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Title: The future of mining equipment? Post by: EiZ on November 03, 2013, 10:49:29 PM Hi all,
I'm new (so I can only post here) and sort of new to bitcoin. I read about it early on but was to busy with work to get involved. Let's just say I have more time now. The bitcoin mining ASIC:s coming out now are 28nm but if I'm not wrong, the cutting edge for manuacturing is like 15 nm. My question is when will bitcoin mining ASIC:s get there? This will make all the difference for how profitable the new 28nm will be, although their impact on the network is huge now. I'm sure there are discussions about this elsewhere on the forum, but I've got to get my 1st post done. Cheers, EiZ Title: Re: The future of mining equipment? Post by: vm1990 on November 03, 2013, 10:56:57 PM its all down to cost if they used 15nm then the cost would be about 10x that of 25nm the reason being is manufacturing the newer sizes requires newer tech where older sizes require old or new tech as more firms AMD, INTEL move onto 15nm chips manufactures are left empty and discount making older chips so they still have some business.
Title: Re: The future of mining equipment? Post by: dgross0818 on November 03, 2013, 10:59:29 PM Eiz,
Hey, I'm super new here too though I too made the mistake back in 2009 of thinking Bitcoin was a "fad" that would pass. I was actually "donating" the CPU power of 3 computers at the time to a prime number network...if only I had been mining instead :P I think the biggest issue with 28nm vs 15nm is that of startup costs 15nm is still a very new development, and as such, only companies with the appropriate R&D budgets currently have access to it. I'm certain that it will make it's way into the Bitcoin world soon, however, as I understand it, just as important as the mining speed would also be the mining efficiency. This new chip process will be much more helpful in offering more computational power per KWh than it will be in producing raw GH or TH/s Thus while network capacity (and unfortunately difficulty) will jump again, I think the bigger story will be the decreased effect on energy prices in determining margins. This is the main reason I'm focusing mainly on Altcoins that are scrypt based... still a chance there to GPU mine whereas I totally missed out on that with Bitcoin -Derek |