Hashcat & OpenCL... Why OpenCL?

[mustangsal]

This may sound basic, but I have questions I can't seem to find the answer to.

I keep seeing references to installing OpenCL to see additional benefits...

I currently run Ubuntu 16 with 4 Nvidia GTX 1080 ti cards.  The motherboard has spots for 2 more GPUs, but getting the 1080ti cards now is not easy.

I can't seem to  find the answer to "How does using OpenCL benefit me?"  What would I gain?  Would I be able to add other brand cards to the rig easily? Why is OpenCL recommended?

[royce]

OpenCL is the framework that hashcat uses to perform the computation on the selected hardware.

Without an OpenCL driver for a given hardware platform, you cannot use modern hashcat on that hardware. If you want to use hashcat on your CPUs, you need an OpenCL driver for that CPU family (Intel, AMD). If you want to use hashcat on a GPU, you need an OpenCL driver for that GPU family (NVIDIA, AMD).

[mustangsal]

Perfect!

Thank you for that explanation, you made it very clear.