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Since there are 5 new powerful X11 Asics coming to market, I thought I would start a central thread breaking down the pros and cons of each product

We'll consider the price, hashrate, delivery estimates, multi-algorithm capabilities (quark etc.) and company track records and (most importantly) where/when/how to buy them.

When they're delivered (hopefully) people can share their experiences with the different hardware.

QUICK RUN DOWN to get the ball rolling.

1) BITMAIN 15 GH D3 ANTMINER - Bitmain recently sold their first batch of their new D3s on their website, selling out in a few hours. Price was $2,700, with estimated delivery set for September 15th or later (since this is their first time making an x11 miner, they cautioned against possible delays). Their site claims a new batch will be "available soon"... but "soon" is a VERY subjective term. My guess is their new batch won't be available for pre-order until August, and it is possible / likely the ship date will be later as well. Even with the lack of availability, this is still probably the best buy out there (if you can actually manage to buy it).

2) Innosilicon A5 - Innosilicon came out of NOWHERE with their X11 30GH A5 to be shipped some time in October. If their price was a few thousand less, this would have easily been the top dog, BUT with a $10,000 price point ($9,285 - barely less through a group buy), it's a hard sell. They are claiming you can get to 38 gH by overclocking, but even so. Not to mention that Innosilicon has a track record of falling short of their promised specs and/or missing delivery dates. Even so, with the reduced electricity draw (compared to 2 D3s), it's still an interesting contender. If you're interested, check out the group buy thread below.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2034549.msg20324863#msg20324863

3) IbeLink 10.8 GH DM11G - this machine WAS all the rage... until it wasn't. Originally offered as a group buy through Bittawm (or a slightly more risky Russian retail buy through Bitbaza and 51asic.ru), Ibelink recently sold a few of these through their website just before the above hardware came to market. They were selling for 6k in Bitcoin and Dash, but are now sold out. One advantage of the Ibelink is that it ships in August, a month before most of the competition... but THAT advantage may be short lived. They WERE going to presell a second batch, but I imagine that'll need a serious upgrade if they want to stay competitive.

4) PinIdea Drx 1200 mh/s - they dropped the ball, pure and simple. PinIdea's new Asic does 1.2 Gh, basically the same as 4 last gen baikal cubes... which would've been great a few months ago... but not now. Their price (6-7 k) does not reflect their tall midget designation. One upside (i suppose) is that they could ship... but again, that's short lived.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20170704091749&SearchText=pinidea+drx


5) Baikal 2 GH Giant Plus - just an incremental upgrade of their a900... BUT Before you dismiss these (not so) Giants off hand for their (now puny) hash rate, consider this: Baikals produce the only ASICs capable of mining in different algorithms (x11, x13, x14, x15, quark, qubit). I know that Dash is the name of the game, but with so much new hardware hitting the market, it may make sense to diversify where you can. To be honest, I know NOTHING about these other algos, and the coins that could be mined with them... so PLEASE feel free to enlighten me and the thread.

I think you may be able to buy directly from them for something like $6k... or you can try Bittawm's group buy (below), which could be more in the 4k range if you act fast. I believe these are ready to ship

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2041159.0


If i've missed something or gotten something wrong, please feel free to set me straight...

Just want to add on point #5, there're couple of things:
1. The altcoin devs can always change their algos to thwart ASIC takeover just like vertcoin switched to GPU friendly algo
2. Other manufacturers can always adapt and release updated software to handle other algos. It's just a puny change and doesn't require major rewrite.

All in all Baikal is a huge risk at their current price. In my book Baikal Giant+ is worth USD 700 provided they ship now and product arrives before August.

Wow, that's really interesting, bclc. You're saying that any X11 asic COULD mine those other algos (x15, quark) with a simple software update (no change to the hardeare)?

Why do you think more of them aren't doing that? Does the same thing apply to Scrypt and Scrypt n? What about blake /blake2 /blake2b? I'm interested in the upcoming Siacoin Obelisk Sc1 asic (supposedly) coming out in 10-11 months, but as of now, it will only mine Blake (2b)...

Thanks for your help / insight...

All of them have good roi, and always will be some good coin to mine with them, especialy baikal who can mine so many algoes.

the best one is indeed the innosilicon, the other re behind, but it's not only a matter of speed but a matter of time, it's better to have a slower speed but get the miner early to start mining with low, diff because if the diff increase your faster miners it's like my slower miner

From my understanding, all those big hash rate miners are ASIC and Baikal is FPGA. With that in mind, ASIC can no longer be altered once made while an FPGA can be reprogrammed, which was why they were able to add other algorithms with a firmware update.

I could be wrong...

Well, the Innosillicon certainly is the most powerful / energy efficient IN THEORY, but there are other factors. Most obviously, it's price point is someehat prohibitive... for the same pice you could (theoretically) purchase 3 D3s...

The other factor is Innosillicon's track record of under delivering on hashpower and delivery date. I believe this happened with their Scrypt A4s...

But as the wise man said, "we'll see"...

I think you're right, but is it possible the Baikals are PARTIALLY FPGA? Found this in an interview with Baikal:

"X11 uses a chained eleven hash algorithms differently from Scrypt and SHA256 that cause more challenges for the optimization of eleven hash algorithms. While we optimized each hash algorithm, we focused much more on the entire interworking the eleven hash algorithms. We were sure about one shot success of X11 ASIC development through high fault coverage FPGA verification."

To be honest, I don't really know what FPGA is. Would you mind explaining it a little to the thread, and how it differs fron a straight up ASIC protocol?

FPGAs are one step below ASICs. Better than GPUs at tasks, and reprogrammable (hence field-programmable grid arrays), but they aren't built for one thing and one thing only, so they aren't as efficient most of the time. Most FPGAs can do these hashing algos but the ones Baikal used were probably optimized with software just for them and possibly custom manufactured. Just up to someone to configure the FPGAs to mine.

The alleged Pinidea DRX 1150 seems to be a scam, as it's not listed on the actual Pinidea site AND the graphics are a direct ripoff of the Antminer L3.

 I seriously doubt that ANY X11 ASIC-based miner uses a FPGA as part of the actual mining part, the efficiencies are WAY too high


 Using a FPGA to verify the basic design of a circuit before you commit to making an ASIC version is common, but it doesn't make the resulting ASIC chip a FPGA.



 Oh, and for reference, FPGA stands for "Field Reprogrammable Gate Array" - it's basically an IC that's designed so you can route the inputs and the outputs of the various gates on it in different ways to implement different complex circuits.

I'm curious whether Bitmain's 2nd batch will be larger than their 1st batch. Even if it is twice the size, I suspect it will sell out just as fast now that everyone's waiting for them.

Fully agreed

"All in all Baikal is a huge risk at their current price. In my book Baikal Giant+ is worth USD 700 provided they ship now and product arrives before August. "

Technically both of those are using the exact same chips these manufacturers have been using in their previous models.  These are not really new asics, they are new models using asics that they have been selling for a while.  Which is why neither one can really compete.  Also I am saying asic in regards to baikal even though I see the discussion about them being fpga's.  I really don't know either way.  Technically iBelink had a previous generation x11 chip that was selling at the same time as the PinIdea ones but it looks as though iBelink had their eye on the future and PinIdea maybe didn't?

X11 algorithm as someone already stated in a previous post is technically 11 different algorithms chained so it may be theoretically possible to use firmware to designate the chips to do only one of those 11 exclusively.  The algorithms used in x11 are blake, bmw, groestl, jh, keccak, skein, luffa, cubehash, shavite, simd, and echo according to this site: http://cryptorials.io/glossary/x11/

I think it would be entirely dependent on the chip design though.  It seems perfectly possible that the chips could be designed in such a way that you couldn't get only one algorithm and it could only ever do the full x11 series.

I posted this in another thread a couple days ago but seems appropriate to go in this one.

1stminingrig.com did a review of the Baikal Giant Plus, analyzing its profitability, etc. Thought you might be interested...

http://1stminingrig.com/baikal-miner-giant-a2000-worth-review/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+1stMiningRig+%281st+Mining+Rig%29

Thanks for sharing i read this review and don't agree to claim that D3 is also going to be a unit 'used for half a year'. The difference is this that bitmain is now building it and maximum testing/use period they will get would be 1 month.
So the so called revenue profitability shown is going to be significantly reduced by atleast 50% thus doubling the ROI period.

Baikal have below options now:-

1. Sell for $4000 get low # of sales and use the unsold units for mining themselves

2. Sell for $2000 to $2500 and get all units sold out and start working on a new model with hope that they get huge capacity and reasonable price.

Looks like Bitmain is getting ready for batch 2 real soon:
https://twitter.com/bitmaintech/status/889699156721258496

Yes, they have a good roi on paper. But it is getting highly competitive, meaning that a lot of people will buy and power them on.
By the time they arive to us who knows what the roi will look like.
Also they will produce more efficient x11 asics

The D3s just went back on sale and sold out within an hour... I know Bitmain generally sells out quickly, but this has gotta be record, no?

 They don't seem to be sold out, more that their website seems to be broken at the moment - or they're ALMOST ready with the new batch but haven't actually gotten all the "back end" updated for it yet.

Baikalmini 150 mhs https://i.hizliresim.com/dGln4D.jpg

cube 300 mhs https://i.hizliresim.com/7NWo8L.jpg

https://i.hizliresim.com/mkgGr4.jpg

Might i recommend restarting your browser. Bitmain recently updated their site, u may get a 503 error unless you restart your browser.

They did sell a batch last night, Sept18-25 batch. Can't know how many they sold, but it sold out in an hour.

Great post, baskanx!

Thanks for taking the time to share those pics. I personally don't know enough about microchips to know what I'm looking at, but i'm sure somebody else can...

That's why i love these forums.

Innosilicon miners cost too much

If it weren't for the D3s, they'd be the best buys in town... but the D3s DO exist... not to mention the fact that Innosilicon has a bad rep for over promising /under delivering hash rate / delivery date.

Thank you man

 Wasn't a browser issue - was that they had sold out but their website hadn't been updated to reflect it yet.
 They stated in an email response to me that they had sold out in "30 minutes".

 I DO believe that is a record for them - but I have to wonder how big the batch was, or if possibly some "whale" miner/farm bought a large piece of the batch in one big transaction.

 Hmm, seems they changed the package when they moved from the old 150 to the cube 300 - probably why they changed the part number.
 Neither of those part numbers are standard FPGA numbers though.

Agreed. Innosilicon blew a huge opportunity by overpricing the A5. If they had priced around USD$6-7k, they would've taken over the X11 market.

I believe they updated their website prior to the sale, creating a 504 error that would pop up nless you closed and restarted your browser... something cookie related (?) I've already said more than I know. Thought maybe you were having that problem...

As for whales, I know they capped individual buys to 50 or under. I suppose somebody COULD have bought more from different accounts...

I think Bittawm picked up a few, if you're looking for to secure one.



Even Eastshore.xyz is out of stock (at least for now)...

Btw, I have a few Ibelink DM11Gs coming my way soon, so I'll be able to report how they run and what kindnof returns they generate  I'm hoping a-lot-of / most-of the increased difficulty has already hit the x11 algo bc the manufacturers are mining before they ship (would explain the recent spike in network hashrate).

Either way, I expect the next 2/ 2.5 months to be the most profitable.

If anybody's interested in one, PM me. I'm not particularly motivated to sell, since I bought them to mine and they were hard to comme by, but I might consider an offer if the price were right...

I know this is slightly off topic, but any suggestions for good X11 pools? Was especially looking for ones that merge mined and/or switched between different X11 coins (Cann, start etc)...

I tried to start a thread elsewhere on the subject, but so far it's received no love...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2044610.msg20361802#msg20361802

#tumbleweeds #crickets #coughcough

very nicely put together.
the asic market is interresting because you have a much lower profile next to some big hot gpu rig.
and those new beasts deliver amazing results.
i actually had one of the d3 in my shopping cart but i couldnt change eth fast enough.
if you had one today you would make close to 10k this month, with 15gh
now the people says 10k is too much for innosilicion, but it is supposed to have 30gh
so if you would have one today it would earn you 20k! EACH MONTH!
yeah yeah i know difficulty rise, but even if the profits drop to 3k with the d3,
lets imagen the innosilicon is capable of running at 30gh and makes you 5-6k each month.
its a no brainer. if you have 10k, but one. if you have 100k, buy 10!
because the magical word is ROI,
someone tell be a quicker way to ROI and keep on collecting money while driving lauching to the bank.

_{kw30 #deeponion w168c848/04}

I guarantee you profits will drop much, much more than that as difficulty goes exponential on various X11 chains. Even $1000/month may not be reached when all of these miners are shipped and running. Plus, we don't know how many they are using themselves, as mining is currently so profitable.

That being said don't get ripped off by people selling preorders. They can easily go to support saying they lost their account and you will have essentially been scammed.

It's a valid point. I'd say that crypto mining with new hardware is (at least for the moment) is very promising in general. I'm not (unfavprably) comparing the Innosillicon A5 to other asset classes (mutual funds, silver etc.), but rather to other mining hardware options in the same algo.

For roughly a thousand dollars ($1,000) less than the price of the Innosillicon A5, one could (hypothetically) buy 3 D3s and have 50 percent more hashpower (45 Gh / 30 GH)...

Of coURSE the 3 D3s would draw more electricty than the one A5, but that's about it.

Anybody have any idea about the electrical requirements of some of these devices. I know the wattage, but I'm finding the voltage / amps hard to come by.

Especially looking for details on the Ibelink 10.8 GH/s DM11G and Bitmain's D3.

Thanks for the help.

It seems that getting access to any product is difficult and risky.

They are all second hand too. I would be 'testing' them while waiting to sell to risk adverse buyers as well. 8)

Power Supply: 110V to 240V, 50Hz/60Hz
It should be between 4 to 7 amp

D3 is the best at this price. without a doubt. Inno's sold out recently.
Bitmains sales were only on 2 days and sold out fast. (second day <5 mins)

Managed to secure. Will see if it arrives on time and lives up to expectations.

Inno with their exchange was well over the price stated in USD. All sold out on a CGI Image of the device.... no photo. incredible!
Some people paid 12k USD for iBelink which they still didn't rec yet....

This mining game is tough..
Bought an iBelinlk 3 days before the D3 was released then 1 day later the Inno..

Thank you so much for your help.

Is that for the D3 or the Ibelink DM11G? I assume you're talking about the D3, but just wanted to make sure.

If the Antminer power supply has that range, is it reasonable to assume the D3 will use high end of that voltage range? Since their other lower wattage asics use the same power supply, I'm thinking the D3 would use more voltage than those lower wattage asic models (L3+, S9).

 D3 is 12V DC powered, like ALL recent Bitmain devices.
 
 They specify "at the wall" wattages based on using a specific model of THEIR power supply.

 From that point, figure the voltage you can feed the PS then divide that into the watts rating for an approximate value for the amps.