Bitcoin Forum

If you were shopping for an ASIC miner today, which product would you purchase and why?

While Avalon has a tangible product that I believe runs "headless" (without a PC), it still consumes too much power compared to BFL products (which are still vaporware).

At this point if you are trying to mine the most coins (not make the most profit) I would say you have to go with Avalon. They have a product and you can have it in your hands in a month or two. BFL is promising April if you order today. You can mine more coins getting your hands on it now. Once everyone has ASIC's, you need the power efficiency that BFL promises. However, BFL could arguably have the worst track record on a product that doesn't yet exist.

I say mine the most coins because look at it this way. If you had plopped down $1300 worth of bitcoins for BFL's product in June when they started taking pre orders, those same coins today are worth almost $5000. If you're trying to make money and believe in what BTC is and will become, you're better taking your cash and buying coins today IMHO.

You raise very good points to consider. I think the right choice for today's buyer would be Avalon. This may change in a couple of weeks, if and when BFL releases a shipped product.

If you can, get both.

Order the Avalons and the BFLs.

Mine with whichever arrive first.

Sell the Avalons when the BFLs arrive, or, if they're making more than what you're paying in interest, keep them.

As long as there's a waiting list for ASICs, there will be someone willing to take yours off your hands for the going rate.

Yeah! Good stuff.

Anyone know if the Batch #2 Avalon priced higher than Batch #1 will have that 4th module installed for more Hashing power? (or should this be a different post topic?)

do avalon accepts bitcoin?

I'd still buy BFL.  Their trade in policy means your initial investment has future value.  I believe they will still provide a viable product that mines at a lower energy per hash cost which once all the ASIC's hit the market will make them the dominant mining platform.

Time will tell.

Apparently, Avalon only accepts Bitcoin for payment, and nothing else. Batch #2 pre-orders (600 units) go on sale in just under 12 hours and reportedly boast 4 modules for 90 GH/s @ $1,500. I am not advertising.

When would they start shipping, and how long does it take to ship from China?  I suspect even if you made a purchase from BFL you'd get it before Avalon.  If BFL ships on the current schedule (I know the fact that I had to state that says a lot).

Either are viable options.

Correction: according to http://launch.avalon-asics.com/, Batch #2 will sport 3 modules for 66 GH/s and 450W of power at $1500, with a 4th module available for $500 to add another 22 GH/s and 150W of power.
Originally, Batch #2 was supposed to carry 6 modules, then it was announced that there would only be 4 modules. Now it's 3 modules for $1500 (higher than Batch #1) with an upgrade option to 4 modules.

And, they are saying: "units will ship starting March 6th to April 5th, 2013."  <---- that's a pretty wide delivery date range...

Sanitizing findings against Jeff Garzik's experimentation, it looks like the raw power consumption on the Avalon is higher than specified: "66.3 Ghps / 620 Watts / 5.6 Amps  thanks to Kill-A-Watt."
620? It was advertised at 450W!  So this means that Avalon's 88 GH/s miner will be even higher than the advertised 600W.. probably closer to 900W..

My biggest concerns with Avalon: 1) power consumption, 2) no customer support with general shadiness, 3) Made in China, 4) uncertain delivery date, 5) the fact they proclaim they are Open Source but no source is made available.

My biggest concern with BFL: extreme delay (now 4 months) with a delivery date that continues to shift to the right - I hope they can meet February delivery as currently planned in order to put an end to any BFL concerns.

At this point, I think it's worth it to wait and see if BFL has a product to deliver and what it's actual performance will be.

Although I have to agree with wtfvanity and say that for most people, I don't think it makes sense to invest in mining equipment anymore. You're better off trading in bitcoins and looking to make a profit that way.

I'm all Avalon

LOL ROFL .. same with bitcoinasic.net (the new bASIC) .. very bad spelling.

I agree that all ASIC manufacturers seem to lack professionalism.. 2-bit companies run by "kids". At least some companies have prior reputation with FPGA technology.

Now is the time to be patient.  Wait until summer to see how BFL answers.

Scratch that shit...

After seeing this:


After all of their "No refunds, No proof" BS, how the fuck do you SHIP a 620w system while its still advertised as 400w on your website  ???

I just can't give money to a company like that, even if I stand to profit from it, it's not worth getting sh#t in the face.


I'm going with this guy:



You've also got to consider BFL's lifetime warranty (http://bitcoinmagazine.com/butterfly-labs-offers-lifetime-warranty-asic-competition-surges-on/).

Going to say BFL.

I'm coming to the party quite a bit late, but I like that the Jalapeno is in my price range for a definite bitcoin noob like myself. I don't want to go through the trouble of purchasing bitcoins to spend 1500 dollars on a piece of hardware that may not be sustainable long term (620 Watts, just wow, I read that whole thread and they had some pretty good points as to why 450W was kind of dishonest.)

I read all of Josh's posts and he seems like a pretty sincere dude.

Yes, Avalon did get the jump because of the first two units, but I'm still waiting to hear from others when they get their units.

Lol, everything I've read from Josh makes him sound like a no-class whiner. It sounds like he'll eventually deliver an ASIC-based machine; but that latest update he gave was nothing but FUD and ad homs against Avalon, and excuses as to why it was anyone's fault but his own that his schedule was slipping.

Well, I too tried to purchase an Avalon Batch #2.. but needless to say I did not score. I ended up with 3 ASIC miners in my cart at one point, and the total was 0.7 BTC (I believe), but I knew that not to be correct so didn't proceed any further.

I really wish I had secured myself an Avalon for the month of March - it's just around the corner (February is always short).

Sigh.

The most sensible thing is to order from both... if you can.

At this stage, Avalon seems to be the better bet between both of them. That's subject to change if BFL successfully ships, of course.

My prediction is that BFLs will start shipping early March.

Josh keeps backing up a week from his Feb 10th date, so I wouldn't be surprised to see another week tacked on top of that. At the very least, he has said that he will be giving people vouchers/gifts as a result of being so late, I'm going to assume this only applies to the way early june/july 2012 pre-orders.

Yup getting one sooner is much better than getting one later.

It would be nice to know what the queue looks like. In fact, without knowing where you stand in the queue, you're just gambling/hoping that yours will be delivered before too many others' come online and radically change the profitability.

Well, to give you a basic idea, I pre-ordered a Jalapeno yesterday (Feb 2nd) and I'm order #18622.

Avalon only accepts BTC as payment, while BFL has BTC, bankwire transfer, or Paypal. I go with BFL if they'll release their ASICs since I'm interested in the Jalapeno, which looks like a Mac Mini.

Thanks for posting! I hope that doesn't mean that there are 18,000-ish people ahead of us, with no telling how many machines per order.

I can only imagine how it has been for those who placed early preorders. But I am sure they will forget all about the wait when they turn their ASIC on before the difficulty shoots up.

What do you expect the difficulty to be say.... Mid April?

I'm sorry, but there is just no such thing as a lifetime warranty, maybe if a few of them go tits up; but, if the whole lot were to say, burn up a few weeks/months out of the box? There is no way.

I've read that Avalon has re-opened orders, and then their store goes down immediately, again? This is nuts.

Lol, I just noticed, BFL have posted the queue, including customer ID's good grief.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=89685.0

That is a list of user submitted order information. It's only there if you post your order info on the forum.

BFL didn't post any of it.

Okay thanks, that's better. I think it's great to let everyone have an idea of the H/s that are coming online, but it wasn't clear to me that all of the info was submitted by users. I should have paid more attention.

I agree with the sentiment to buy both and spread some risk around.  I don't just mean the "which one will get a machine to you first" risk, but also longer term reliability and support.  If you have both you do add complexity to management of course, but you also have hedged yourself against something like shoddy quality.  Frankly I wouldn't worry about complexity issues much unless you're buying 10+ machines where you do have to start worrying about things like the power lines you're plugging everything into.

(I'm all BFL, but as soon as Avalon opens for the next batch of ordering I'll be investing in them as well and practicing what I preach, above).

I went with BFL, but is more because of my personal situation than anything else. I was gonna buy 2-3 Jalapenos, but had it in the budget mid January to put in an order for the little single SC. That gives me the most bang for my buck, even being a little over budget. If they additional shipping delays I'm confident I can get a refund a few months down the line when I would need the money more. It also seemed that the "little" single was a recent addition, so I'm not sure if it would give me a better chance of receiving it sooner.

As a newbie, I've decided to go for the BFL Jalapeno. It is much cheaper than any of the the Avalon products (in terms of outlay and dipping the toes into the water, so to speak). Also, the UK customs charges will be an issue with buying something expensive from outside the EU.
I'm not expecting to ever break even on the hardware costs as the big boys will have thousands of dollars to spend on the higher end rigs, but I do hope that as I ordered the Jalapeno yesterday, it will arrive before it becomes completely obsolete! If the order number is any indication of the number in the queue, at 19XXX, it may prove to be a fool's errand! Hope not though.