Bitcoin Forum

Disclosure: Spondoolies Tech was very kind to send me an Sp20 as per their Legendary Review thread. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=887807.0)

The obligatory background story: first time I read about bitcoins was mid May 2011, it took me a couple of weeks to reach... consensus with my wife that it was a good idea and to start throwing money and time to mine them.

So I bought five ATI 5830s and put them in three second hand cases I had at work, my son was just 4, so I could not leave their cases open.
I called them the three Knights (the Black one and the White ones) set to fight banking cleptocracy.

https://i.imgur.com/zErNvQO.jpg
I had them in my house... it was hot, we were at the end of June, so I had to keep the window open all day long, my wife did not like the idea anymore...


After them I did the "course of honor" of every respected miner: GPUs, FPGAs and the the Avalons, the first ASICs to reach the market... in hindsight I should have bought them with both hands during December-January 2012, when they were around 3 USD/each... anyway, it has been even funnier this way.

The review:

I got my Sp20 unit saturday morning.

First of all, you need to know that my nickname and Spondoolies... mean nearly the same (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spondulix), pocket change my nickname and a (bigger) cash sum theirs.

I need to stress out that mining, in Italy, has never been an easy task because electricity here is not cheap.
I pay around 0.25 USD/cents per kWh with a commercial contract (home ones are even higher), so, apart from a few moments in bitcoin's history, I've always had the need to use the most power efficient units available (or run them abroad).

Where I'm hosting my Sp20 (mom's garage, which is a solution that I see used  more and more (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg9815149#msg9815149) by miners here :) ) I have a lot more space available than where I live and the help of a photovoltaic system, though a small one, which from late spring to early autumn helps me shave some percent off the electricty costs and produce green bitcoins ;)

I've taken a few photos, before powering on the unit:

https://i.imgur.com/9TMOxxC.jpg
unboxing

https://i.imgur.com/liWYHID.jpg
connectors side

And yes, those coins are, you guessed it, "spiccioli"


https://i.imgur.com/j1U7WZq.jpg
with case's top removed, the control board is in sight

https://i.imgur.com/08emyuT.jpg
control board, a very neat unit, with two connectors for the hashing blades on the right side

https://i.imgur.com/6LOKlNu.jpg
below the control board there is a metal plate that holds the hashing boards in place.

https://i.imgur.com/QWls4Pk.jpg
hashing boards with metal plate removed and visible on the left of the image


As I said, power efficient units are a must here in Italy, next photo shows the Sp20 near a couple of its old ancestors:  Cairnsmore 1s (with fan) and a couple of Bitfury's H-boards.

Both of them were the most power efficient solutions at their time  as the Sp20 is today. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=872014.0)

https://i.imgur.com/piXUxmI.jpg
CM1s ran around 60-65 W/GH, BitFury's boards run around 1.1 - 1.3 W/GH while a downclocked Sp20 is able to run at 0.55-0.57 W/GH

https://i.imgur.com/8RKivAb.jpg
For my first test I've used a Recom M1600 I had laying around. The M1600 is an 80+ bronze PSU able to output 1600W, it is 85% efficient, so not the best you can find efficiency wise, but it has enough juice to run an Sp20 at full speed without problems.


https://i.imgur.com/U6b0TUm.jpg
I've run it with stock configuration since saturday evening.

https://i.imgur.com/DG2dlr7.jpg
Running at 1620 GH/s in 23 C enviroment it was using 1190W at the wall on a 220V circuit.


Today I've reduced speed a little using SP-Tech's recommended tweaking (http://www.spondoolies-tech.com/blogs/technical-blog/16210596-how-to-underclock-sp2x-3x), that is reduce voltage alone, I've reduced max voltage down to 0.70 from 0.75 because chips were throttling due to heat. I'm now hashing at:

https://i.imgur.com/LxE8Y0I.png

with chip temperatures all under control

https://i.imgur.com/A1IRu5H.png

and power should be around 1 kW at the wall, but I have no photo, alas.

I use slush's proxy to handle all of my units, to be able to point them to the pool of my choice without the need to reconfigure each one of them.

What follows is a graph I make from slush's proxy log file, it shows last day of hashing for this instance of the proxy code which receives the hashing of the Sp20 and of three old Bitfury's rigs (bf2,3,4 in the image).

https://i.imgur.com/aH5qUN8.png

Tomorrow  or the day after it I'll switch the PSU for a Corsair V1000, which is a 80 gold+ unit and I'll reduce unit's hashing speed to reach the sweet spot around 750 W at the wall, where the unit should still able to hash at 1350 GH but with much better power efficiency, as philipma1957 has already found out (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=872014.0).

Stay tuned!

spiccioli.

haha, you linked my post. my old mum would be so proud.

great review!   :)

 I wanted to know the upper right of the board is that the fan plug?

TIA   phil

Yes it is Phil and its not a standard vga fan plug its a micro molex, but not sure exactly which one.

Got a feeling its the 4 wire version of this: http://www.molex.com/molex/products/family?key=picospox&channel=products&chanName=family&pageTitle=Introduction&parentKey=wire_to_board_connectors

:)
Great pictures.

Well done,  nice review!

No doubt, yes  :)

Thanks for the photos and also for the review  ( o meglio, grazie ).

Thanks,

I'm glad you like them.

spiccioli

No comment on how absurdly loud they are?  What's your reading on that?

just for you koontas, Spondoolies have reduced their prices yet again.


you're welcome.

It is definitely loud when running at full speed.

With my iphone and an app (I don't know how accurate it can be) I've read 78 db at a couple of meters from the fan with fan at 90%.

I've not yet downclocked it, so I can't say how much more silent it can be, but at 80 or 90% fan you better keep it outside your house/room.

spiccioli

Their aren't any fans that can push the amount of air needed to keep them cool enough to hit their target speed, AND keep quiet.

But you can run them in ultra low power mode and still get great results, sound wise at 40% the fans aren't so bad.

I'd say part of the sound comes from fan's vibrations amplified by Sp20's case.

I did not check whether the fan has spacers/silencers (I'm not sure how to call them) between itself and the case.

spiccioli

mine is in the room next to my lounge, when the wife gets home from work, I drop the power down and fan speed to 40, it's not so bad, can only just hear it and tv noise drowns it out easily.
to be fair, if you adhere to philipma1957's downclocking specs, it's a far more efficient miner <0.55w/GH - it's pretty much equal to my SP31, which does 0.53w/GH on stock settings.

note: the SP31 is NOT in the 2nd lounge room next door!

Unfortunately the fan sounds like that even outside the case.

Little title change as per https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=887807.msg9864488#msg9864488

spiccioli

I've added the background section and a photo (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=895085.msg9851381#msg9851381) of my first units never shown before in the Interwebs!

spiccioli

I will alter my links to reflect you are  the first review posted


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=872014.msg9645864#msg9645864

Awesome :) more pics please ..

i like the background stories, these are little snippets of people's lives that we very rarely get to read, it kinda puts a persona behind the usernames. thanks for sharing.

My pleasure!

spiccioli

Yesterday I made a couple more tests after running it for a week at 1.5 Th and 1000W during the paycoin frenzy :)

https://i.imgur.com/caRFTub.png
https://i.imgur.com/BNS0L97.png
https://i.imgur.com/pPE0wmq.jpg


First of all I did try to push it to the maximum, having a 1600 W PSU I though I could go higher than 1.7 Th, but alas I could not.

Intake temperature as reported by miner's interface is higher than environment's real one, I was in a 10 ° C as this old analog thermometer shows

https://i.imgur.com/z4KX9UT.jpg

but miner's reported temperature was at 16 ° C and increasing

https://i.imgur.com/VeryQgt.png

At 1667 GH I was using around 1280 W on a 220V outlet with my Recom M1600 PSU (85% efficient)

https://i.imgur.com/YnFcEFA.jpg

1670 GH is as fast as it can go, in a 10 ° C environment, because of thermal throttling by the chips, which were not able to remain below 125C even at 100% fan speed.

https://i.imgur.com/0alyPt3.png

In his review johnyj is doing some great mods (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=896161.msg9886622#msg9886622) to better cool all of the chips and so avoid thermal throttling, let's see what he can get.

spiccioli

So if I can't go faster, let's try to go cheaper :)

I've attached my unit to a Cooler Master V1000 PSU, 80+ gold and around 91% efficient at this load and I've limited chip voltages to 0.665 volts, without touching max watts per board, as per Spoondolies Tech recommendations.

https://i.imgur.com/erUqmSn.jpg

And here what I can get, 1305 GH at 700 W, fan slowed down to 40% and chips nicely warm (intake at 22 because I'm back inside my mom's garage).

https://i.imgur.com/xyWvcGm.png

https://i.imgur.com/aOrVQ22.jpg

I'll leave it hashing at 0.536 J/GH for the time being, or at least until after Christmas time.

spiccioli

Hello would it be possible in your opinion to drive 2x SP20 with a 1200 gold PSU (100A)

In detail at 1000 GH and 500w each => circa 125watt per connector (1000watt/8)

1000watt over the 12volt rail equals to 1000watt/12v = 84 A < 100 A


what about it?

too much 125  watt for each 6 pin pci connector?

some of my test:

Mining Rate: 855.96Ghs
Temp Front / Back T,B    15 °C / 31,30 °C
Fan Speed    50
Start Voltage    0.6 / 0.6 / 0.6 / 0.6
Max Voltage    0.61
Wall wattage 425

Mining Rate: 770.07Ghs
Temp Front / Back T,B    14 °C / 29,28 °C
Fan Speed    40
Start Voltage    0.58 / 0.58 / 0.58 / 0.58
Max Voltage    0.6
Wall wattage 380


125w for each connector is more than fine!

thou i would do my best to push the miner to the max to recuperate the money invested....

Why didn't you try something more:

1029 Ghs @

T front/back: 20 /44
Start volt /max volt: 0.32/0.625
Max watt: 150

i think i did enough tests:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=872014.msg10016431#msg10016431