I dont think its fair to jump the gun on claiming theres problems with the S5. That said, the SP20 is proven as reliable and efficient

^1 in a chain failing will almost certainly have no effect - the chain is only new in the way it divides voltage across chips, and the chip design should still act as a load even if the chip is disabled. Unlikely to be a major failure

^2 the s5 could more easily be undervolted by adding additional chips of some other form of voltage drop to the series circuit. If bitmain was smart they would incorporate some sort of toggle/dummy-load or make an easy way to plug a 3-chip module onto the board to effectively knock down the voltage/chip to improve efficiency down the road

If one chip fails it shouldn't affect the rest. The chip schematic has multiple Vin and Vout pins, and the only way to knock out the entire chain would be disrupting the voltage drop across chips. The s1 and the s3 both used chains for the data already, chaining power is the only new thing.

also - will the S5 have a full-frame case again like the s3? None of the pictures show a top cover, or even a bottom cover. I assume its to show off the innards, but if a lid isnt actually included the entire dynamic is changed somewhat.

ps: The Sp20 has all the connections at the front, and could be stacked into a 5x5 grid unlike the antminers, which can only stack side-by-side (becomes an issue if you have limited space or 15+ units)

+1. The SP20 can be clocked to match the S5, and can easily be clocked higher or lower via the UI, not by having to find a reliable&efficient 9V or 6-10V adjustable source.
(friedcat did a similar thing with the prisma - saying if you can feed it 11V its more efficient - but in reality thats easier said than done)

If you assume an MOQ:2 as before, and shipping of ~$100/unit like for the S3 you get two approximate options;
3x SP20 = $1900 shipped, or $630/unit
3x S5 = $1350+shipping (~$300) = $1650, or $550/unit

or
15xSP20 = $8000 shipped = $533 each
20x S5 = $8400 (no info on shipping) = $420 each (plus ~$50 shipping?)

TBH its not bad pricing on both sides, but the spondoolies have FAR more flexibility to adjust for higher hashrate or better efficiency, while the S5 is stuck based on the input voltage.

would love to see some S5 boards to fit on s1 frames

thats 94.3% of spec - only about 5% under spec, and you could likely increase frequency slightly to get a full 2TH

PROS:
- same great design
- terrific efficiency in new chip
- good efficiency gains by running chips in series without dc/dc regulators
- at lower voltage these chips are perhaps the most efficient on the market right now (spondoolies can reach about the same values when drastically underclocked)

CONS:
- Price: shipping still is not included, and compared with offers like the spondoolies 3xSP20 microfarm (which can underclock to around 1TH/550W per unit) its not an obvious winner
-underclocking: chip voltage cannot be adjusted via settings like with the S3+/S4. instead, a lower supply voltage is necessary, which is not easily achieved without buying a dedicated 9V, 250W PSU per antminer in a few months from now.


it looks nice, but right now its not competitive enough with the SP20 units which have been dropping in price crazily (down to $0.31/GH at full speed, or ~0.45/GH at more efficient clockrates). Hopefully we see an option with better undervolting abilities or a S6 at 4TH/1.2kW

right now the SP20 or SP31 are clear winners - Bitmain's prices have been stagnant for over a month while spondoolies has now come down to similar $/GH with about 20-40% better efficiency. The same spondoolies chip will easily keep pace with Bitmain down to 0.35W/GH, perhaps further

here's my understanding:

SP31                                                       SP35
3000W @ wall                                                      3650W @ wall
4900GH                                                               5500GH
$2,595                                                                 $2,795

tldr; $200 more gets you 600GH/650W extra mining power. So the added benefits are fairly minimal - you're paying for better PSUs mostly.

well dang, it did. Looking at some charts theres a 50%+ upswing in the last 24hrs. shouldve bought up a bitcoin worth while they were rock bottom, and sold before they next hit rock bottom

very interesting Looks like its a redesigned 28nm as I expected was likely. Probably a larger number of lower-frequency cores per chip.

S5 should be advertised as 1TH/380W or so, and an S6 could probably achieve 4TH/1.2kW

^+1 its been a great week.

My XPY experience is similar: during the timespan that would have netted around 0.75BTC ive made about 2.4BTC on nicehash and directly mined 12XPY (about 0.3BTC)

when paycoin ends, Ill drop back to bitcoin mining and its likely the difficulty wont scale up quickly enough to go positive for the next jump. my money is still on a -1% change this period, which alone is a great christmas ROI bonus

paycoin looks like its not doing too hot though. the 'magic $20+ face-value coins' are still only $6 each on the free market which means GAW will have scammed a lot of investors, or be forced to throw a lot of money into buying back at $20 as they promised to

Bitfury is MASSIVE, they went the private route but have been excellently successful. Thier first-gen design was terrific, and they very quickly (with gen1 chips) discovered the benefits of running 15(?) chips in series on a 12V capacitated source, eliminating all the efficiency looses of a DC/DC regulator component. They then redesigned a 2nd-gen 55nm chip that was about 15% more powerful at the same power draw, to achieve better that 1w/Gh. They deployed over 50MW/50PH of hashrate already, in larger private entities.

Their next chip can easily achieve 0.2-0.3w/GH is moving to the 28nm node realises the potential 4x efficiency gains, if not more if they further develop the chip.

ie: paycoin is a bullshit altcoin where 12 million are pre-mined for investors, and less than 0.4 million will be mined during this PoW period. Its no wonder these "$20+ coins" are selling for only $6 right now

that date confuses me somewhat, as from what ive read the distribution of POW speed will fall well short of the coins designated for the POW phase. Either POW phase will last serveral extra days or the last block mined tomorrow will have a lot of XPY in it

ive been aboard and buckled in too long it seems. I have to sell about $3k worth of coins soon to cover some $$$ costs but would hate to have to sell coins at this low a price.

not sure 100% of SP30 specs, but yes, you would follow similar instructions. limit the maximum voltage and start voltages by about 0.05V each and see how that works out. The other way is to change the PSU draw limits, reducing them by 100-200W each.

its the gambling subforum, for the reasons mabsark wrote.

why is your intake temperature so high? thats the problem. Ideal intake is about 15-30C and ideal outlet is 65-75C