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Did not say that the CPU can not dig ah, the beginning is to use CPU to dig, but with the digging algorithm in-depth study, we found that the original mining are repeating the same work, and CPU as a universal computing unit, which designed Many modules such as branch prediction unit, registering unit, etc., are not helpful at all to improve the calculation.
In addition, the CPU is not good at performing parallel computing, performing at most a dozen tasks at a time, the graphics card has thousands of stream processors far worse, the graphics card is too much, so everyone slowly for graphics development The corresponding mining algorithm for mining.
To BTC, for example, its basic principle of the algorithm is that all the existing 10-minute transaction as an input, plus a random number, when all transactions within 10 minutes plus your random number to calculate a SHA256 the hash. Which are almost all integer arithmetic, this is simply like the graphics card to create the same, the graphics card is ideal for this no-brain algorithm, the number of stream processors more dominant.
For Hash computing, it is almost always an independent, concurrency-based integer computation that the GPU is designed to produce for this purpose. Compared to the CPU's mutilated 2-8 threads and the astonishing length of control decisions and scheduling branches, the GPU can easily Perform integer calculations on hundreds of threads concurrently (brain damage without any judgment is A card's strength).
OpenCL can take advantage of the fact that a large number of unified shaders on a GPU can be used as resources for integer calculations, while A's shader resources are several times as large (equivalent cards)
However, later we found that, Graphics card is still too weak, directly on the ASIC mass heap ALU unit can greatly improve the computing power, slap in the face of a large computing power is already a few dozen times the video card, so bitcoin now ASIC ASIC mine The machine simply can not dig.
Although the late Cryptography LTC uses a Scrypt algorithm that also introduces a large number of interdependent, random access instructions, when Footprint is large enough, large amounts of cache failures occur at the L2 or even TLB levels of the GPU, resulting in More DRAM access to weaken the advantages of mining machines (ASICs / FPGAs) in terms of integer arithmetic performance compared to GPUs, but the miners are still being pinpointed and are currently being mined only by specialized mining machines.
However, as the second generation of virtual currency (for example, ETH, ZEC this) as a result of predecessors were explored algorithm experience, mining algorithm to do more special optimization to prevent the emergence of brainless computing, memory requirements are particularly high, So you can effectively resist the invasion of mining machine.
Also because ETH can only rely on video card mining, resulting in the second half of 2017 graphics card tide surge, shortage of goods tide, many miners have sold thousands of cards back to form a mining machine to tap these virtual currencies.
As time passes, everyone thinks that CPU can not mine. In fact, it is only efficiency and low efficiency.
