Bitcoin Forum

Given the number of existing GPU miners, who are on the verge of turning off their rigs or have turned them off or temporarily switched to LTC, would not it be nice if some reputable ASIC board designer created 64-chip PCIe x1 single-slot boards, which could replace GPUs and even fit into those surplus x1 slots without raisers? These boards would need to draw power externally (Molex/PCIe) and not through the motherboard. There could even be a version for PCI interface, thus making it possible to utilise all those motherboards, which are starting to become obsolete.

GPU miners already have rigs to put such ASICs into, with adequate power and cooling already in place (if it could handle GPU, it could handle less power-hungry ASIC), unlike those overpriced USB ASICs, which still need a hefty additional investment in the form of multiple powered USB hubs.

You are of course right, I mean, there is a market for anything that can offer a good cost per hash, but I also really like the idea of a PCIe board.

The problem is IC's that even support 1x PCIe 1.0 are expensive compared to say an LPC1768, which has an Ethernet PHY and USB PHY and enough GPIO to communicate with 64 Avalon chips.  This would require no PC in the event Ethernet is used.

Do you mean expensive as in requiring licensing? I thought PCB and controller cost would not be largely different be it USB or PCIe. Then again, I am a software guy, so I don't know what I am talking about.

We'll see how the ASIC market pans out in the future. Many PCIe expansion cards for say audio or ethernet are not that expensive. Maybe some larger company will start producing ASICs at a more reasonable pricing level, spreading the cost over many units, once the dust around this initial ASIC craziness settles down.

Yeah but consider the differences in speed; PCI-E 1x can transfer at 250MB/s whereas USB2 is 48MB/s, also I'd expect the latency/timing margins are much larger for USB caused by the differences between running an interconnect and an external bus.

As fas as I can gather, transfer speed is largely irrelevant for Bitcoin mining. So synchronisation could probably span several flanks, thus lowering the clock internally on the board?

The power overhead on a raspberry pi + usb hub is so much less than a full PC.

Doesn't even need to be a pi, there are plenty of ARM devboards with multiple USB controllers and far more powerful CPUs!

No PCIe is not limited to 8.  In fact you can connect thousands of devices in a tree hierarchy.  I personally don't understand why the BTC mining community prefers USB connected devices.   For the same cost one can make a device that communicates autonomously via ethernet, in the spirit of avalon, but without the need for linux/cgminer/etc.

LPC1768 + uIP + stratum + configure via telnet + control for attached devices = everything you get out of a PC at 1.5W and $3-4USD unit cost vs $10-15USD for the cheapest PCIe IC you can bitbang on (still controlled via x86 cpu).  I've been considering constructing such a board (and reusable schematics to drop on other boards) with a firmware that basically developers just have to implement the chip specific control code, but don't really have the time as of late.

Doesn't have to be a powerful CPU.  The only reason USB requires higher CPU than the scenerio in my previous post is that the host has to constantly request data, the endpoint device cannot initiate transfers on its own.  Further cgminer and bfgminer poll fairly agressively.

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it  ::)

The big question then if they would be able to cope with the power draw (Amperage?) from 4 relatively power-hungry devices. Those PCIe cards draw power through motherboard. A miner PCI card could have an external power source.

Again, why do you want a computer to be required to mine? (read my posts)

PCI USB cards could nicely connect to Powered USB Hubs without daisy chaining. That is my current plan when i run out of ports. I don't like the idea of plugging Hubs into Hubs, it just doesn't feel right.

Because most of us have a PC in hand? Most people are comfortable with PCs? Yes, if your are buying or setting up a new device i can see using a Pi or similar ARM device, but if you already have the PC you have to figure out how long it would take the Pi's power savings to justify the cost. and, Pi limits your Hub choices.

So because I have a coffee pot I should make soup in it?   I am suggesting an extremely low power ARM cpu that has more hard block peripheral features than a raspberry pi at 1/10th the cost and far less power consumption.   Something you could put on the miner itself, simply plug it into an ethernet switch, telnet into it once and configure it, then it mines on its own provided the network stays up (requirement exists for all systems).

Yes you are and I am not arguing the issue. You are just way off topic on this thread. The topic is PCI / PCIe cards, not are there better alternatives to them or if you think the topic is a waste. Personally, for the right price I'd consider PCI Hashers since i have lots of empty PCI slots in computers that are being run constantly for other reasons.

Ya, I was asking for a PCIe based miner a week ago (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=239625.msg2538752#msg2538752).

Well since we're talking about building a device - it shouldn't be a big deal to add whatever power plugs we'd need into the board. (I'd honestly prefer external plugs on a backplate but whatever.

Also one of the reasons we prefer usb connected devices is we like to know what our device is doing. with a stand alone ethernet connected device we have no idea what it's doing.

The same goes for a PCIe/PCI based device - you'll have a complete overview of what's it doing, just like GPUs now.
I have nothing against dedicated external miners, but I'd love to utilise the existing rig hardware as well.

I can see a market existing in theory, but you will never be able to sell a PCIe based miner as cheaply as a USB or ethernet based miner. Having an ASIC miner that is shaped such that it fits on a backplane might be interesting. One would still plug it into a USB port on the motherboard, though.


I'm looking forward to seeing boards with temperature sensors, considering all the excitement to overclock the Avalon chips. But you don't need PCIe to get that information.

Even if it means higher power and equipment costs as well as limited cooling and case options?

You can still use it to login to the web interface of a dedicated miner if you're that set on re-using your PC. Alternately just get a tablet + keyboard.

USB

hot swappable
daisy chain
no slot limit (virtually)

PCIE
limited space, even with riser you will still need a good mouting and cooling solution, cheap solution normally end up more bulky cooler
whole machine have to shut-down to do maintenance, upgrade or troubleshooting
more point of failures

unless PCIE can provide higher efficiency if the mobo/cpu can assist/boost the performance vs running off USB. i dont think its worth it. remember we are dealing with cost vs profit, not buying designer bags just for looks and "cool" design.

my 2 satoshi

Also the bit about not being able to monitor standalone devices is absurd, there is a whole protocol whose acronym I cannot recall offhand for monitoring such things, with pretty GUI free open source master panel software that lets you visualise entire networks and all the machines on them and flash warnings and updates and so on about what they are all up to.

So if that is a concern its just a matter of tossing a monitor daemon on each standalone that answers to that ancient and standard protocol and presto all those already in place standard monitoring stations will start seeing what they are all up to.

(Maybe google SNMP ? Simple Network Monitoring Protocol maybe, something like that ?)

(It is actually so standard that if the first generation devices out the door so far don't have it that is probably just an artifact of the sketchiness and need for fast deployment of these first generation devices, that serious devices will almost inevitably fix as soon as serious people start seriously using the gear in quantity... it just maybe didn't occur to anyone yet that home users would even know of such a thing let alone have SNMP monitor GUIs on their workstations waiting to monitor such devices... as, maybe, they don't... yet.)

-MarkM-

>USB
>hot swappable
Not really a game changer for me. Most of my miners run 24/7 for a few months at a time. A maintenance reboot would occasionally take a couple of minutes from mining - not a huge loss

>daisy chain
Provided you invest in more powered hubs, otherwise I'd anyway run 4 to 8 devices off the PC's external motherboard USB ports

>no slot limit (virtually)
For a small miner 4-8 devices is anyway a reasonable financial limit.

>PCIE
>limited space, even with riser you will still need a good mouting and cooling solution, cheap solution normally end up more bulky cooler
Already have the equipment, which is paid for, so I am looking at replacing GPU miners with ASIC miners 1:1 in the same framework.

>whole machine have to shut-down to do maintenance, upgrade or troubleshooting
Not a problem. See the point above

>more point of failures
Until one of the USB-hub power supplies higher up in your USD daisy chain fails. A lot of unearthed power supplies = higher risk of fire.

>unless PCIE can provide higher efficiency if the mobo/cpu can assist/boost the performance vs running off USB. i dont think its worth it. remember we are dealing with cost vs profit, not buying designer bags just for looks and "cool" design.

It's not about design, but about reducing cost: it's about reusing existing equipment.

>my 2 satoshi
Ad mine 2 as well :D

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>Even if it means higher power and equipment costs as well as limited cooling and case options?
Equipment is paid for already (existing GPU rig). Power consumption would not differ by much. Multiple power supplies to powered USB hubs might actually loose more power than an efficient 80+/90+ PSU.

>You can still use it to login to the web interface of a dedicated miner if you're that set on re-using your PC. Alternately just get a tablet + keyboard.
And buying a tablet for that is not expensive?

All you'd really be reusing is your motherboard/cpu, which you could do anyway with PCI-E USB cards.

As for powered USB hubs - not an issue if you're serious about making back your money - BEusb's are highly unlikely to make ROI, anything else that runs over USB (other than the K1s) are externally powered so you can use your PC PSU for that. Basically the bus powered miners are pointless anyway at the prices they're going for! If it has ethernet you don't even need to worry about the PC.

Also did you not notice that ATX PSU's also have 5v rails? Just make up a few molex to barrel jack adapters and you're sorted, could be as simple as running an electricians terminal block as an interconnect if you don't trust your soldering.

http://www.wickes.co.uk/content/ebiz/wickes/invt/710112/30A-Terminal-Block-Strip_medium.jpg


Design increases cost. Also for USB daisychains the 'hub' hubs not running miners don't need to be powered. USB also connects all of the grounds together anyway so this isn't too much of an issue - the previous hub just won't supply a hub attempting to draw several amp, even the most basic hub IC's have overcurrent cutoffs.

The point about the tablet is that <£100 for a tablet which can be used to monitor thousands of standalone devices which have their own ethernet, and then you can sell your PC and monitor if it isn't being used for anything else. Also you no longer have the risk of a PC driver issue/virus/crash making all your mining cards fail.

The cooling issue is more that the manufacturers would have to work out something for the single/dual slot in order for you to still get decent density. Also drivers would have to be written for the card itself - with USB its simple, not nearly so much for PCI-E.

Ethernet is a much easier/cheaper standard and with the next gen of miners you might even be able to telnet/SSH to them!


They don't care for small miners' financial limits, the more scalable their product, the larger the quantities people will buy!

To stay on topic, the answer is yes, there is a market for PCI/PCIe ASIC miners. Are USB better? Who cares, not the topic here.

What many people are saying though is that there is no need, epecially for mining farm type setups who will be the main/biggest customer base proportionally. You can get PCI-E FPGA boards too but very few people buy them for mining.

Standalone ethernet pros:
Less chip/board cost
Easier cooling solutions
Less driver/support issues
Easier remote access and monitoring

I'd be in for a 2 slot 16GH/s PCI-e board that used a single PCI-e power connector if it were 5 BTC or less.

Might wanna check these out:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=246638.0

http://www.forked.net/~apex/k16/K16_PCIE16.jpg

this looks nice!