Concerning hash rates and payment in real money i have to say that i did some basic tests to find out how efficient winminer was. I tested nicehash for a few minutes and then run winminer and compared the money they both claimed to make. Winminer was slightly less (but in one occasion it was slightly more!), but not as much as 10-20 %. Maybe just a few percent.
In order to be able to test this in real life you have to mine a specific coin and see how many coins you make in one day. This is the only way to test the efficiency! Otherwise if you look at the money made each minute it changes every half an hour or so... Even more, in the last couple of days i see that one coin might go up and down by as much as 20-30%!!! Money making has gone down in the last 2 days by at least 30%, which is crazy. So, if we want to compare, we should look into the coins made, but winminer does not report coins. So another way is to test winminer for a few minutes, and then switch to another miner, like nicehash and compare immediately. Otherwise prices might change and the result is different!
Of course, the best thing to do is to have two identical systems and run one with Winminer and the other with Nicehash and compare the outcome after one day of use. They would run the same time and at the same exchange rates, so the comparison would be fair. Maybe someone with two identical graphics cards can do it for us and report here.
I find that winminer is useful for people who want to hash with small systems and get some money, while it might also be good for larger systems. But for serious mining setups you might be better with keeping the coins and selling them when the price is right.
There is also a fee for selling coins or exchanging them, so we should keep that in mind too.
Finally i believe that if this price plunge is continued, then most people will shut off their machines, because it is unprofitable any more, unless you do not pay for electricity. Hope the situation recovers...
I am sorry but your test for a few minutes does not validate any of your finding and it is not what I did to make my assesments.
Since NiceHash gives you real time profitability relative to the hash rate registered at the exact time you refresh your browser, which ofcourse fluctate a lot during the hours. So testing for few minutes does not give anywhere near the real life earnings you would get.
To get a clear picture you need to mine for at least 24/48 hours and then you get an average of the earnings per day, which is a proper assesment of the performance provided by the different pools or systems.
Winminer, come short of at least 20% than mining Nicehash or for example ETN, ETH at Nanopool, which I have done extensively for 6 months by now.
As per exchanging those coins per USD, EURO or else ,it hardly get more expensive than few pennies or 1 dollar in the case of BTC.
Winminer is getting a very good "cut" for doing those transactions on your behalf.
I understand they need to have a wide "spread" on order to protect themselves from fluctations, but obviosly they do it on order to protect their earnings and not giving you a fair deal.
I give you an example:
I mine ethereum directly to my wallet at Kraken exchange. I mine about 0.3 ethereum per week. Nanopool takes 1% fee then sends the ethereum directly to my wallet at Kraken for no fee. At that point the value I get form a dedicated pool, averaging the value of the coin for the given day, is roughly 20% higher than WinMiner's. I exchange what ever amount of Ethereum I received from the pool, for exmplto to Euro, for letterally few pennies. Then I can wire Euros to my bank account for 0.15 Euro per transfer. All transaction combined with nanopool fee hardly gose above 2%. Not mentioning that software developer fee that is applied by any of the miner, it is also applyed when you use Winminer mining with Claymore, Stak, Cast etc...
This apply also for ETN mined at Nanopool, although I have to exchange it first to BTC in Cryptopia before sending it over to Kraken. The cost of it is still very minimal and gives me 18/20% more than using Winminer. BTW it takes a few minutes to do all this transactions and you can do it when ever you prefer.
I use Kraken, but you can use any reputable exchange of your liking, that has low fees for wiring in the currency you prefer.
take care!
