Anyone else seem ovewhelmed?

[TheHarbinger]

It snaps when the last coin is minted.   

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[idontknow]

It can be very frustrating but that just means you're about to learn something.

But I think newbies should maybe learn to use bitcoins first and then learn mining later which seems more technical.

[nmat]

But I think newbies should maybe learn to use bitcoins first and then learn mining later which seems more technical.

Almost every text describing Bitcoin (including the famous video from weusecoins) puts a lot of focus on mining. I also think this is a mistake. Bitcoin should be presented as a currency. If you want gold, you don't go around digging holes on the ground. You just buy some. The same thing should happen with Bitcoin. The details of how this all works should be available only to advanced users.

[idontknow]

But I think newbies should maybe learn to use bitcoins first and then learn mining later which seems more technical.

Almost every text describing Bitcoin (including the famous video from weusecoins) puts a lot of focus on mining. I also think this is a mistake. Bitcoin should be presented as a currency. If you want gold, you don't go around digging holes on the ground. You just buy some. The same thing should happen with Bitcoin. The details of how this all works should be available only to advanced users.

Available to everyone but much more clearly separated.

[SleeperUnit]

I still don't understand why you can't really use a powerful CPU for mining. Is a GPU really more powerful for these calculations?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer:

An Intel Core i7 2600K overclocked to 5.0 GHz can generate a hash in only 0.2 microsecond by running a single thread of Ufasoft. On the other-hand, the best VLIW5 GPUs (clocked at a mundane 850 MHz) take just over 4.0 microsecond to calculate a single hash.

So how can something 20 times slower yield such a large performance advantage?

This is where parallelism comes in. A Radeon 5770 / 5870 at 850 MHz (stock speed) can generate 800 / 1600 hashes every 4 microsecond. That Core i7 2600K (at 5.0 GHz) can only generate 4 hashes every 0.2 microsecond. Hyperthreading allows it to run 8 threads simultaneously but only increases hashing performance by 25%. So at best, this CPU will generate 100 hashes every 4 microsecond.

And of course the GPUs can be overclocked too.