Bitcoin Forum

I was planning to buy the RockMiner Rocket box, but after looking at the Antminer S3 it looks like a better deal. What do you guys think?

rocket is no longer available.  R3 is what's in stock from rockminer

What happened?

New Design

probably fine tuning their product line (new compnay).  also, R3 ships now, seems S3 will ship in 10-12 days from today, if ordered today.

Same specs though?

If so, Antminer S3 or RockMiner R3

R3 and Rocket should be same Specs but R3 has a streamlined design IIRC

R3 looks decent enough...but higher price AND higher power usage than S3?
Not sure the 0.2btc is worth getting it 10 days sooner

I added a poll, so make sure to choose what you prefer. Please also add a comment on why you chose what you did.

please don't take this the wrong way, but if one item ships immediately and another does not, you shouldn't be comparing them.  it's kind of useless in a way... it's like comparing a super short pre-order with in stock products.  very difficult to do.

I understand,

Are you saying this though because people don't have the Antminer S3 yet, and they can get the RockMiner R3?
Cause I'm not worried about when I'll get it, it will be a few weeks anyways.

I went with the S3 and here's why:

1) Efficiency.  The S3 will consume less power (366 watts at the wall for 478GH/s).  I can run 3 S3s on a single EVGA G2 1300.  Only 2 R3s.
2) The R3 states it needs an rPi controller.  It doesn't state whether or not this is included with the purchase.  If it is not part of the unit, that's another expense out of pocket besides the power supply.
3) Price.  At 0.99BTC it's overpriced and you won't mine that difference back, even if you do get that R3 a week before the S3.

bitcoin moves too fast.  you will need to do a completely new assessment once you are ready, in a few weeks.  we will have a new difficulty by that time (or two) and the stock situation could change for both devices, so this is all hot air unless you are acting now.

I believe it does state whether it's included or not.  take a look

The Rocket box was not very stable. Hash rates reported varied from 380 to 490 gh/s. Most did 430 GH. For example here is one unit I am mining with right now:

http://www.batpic.com/images/2014/07/10/Rocket_box.jpg

Nice average of 460+ gh/s

The R3 has advertised speed of 450 - 500 gh/s. I expect it to top that range from what i have been hearing from the Rockminer guys.

The RPI is included with the rockminer. Problem is the 2weeks the rocketbox already has been out mining while the new antminer s3 is still going to take 2-4weeks to make it into farms/homes.

Also, we don't know how much of a jump the difficulty will be in these two weeks, but for sure the antminer s3 is very power efficient.

Since most of the Bitcoin income from mining comes during the first 3 difficulties, that 10 days of mining difference can be all that matters for profit vs loss.  If the difficulty jump is minimal it's not an advantage, if the difficulty jumps 25% the earlier mine wins.

With the speed with which things change in bitcoinland, I'd take the earlier to arrive one over the later any day of the week.

Voted for the r3 accordingly.

Yes, S3 is a better deal but if you order now you might have to wait until end of the month.

yep R3 units (the better and more stable rocket box) are in-stock and shipping right now. By the time people get their antminers any difference in power consumption saving would have been lost by the impact of diminishing return

wait..wait.. so you say if i am purchasing S3 right now, my S3 will ship next week?
and if i buy R3, they ship to me right now?
is S3 a kind of pre-order? how about i purchase S3 after it is ready stock?

When you purchase after it's already stock you will still be waiting a week, unless you fork over the expedited shipping costs :)

R3/4 are shipping now

so a week is time to wait for shipping?
what is fork over anyway? i paid more BTC/$ to make my shipping to quicker one?

No, I'm giving you rough estimates.

I am sure you have ordered things before and understand how shipments work.

This is not a 1LB box, nor is it a small package. You are looking at a lot of money if you want to pay expedited shipping for units like this, that is of course, IF they over expedited shipping.

Expedited shipping for these things isn't $20 :P

I purchased 2x s-3's  they are the bomb.   they are far better then the r-3.

that said I would have preferred to buy from canary and/or crazy guy.

I did buy 6 r-boxes they were very nice gear.  Quiet but they cost too much.

I won't buy the r-3's for 2 reasons.  they need a rasp-pi and they will not auto boot after a power failure.

The s-3's need a cat 5/6 ethernet port  and they reboot after a power outage.

once you set them up they run for days on end with 0 issues.  just like the s-1's did.



I have coupons coming to me and will buy two s-3's from batch 4 when they are available.

Saddens me that I am not getting any gear from am ----- 

I loved buying from canary last summer  made a lot of money with him.

Don't want to piss off all the fan boys on these threads but all competition is good for the industry... happy mining everyone!  ;)

I will pick s3 at the moment.

-No RPi trouble (pi, powersupply, sdcard, usb2, loose one power socket, cost of usb cables/hub, more real estate)
-Reboots automatically - a big problem otherwise
-no software confusion like rockminers
-10% coupons. Since the price is reducing, the next s3 you buy will get >10% discount.

For other feature comparison, read https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gtj8ts3zEUZPwSBZQnYZwi__zGfg-0SKVIdH_17GqYw/edit#gid=0

S3 is the best..

10% discount is because they failed to live up to the promise of 470 gh/s


the speed of the s3 is only 440 gh/s.

The r3 is 475 at the low spectrum of their range so...

I watched the setup of the R3 on utube and when I saw the 4 usb cables going to the Usb hub the raspberry the PSU I thought this unit is not for me i have enought spaggeti cables dont need more.
I wonder is it so difficult for them to make a box and include all this inside.
Most users want a simple plug and play machine like the S3
Since I have put them on 19/7/2014 the only thing that worries me is the temperatures.
Its summer time here and temps are 32-35c inside my warehouse with ants temps around 45-49c
Hope stays like this or becomes coooler soon.Hashing is whithout any problems since then.
So suggest S3

The R4 miner has all the cables inside a case i believe, will post pictures when if i can get some :)

Got to give the edge to the S3 based simply on it's design.

Simple yet effective enclosed design, no messy cables, no RaspPi, web interface for easy setup, SSH available for overclocking, high resale value.

Bitmain just knows how to build rock solid miners.

Rockminer are a new company but i am sure they will go from strength to strength from here.

One good thing about ROCKMINER is that their hardware iteration cycles are extremely fast. Look at how many different products they released in the last 2-3months. This is an edge not many companies have (may be, even BITMAIN doesn't). If ROCKMINER can use this for their advantage, they can go places.

... or out of business because the chip they are using is inefficient and already outdated.

I just see the same blade in 3 different configurations!

Yes. however, the 3 different configurations evolved for better stackability may also require effort and they have done it. If they put the same effort on improving the boards and software, that can be a game changer.

We will see what is the score when the R5 is released :)