What I think you fail to see is that that price doesn't always matter for the bitcoin hobbyist who just wants to buy a miner, an S3 in this situation. I'm sure the ROI people appreciate your speculation, though.

You clearly only see miners as an ROI object (most do), you need to understand not everybody is like you, though. Remember buying something just for the sake of buying an item? Example, people buy go-karts to tinker with, that's their money and their right to do whatever they want with it. Who are you to shun people away just because their product may not ROI? I appreciate you making this aware to people who are looking for ROI and do not understand ROI.

I have overpaid for a miner that will not ROI because I wanted the miner. I wanted to play with it, tweak and do what nerds do. So yes, I will pay for a small loss for the experience of getting to have a miner to tinker with.

Totally agree.. said this a couple pages ago - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=656461.msg7416372#msg7416372

I really would like to see Bitmain up their RoI % for miners who buy their gear and spread the wealth around a little more but I doubt that will happen.  Especially with all these high price points people are throwing out there.

-Edit: I wouldnt be surprised if Bitmain read the community feedback here and used it to help set the highest price possible.

Your average speculation values are largely that, speculation. And poor speculation. You shouldn't have those values there. It's counterproductive.

Not going to just change my average speculation rate based on what you may think it is, sorry.  

With this hashpower they doing 10 BTC a day. Anyone still thinks that gear is not  overpriced?

...Don't forget BTC industry meeting in China 2 weeks ago...Consider this as "first BTC cartel setup in China" event..."Maximize the profits...Rip off the foreigners"...IMHO...

Cheers,

ZiG

S2 EOL price ... $1850 - $400 coupon = $1450 shipped ... / 2 ( 1T vs 500GH ) ... = $725 for S3

@ $600 per BTC = 1.25 BTC initial price...my guess...

I  completely agree, it does not have to be that way but just because we see it that way does not mean they do, unfortunately.

Nothing as of yet, but something could be in the works with dogie? I haven't contacted him at all though.


Everything that we're (you're) doing is exactly what Bitmain is doing as we speak. They have to find the magic right number to make the miner make sense on paper.

Using the logic of nobody would buy a miner if they would make more buy holding doesn't always execute that way. Some most people go for profit but there are still some of us willing to buy a unit just to be involved and to tinker. And Bitmain knows this, that is why they will price it just above a break-even maybe so it still makes sense for a buyer. I do agree with how they will test the waters for maximum profit though and adjust accordingly.

I'm pretty sure that an upgrade kit for the S1 will consist of 2 new blades with new chips.
I'm guessing 2 new chip boards for S1 upgrade will cost about 30% of a new S3.
Upgrade kit ---  .5 btc,  new S3 ---   1.5btc.
Maybe we will find out tomorrow.

Wow, you are the first guy to get it, the community has been waiting for ever to see and learn about this thing and you can't be bothered to take a couple minutes to share some pics. You fail lazy newb.

Molex makes a crapload of connectors, many of which can handle current up to these levels, but the real question is: are they keyed to PCI-E?  And in the event they're keyed to PCI-E are the PCI-E plugs on the PSU rated for those power levels?  It's unlikely.  

The bottom line is that it adds negligible BOM and assembly costs to double up the PCI-E connectors on the boards.  Hell, even the original AM cubes had 2 PCI-E plugs and it only consumed ~320W OC'd.  Cutting costs and/or poor choices in something as simple as this makes me wonder what other kind of issues are going to crop up with the design.  People can sit here and argue until they're blue in the face as to whether it can or can't theoretically handle the power, but cheaping out and assuming that kind of liability is absolutely stupid.  If someone's house burns down, the sign-off Engineer can be personally liable for the bad design.  It's that simple.  If you want to take the risk of having FIVE of these potential fire hazards running in a closet in your house unmonitored 24/7 then be my guest, but I strongly recommend against it.

https://i.imgur.com/DBCIP95.jpg

This was on one of my CoinCraft Desk modules, which draws around 200W.

Replacing the connectors was a pain in the butt.  It took me about 4 hours from start to finish.

Molex has several series of minifit jr connectors. Their HCS series is spec'd in at 13A per pin: http://www.molex.com/molex/products/family?key=minifit_plus_connector_system&channel=products&chanName=family&pageTitle=Introduction&parentKey=minifit_products

Each PCIe connector has three 12v wire 'pairs' i.e. one hot line (yellow) with associated ground wire when connected.  This then yields 3 pins at 8A which is 24A@12V= 288W per connector at rated max.  Where does the rest of the power come from or is it even needed is the question?

I would suspect newer chips since the 1380 has been used in 2 products already.

Molex (company making the pci-e power connectors) dictates the max spec per pin to 8A according to an earlier posted PDF, so 400W is outside even the most optimistic estimates! Not saying it wont work, but why are they even gambling with this when it would cost them a few bucks tops to use 2 of them.

There is some very compelling evidence that supports this hypothesis. But the most glaringly obvious is the single PCI power connector. They're not so stupid to design it to handle 420w. But they were compelled to squeeze as much hash out of each chip that they threw away common sense.

No sweat, I'll get you added.

Cablez(username) makes awesome cables. I haven't contact him yet but looking to either do a bulk order with him so I can provide them or I'll just refer people to him, whatever is clever. And as far as PSU units.. well, I'm already asking suppliers about bulk discounts


As of now everything will come from China factory, I still want to work out details with Bitmain to also supply them from here in US (California).

Got you down for 2.

Bitmain have never said that it will be possible to upgrade the S1 so not sure why so many people think it will be.

It's still unknown what the upgrade path will be for S2's but it's likely to be just replacement blades, and it remains to be seen how good a deal it will be.

You won't be able to swap 10 blades with the ones from the S3 as the power consumption will be too high, so it's either going to be different blades with underclocked chips or fewer blades say 4 to match the 1000w PSU.