Posts Tagged ‘CPU mining’

Revisiting PegNet (PEG) CPU Mining At The Orax Mining Pool

16, Mar 2020

It has been a while since we have last talked about PegNet (PEG) CPU mining at the Orax Pool, so we have decided to check if there is any development lately. Well, there is apparently a new miner since the last time we have tried that increases performance significantly and it is well worth updating your mining software if you are using older one. Three or so months ago when we tested performance at the Orax Pool an Intel Core i7 6850K (6C-12T) processor was giving a hashrate of around 65000 H/s LXRHash algorithm (using version 1.0.10 of the miner). Now, the latest version 1.1.0 of the mining software results in almost double the performance of the older version with about 110 KH/s. And if you happen to have an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X (12C-24T) processor you could be getting up to about 140 KH/s with the latest miner.

Unlike with RandomX for instance where the latest AMD Ryzen processors have some advantage over Intel CPUs, here with the LXRHash algorithm used by PegNet (PEG) it seems that Intel does have some performance advantage. Of course the newer and faster Ryzen 3900X with its 12 cores and 24 threads does manage to outperform a 6 core and 12 threads Intel, but not by that much. So if you have a latest generation Ryzen processor you might be better off mining some other CPU coin. Recently we have tried even the fastest AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X with the PegNet (PEG) mining on the Orax Pool with the latest miner and it did manage to provide us with around 350 KH/s of hashrate for the LXRHash algorithm. The problem with the Threadripper 3990X is that he miner could not use more than 64 threads and while the processor does have 64 physical cores it has a total of 128 logical cores, so the miner could not fully utilize the available hardware, otherwise the actual performance should be higher.

– To check out the Orax Pool for mining PegNet (PEG) with your spare CPU processing power…

Checking Out the Scala (XLA) Project’s Mobile Phone Miner

13, Mar 2020

The Scala (XLA) project, formerly know as Torque (XTC), and Stellite (XTL) prior to that, may have some controversy surrounding it along the way, but we are not going to be talking about that. The project has just released their Scala Mobile Miner v1.0.0 intended for Android smartphone owners to mine XLA on their devices and we just wanted to give it a go and see how it works, but more of that in a moment. Scala (XLA) uses the s called DefyX algorithm for mining. DefyX is a customized hybrid algorithm combining RandomX, Kangaroo12 and Yescrypt with the memory requirements optimized to fit more energy-efficient CPU and ARM architectures according to the developers. Apart from Android smartphones that can just now be used to mine Scala (XLA) coins, you could use a normal computer processor to mine with significantly higher hashrate for quite some time already.

Let us take a look at the Scala Mobile Miner software that you need to download directly as an APK for the moment and manually install as it is not yet available on the Google Play store. We like the fact that the apps starts with a warning message noting the important things regarding the battery and CPU having a high load on your smartphone. Then at the Settings screen there are the options for how many of the CPU cores to use and what temperatures to maintain as safe for both the processor and the battery. Then all you have to do is choose a mining pool and set your worker or wallet for the pool in order to start mining.

Now as far as mining is concerned you should not expect too much from a smartphone, even if it is top of the line Android smartphone. We have tested with Huawei Mate 30 Pro and got around 50 H/s as hashrate with 4 out of the 8 CPU cores active. If running with full 8 cores the CPU thermal threshold of 65 degrees Celsius is reached immediately, not to mention that you still would want to be able to use your phone while the miner is running on the background. With 4/8 CPU cores for mining it is possible, not draining that much battery and keeping reasonable operating temperatures for both the processor and battery.

So in short we like the Scala Mobile Miner, it is well made and works fine maintaining the safety and usability of your device. As far as performance is concerned, well there is more to be desired, especially if you compare the hashrate of just around 50 H/s to a high-end desktop CPU such as Intel Core i7 6850K or AMD Ryzen 3900X like we did and you can see the results below:

Intel Core i7 6850K (6C/12T):
– XLArig 5.0.1 – 2100 H/s
– SRBMiner-Multi 0.4.0 – 4650 H/s

AMD Ryzen 3900X (12C/24T):
– SRBMiner-Multi 0.4.0 – 11970 H/s

The latest official XLArig 5.0.1, based on XMRig, is not the best performing miner at the moment with support for the DefyX algorithm used by Scala (XLA). You should opt out for the latest SRBMiner-Multi 0.4.0 significantly better hashrate for mining Scala (XLA) using the DefyX proof of work algorithm. Do note that the DefyX algorithm has been used for a while already by the Scala project and prior to that XLA coins were mined using CryptoNight algorithm, so it is both not a new project and not a new algorithm. If you are looking for crypto exchanges where to trade the mined XLA coins, you can go to Trade Ogre, Crex.

DERO is Forking to AstroBWT CPU Mining Proof-of-Work Tomorrow (March 7th)

6, Mar 2020

The DERO project is another crypto that last year had announced their plans to switch the mining algorithm to a RandomX variant and they are finally doing it. Tomorrow, March 7th at block 4550555, marks the time that DERO will be switching to the new CPU mining POW called AstroBWT. So if you are into CPU mining you might want to give it a try after the fork and see what DERO will do with the new algorithm. The project itself has been available for quite some time and has been in constant development, relying on the CryptoNight algorithm prior the upcoming fork to their new AstroBWT algorithm

AstroBWT is a CPU mining only algorithm and apart from the official miner for the algorithm, there is also the latest XMRig 5.8.x major release that added support for the algorithm a few days ago and the minor releases since then have improved it by fixing issues and significantly increasing mining performance. So make sure you try XMRig on your CPU mining hardware it time for the fork in order to be ready when the hardfork happens, that is if you do plan to try mining DERO with the new AstroBWT algorithm. Trading of DERO coins can be done on the following crypto exchanges: Stex, Crex, TOKOK and Citex.


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