Bitmain Antminer S6 and S7 Speculation

[sidehack]

Bitmain's site is now claiming to be out of Batch 5 on the S5. I suspect they now have incentive to get around to releasing whatever is next, since they appear to have managed to clean out their old stuff despite their price gouging price raises this month.

No that was merely temporary while they raised prices on it from 399 to 414 plus shipping.

They have no reason to sell s-7's at this moment.  The current pricing is working and they will continue to do this as long as they can.

Asic sellers piss me off this is why I keep building GPU rigs and just selling the alt coins for bitcoin. I don't have to deal with shady company practices constantly. I really want a modular asic machine soon.

Since the altcoin economy is somehow less shady...

[sidehack]

But "whatever is the most profitable" at any given moment is based pretty heavily on everyone else's speculation, manipulation and lies. With very few exceptions, altcoin mining is a zero-sum game where the only winner comes out ahead at the expense of everyone else whose timing was not quite as good.

I do agree a modular miner is necessary. S2 should be that, if Bitmain (or someone else) decides to make use of that framework. The stuff I'm working on could become a solution, but there are a lot of "if" to it.

[-droid-]

Wasn't the design of the S2 supposed to be that modular machine?  A bunch of boards on a backplane that could easily be swapped out.  Unfortunately, they (Bitmain) never followed through with any upgrade kits.  That kind of setup would be great for the datacenter guys.  Keep the chassis and just upgrade the boards.

Yeah I think you are spot on with this.  the S2 was supposed to be the answer to everything.  Being able to have the boards on a backplane was a good selling point for them and the apparent upgrade path was promising.  too bad they never really cared to follow through.

[spazzdla]

If your coin isn't protected by ASIC's it is useless as any country can just smash it at will with a super computer if it ever becomes a fraction of a threat.

[Amph]

so no new specs for s6 yet, it was supposed to come out this months? are we really talking about julòy 31?

i hope it isn't something too bulky like the s4, i prefer cheap miners with very good efficiency, maybe i can jump again on the whole mining thing

[sidehack]

The S4 is actually my favorite size/shape for a rackable miner. It's well-proportioned compared to a lot of things, especially like Spondoolies gear. I'd welcome another miner in that form factor - a better miner than an S4+ anyways. If they used the same size boards/modules as in the S4 and S4+ with, say, a 5x17 string of BM1384 instead of 3x17 BM1382 they could have done 4.2TH in the same size box off the same PSU. If they come up with a new chip 20-30% better those numbers would still be possible with fewer chips and a higher clock.

Something small in the S[odd] form-factor to replace S5 would certainly be nice. Maybe back down around the 400W range instead of 550, keep it a bit quieter. A chip 20% better than BM1384 in a 2x16 string could see the same ~1150GH off less than 400W from the wall. If you want S5 power level, a 3x16 string would run you 1.7TH off 600W wall.

This is assuming the same V/F curves as a BM1384, with 80% the J/GH.

[sidehack]

Then I'll wait for the S8, because the S4+ was a disappointment. Overpriced and inefficient. On an absolute scale, the efficiency actually wasn't so bad, but when you compare it to what they could have done for the same price (using chips that were not over a year old) the product was sort of an insult. Maybe they're starting a new trend of using old chips on the S[even] at higher density and lower clock, where the S8 will appear in six months with BM1384 on it, not be competetive with much else being sold at the same time, and cost three times the S7 price for 2.5 times the S7 performance at 120% the S7 power consumption per unit but hey it has an internal PSU.

[amelen]

Bitmain's site is now claiming to be out of Batch 5 on the S5. I suspect they now have incentive to get around to releasing whatever is next, since they appear to have managed to clean out their old stuff despite their price gouging price raises this month.

I'm seeing batch 5 inventory on their main site (it let me add 400 to cart) and over 1,100 units via hashnest.

[QuintLeo]

Perhaps they're building "next gen" machines and using them to replace S5s in their cloud operations, then turning around and selling the used S5s as "new"?

 Hmmmmm - where have we heard THAT sort of thing *cough KNC cough* before?

[amelen]

Perhaps they're building "next gen" machines and using them to replace S5s in their cloud operations, then turning around and selling the used S5s as "new"?

 Hmmmmm - where have we heard THAT sort of thing *cough KNC cough* before?

They never claimed the hashnest S5's are new, so that can very well be the case. They have probably been selling used units in hashnest for a while, but as long as there are no issues of them breaking, etc.. I guess it doesn't really hurt anyone.

[IainKay]

Perhaps they're building "next gen" machines and using them to replace S5s in their cloud operations, then turning around and selling the used S5s as "new"?

 Hmmmmm - where have we heard THAT sort of thing *cough KNC cough* before?

They never claimed the hashnest S5's are new, so that can very well be the case. They have probably been selling used units in hashnest for a while, but as long as there are no issues of them breaking, etc.. I guess it doesn't really hurt anyone.

As long as its a discounted price and not marketed as new I have to agree.

No doubt the chips lifespan will be reduced having been run professionally 24/7 so I would hope very discounted prices.

[Xircom]

There wont be an S6. They jump to the S7and we are around 2 month before launch.
Thats what they told me.

[amelen]

There wont be an S6. They jump to the S7and we are around 2 month before launch.
Thats what they told me.

Yes, what I heard as well.

[amelen]

There wont be an S6. They jump to the S7and we are around 2 month before launch.
Thats what they told me.

This correlates with what doggie said that the S4+ was the S6 and we aren't going to see one, but I the 2 month before launch is new information. Did they say if it was a new chip by any chance?

Last I heard is that it might take another month or two, with no concrete ETA. I don't think anything is coming in July like we expected.

[RichBC]

I would like to see an S5e with the design geared towards very best J/GH at a sensible price. So still based on the existing 1384, chip rather than a more expensive 1386 chip. Chain mode but able to run at 12V, so 20 chips / chain, (0.6V) or more if that improved the J/GH? Needs them to sort whatever is preventing the S5 running at 0.6V?

If it could get close to the chip spec of 0.249J/GH  @ 0.6V this would give a best in class efficiency Miner which I think for the Home User is what we need.

So with 2 boards this would give only 330GH, with very low consumption to see us through a few difficulty increases. Then also a S5e+ version with 4 boards and 660GH?

People could still choose to return it to higher hash rates by increasing the voltage.  


Rich

[Biodom]

There wont be an S6. They jump to the S7and we are around 2 month before launch.
Thats what they told me.

They are selling used S5 miners right now (I assume from their own mines). Naturally, they are probably replacing those miners with new (S7), otherwise why bother.
In two months they might start sales, but I have no doubt that during these two months they will be delivering from factory to themselves and mining with unannounced New miners-that 80PH jump in hashing speed very nicely coincided with used S5 sales announcement-don't you think?.
After 1-2 mo, they will sell to us, probably a mixture of brand new and from their mine.

[-droid-]

There wont be an S6. They jump to the S7and we are around 2 month before launch.
Thats what they told me.

They are selling used S5 miners right now (I assume from their own mines). Naturally, they are probably replacing those miners with new (S7), otherwise why bother.
In two months they might start sales, but I have no doubt that during these two months they will be delivering from factory to themselves and mining with unannounced New miners-that 80PH jump in hashing speed very nicely coincided with used S5 sales announcement-don't you think?.
After 1-2 mo, they will sell to us, probably a mixture of brand new and from their mine.

That's a pretty good assumption, however I think in 1-2 months they won't be selling mixture, it'll all be used and the new gear they rotate out to their personal farm to "test" for later batches

[jonnybravo0311]

There wont be an S6. They jump to the S7and we are around 2 month before launch.
Thats what they told me.

They are selling used S5 miners right now (I assume from their own mines). Naturally, they are probably replacing those miners with new (S7), otherwise why bother.
In two months they might start sales, but I have no doubt that during these two months they will be delivering from factory to themselves and mining with unannounced New miners-that 80PH jump in hashing speed very nicely coincided with used S5 sales announcement-don't you think?.
After 1-2 mo, they will sell to us, probably a mixture of brand new and from their mine.

That's exactly why they're selling off the old S5 stock: it's been replaced by newer gear.  There's no way Bitmain is just emptying out their datacenters to just "get ready" for the new gear.  It's already there, or those S5s would still be mining away and not for sale.

[spazzdla]

I would like to see an S5e with the design geared towards very best J/GH at a sensible price. So still based on the existing 1384, chip rather than a more expensive 1386 chip. Chain mode but able to run at 12V, so 20 chips / chain, (0.6V) or more if that improved the J/GH? Needs them to sort whatever is preventing the S5 running at 0.6V?

If it could get close to the chip spec of 0.249J/GH  @ 0.6V this would give a best in class efficiency Miner which I think for the Home User is what we need.

So with 2 boards this would give only 330GH, with very low consumption to see us through a few difficulty increases. Then also a S5e+ version with 4 boards and 660GH?

People could still choose to return it to higher hash rates by increasing the voltage.  


Rich

330GH and only 82 watts eh.. that would be pretty freaking amazing.

[mavericklm]

what if s7 will come out ~December!