Basics

Hi,

i'm quite new to hashcat and password cracking so have a little patience with me...

setup:

Intel - 4770k
gigabyte 680GTX
32 GB 2400mhz
crucial ssd

when i try to crack a MD5 Hash i get speed around 2601M/s.

basics:

Q1:
what is the main difference between oclHashcat-plus and lite ?
it seems that plus can do the same stuff like lite, so whats the purpose of the lite version ? when exactly would i choose lite instead of plus ?

Q2:
it seems that hashcat only uses CPU power, why would i ever use this old method ? only if i dont have the proper hardware or is there any other reason ?

Q3:
is there any significant speed difference between a windows8 system and lets say the same hardware powered by ubuntu ?

Q4:
sometimes i stumble over "Forceware", isnt that just an old term for nvidia drivers ? or are they some special drivers around i/we should install to get even better performance ?

i've a lot more questions but let's start with that