Bitcoin Forum

I know about BFL and Avalon, are there any others?

Also, other than a group buy, is anyone selling Avalon chips?

Sorry if the questions are stupid... I'm a newbie :)

Thanks!

I'd be willing to sell my BFL chips, if you would happen to be interested in them.

Bitfury chips are also available for pre-order. You cant buy ASICminer chips but their block erupter blades are available.

Ahhh.. I assumed that block erupter blades used Avalon chips.

BFL chips look a bit hard to hand solder :) . Are there PCB's available for them?

Thanks!

From my understanding, I think BFL is a bit scammy so I would probably advise against pre ordering chips from them and instead go with other companies that have a higher odds of delivering

I disagree. The BFL chips are cheaper per hashrate than the Avalon chips and BFL has delivered sample chips as promised. Since the BFL chips will come directly from Globalfoundries and since 50% of payment is due on delivery from BFL I believe they will deliver their chips on time.

EDIT: Mrteal on this forum and chriss99 at the BFL forum are working on boards for the BFL chips. There are many board options available for Avalon chips...

I thought people would've stopped the BFL scam stuff once you noticed there have been actual deliveries of BFL machines to the customers.
Alot of people received them and some even try to sell them on ebay. It was a long wait for them for sure

It seems that the act of Mining is a moving target as to the equipment to purchase and somewhat a gamble as to when you'll actually receive it. Is my assessment correct?

I'm not suggesting by any means to not to make the plunge because I think in the long run being a miner will pay off even if you're only breaking even right now.

The most popular strategy seems to be to find the latest company promising the next generation hashing device and be one of the first to pre-pay for it; then cross your fingers and hope they deliver in time to get back a decent ROI.

If it helps you decide what to expect from BFL, I ordered my miner on June 25, 2012 and received it at my door yesterday, July 22, 2013 (392 days).  The main difference being that it sounds like you're only talking about bare chips.  Compared with the complete design, assembly, and delivery of a ASIC miner from the ground up, delivering existing chips should be child's play.  The only thing holding them back from shipping chips timely manner is that they've promised not to sell any until they're caught up on their entire pre-order queue of ASIC miners.  Personally, I'll be surprised if they get through that queue before Halloween.

I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but you can buy ASICMiner USB from several resellers, or directly if you want 50+.  Blades are not currently available, but should be released within a few weeks.  You are correct that you can not buy the packaged dies outside a device at this time.

 http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=m570.l3201&_nkw=asic+miner&_sacat=0

 you can use usb for sha-256 miner