Bitcoin Forum

Many miners already have GPU mining rigs, and could easily switch out GPUs for PCI-E based ASIC mining cards if such an option was available.  

I would love to see someone put Avalon chips on a PCI-E based card. This seems like a very cost effective transition from GPU to ASIC mining.

Is this technically feasible?

bump

its very easy to handle that technically.

You just need the components of a "pcie to usb" on that card..

I'm surprised none of the DIY based Avalon designs are taking this approach.

In theory, it should be easier to put Avalon chips on a PCI-E based card than it is to come up with a complete, standalone mining solution.

The problem is that you dont have that much space for cooling there. Guess nobody is intrested in developing an extra heatsink with heatpipe.

Liquid cooling.

All Avalon miners really are is extensions of your computer.  Instead of using USB you connect to it through ethernet.

Honestly, I wouldn't want, nor buy, a miner that requires my computer to be on or connects to a motherboard directly and requires a PC motherboard to function.  I'd rather have a specialized box far away in some basement than inside my computer.  It just creates more hassle than is necessary.  

I can see 'casual' miners as PCIe extensions such as 'casual' miners in USB thumb drive format. 

Though honestly, anyone buying a USB thumb drive is doing it more for the novelty than mining.  Same would apply for PCIe cards.    

I disagree on the PCIe front. Many miners currently have GPU mining rigs, so if someone could manage to get 10-20 GHs out of an ASICs PCIe mining card, and can run up to six of them per computer, you're talking about some decent hashing power.

The question is relevant as miners sell off their GPU mining rigs. It might be a no brainer to sell the GPUs, but what about the motherboard, CPU, RAM, drives, and power supply? These items typically have a lower resale value than GPUs, so it may make more sense to hold onto them if there is potential re-use value in the future.

+1, this is a good idea and would be a great transition for us hobbyist miners with our antiquated GPU rigs.

I for one would definitely be interested in buying some

Interesting topic, wonder what this would mean for the manufacturers as they would be working on obsolete technology. They have put a great deal of hours perfecting what they have now. I don't expect them to give up what they have worked on now to start building asic GPU's.

Might be resistance there. None the less it would be a great selling angle though.

On second thought gpu's are more flexible application wise as asics are specific to one application

Theoretically a single machine could handle;
1-6 PCI-E cards - Would generally be limited to how many and size of boards per machine.
1-100+ USB based "miners" - No limit on size or number of miners per machine (within reason)

Yeah, it's real tough to see why they stuck with USB as an interface *sarcasm*.
Sure it be "nice" if someone did it, but I doubt it will at this rate.

USB based miners often still need external power, sometimes they come with their own adapter, some require a molex or 6 pin for example.
Your machines still have a use, just have to be re-purposed them, asking for a PCI-E based card isn't going to happen any time soon unless you are making it yourself.

As a server guy, I find a lot of use in old hardware, maybe not always for a production server, but hobby level or development area it's fine on non-enterprise grade equipment. That was an advertisement for buying/selling, trust me, I have enough laying around already for my needs.