Discussion of Bias:

JJs_HashMonitor makes the occasional Vega hash drop a non-even. Having a well formatted web interface is less important because the monitor self detects hash drop and resets the miners to full speed. Awesome! (I hope you have all tipped JJ for saving your hashes!). CastXMR new 11/29th release added a remote monitoring capability (Woot!). While JJs_HashMonitor is not yet configured to support CastXMR... that is simply a fork away and thus I am willing to seed it as an existing capability for the purpose of this comparison.







Discussion of CastXMR Reported Values:

I have to start with a discussion a few number irregularities regarding the hash rate waterfall that scrolls across the CastXMR screen. The figures below are from a Monero mining session that started at 9:55PM. I let the program run unobstructed for about 15 minutes to ensure everything was settled in and then took a screen capture.





Figure 1: CastXMR Results after 17 Minutes of Undisturbed Operation (Remote Desktop is Active)

Figure 2: CastXMR self generated summary data

The self proclaimed "Fastest miner for AMD Radeon RX Vega GPU series". CastXMR is closed source software and has a development fee of 1.5%.XMR-STAK has no baked in special internal tuning for Vega GPU's but offers configuration file options which enable self tuning. Some dual thread configurations have become pretty standard such that I think it's fair to call it "Vega tuned" from the perspective of this comparison. XMR-Stak is open source and has a default development fee of 2% (.5% higher).Here are the facts on my bias going into this... I dabbled with both programs when I initially setup my miner. I think most would agree that CastXMR is a bit more noob friendly in that the start command is a single line and the tuning is built into the software. I was a noob who was also willing to tweak so my initial focus was mainly features and performance. My initial results gave a trivially small performance benefit for xmr-stak but the real tiebreaker for me was the web interface. I was initially dealing with some hash drop issues with both programs and appreciated xmr-stak enabling me to quickly check miner status on my phone.... one might call it an addiction :-). Anyway, as many of you know, besides the fact that hash drop for me is now a more rare occurrence, there have been two major changes since those "early" days:I have no vested interest in either software so it's fair to call this an honest assessment because given (1) and (2) above, I don't know what my motivation would be for bias. Like everybody else I am just trying to find the most effective software for my rig.Before going any other farther I also want to say that I recommend you view this. Each rig is different. The analysis below will discuss my method and my numbers... It will stop short of making any recommendations because as always... YMMV.When it's running some pretty nice numbers are displayed which obviously contribute to the glowing reputation of CastXMR. My Vega 64 (not serving a monitor) is GPU 0 which, in Figure 1, shows numbers of 2020.9, 2018.6, 2012.9, 2013.5, and 2013.1 h/s.2020 h/s definitively pops out as impressive considering the steady 2002 h/s I see when I mine Monero with xmr-stak. The average of those numbers is a bit lower 2015.8h/s but still impressive. Score one for CastXMR... but wait... The problem comes in the next figure. When you type "s" to get a hash report from castXMR you get the following:The average hash rate for GPU 0 as 1994.6?!?!. How can that be because I have been watching the screen pass by and there was not one instance when the GPU0 value was less then 1994.6 h/s, let alone low enough to pair with a 2020.9 h/s to create an average of 1994.6 h/s. That average (1994.6) is a full 20h/s lower then the average we calculated from Figure 1 (2015.8). Curious. Perhaps more puzzling is that directly after that summary report it gets right back to the business of displaying eye popping numbers like 2029.4 h/s. Xmr-stak and it's 2002 h/s can't compete with 2029.4 h/s... but compares quite favorable with 1994.6 h/s. Which is it?Consider that the 5 GPU average calculated from the bottom of figure 2 is (2029.4+1930.0+1931.0+1944.7+1958.5)/5 = 1958.7 h/s. By contrast, the average reported in the cyan "share accepted report" just above it is a more modest 1935.1 h/s. I really don't know what to make of the non-average numbers so I disregard them...The figures above are not cherry picked... These are typical of the castXMR performance on my machine and it leaves me scratching my head a bit. I do not suspect any foul play here. I suspect the number are from real calculation but might just not represent the value we assume them to be. Perhaps they show the absolute fastest hash calculated over the display interval... and the "s" provided average is the true average hash rate over some time period? It is really hard to know but one thing is for sure... castXMR has the reputation for being "fast". It may in fact be faster... we won't know until we get to the bottom of this post, but whatever the case, it is not AS FAST as the reputation developed by the number that roll across the display would suggest. Focus on the average values that is displays in the summary report ("s") and in the periodic report that occurs when an "accepted share" is reported.Ok, now lets get to it...