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Hi, this thread is created in response to the new LITTLE SC Single that is advertised as a 30Ghash unit.

With all other BFL products it has been the case that the more you pay the more you get.

But the new LITTLE SC Single ($649) makes the SC Single ($1299) appear uncompetitive, especially if you are investing a large amount of money for the purchase of over 10 units, in this case you would be interested in having some redundancy, which the LITTLE SC Single offers.
A thread that quickly highlights redundancy benefit is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=118276.0

However if BFL releases a firmware for the SC Single ($1299) to run at 65Ghash, then this keeps the structure of "The more you pay the more value you get".

Also at 65Ghash per SC Single, it would still not out-compete the SC MiniRig.

Do you have any reason to believe that BFL is currently capable of offering the single sc @ 65GH/s? If so, is there any reason why they shouldn't offer the little single sc @ 32.5GH/s? I guess I don't really understand the point.

Did you order a single sc and are now upset that they offered a product that costs 50% as much and offers 50% of the performance?  ??? (excepting the paltry $1 difference which would be eaten by shipping & power consumption differences anyway)

speechless, I am simply speechless.  :o

First point, they said there is atleast 20% headroom in the SC chips.

Second, it's not the $1 that matters, but value for money, which comes in the form of redundancy: if a Single fails and has to be sent back to BFL for repair, than it's better to have 2x30Ghash units than 1x60Ghash.

Hmmm...I can see your redundancy argument, and I agree it's somewhat valid, but that will and should occur to anyone considering investing in the technology.

That redundancy will come with the cost of likely additional shipping, likely greater power consumption, more maintenance, greater chance of failure, & more usb ports required.

Neither option is a slam dunk win.

I demand that Intel increase the speeds of their i7-3930k from 3.8GHz to 4.2GHz. I always demand at least a 10% overclock when I buy new hardware. I see people OC these all the time, so it shouldn't be a problem. Right, Intel? Get on it!

Are you serious? I don't know if I'm more put off by your arrogance, or your ignorance.

But what's the problem ice_chill, just buy Little Singles instead of Single SC's, or change your order? As you said, lots of advantages?
Also, you're comparing 30 to 60Gh/s, but the different costs for BFL may be in the difference in internal components, like 4 asics @ 7.5 Gh/s for the little and 10 asics @ 6 Gh/s for the Single?

There is no arrogance or ignorance, all this is based on the simply fact:

If you by FPGA Single, you get less performance per dollar than FPGA MiniRig.

It was like this with the 3 SC offerings:

Jalapeno:  (4.5Ghash) 1Ghash costs $33
SC Single: (60Ghash) 1 Ghash costs $21.65
SC Minirig: (1500Ghash)1 Ghash costs $19.93

You see the more you pay the better value you get, I want this to apply to the LITTLE SC Single, this can be done by upgrading the SC Single to 65Ghash

Thank you for answering my question. It's definitely the latter of my two assumptions. Peace.

BFL chttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_(engineering) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_(engineering))
Having two 30Gh/s units instead of one 60Gh/s unit does not increase redundancy.  It only decreases the "variance" of the lost hashing power due to downtime.  Assuming the failure rates of both types are identical, the expected output of both setups is identical.

BFL can spec their devices any way they please.  The only reason to complain about the Little SC would be if buyers were allowed to jump ahead of Jally/SC/Minirig preorders in shipping order.

Posted on BFL's own forum, waiting for their reply https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showthread.php/136-Petition-to-stabilise-price-structure-of-BFL-ASIC-hardware

Uh,you pay 2 times as much & GET 2x as much...............I don't see your reasoning.Except in regards to the Jalapeno & 1,500 gh rig.............

If they release firmware to up the 60gh to 65gh,then I'm sure something similar will happen for the "Little" SC & MAYBE for the Jalapeno............

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

You don't get more per $, whether you spend $649 or $1299, you get the same per $, but the more you spend the more value each $ should give you, this was always the price structure until the LITTLE SC Single broke it.

Well if you intend to overclock the units then you pay the extra for the cooling and better performance.

I have the answer......IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THEN DON'T BUY IT. There are other companies making ASIC miners. So go buy one from them and stop complaining.

 :D You beat me to it poon-TANG :D

As it oftens happens  ::)

The point is not like or dislike, the point is that SC LITTLE Single is better value, and had it been out for pre-order when ASIC was announced, then the SC LITTLE Singles are the ones I would go for.

BFL always boast about standing by existing customers, so they should make it up to those who pre-ordered SC Single before the SC LITTLE Single was announced.
Otherwise I would simply like an option to convert all my SC Single orders to SC LITTLE Singles.

let the magic begin... abracadabra... puff ... 5 more Ghz for the SC Single

come on dude!

P.S.
did you ask them is such conversion is possible ?

don't give a shit, just want a demo of their spectactuarly fast mining hardware to believe it even exists.

The SC Single was originally 40Ghash, then upped to 60Ghash, then BFL said there is a minimum 20% headroom, so minimum 72Ghash is what it is capable of. They actually said the chip was running at 500Mhz to achieve 40Ghash, and is capable of 1Ghz, so 80Ghash, but not every chip might reach the full 1Ghz.

I have posted the question on their own forum and waiting for their reply: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showthread.php/136-Petition-to-stabilise-price-structure-of-BFL-ASIC-hardware

Anyone remember the original projections for the BItForce single in the end of 2011?

Wasn't it like 2Ghash/s @ 40 watts?

come on dude!

P.S.
It could be easily done, did you not read the newsletter?

I was more concerned about BF straying from the first come first serve method, again..

1GH/s @ 20W.

@ All

Uh oh, A potentially dangerous time for BFL begins. A true test of economic foresight and planning.

Avalon just raised their proposed devices from 60Gh/s to 64Gh/s. Now some BFL buyers want the company to raise their Single SC to (magically?) 65Gh/s. Very evil if not totally genius of Avalon to do that at this particular time, LOL.

Every time BFL has to re-flash the devices it costs more time (and possibly money) and delays the shipments. Not to mention the operating temperature has to keep going down to keep the Single SC "cool enough".

---------------------------

Well, keep this in mind, if too many BFL customers pull their money out by "refunds", it will leave the company deeply in debt. So don't rock the boat if you don't want to take a swim. It is safe to say that BFL has purchased quite a lot of hardware (hence the "free" order exchanges) with the anticipation that many more customers would be coming to them. But if there is a shortfall due to refunds then, all BFL customers will suffer from this.

Forgive them if they say "No" to the upgrades!

A new update from Avalon.
https://i.imgur.com/msyFI.png

I'm ok with 60 gh from my SC ;D

Yes,I see Avalon upped the hashrate to 64 gh,but the wattage is 400 watts now from 60 watts ??????? I think the power consumption must be a typo..............

Edit : Nevermind,its self contained=No PC required,interesting..............

Don't forget BFL will probably ship months before Avalon does. That makes a huge difference. As for power consumption, if that is important to you, consider that even a single BFL unit can be run by a computer that uses less than 50W, so 110W total, still far better than the (conservative) estimate of the Avalon.

That said, I still think buying an Avalon is a good hedge against failure of BFL and BTCFPGA to deliver quickly and as advertised. If somehow Avalon manages to ship first, it won't matter how much power it uses. I have an Avalon on order for just that reason.

Thank you Avalon! I love this back and forth competition. WE WIN!

I think the chances of Avalon coming to the market first are slim to none. IMO it is BFL as the front runner, with BTCFPGA on their heels. We will find out in a few weeks! I'm excited!

My money is on BTCFPGA shipping first both literally and figuratively.

Oh how I would sometimes wish these company's would just secretly work on a product then one day go "HEY EVERYONE WE HAVE THESE IN STOCK NOW TO SHIP OVERNIGHT!"  :P

Now I'm tempted to bring out the pocketbook and invest in the one I don't already have on preorder from the 3 companies

Wasn't the Avolon priced at $1299 just for the first 300pcs batch, and $1999 for orders after that first batch?

@ice_chill
to follow your logic, you would have to rename the topic to:
"Petition: BFL SC LITTLE-Single should be 25Ghash and not 30Ghash"

Good point, I did think about that, but it is not something that BFL would do as people who already purchased the LITTLE SC Single will not be happy. However if the SC Single is raised to 65Ghash then it won't upset anyone.

Waste of a thread.

It is obvious now that most if not all voters against the performance upgrade are anti-BFL feminists.

There is a good amount of customers that have more than $150 but less than $1000 to spend and BFL was missing that market segment.

I tend to believe that the Little Single appeared as a response to bASIC 27GHs unit. Same structure as the Single but with half the CPUs, therefore the costs are not too far apart.

If you have money for a Single why bother buying 2 littles? Just in the case they break down? I like to think I'm not buying them to break down ...

Well regarding breaking down, it is good BFL has offered lifetime warranty, but as it has been discussed in another thread, a lifetime warranty means for the lifetime of a company, if the company closes, then the warranty disappears.

BFL is a fairly new company with no history so no-one knows how they will fare in the future.

This brings me to my point, if the Singles are still making money while BFL company closes down, then having a LITTLE SC Single going faulty would mean $649 loss vs $1299 loss if the SC Single went faulty.


Also: 2 x LITTLE SC Singles would have 2 power bricks, 2 enclosures, 2 circuit boards with all the power phase circuitry and chips that handle communications, so naturally 2 x LITTLE SC Singles should cost a bit more than 1 SC Single, but they actually end up costing $1 less.
The point here is not the $1, but the fact that the pricing is not fairly proportionate.

Are you so entitled that you feel you can dictate the proposed specs and price of BFL equipment? This entire thread is ludicrous.

Agreed. I don't understand at all what the hell you're making all this noise about. Buy it or don't buy it. Good god.

Go tell Walmart that their snack size Pringles are priced unfairly.

To above 2 posts, if you look at the poll, you see it's not just me, many people agree with the idea.

Also there is a big difference between Walmart and BFL.

Walmart buys with their own money, then resells a ready product.

The entire BFL company is funded by the Bitcoin mining community right now.

And if I put up a poll asking if people would rather have the Single SC have 100 Ghash, I'm pretty sure 100 would get more votes than 60. I'm not sure what that proves.

I also had no idea that there was any difference between Walmart and BFL. I planned on purchasing all of my ASIC devices through Walmart at 12:01AM on Tuesday.

To have 100Ghash would not only be impossible as it would require every ASIC chip to do 1.2Ghz, and the maximum it can do is 1Ghz according to BFL, but also illogical as it would make other BFL products uncompetitive.

There is actually logic behind what I proposed, and it is to retain the original price structure of: The more you pay for a product, the more value per dollar you get", this is how it was until the LITTLE Single broke it.

Just when I think I've heard it all...I read through the bitcointalk forum posts.

What are you missing here? If I poll people if they would like more Ghash for free, they will say yes. That in absolutely no way proves any point you're trying to make.

I also don't give the slightest shit if their "price structure" is off by a few dollars. You don't know why their price points are where they are, and they have no obligation to explain it to you. If their product isn't priced to your liking, don't buy it. That's how it works.

BFL Josh just denied your peition on the grounds that they "aren't prepared" to do that.

He unfortunately didn't find the redundancy aspect to be a good enough reason.

Quote: BFL_Josh (Inaba)

Link: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showthread.php/136-Petition-to-stabilise-price-structure-of-BFL-ASIC-hardware?p=1843&viewfull=1#post1843

BFL customers will only get 60Gh/s at this time it seems.

Everyone who voted for a raise in Gh/s should contact them to see what they would willing to do for their customers.

http://www.butterflylabs.com/contact/ (http://www.butterflylabs.com/contact/)

And while you're at it, ask for a raise to 75Ghash, or maybe 85 Ghash ... You know what? Fvck it! Let's ask for 100 Ghash! Everybody loves a round number, right?

I'm mad as hell! I paid for 40 Ghash. I'm not getting what was advertised. I DEMAND that the number be lowered back to the original spec!

Your poll doesn't match your post; it doesn't ask if it's unfair that the little single is half the price of the big single. It asks if BFL should update the firmware of the single to upgrade it to 65GH/s. Everyone who's ordered a single would agree with that even if they think the reasoning behind your post is moronic.

Thank you, I was having trouble putting it into words because I was so stupefied by this entire thread.

Are you serious? Is he serious?

Perhaps willing customers would pay a premuim in private and get a Modded mining rig for 5 or more Gh/s system?

BFL could call it a "custom ordered unit". Why not at least float them the idea and see if they are willing?

There is a water block option for that reason, I would suppose.

I am no fanboy so I don't have any issues with floating ideas to any company willing to consider these options.

--------------------------

People should never be hesitant to ask a company how far they are willing to go if you can pad their pocket with some extra cash (or...BTC). It would give some an advantage over others and it costs customer something extra. Both parties can get what they want. Hopefully you won't object to the idea of people contacting customer service to propose private modifications to their orders?

Or

Are you objecting to the idea of people contacting BFL to see what they can do for specific customers?

I'm opposed to wasting their or my time over such a trivial amount when their product isn't even in the wild yet. I'd much rather they spend their time making sure there is a timely and proper delivery than responding to a non-issue of a perceived few dollar discrepancy in pricing.

Come to think of it, didn't BFL say that they're having trouble getting enough of the non-ASIC components to ship promptly? I'm sure that offering Mini-Singles at the same price/performance as the Singles can't be helping with that, since the Mini-Single is obviously going to use more than half a Single's worth of components...

I like you Unacceptable. (You make a lot of funny points) Just consider that you shouldn't become a fan of any one company. Less so, if you are thinking about joining in to the idea of no longer willing to glean an edge over everyone else receiving their orders.

Personally the bickering on Bitcointalk is pretty funny. I like it when you all argue but sometimes people don't argue over the rational points of interests.

Why hasn't there been any recent talk of one user trying to gain an edge over others? Where is the spirit of competition?

Is everyone happy receiving the same? Why not at least question the status quo of the units you guys are getting? Lets shake things up ;).

there's no damn thing called a mini-single

Well, then you and I are on two different topics.

My interests weren't focused on a ($1) dollars difference.

Thanks!! ;)

I try to see the lighter side of stuff,since life in general is a bitch...............

I'm not so much a fan of BFL,I just think they're offering is better than most.I have purchased from them in the past with minor issues,but nothing was a deal stopper. & will continue to do so in the future.I will also try to spread my money with other companies who's offer is close to thiers (warranty,trade ins,etc..).

No response I've seen to this post tops this:

"What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

I wish more people could talk like you and I are doing right now. (More in the center than at either extreme)

The only reason why I purchased from Avalon is because they had the options I was looking for. I wanted a stand alone system rather than a USB connected system. (More like DeepBits stand alones system than BFL's tethered systems...but at a fraction of the price.)

I see you have purchased from BFL before, so you know what their hardware is like and you know of the quality. So I understand your view on how some of the weird theories people talk about on Bitcointalk are _way out there_ and usually baseless. I have become rather desensitized to some of the bogus ideas floating around about BFL.

What worries me is the lack of a serious warranty on Avalons part. 1 Year is not alot. I also wonder what the fine print will be for BFL on what parts they cover for a lifetime vs what only has 6 months. (I think they stated the fan is only for 6 months)

-----------------------

Honestly, with all these delays...I wouldn't be at all surprised if bASIC is the first to ship their products. They aren't modifying things anywhere near as constantly as the other two.

Please re-read the thread 5 more times, and you might understand.

It's not so much HOW you talk/communicate with each other as to WHAT you talk/communicate about  ::)

Some of these theories that are brought up are very far outside "normal" thinking & just beg to be trolled....................

Good for you on going with who you prefered to order from  ;)

BFL is far from perfect,but they've done right so far,as far as I'm concerned.The Sonny thing threw me a little,but after reading up on it,I thought "hes not the only one in charge,so I'll overlook it,until its proven otherwise".

1 year will be plenty,you're probably gonna want to upgrade to the next gen ASIC's before then anywho  ;) Will they offer a trade in too,from the 1st gen  ???

BFL said,they'll do the trade in thing on the next gen,so that clinched it for me,+ maybe being first to mine with ASIC.............maybe/hopefully  ;D

LOL +1

I'd hope rather than just randomly increasing the clock of the SC Single to appease us, they'll do thorough testing to determine the highest clock that's reliable (especially since there's a lifetime warranty).

So, lets say I am a hard drive manufacturer with an 1000GB hard drive for $100, and a 2000GB hard drive for 200$

After you've already bought the first draft 2000GB non-watered-down premium version of the drive, you'd then demand I reduce my performance for the 1000GB after I've figured I'd have some excess level of board and enclosure production?  Even if I just wanted to make available a 2 platter drive for the masses?   Wow...  Am I, the manufacturer, supposed to cave to some wave of DB protest? Only a scam would react to you in the way you want, ice chill.  I'm glad Josh / Inaba made things clear.  BTW, this isn't a Walmart return desk -  It's a pioneering place in the formation of the world's first established peer to peer cryptocurrency.

 :o Wow,he's only got 13 posts & he came up with that  :o

I'm impressed,bravo  8)

He's umm...been here longer than you.  :D

Sure nuff !!!!!!!!! I didn't check his profile  :-[

No wonder he's so smart  ;D ;)

Long time lurker, infrequent poster  :)  Stopping in to check on the forums during this last year has been entertaining, but what I have to say is usually answered by reading other posts.   However, this thread is especially stupid.  It's good to finally be a part of it :P

+2

I'd say its the other way: Considering each complete unit has about the same probability of failure over a given timeframe, with 2*30GHash units you have double the probability of failure than with 1x60Ghash. I therefore demand the 1x60Ghash unit to be downclocked to 55Gh/s to reflect the time and money saved through lower failure rates   ;D

Actually, running a cooler system would reduce the failure rate. If that is the case then a 30Gh/s would have a lower fail rate on heat load alone...wouldn't it?

The only macro-level parts "moving" in a BFL system is probably the fans that cool the system. The electronics themselves are produced using the same method and process. If BFLs failure rate were 1 in 10 units. Then doubling the number of units to 2 would increase your odds of a failure to 2 in 20. But you would have a 18 in 20 chance that the hardware would be fine through its "useful life".

If a person makes an argument that doubling something increases the failure rate then they are admitting that the hardware itself has a very high rate of failure.

The argument used in [redundant] RAID configurations is built on the idea of increasing redundancy removes any one point of failure. It is also why most servers have more than 1 power supply for fail over.

-------------------------------------------

If you have 1 Single SC and you suffer a single failure you are down. Period.

If you have 2 Little Single then you suffer from one point of failure and still take in Bitcoins at a reduced rate. (But mining continues regardless).

I wasn't originally going to say anything but some of the ideas expressed previously in this and other threads are not well founded.

[Speculation]
I have been thinking it over for some time.

What I think might have happened is that the old 40Gh/s rigs were probably not converted to 60Gh/s rigs. They were probably flashed....down to 30Gh/s. Hence the sudden introduction of the Little SC.

Meanwhile the new 60Gh/s Single SC probably comes from either a higher performing second batch of chips or from a second batch that is still in the process of being fabricated.

If you re-read the statement from BFL_Josh (Inaba) this hypothesis makes some sense.

They paid extra to expedite their ASIC run through the chip plant. Then he states that they had to adjust and carefully consider some of the components that make up the boards in the updated 60Gh/s systems.

If it were simply a straightforward flash of firmware...why mention the hardware components being sourced. Shouldn't that have been an issue in the prior stage of the development process?

----------------------------

It sounds to me like there are actually two batches of boards and they are (realistically speaking) almost identical except for a few minor hardware changes in components and the firmware revisions.

The reason that BFL probably doesn't want to double the amount of Little Singles (at this time) being ordered is because they don't have enough formerly 40GH/s systems that have been downgraded (if my hypothesis is correct). Clearly they would need to get rid of their overstock of previously spec'ed hardware at 40Gh/s. (Now re-spec'ed at 30Gh/s)

Which means turning lemons into lemonade by offering it to their Jalapeno customers as a free "upgrade". If that is the case, then it is a good way to offload a bunch of Single SCs that would never have made the 60Gh/s spec without changing parts to support the higher electrical load.

--------------------------

Here is the kicker though. What if BFL has tons of jalapenos laying around? I assume the bulk of their orders are for Jalapenos since they are significantly cheaper to the community.

If my speculation holds water, and they are giving the first downgraded Singles at $650. Either they are accepting a major loss, or the Singles are much cheaper to make than anyone realizes. Certainly cheaper than half the $1299 price.

If all this is anywhere near true, (and it is just speculation) then in the future they will have to give the jalapenos away at a cheaper price than $150. Unless they want to sit on stock that isn't going anywhere fast.

It also would mean that the Little Single owners are likely to get their orders first OR that BFL has them sitting in cartons sitting in some warehouse and is actually waiting for the 60Gh/s batch to finish being assembled. Which if so, means delays and missing the October and possibly November delivery dates.

If that is the case, then mostly yes, but I my experience that seldom is the case :) If the user does not extremely overclock her devices, in my experience the most common part of electronics to have a defect are capacitors and/or other parts of voltage regulation on a board. Considering that the 30Gh/s units will be mostly the same as the 60Gh/s ones (except the number of asics), the more units the user has the more capacitors etc she has, each having the same probability of failure. Double the capacitors in your system, and you double that probabilty.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if the 30GH units were identical in every way to the 60GH units, except that there are 4 processors instead of 8... which could be manually placed if you could get a hold of them.

Actually I am pretty sure that's how they will look like. They could even be completely identical from the outside, the only difference being the  30Hh/s unit has some faulty cores disabled.

Maybe we can get them to sell us the chips for $10 a piece and we can build our own PCB's.

already asked, they wont

It looks like at least 1 good thing came from this thread.

The original post makes a point, but they should just increase the price of the little single. It will be more of a issue if 2x little singles perform better then 1x single, which is very possible. If it turns out they mine 3-5% faster, there will be a lot of pissed off people. I really don't see their logic in this, unless they plan to phase out the single. Letting people who ordered Jalapeno's upgrade and cut in line is also not cool. To those ignorant people complaining about this thread, this is not like walking into walmart and complaining about prices. This is like the guy behind you in line at walmart getting a better deal then you before you even got through the register. A business should always give the best offer possible up to the point of completing the transaction.

Thank you, good to see some people understand the point of the topic.

It's a good idea to increase the price, I didn't think of it, however orders have already been placed, so it's probably too late for that.

But even they perform a bit faster, two littles will also consume more energy while doing so. While the asics sure are the main energy dump, parts like voltage transformation, USB connectivity etc. also need energy, and when using two littles instead of one single you are doubling those, too.

The real petition title should read " BFL SC singleshould be shipping by now"

That's much more likely - little single is the way to get rid of under-performing singles... disable some acis - downclock to get the right hash rate... or if a chip isn't stable at the 60gh range, just underclock it by 50% and sell it for half price.

I vote with my dollars. Bump the Singles to 65 Gh and I'm a happy man!  ;D ;D

The Single SC and Little Single SC appear to be using the same board, same cooling.  My best guess is that limiting or increasing speeds will be done by firmware, which can be upgraded or modified regardless of how many ASICS are present on a Single-SC type configuration.  

After seeing pics of the Single SC and Little Single SC-  
Thermal Characteristics:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the limiting factor for overclocking these ASIC chips will be the plastic top layer on the chip itself. The heat pipe cooling system seems to be overkill no matter if it's 1 or 8 ASICs, but this is to make up for not having a cooling system on the bottom side of the chip, or a chip that is more efficient with dissipating heat through the top layer.  With regard to what it means for this thread, I believe a BFL Single SC should run and be just as overclockable as a Little Single.  Neither the board, nor power supply should prove to be the limiting factors.  The limiting factor should be the thermal characteristics within the plastic-clad ASIC chips themselves (as superior as these chips may be  :)).

Assuming everything above is true, 2 devices that have exactly half the power and use more watts from the outlet = not convenient.    I understand the idea of reducing variance of earnings by spreading the load over more BFL units.  That makes sense.   But for people who want to reduce the amount of work, the amount of complexity of setup- the BFL Single SC is the best value.  I guess it depends on where your priorities are.  

To cool each of these units, I intend to use high air flow (large squirrel cage fan) and/ or waterblock cooling (if available), and whatever future  ???s there may be.   I want the maximum processing power in the smallest space, because much cooling will be focused on the air mass within that space.  Also, hubs are just a weak point.        

Since the hard drive analogy didn't drive it home, how about this one:

You own a metal recycling business.  If, for about the same price, you could buy Two Ford Ranger Trucks that get 30mpg in order to haul 500lbs of scrap metal each or One Ford F-150 Truck that gets 21mpg and can haul 1000lbs of scrap metal, which one do you pick?  Whatever the choice may be, do you ask Ford to increase the price of the Ranger, or limit its performance?  It is already limited by inefficiency, because the ONLY job you intend to do (ASIC) is haul massive amounts of scrap metal from point A (scap metal site) to point B (your local metal recycling facility which happens to pay out in BTC).  There is no room in this analogy for using the truck to run an errand picking up groceries at walmart.     

MPG = miles per gallon = MH/W

I have come to the same conclusion. It might explain why the first photo released of the BFL hardware had a significant bulge on it. probably a dead board from overclocking testing.

The capability of that plastic to handle heat may be a limiting factor in overclocking.

Edit:
It also has thermal protection built in, so that might also be an issue if you are overclocking to a certain degree. hopefully there will be a way to disable it, though why anyone would want to is....a good question.

I hope the thermal protection doesn't cut off if temps are too low either, as I'd like to run these in my (currently) GPU-heated garage ;D    I just wonder how fast these chips will go with ice cold air directed at the bottom side of the board.