this into a readable hashrate. This number can fluctuate, sometimes being lower or higher than your actual miner's output hashrate in the console. 
In other words, each mining pool would set a difficulty threshold with the Ethereum Proof-of-Work algorithm. Every time when a difficulty calculation is completed, the miner will get a share. The hashrate is calculated based on the shares.
Calculated Hashrate(24h-avg) = your submitted shares in 24h* difficulty set by the pool
Mining pools calculate your hashrate based on the time interval you submit. For example, the pool assumes that the time of submitting a share for 100M should be 10 seconds, then if your interval for each submission is exactly 10 seconds, the pool shows you a calculated hashrate of 100M. If you submit it in 5 seconds, then the pool thinks you are 200M speed.
The calculated hashrates showed by each pool are generated differently. Some pools are lower, while some mine pools are even higher than your reported ones. This has absolutely no effect on revenue, as explained later. Because mining has a probability of it, it's simply the lucky value or luck.
Calculated Hashrate does affect your payout. It is your effective submitted shares that theoretically influence your profit. But as I said, only experienced miners know that the effective hashrate is more valuable to the mining pool to some extent. The mining pool takes your effective hashrate to mine, and what you get is only within the scope of distribution.

So, under normal circumstances, if there is a large gap between reported hashrate and effective hashrate, you have to check on Claymore whether there is a GPU card dropped. If all run well, let’s move to the problems presented next.


2. the most common problem is an inappropriate overclocking abuse.
What is overclocking? Go Google. How much a rig can be overclocked depends on experience. Different GPUs’ performance is also different. You can find more information on Google. If overclocked too much the client will give you an alert. Your submitted shares will be deemed invalid and rejected. If you have found too many alarms, just turn down a little and re-check.
The impact of this overclocking problem will be 0%-10%. Some people will somehow reach 50%, but it is completely avoidable.

3. The network delay
Network delay is a problem that can only be optimized while cannot be avoided. It takes time to transmit signals between local rigs and the server. Within 50ms is perfect, and fine within 150ms. If it goes higher, you have to look at the nearest server nodes. To solve this, each mining pool has its own server nodes in various parts of the world.
What’s the problem? That is, delayed submissions will be considered invalid shares, or discounted when the valid calculation was missed and the others were mining on the next block. Even though you did right, the submission was too late for the pool to utilize. Note that, mining is a continuous work, and it is inevitable for everyone submitting few invalid shares sometimes.
The network delay problem would roughly contribute the hashrate gap around 1%. More than that means there’s a space to be optimized. There’s no essential relation whether or not the pool gives you a VIP link. Because a VIP link only can protect you from centralized hacking.

4. The service fee of a mining software (client)
The author does not extract the coin you mine, but instead somehow extract 1% of your rigs' working time to mine for himself.
Since the author has contributed to writing such a software, it’s reasonable to pay for a technical intelligence. Most miners of the world use the Claymore. However, many copycats wear a layer of coat on top of the core of the claymore. These copycats cause the energy consumption and profit lose rise up.
The impact of the mining software like Claymore to the effective hashrate gap was 1% single-mode and 1.5% dual-mode. This is not an advertisement for them. There are also Ethminer, Phoenix, and Genoil in the international mainstream. It is said that there is a slight difference between them. You should try it yourself.

5. Until now, hard injuries add up to 2-3%. That is network delay and software extraction. There are some hardware problems, such as the heat of your rigs, wire rod, network connection, power supply stability should not add more than 1%. Advanced mining farms rarely have these problems, so I think 3% is a theoretical long-term hashrate gap. So a gap of 5% is also taking into account the situation where you use copycat mining software that stealing your hashrate.

6. The mining pool.
As just said, a hashrate gap of 3-5% is the cost for the mining pool after taking your hashrate. The rest of your real income is related to the submitted shares, luck, and payout patterns.
With PPLNS pattern, it is normal for you to see your calculated hashrate fluctuates every day. So be better to see your return in the long-term test.
With PPS, you're just an employee. To some extent, you’re renting your rigs to the pools and they give you a fixed pay in return. Only small miner or newbies are suggested to try the PPS, cos service fees are relatively higher to compensate the risks of pools.
Let's talk about REWARD DISTRIBUTION in ETH mining. ATTENTION!!!
a. Main Block Reward
b. Uncle Bonus
d. Referring Uncle Reward
c. Transaction Fee Reward
If you do not understand it. No worries. Let me tell you the difference.
Generally speaking, when pools distribute the payout, many of them only give you the part of Main Block Reward. They keep the rest themselves. However, many miners even don’t know there are other rewards. How much will it be worse? There was a time when tx fees are not very high, generating a main block, the pool only has a reward of 3.0(00)xxx ETH, which is minimal. But now a main block could be rewarded with around 3.3 ETH, while some mining pools only distribute you the part of 3ETH. So, the actual service fee of the mining pool could reach 7% or even more than 10% if all the rewards are taking into consideration.

To sum up:
1. Reasonably optimize your Hashrate.
2. Choose a transparent, unbiased mining pool to avoid cheating. Test and you will know.
3. The original intention of the blockchain is not speculation. Blockchain technology is not only about cryptocurrency but to create trust and consensus at the lowest cost. Please support those who have been continuously dedicated to technology and community in the blockchain ecosystem. Pay for knowledge and professionalism. Stay away from institutions or individuals who only resort to making money.
4. When you don't learn yourself and always listen to the recommendations of the mining industry middlemen, you are actually slaughtered.

[1714961121]

1714961121

[Gulia87]

Introduction
Many people have questions and asked us why the hashrate of rigs is less than that shown by the mining pool. Though many are told that less than 5% is a normal range, miners still found it a black box. The information asymmetry problem confuses everyone except those vested interest groups. In some circumstances, mining pools are prone to be accused of stealing computing power from miners. However, things are not that simple. To figure out this, you are suggested to take 10 min reading this post. Let’s open the black box and find the truth therein today.

Before we step into the main part, you have to know that:
1. The work of the mining pools is nothing more than grouping computing power (hashrate) in order to get a quicker block. They play an important role in distribution, stability protection (anti-DDoS) and efficiency (low uncle rate).
2. The stability protection and efficiency performance depend on the technical strength of each pool. Many pools are spending tens of thousands of dollars every month in anti-DDoS and product optimization.
3. As for distribution, there’s much to say. In fact, there is no essential relationship between your payout with the calculated hashrate and the rejection rate. In other words, the payout distribution of any mining pool is a black box. As known to all, the payout distribution is based on the effective “shares” submitted, but your share proportion can be adjusted by the mining pool. How much of it depends on a pool’s conscience. So don't be fooled by a single rate, just believe the coin you actually gain.
4.The way mining pools change service fee is not the same as the mining softwares (a.k.a. clients). Each time you mine, the mining softwares occupy part of your time to mine for themselves (for example, on the claymore, 1-1.5% of the time, you are mining for the author). In the mining pool, you are charged a service fee after generating a new block.
5. Most newbies spend all day only looking at the hashrate gap and staring at the currency value fluctuation. They have been trapped in many sections by the hardware machine sales, together with hosted mining farms, the electricity, mining softwares, cloud mining and greedy pools. All is not within the scope that we mainly talk about today.
6.We don't sell mining rigs, run hosted farms or sell software to you. We just tell you the truth and the method of measurement.

Enough for warming up, here we go:
You start your rigs, however, the reported hashrate and the effective hashrate show a gap. Many veterans say that a difference of 5% is normal. Is that true? How is the gap composed?
1.You must distinguish between the reported hashrate and the effective hashrate or the calculated hashrate.
Reported Hashrate
Reported Hashrate is utilized by a client (e.g. Claymore, Phoenix, Ethminer, and other copycats), a piece of mining software. It submits the computing power (a.k.a. hashrate) of your actual hardware (what you see in your console) to the pool. For example, the RX570 could be overclocked to 26.5MH/s. This allows you to compare it to your calculated hashrate. 
Reported Hashrate is just a convenience item and not required to mine on the Ethereum pool. However, it does allow you to compare your submitted hashrate to your calculated hashrate which can be useful to you. 
Reported Hashrate does not affect payout. It is a theoretical value.
Calculated Hashrate or Effective Hashrate
Calculated Hashrate takes the number of valid shares your miner has submitted over a period of time and uses a formula to convert this into a readable hashrate. This number can fluctuate, sometimes being lower or higher than your actual miner's output hashrate in the console. 
In other words, each mining pool would set a difficulty threshold with the Ethereum Proof-of-Work algorithm. Every time when a difficulty calculation is completed, the miner will get a share. The hashrate is calculated based on the shares.
Calculated Hashrate(24h-avg) = your submitted shares in 24h* difficulty set by the pool
Mining pools calculate your hashrate based on the time interval you submit. For example, the pool assumes that the time of submitting a share for 100M should be 10 seconds, then if your interval for each submission is exactly 10 seconds, the pool shows you a calculated hashrate of 100M. If you submit it in 5 seconds, then the pool thinks you are 200M speed.
The calculated hashrates showed by each pool are generated differently. Some pools are lower, while some mine pools are even higher than your reported ones. This has absolutely no effect on revenue, as explained later. Because mining has a probability of it, it's simply the lucky value or luck.
Calculated Hashrate does affect your payout. It is your effective submitted shares that theoretically influence your profit. But as I said, only experienced miners know that the effective hashrate is more valuable to the mining pool to some extent. The mining pool takes your effective hashrate to mine, and what you get is only within the scope of distribution.

So, under normal circumstances, if there is a large gap between reported hashrate and effective hashrate, you have to check on Claymore whether there is a GPU card dropped. If all run well, let’s move to the problems presented next.


2. the most common problem is an inappropriate overclocking abuse.
What is overclocking? Go Google. How much a rig can be overclocked depends on experience. Different GPUs’ performance is also different. You can find more information on Google. If overclocked too much the client will give you an alert. Your submitted shares will be deemed invalid and rejected. If you have found too many alarms, just turn down a little and re-check.
The impact of this overclocking problem will be 0%-10%. Some people will somehow reach 50%, but it is completely avoidable.

3. The network delay
Network delay is a problem that can only be optimized while cannot be avoided. It takes time to transmit signals between local rigs and the server. Within 50ms is perfect, and fine within 150ms. If it goes higher, you have to look at the nearest server nodes. To solve this, each mining pool has its own server nodes in various parts of the world.
What’s the problem? That is, delayed submissions will be considered invalid shares, or discounted when the valid calculation was missed and the others were mining on the next block. Even though you did right, the submission was too late for the pool to utilize. Note that, mining is a continuous work, and it is inevitable for everyone submitting few invalid shares sometimes.
The network delay problem would roughly contribute the hashrate gap around 1%. More than that means there’s a space to be optimized. There’s no essential relation whether or not the pool gives you a VIP link. Because a VIP link only can protect you from centralized hacking.

4. The service fee of a mining software (client)
The author does not extract the coin you mine, but instead somehow extract 1% of your rigs' working time to mine for himself.
Since the author has contributed to writing such a software, it’s reasonable to pay for a technical intelligence. Most miners of the world use the Claymore. However, many copycats wear a layer of coat on top of the core of the claymore. These copycats cause the energy consumption and profit lose rise up.
The impact of the mining software like Claymore to the effective hashrate gap was 1% single-mode and 1.5% dual-mode. This is not an advertisement for them. There are also Ethminer, Phoenix, and Genoil in the international mainstream. It is said that there is a slight difference between them. You should try it yourself.

5. Until now, hard injuries add up to 2-3%. That is network delay and software extraction. There are some hardware problems, such as the heat of your rigs, wire rod, network connection, power supply stability should not add more than 1%. Advanced mining farms rarely have these problems, so I think 3% is a theoretical long-term hashrate gap. So a gap of 5% is also taking into account the situation where you use copycat mining software that stealing your hashrate.

6. The mining pool.
As just said, a hashrate gap of 3-5% is the cost for the mining pool after taking your hashrate. The rest of your real income is related to the submitted shares, luck, and payout patterns.
With PPLNS pattern, it is normal for you to see your calculated hashrate fluctuates every day. So be better to see your return in the long-term test.
With PPS, you're just an employee. To some extent, you’re renting your rigs to the pools and they give you a fixed pay in return. Only small miner or newbies are suggested to try the PPS, cos service fees are relatively higher to compensate the risks of pools.
Let's talk about REWARD DISTRIBUTION in ETH mining. ATTENTION!!!
a. Main Block Reward
b. Uncle Bonus
d. Referring Uncle Reward
c. Transaction Fee Reward
If you do not understand it. No worries. Let me tell you the difference.
Generally speaking, when pools distribute the payout, many of them only give you the part of Main Block Reward. They keep the rest themselves. However, many miners even don’t know there are other rewards. How much will it be worse? There was a time when tx fees are not very high, generating a main block, the pool only has a reward of 3.0(00)xxx ETH, which is minimal. But now a main block could be rewarded with around 3.3 ETH, while some mining pools only distribute you the part of 3ETH. So, the actual service fee of the mining pool could reach 7% or even more than 10% if all the rewards are taking into consideration.

To sum up:
1. Reasonably optimize your Hashrate.
2. Choose a transparent, unbiased mining pool to avoid cheating. Test and you will know.
3. The original intention of the blockchain is not speculation. Blockchain technology is not only about cryptocurrency but to create trust and consensus at the lowest cost. Please support those who have been continuously dedicated to technology and community in the blockchain ecosystem. Pay for knowledge and professionalism. Stay away from institutions or individuals who only resort to making money.
4. When you don't learn yourself and always listen to the recommendations of the mining industry middlemen, you are actually slaughtered.

[jillscarbrough]

Introduction
Many people have questions and asked us why the hashrate of rigs is less than that shown by the mining pool. Though many are told that less than 5% is a normal range, miners still found it a black box. The information asymmetry problem confuses everyone except those vested interest groups. In some circumstances, mining pools are prone to be accused of stealing computing power from miners. However, things are not that simple. To figure out this, you are suggested to take 10 min reading this post. Let’s open the black box and find the truth therein today.
.........

Honestly, I can't read your post.
Introduction section seems okay. Next part, I can't read it at all. Your post formatting was messed up. No one wants to read your post, even if that's useful info.

[Metroid]

Honestly, I can't read your post.
Introduction section seems okay. Next part, I can't read it at all. Your post formatting was messed up. No one wants to read your post, even if that's useful info.

You must be lazy then, his post seems very coherent.

@Arthur Pan, you need to understand that will always be the factor of luck when the pool points an effective hashrate based on how many shares you submit, mining to a pool is like solo mining, every share is a block.

[jillscarbrough]

Honestly, I can't read your post.
Introduction section seems okay. Next part, I can't read it at all. Your post formatting was messed up. No one wants to read your post, even if that's useful info.

You must be lazy then, his post seems very coherent.

Coherent is definitely different with bad formatting, and it's related to writing structure. OP's writing format didn't give enough differences between Point, sub-point, and content itself.

This is important when we try to giving information to peoples. Isn't it?

[Tigel]

Generally speaking, when pools distribute the payout, many of them only give you the part of Main Block Reward. They keep the rest themselves. However, many miners even don’t know there are other rewards. How much will it be worse? There was a time when tx fees are not very high, generating a main block, the pool only has a reward of 3.0(00)xxx ETH, which is minimal. But now a main block could be rewarded with around 3.3 ETH, while some mining pools only distribute you the part of 3ETH. So, the actual service fee of the mining pool could reach 7% or even more than 10% if all the rewards are taking into consideration.

This was news to me, thank you for information.

[Metroid]

Coherent is definitely different with bad formatting, and it's related to writing structure. OP's writing format didn't give enough differences between Point, sub-point, and content itself.

This is important when we try to giving information to peoples. Isn't it?

You look like my tutor when I was at the university, a reminder --> we are not in any university and this does not need any academic writing.

[jillscarbrough]

Coherent is definitely different with bad formatting, and it's related to writing structure. OP's writing format didn't give enough differences between Point, sub-point, and content itself.

This is important when we try to giving information to peoples. Isn't it?

You look like my tutor when I was at the university, a reminder --> we are not in any university and this does not need any academic writing.

Is it true?
So, I'll give you (E) on esthetic, LOL.

Wherever you are, giving whatever information must be in a nice way. In this case, writing format is important, so that information more understandable.

[sergw]

thnx, but more interesting is why pools sometimes show x2 time spikes of hashrate, fe. my rig has 240 mh, but pool sometime show 300-350 mh spikes, which is unrealistic.

[RYXES]

The law of statistics suggests that regardless of the effective hashrate and random spikes, with any given long term duration it is inevitable to average out.

God, I love statistics.

[Aegean Skipper]

To be honest, i got dizzy reading it

But further on that this should be posted as an article somewhere
It contains very useful information

I will make a hard copy of it and then study it

[edwardceng]

Coherent is definitely different with bad formatting, and it's related to writing structure. OP's writing format didn't give enough differences between Point, sub-point, and content itself.

This is important when we try to giving information to peoples. Isn't it?

You look like my tutor when I was at the university, a reminder --> we are not in any university and this does not need any academic writing.

Sound like you often fails in exams when you in college, are you? Am just kidding man, no offense. 

Op, use your imagination to make your post more tasty to read by the user.

[BennyT]

Great post OP. Thanks for writing that out.

I get the comments that it is difficult to read, however on a public forum where someone is volunteering their time to share information, there are nicer ways to offer the critique that it could be more nicely formatted.

[fanatic26]

thnx, but more interesting is why pools sometimes show x2 time spikes of hashrate, fe. my rig has 240 mh, but pool sometime show 300-350 mh spikes, which is unrealistic.

Hash rate is never a steady number. While the pool normalizes your hash rate and gives you a nice even graph that just shows the average. The reality is these cards are solving math problems, sometimes they find the answer very quickly (AKA spike to higher hash numbers) or it finds the answer slowly, and shows the reverse. Thats what the word LUCK means in mining.

[Metroid]

Hash rate is never a steady number. While the pool normalizes your hash rate and gives you a nice even graph that just shows the average. The reality is these cards are solving math problems, sometimes they find the answer very quickly (AKA spike to higher hash numbers) or it finds the answer slowly, and shows the reverse. Thats what the word LUCK means in mining.

Spot on, hence my post about luck.

[Arthur Pan]

Introduction
Many people have questions and asked us why the hashrate of rigs is less than that shown by the mining pool. Though many are told that less than 5% is a normal range, miners still found it a black box. The information asymmetry problem confuses everyone except those vested interest groups. In some circumstances, mining pools are prone to be accused of stealing computing power from miners. However, things are not that simple. To figure out this, you are suggested to take 10 min reading this post. Let’s open the black box and find the truth therein today.
.........

Honestly, I can't read your post.
Introduction section seems okay. Next part, I can't read it at all. Your post formatting was messed up. No one wants to read your post, even if that's useful info.

Your advice is helpful to me. Since this was my first time writing posts on bitcointalk, I am not familiar with the format code. Plz be more patient. I'll try to improve the problem you mentioned next time.

[keith Mango]

Coherent is definitely different with bad formatting, and it's related to writing structure. OP's writing format didn't give enough differences between Point, sub-point, and content itself.

This is important when we try to giving information to peoples. Isn't it?

You look like my tutor when I was at the university, a reminder --> we are not in any university and this does not need any academic writing.

Is it true?
So, I'll give you (E) on esthetic, LOL.

Wherever you are, giving whatever information must be in a nice way. In this case, writing format is important, so that information more understandable.

I think the author’s writing is profound, and if you can give a  description more clearly, i will support you ,but if you cant, just be quiet and respect others

[m.vina]

Nice attempt to get some merits. Is this the type of quality that the merit system brings to this forum? I appreciate the efforts of the author and how he did this instead of begging like other newbies out there, but the sad reality is, its a lot of words but the message is pretty simple and could have been fully explained using less.

[jillscarbrough]

Honestly, I can't read your post.
Introduction section seems okay. Next part, I can't read it at all. Your post formatting was messed up. No one wants to read your post, even if that's useful info.

It's okay. You can be better next time. 

I think the author’s writing is profound, and if you can give a  description more clearly, i will support you ,but if you cant, just be quiet and respect others

I didn't criticize its content. I'm just criticizing about writing's formats. How to give a space between content, how to provide the sub-title, how to split content itself, etc.

Nice attempt to get some merits. Is this the type of quality that the merit system brings to this forum? I appreciate the efforts of the author and how he did this instead of begging like other newbies out there, but the sad reality is, its a lot of words but the message is pretty simple and could have been fully explained using less.

You got him.
Let's appreciate his efforts.

[miningchamp93]

Submit Hashrate of Graphics Cards at https://miningchamp.com/submit