So I tried it out, payouts are great but still I don't like the performance of the miner. To slow to hot and to many hw errors. Why is there always hw errors and why so hot? Doesn't matter how low I set intensity the temps are still to hot and to many hw. Been mining now for almost 2 years and I have never had any trouble like this. The stats and estimate of payment is nice to have on the miner it is not necessary to me, why not allow the use of sgminer. Much better performance speed and efficiency.
In case you are not aware, you can add the --power-tune option in the conf file. By setting a negative value, you can force the card to run at a lower voltage, so it won't run as hot. The down side is, you won't come anywhere near hitting the 100% rating. When I did it, and brought my card down to about 63C, I was only rating in barely above 50% on my r9 290. This is using --power-tune -38. With my normal setup, that gets me a stable >6 Mh/s (with x11), and no HW....24 hours a day. It actually is a quite large power difference too. Running hot, my 290 will draw a steady 200W. Running the way I normally do, it stays around 113W. May not seem like much, but multiply that 87W difference over 24 hours....and you have burned an extra 2.088kW. Assuming $0.10/kW, I would be losing $0.21 right off the top. So -0.000714 BTC from whatever I could mine.
Basically, I know my card is capable of running well above the 100% rating, but something is not set right with the dashminer software. Honestly, as hot as it ran during my testing, and knowing what I get with my normal setup, I should have been pushing a 200% rating.
A thought has occurred to me, though, which I have been considering for a couple days. If the dashminer software actually is getting the speed it claims, maybe the miners aren't actually getting full credit for their hash rate. Using my setup as a reference example, pushing it as hard as the software did, theoretically, I should have been ticking in right around 9 Mh/s. The software said I was hitting ~92%. The baseline reference for x11 was 4.84Mh/s. Double that would be 9.68Mh/s. Based on this info, my card was running at approximately 93% of that. That puts a situation where everyone is mining, and only getting partial credit for their hashes.
Granted, it is a reasonable business model, and it would also explain why the payout is so good. When you are getting half of what everyone mines....you can afford to be generous in the payouts. I am just not keen on the secrecy. If that is what the business model is, I would rather know up front. Yeah, there would be people who are all ticked off cause they aren't getting full credit. But, if the payout is better, then it doesn't matter quite so much.
My only real issue is, I know what I am getting with my normal setup. I will not run my rig that hot. It is more expensive because of the power consumption and inefficiency (due to heat). Plus, it is VERY bad for the equipment. Personally, I would rather have the option of having to setup a multi-address pool (similar to the way NiceHash does it), and use my own setup. For people that don't want to deal with the technical stuff, they can use the plug-n-play software.
Anyway, that is my two cents.