Bitcoin Forum

Hi,


I'm just curious what the actual face value of a used FPGA is?

Especially the one that is in an "old" BFL  FPGA Single (if working correctly; flawless chip etc...).

A Spartan 6 LX 150 goes for 75 to 100 $ as i recall (just the used chip; TOMs offer --> BTCFPGA)

Can someone enlighten me in that field?



 

Basically the value of the reclaimed chips is very low except under very special circumstances that they can't sourced any other way for legacy projects or you find a hobby engineer that wants one. To reclaim a chip also takes time and money as they have to be re-balled. The resultant chip is also less reliable that a nice new part.

Spartan-6 is likely to be in production for a further 10 years and they probably won't get scarce for a further 5 years after that. so wait 15 years and there might be a very small market.

Another issue is that business users are aware of clone/fake chips in the market and they will be resistant to buy anything not direct from an official distributor.

I do not think BFL need products for the value of its components, as yohan says this costs time and money, not what they want to sell it because they have stopped selling its range of FPGAs, therefore there is only one option is that they want to put them to work as miners, this means they need to recover them back before the ASIC pesenten (if that ever happens) and raise the difficulty.

Ok thank you.

I just have a weird feeling about that "refund" your old SHA256 Single .... Why should they give you 600$ for obsolete technology?

The fact that they "sanded" of the top of the FPGA is also weird...
Why would a company do so?
Only so that no competitor can see what you are using?

Reselling a used FPGA might be possible but I can't think that someone would pay for a "sanded" chip.
Who knows what they might get. Maybe these are already fake chips or acquired in some shady business manner? :/

How does a company know that a chip is fake? (Beside not working chips;))

So it has to be option 2: They have found another use...

You can buy Pana Logic Thin Clients for about $100 shipped from ebay that have a Spartan 6 LX150 lol

HP and Cisco gives good money for "obsolete technology". Mostly as a way of keeping us as a customer with the same brand. It is difficult to compete when HP gives good dollars for us to trade-in the old hardware. And sometimes they do it to refurbish the hardware and have spares for the customers that pay for hardware support, and might need a replacement part. I also know that some major hardware companies benefits from EU subsidies when recycling old hardware. There might even be more reasons for BFL to give $600 as a trade-in rebate towards new purchases.

Maybe the trade-in offer is just a marketing gag to make people send them more money? Makes sense if they don't intend to deliver on their promises. Ever.

Thats a whole lot of BS right there!

They do contain an FPGA but nowhere close to a LX150
It is a Spartan3e 1600k.
Thats about worth 1 to 4 MHash AT BEST.


On Topic:
Used FPGAs always have value, and these mining boards can be re-purposed by knowledgeable people.

Was just gonna post it when I saw your message.

here are 10 of them for $99: http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-Pano-Logic-Thin-Clients-Black-1-Gen1-9-Gen-2-7-Power-Supplies-/130834844398?pt=US_Thin_Clients&hash=item1e765d4aee

Folks, just because ASICs are out doesn't mean your FPGAs won't be profitable for quite some time. The only thing getting phased out right now are going to be GPU miners for sure. FPGA will probably continue to be profitable and perhaps even quite profitable for the next six months.

Of course, don't go out and buy dozens of them, but if you've already got 'em, mine 'em.

BFL Singles are likely to remain worth $450-$500 until June, since they effectively act as a "$600 off" coupon for ordering new hardware.