Bitcoin Forum

When it comes to ASIC miners. What would be your preference?

Would you prefer to spend your money on a standalone network device?

Would you prefer to spend your money on a PCI-E device to directly replace your GPU's?

Would you prefer to spend your money on a USB device requiring external power?

Myself, I can't quite decide between PCI-E or Standalone. I suppose as a standalone device it would be dedicated and as such could be located wherever I please, online all the time out of the way. A PCI-E card has the benefit of being able to sit in your main household PC's or directly fit in to any custom ATX chassis you've loaded into your garage.

A usb one... well I don't know, if it looks good on your desktop and can be carted around with your laptop if that's your only online option then it makes sense.

What are your views?

Standalone. At most USB, but i prefer standalone.

Definitely prefer standalone.

Already manufactured and in stock for shipping.

Hehe, now now. Don't jump the gun.

lol. The ASIC chips don't need the bandwidth that a PCI-E slot has to offer. I like good old USB. I have a potential of running multiple miners off a credit card size $30 Raspberry pi computer. That's not a lot of space needed. For a 4U size, I could run hundreds of GH/s in that space with a pi or two. Mine aren't going in racks, so the pros of standalone aren't needed for me.

Why would you possibly want PCIe? 

You like higher cost, more complexity, annoying to solve thermal issues, non-optimal spacing, and being constrained by the number of PCIe slots.

Personally I just want to rack mount them in 19" datacenter racks so either a complete rack mountable unit or sell the bare modules so I can rack mount them myself.  Internally if they connect by USB, serial cable, or LPT port I don't really care as long as it is scalable

Aren't people are "constrained" by the number of PCI-E slots when mining with GPU's too? I can't see much of a thermal issue with ASIC based PCI-E boards, nowhere near as much of a challenge as GPU's in a gaming machine. Where do you see the issue with spacing when you consider double-spaced GPU's?

I agree with the "professional" miners desire for scalable kit. I put PCI-E in their solely down to the fact that there are thousands of miners with PCI-E GPU's sucking wattage right now that a PCI-E ASIC could directly replace.

Yes, agreed a standalone would replace all kit surplus to the GPU also.

I don't think there would be that much of a consumer demand for rack mount kit to make it a viable commercial option for anybody though? Maybe that's another topic.


I suppose in a perfect rack mount world PCI-E could be scalable and realistic if somebody designed an embedded ARM based main-board with say 8 PCI-E slots. The PCI-E boards could get replaced just as GPU's do at present when newer generation ASIC's are produced. In a perfect make believe world of course.

I would definitely prefer a standalone. I could just stick my "heater" in whatever room is coldest.

What does standalone imply? Ethernet?

USB makes it easy to scale.

Yes, that's what I was thinking when I wrote standalone. Something with ethernet/WiFi with an embedded OpenWRT/DD-WRT set up.

Kind of hard to choose because either LAN and USB have their advantages and disadvantages and I guess if you have very few units it doesn't really matter much, right?

If ASICs are not a scam  ;D, definitely USB. I would plug it in my Raspberry Pi :D

Standalone network and ethernet seem to be the winners so far. Something with a choice of the two would be the winner then.