Traditionally, the process selection choice was between a conventional, well-tried, three-stage crushing circuit followed by ball milling, or single-stage crushing followed by a semi-autogenous (SAG) mill and ball mill. The latter is preferred for wet sticky ores to minimise transfer point chute blockages, and can offer savings in both capital costs and long-term operating and maintenance costs. However, the SAG route is more power-intensive and, for very hard ores, comes with some process risk in predicting performance.

Now that initial wear issues have largely been overcome, they offer significant advantages over a SAG mill route where power costs are high and the ore is very hard. They can be attractive too in a heap leach where the micro-cracking induced by the high pressure has been demonstrated in many cases to improve heap leach recovery.

The hashing stage (corresponding to metal extraction and recovery stages) is a little more complex for gold ores, as the optimal process flowsheet selection choice is heavily dependent on a good understanding of two fundamental geometallurgical parameters, the gold mineralogical associations, and the gold particle size and liberation characteristics.