I had some hope for GTC, but right now it's looking like another month or two past that for an announcement on the first consumer 2xxx series cards - and a LOT of conflicting rumours about them.

About the only consistency is the "they will be the 20xx series", even though it would make more sense for them to be called the "11xx" series.

2 companies, a week or two apart - and Bitmain has a track record of keeping "ongoing projects" under wraps 'till they are either ready to sell, or their competition announces something that is a direct threat to one of those projects.

You're also ASSUMING that a company can just "throw together and get shipping" an ASIC in a month or two - which is NONSENSE as design lead times ALONE are longer than that, then add in "validation" sample production and testing, and if you are lucky and your ORIGINAL design validates correctly it's still months before you can get a batch of PRODUCTION chips into the que made and shipped.

It's not "coincidence" - it's "long lead times triggered by the SAME event (massive price jump on CN coins last spring) and some possibility that Bitmain was sandbagging about an "in-process" miner again".


I seriously doubt a Belorussian company would even consider "collusion" with a Chinese company anyway.

Now take off the tinfoil hat and join the real world. 8-P

Wasn't one of the reasons some folks like Windows 10 for mining that you supposedly DON'T NEED the "6GPU" hack to the drivers to get more than 4 cards working on it?


Most "firewall appliances" can also block ports except as specifically needed, though I've seen specs on a few of the cheap low-end ones that have a ridiculously small limit on how many machines they can do that for.

Per EVGA THEMSELVES, the PORT that the Molex string is connected to on the PS is only rated 75 watts.
DO NOT look at that 300 watt rating on the connector (which would be 288 watts ONLY if it had 3 pins each on +12VDC and ground) and think it applies to the PSU PORT itself.

Additionally, with only ONE PIN on 12VDC on the connector (the others are used for SATA-related voltages) you have a max of 96 watts for the CONNECTOR ITSELF on the PSU end.

2 risers on one molex string on an EVGA B2/G2/P2/T2 series power supply = ASKING FOR MELTDOWN and is actually WORSE than powering one riser from a SATA connector.


As already stated, you have ZERO CONTROL over how much power a GPU pulls out of the PCI-E bus vs the PCI-E power connector (they DO NOT always, IF EVER, prioritise the power connector) so there is no way to be sure that a SATA power connection to a riser is going to be safe unless you actually MEASURE the draw, or the card pulls less than about 50 watts TOTAL for the entire card (GTX 750 ti or HD 7750 - the GTX 1050/1050ti CAN'T be turned down that far, though at minimum 52.5 watts they're at least close).

The draw is not always "proportional" to the TDP setting as well - some cards appear to draw power for their memory and/or video output circuitry from the PCI-E bus while powering the GPU itself from the 6/8/multiple power connector(s) so turning the TDP down will have almost ZERO effect on the draw from the PCI-E bus.


That "gpuminingresources" site has obviously never owned and looked at the cabling on a EVGA B2/G2/P2/T2 series power supply, or bother reading the EVGA forums - their so-called ratings are JUNK and not to be trusted, if they thing you can pull 300 watts from the SATA/PERIPERAL ports on that PS series.


 

And still a MOQ that is way too high for most miners.

Weren't you folks supposed to be getting some distributors in place?

Given the continuing extreme shortage of AMD RX570/580 GPUs despite their announced ramp-up, and the even worse shortage of Nvidia 1060/1070 cards in the timeframe of that hashrate climb, and that it did take months to almost double, I doubt VERY MUCH that a significant part of it was ASIC.
There was ZERO REASON for GPU miners to be "leaving" at that point, as profitiablity was still quite high on ETH, since it's PRICE has weathered the "cryptocoin downturn" a lot better than most coins INCLUDING BITCOIN.
I'll also point out that the profitablity compared to ZEC and it's offspring was climbing quite a bit, which would have led to some ZEC miners pointing 1070 and 1060 ZEC rigs at ETH instead (I'm ONE of those on 1070 GPUs, so don't bother saying "it didn't happen").

There might be ETH ASIC out there, but not in the kind of quantity you seem to believe, or they're very low "efficiency gain" over GPU miners and no major threat to GPU mining.

I'll also point out that once the price drop on ETH got serious, ETH total network hashrate flattened out - not DROPPED, just stopped growing much - which ALSO makes it apparent there's no significant number of ASIC being built.

There's also the question of "where are the USED GPUs" that your ALLEGED "gpu miners that left" would be selling off - no signs of them anywhere I can see, and since AMD GPU new pricing is not dropping no indication of a significant number of them ANYWHERE.



1050 isn't a good ETH mining card - it does better even now on ZEC - but the 1050 ti does better on ETH.
Even now the Vega is better off on XMR than ETH.

BM1384 is the chip Bitmain used in the S5 - 2 generations old now and VERY low efficiency compared to current chips/miners (though tuneable for better than the S5 itself managed).

I've never owned a CM series and don't plan to ever do so.
I DID get a couple of the "refurb" AX 860 that Newegg had on sale last week though - first "Corsair" power supplies I've owned in decades - but only because they've been widely reported to be Seasonic KM3 under the hood like the SS-860 or X-850 supplies I own (but different pinout on at least some of the modular cables for some weird unknowable outside of Corsair reason).

2 risers on a molex string is NOT a  good idea on an EVGA B2/G2/P2/T2 series power supply - even if the wiring is sized for it (it's NOT) the power supply ITSELF is only rated for 75 watts per Peripheral/SATA port according to a post in the EVGA forums BY AN EVGA EMPLOYEE.
The "SATA" and "Periph" ports ARE interchangeable - same pinout on the PS side - and worst case EVGA will sell you spare cables, usually fairly inexpensively.

Could also use one of the "dual" PCI-E cables to power 2 risers, but you'll need a total of 3 "dual" cables so you can use a 2 x 6 pin PCI-E to 8-pin PCI-E adapter to power one of the cards with.
It would also be practical to use a 6-pin PCI-E "extender" on each of 2 dual cables, powering one GPU and one riser from the same cable - which might be the best option.

Powering risers with SATA is risky - the connector ITSELF is only rated for 54 watts, the riser ITSELF soaks a few watts in the "voltage conversion" circuitry, and the PCI-E bus is RATED to provide up to 75 watts of power.
It might work OK if your GPU pulls 50 watts or less out of the PCI-E bus - but there is no way to CONTROL that and some cards (particularly some AMD Polaris models) were notorious for EXCEEDING the 75 watt rating on peaks.

Perhaps you are going to be paranoid about 3 companies bringing out X11 miners in about a 2 month period (Pinidea, IBeLink, Baikal) in 2016 all of which had never been heard of before that?

Coin prices exploded about a year ago, THAT is what is driving development of ASIC - and keep in mind that ASIC development has some rather long lead times.

electricitylocal does OK on reporting prices, but has ZERO search function, so you pretty much have to already KNOW where to look and you often have to drill down to the CITY or TOWN level since many utilities only cover specific parts of an area.

powertochoose has severe limitations on where it CAN operate - and once you factor in delivery charges it's often NOT the lowest cost option, though sometimes it can be.



Define "nearby"?

Not to mention their "innovative" design ... from about 3 YEARS ago where their chips are not string design.
Odd how that "innovation" was THE NORM for most miner designs except Bitfury 'till recently.

I smell a distinct stench of SCAM about this.

Miners aren't in an uproar - the upgrades to mining software are already out there.
BOTNET operators might be in an uproar, and morons that didn't do their DUE DILIGENCE before they bought an X3 might be in an uproar, but that's THEIR OWN problem.


I won't be shocked if Bitmain decides to back a "Monero Cash" type stupidcoin just to keep their miners worth something - but I for one will have NOTHING to do with it, just like I refuse to have anything to do with the Bitmain-backed Bitcoin Cash junkcoin.

It takes a LOT MORE than one month to redesign an ASIC and get it into actual production.
The Monero Core group can get the algorithm changed a LOT faster than Bitmain or Baikal can change their ASIC.

Mine aren't undervolted very far - 2'nd or 3'd step down from stock on TheStilt BIOS list, whatever that ended up at.

Error - they ARE still selling every S9 miner they can produce, it's just taking them longer to do so.
They were out of stock on the S9 when I checked this morning - but seem to have had a sale payment not go through some some back in stock this afternoon.

Same way the Gridseed GC3355 and the SFARDS upgrade to that chip supported COMPLETELY UNRELATED ALGORITHMS (SHA256 and Scrypt) did - they are designed with sections for each algorithm - as one option.

For X16 it's easier - just have each "component" algorithm with it's own part of the chip, then use a on-chip switching system with external control to route the data as needed for each sub-algorithm.
Note that many of the algorithms used in X16 are also used as separate algorithms for mining by some coins, and the "lower" X series algorithms starting with X11 grew INTO X16 via adding another algorithm or two.

I'm not sure on cryptonight/cryptonight light if you need separate sections or just a way to "switch" on the chip from one to the other, never looked at the difference(s) between the two.

Price drives mining profitiability, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
Also, ETH has been holding on to it's price better than Bitcoin since mid-January (dropped 50% from ATH vs over 60%), Litecoin is still up some vs Bitcoin since then, a few other altcoins have been holding on AS WELL as Bitcoin.

You're seeing RX 570 at the Spanish currency equivalent of under $200 for new cards?
Used cards should be selling for a lot less to be under MSRP.

Which STILL is not "overcapacity", it is "demand dropping to CLOSE to capacity".
NOT the same thing.

If current Bitcoin price trend continues, they MIGHT actually hit overcapacity in the next 2-3 months - but they're not there YET.

Also, you might want to pay attention to the fact that the length of time for them to sell a batch increased a LOT when they moved to the "require payment in BCH", even though Bitcoin price was still rising at the time and demand was still INCREASING.
Instead of "sold out in a few minutes with massive website clog delaying the sales" they went to "needed a few days, then needed weeks" to sell out a batch over the next 2-3 batches after that - DESPITE a still huge demand level.

They've also had more competition appear in that timeframe, AND new models from existing competition that were comparable on performance to the S9.

There are a LOT of factors behind why S9 pricing has dropped the last month and change.