I think gallery2000 actually meant "Cold Fusion" instead of "Nuclear Fusion". Does that make things more palatable to folks? They had such a load of money they bought all the patents required.... 

While the "Fan Heater" almost makes sense, it's got huge drawbacks:

1) None of the heaters I have seen have Internet connectivity. This will be an added cost of the "Bitcoin Heater" that's got to get paid for somewhere. Beside serious amounts of electricity, a miner needs Internet, or it's just a useless brick. The router has that for "free" (i.e. it's already present for the normal function). Neither heaters, nor light bulbs, do.

2) While ASIC's, and surrounding electronics, can produce plenty of heat, it's an uneconomical way to do so. A few feet of nichrome (or whatever is better today) has got to be dirt cheap compared to an ASIC, by several orders of magnitude. Heater manufactures are a very mature bunch, and I'll bet they have margins that are pretty small. It's hard to see what the market will be for an electric heater that is way more expensive than an existing one (say $50-100 currently).

I should probably just shut up and let the market render it's verdict on the value of a "Bitcoin Router" or a "Bitcoin Heater".

So, I am curious. If you can fit a rectangular miner inside a cylindrical "Duct Muffler Silencer", is the idea to retain the existing S5/S5 setup, or to replace the fans with larger fanst at the end(s) the cylinder? My recollection is that one of the reasons for the S5 noise is that fans generate a fair amount of static pressure to actually get the air pushed through the S5 blades and heatsinks. It seems to me that the S7 will require at least as much pressure as the S5, if not more so (i.e. 3 blade -vs- 2 blades). Obviously if you replace the S5/S7 fans, you'll need to make sure the air doesn't just flow "around" the miner and does actually flow through the heatsings and boards. Obviously Bitmain could have done something to reduce the "heat density" of the S7 (e.g. 1 or 2 boards instead of 3), but haven't (yet). Could be they'll introduce the S7- "actual home miner" with a power/noise profile that's better suited to an actual residence.

Of course maybe I am just too picky. I look forward to folks actual experiences and experiments.

In terms of S7 noise, consider the following:

It's roughly the same size and shape of the S5, with what appear to be metal sides. There are three hashing board squeezed in there, and the total power consumption is about 1200W (i.e. twice what the S5 had). Unless you think there is some magic from Bitmain, or somebody else, you should expect it to always be loud unless you are willing to forgo some hashrate and lower the power. I don't think you should hope for some "quieter fan" solution to magically appear.

It looks to me like it's most decidedly "NOT a home miner" if that is underlying your question.

The current expectation is based on the fact that it appears to have TWO S5 class fans.

If you care about how loud it is, it's probably too loud.

I think it's unwise to try and carefully parse what a journalist wrote from an interview. It's also had to see why it would matter. If they didn't sell it, does it matter if it's being used internally somewhere?

Since we don't know what  chip would have been used, I think 15TH is wildly optimistic.

This might be better done in the Speculation sub-forum.

Thanks for the education kingolex. In general though I think my comments still apply. Their competition will still be pretty fierce and well entrenched. Maybe the "Bitcoin hook" will tip a few sales their way, but I still think that the networking aspects and features will limit their ability to sell R1's. I wouldn't plan on there being an R2 once folks get the taste of the R1 for a year.

I think this be fine until the R1 actually gets some reviews AS A ROUTER, and then the wheels will come off. The Bitcoin "add on" won't save them if the actual router stuff is weak or unstable. When you wife can't use her tablet, or your son's  Xbox  won't connect rom the other end of the house, the Bitcoin "feature" will look pretty silly.

If somebody in marketing at Bitmain is projecting 100K units for it's life, they are going to be sadly disappointed at review time when there are 50K unsold units on the shelves. The Internet router business has very little to do with Bitcoin and there  are dozens of other manufacturers that can probably beat them on features, marketing, distribution, and costs. Netgear, Cisco, Asus and others are going to send Bitmain back to school in a big hurry. Sure they will sell hundreds of R1's to geeky Bitcoin enthusiasts, and that will be it.

Just my opinion of course.

The push is on for a 6% increase......

Bitcoin Difficulty:    54,256,630,328
Estimated Next Difficulty:    57,429,398,822 (+5.85%)
Adjust time:    After 316 Blocks, About 2.1 days
Hashrate(?):    420,689,840 GH/s
Block Generation Time(?):    
1 block: 9.3 minutes
3 blocks: 28.1 minutes
6 blocks: 56.1 minutes
   
Updated:    2:25 (7.0 minutes ago)

BTC Price: $224

This will be interesting to watch. I expect that Bitmain will get their a** handed to them when they try and mix it up with the classic router companies. Maybe they'll sell some number of novelty routers to folks that want something odd, but beyond that I expect it will be a complete non-event, both for the router business, and the Bitcoin mining business.

Yes, I am that down on the "Lets have overpriced mining hardware wherever we can" plans.

I agree, thanks for the photo. I wondered what such a device would look like. Kinda like a crazy pen plotter on steroids. Not a scary looking robot at all....

In addition to the electrical supply in your apartment, remember that the S7 should be considered a LOUD 1200W heater. While nobody has tested one yet, every expectation is that it will be at least S5 loud. Think vacuum cleaner loud. Maybe Bitmain worked some magic, but the fans that are present are expected to be noisy and powerful to keep the 1200W blades cool enough. If that fits your apartment situation, then you'll be good.

Just to be clear, "A million years away" is roughly July of NEXT year (i.e. 2016)! I didn't expect to make it to a million years of age....

 

I am quite confident that Bitmain has already replaced a bunch of S5 hardware with S7 hardware. They sold a bunch on used S5's over the summer, and I'll bet they replaced them with S5+ and S7 hardware. I think the S7 design is well checked out at this time.

It's quite possible that this ongoing consternation of how many PCIe power connectors are needed relates to your interpretation of the PCIe specification for the power connector. I think the original spec only REQUIRED that two of the +12V lines be present. All three of the GND wires were required, but it was perfectly "legal" to only have two +12V lines. So if you interpret the PCIe spec very conservatively, 3 connectors would guarantee that there were 6 actual +12V pins.

Of course virtually no PSU vendor did that so, all three +12V pins carry current these days. So with two PCIe connectors on a current PSU, you get 6 conductors, which is the same as three "legal" PCIe connectors.

Since they don't want you to have more than one +12V rail for a blade, I think that's a pretty clear indication they are all joined in parallel on the board. In addition, things still work well, even if one of the pins has a marginal crimp, or just fits poorly, if all the connectors are used.

I'll be interested to see if coupons materialize. My bet is that they won't. I think Bitmaintech is a different animal than they were 12-18 months ago. Maybe coupons if the S7 doesn't run at spec, but I'll bet that's very unlikely, since I expect they already have plenty of experience running them in-house (e.g. Hashnest).

In another few days, the "0% Pool fee" should be over, right? It will be interesting to see if some of the recently added 15PH goes somewhere else after that. Most interesting will be that single 12PH "whale" and his/her actions.

At least not until robots take over Customs duties, then they can just "let in all their friends"!

 

Glad that bitcoinwisdom is back!!!

Bitcoin Difficulty:    54,256,630,328
Estimated Next Difficulty:    56,367,970,159 (+3.89%)
Adjust time:    After 1106 Blocks, About 7.4 days
Hashrate(?):    391,523,788 GH/s
Block Generation Time(?):    
1 block: 9.7 minutes
3 blocks: 28.9 minutes
6 blocks: 57.9 minutes
   
Updated:    1:30 (4.0 minutes ago)

BTC Price: $224

While we can hope for some negatives in the future, we should plan on increases for the rest of the year (IMHO).

Given my home situation, my single SP20 is a "tolerable nuisance" at well under 500W. A 3KW screaming S5+ would not fly. Just like I don't expect an SP35, or S4, or numerous other miners would fit my home situation.

Maybe I am in a shrinking minority.