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amelen (OP)
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May 27, 2015, 02:50:23 PM |
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I'm new to the world of bitcoin, but have been involved in web hosting & web hosting hardware for almost 2 decades now. I was thinking about playing around with some of the latest ASIC hardware because there does seem some room for improvement in terms of cooling & design (from my server-building background). The Antminer S5 & SP20 seem like good entry points for some testing, but both seem to be out for 6mo now and some new hardware is probably around the corner. Is it worth waiting for new hardware? Is anything expected in the next 30 days?
Any feedback I can get would be greatly appreciate it. I'll document any R&D I do in the forum.
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Bitcoin mining is now a specialized and very risky industry, just like gold mining. Amateur miners are unlikely to make much money, and may even lose money. Bitcoin is much more than just mining, though!
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TheRealSteve
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May 27, 2015, 03:03:32 PM |
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Take it as nothing but rumors: Bitmain and Avalon should be out with new chips june/july.
You can already request SFARDS's, and you can try to get a dev kit out of 21 Inc.
That's just chips, though - if you want completed miners, you might as well try and score a decent miner for cheap now and sell them off again later. Make sure you figure out all the financials.
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amelen (OP)
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May 27, 2015, 03:39:58 PM |
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Take it as nothing but rumors: Bitmain and Avalon should be out with new chips june/july.
You can already request SFARDS's, and you can try to get a dev kit out of 21 Inc.
That's just chips, though - if you want completed miners, you might as well try and score a decent miner for cheap now and sell them off again later. Make sure you figure out all the financials.
Thanks for the response! I was thinking of a completed miner for initial R&D. "decent miner for cheap" => buying used? What's a good place to find a used one? Ebay? |
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Xialla
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May 27, 2015, 05:08:27 PM |
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Thanks for the response! I was thinking of a completed miner for initial R&D. "decent miner for cheap" => buying used? What's a good place to find a used one? Ebay?
ebay is usually overpriced, just because there are buying mining HW persons without basic bitcoin knowledge as "money machines with guaranteed ROI" haha.. for some "normal" prices, you can check this section https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=75.0 anyway, mining makes sense only if you had free or very cheap electricity so do some math and research by yourself before any investment.. |
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crazyearner
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May 27, 2015, 09:08:51 PM |
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They are talks of smaller asic chips in the makings. However I do not think will be any time until SEP, OCT until new untis are in production and even then it is going to be a losing battle as money loaded company's will no doubt swap out old tech with new and just cause a new spike and increase in diff. The days of Avlaon first coming out mass production and then antminers coming out with a much more robust product cheaper and kicking out a lot more hash even now with them with energy cost import taxes will not make RIO back unless got free energy or really cheap energy to run them daily.
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jeannemadrigal2
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May 27, 2015, 09:15:23 PM |
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They are talks of smaller asic chips in the makings. However I do not think will be any time until SEP, OCT until new untis are in production and even then it is going to be a losing battle as money loaded company's will no doubt swap out old tech with new and just cause a new spike and increase in diff. The days of Avlaon first coming out mass production and then antminers coming out with a much more robust product cheaper and kicking out a lot more hash even now with them with energy cost import taxes will not make RIO back unless got free energy or really cheap energy to run them daily.
I am just curious, what do you base Sep/Oct on? Do you know someone/something or is it just a hunch? From what I understand no one really knows when the next batch is coming out but I keep hearing anything from June to December. I keep looking for legit information but so far all I have found is pure speculation. |
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amelen (OP)
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May 27, 2015, 09:49:33 PM |
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Thanks for all the info! I'm going to browse through the used hardware on this forum. I guess I can always just buy the AntMiner S5 @$400/each directly from BitmainTech. I wish someone had more reliable info on the new gen of cards though - I'd hate to be investing time & $$$ into aging equipment & platforms.
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notlist3d
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May 27, 2015, 10:50:05 PM |
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Thanks for all the info! I'm going to browse through the used hardware on this forum. I guess I can always just buy the AntMiner S5 @$400/each directly from BitmainTech. I wish someone had more reliable info on the new gen of cards though - I'd hate to be investing time & $$$ into aging equipment & platforms.
The "new gen" is going to be SP20, S5, Avalon 4.1. SP20's you have to get from secondary markets there are not new ones being produced. But as far as consumer models of current gen those are main one as far as electric efficiency. |
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Rabinovitch
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May 28, 2015, 04:11:13 AM |
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Take it as nothing but rumors: Bitmain and Avalon should be out with new chips june/july.
There is another rumor that Bitmain's S7 will be issued in july. Information is completely untrusted since I can't find any proofs here. |
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bigtransaction
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May 28, 2015, 04:30:04 AM |
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What is BEST hardware for someone new? And why?
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zeeshsnrehman2
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May 28, 2015, 04:32:14 AM |
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What is BEST hardware for someone new? And why?
wait for a bit i heard the s6 or s7 will be out in june-july. more hashing power = easier ROI but we do have to consider the difficulty level too. |
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notlist3d
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May 28, 2015, 05:56:13 AM
Last edit: May 28, 2015, 06:12:31 AM by notlist3d |
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What is BEST hardware for someone new? And why?
wait for a bit i heard the s6 or s7 will be out in june-july. more hashing power = easier ROI but we do have to consider the difficulty level too. This is a guess. We really do not know when S6 or S7 will be released. Whenever they do release it's safe to say they will follow releasing of S6 and wait a bit till S7. But no one knows for sure when this will be. If they follow suit S7 would need new chips, or more efficiency out of S5 chips. |
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amelen (OP)
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May 28, 2015, 03:28:12 PM |
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By the way - spoke to Bitmain Tech, they are saying S7 will be announced and released in July. Still debating if to wait or not.
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philipma1957
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May 28, 2015, 03:39:32 PM |
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What is BEST hardware for someone new? And why?
A question back what does your power cost> If you are under 5 cents consider a used s-3. If you are over 15 cents you will most likely lose no matter what you buy. So the best miner becomes how much do you want to lose. What does noise mean to you? What is resale value? In the 5 cent to 8 cent zone I would say an s-3 if you are a complete beginner. why? it is under 100 + a psu you can learn mining on a decent machine. if you are are 8 to 11 cents and noise matters get the spondoolies sp20 and down clock it to keep it quiet. from 11 to 15 cents and you do not care about a loud miner the s-5 is okay. |
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Xialla
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May 28, 2015, 04:39:10 PM |
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from 11 to 15 cents and you do not care about a loud miner the s-5 is okay.
and if your price above 20 (like me) forget about mining forever.(( |
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notlist3d
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May 28, 2015, 05:28:11 PM |
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from 11 to 15 cents and you do not care about a loud miner the s-5 is okay.
and if your price above 20 (like me) forget about mining forever.(( Sadly that would make home mining impossible. You would have to look into either hosting or cloud mining if you ever wanted to mine. With hosting you would still own equipment. Which could be nice. |
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amelen (OP)
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May 28, 2015, 08:10:28 PM
Last edit: May 28, 2015, 09:12:42 PM by amelen |
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What is BEST hardware for someone new? And why?
A question back what does your power cost> If you are under 5 cents consider a used s-3. If you are over 15 cents you will most likely lose no matter what you buy. So the best miner becomes how much do you want to lose. What does noise mean to you? What is resale value? In the 5 cent to 8 cent zone I would say an s-3 if you are a complete beginner. why? it is under 100 + a psu you can learn mining on a decent machine. if you are are 8 to 11 cents and noise matters get the spondoolies sp20 and down clock it to keep it quiet. from 11 to 15 cents and you do not care about a loud miner the s-5 is okay. ~11 cents in our office in NJ, ~10 cents in our data center in NJ, ~9 cents in our data center in the mid-west. Sound isn't an issue - I'm looking for a design that we can slightly improve (with cooling, overclocking, etc..) and scale. 2x S5 would seem to use as much power as an SP20 and get better results, no? (I realize the buy-in cost would be higher though). I wish they were still selling sp20's.. I saw some on ebay, but they were going for crazy prices. |
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amelen (OP)
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May 28, 2015, 08:20:31 PM |
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I guess the biggest question I'm struggling with is to either jump in now, or wait 45 days for new equipment (S7). I guess there is always something new on the horizon, but I wouldn't want to spend R&D time and money on something that will be obsolete by the time we get it working right.
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Nixian
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May 28, 2015, 08:36:29 PM |
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from 11 to 15 cents and you do not care about a loud miner the s-5 is okay.
and if your price above 20 (like me) forget about mining forever.(( Sadly that would make home mining impossible. You would have to look into either hosting or cloud mining if you ever wanted to mine. With hosting you would still own equipment. Which could be nice. Did you look at my post about home miner ? What you think of that setup ? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1071741.0 |
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denisbaldwin
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May 28, 2015, 08:43:10 PM |
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If you're going to buy current hardware, I'd recommend the Antminer S5 bought used. I've had luck on ebay getting them in the $300 range used using the "Make An Offer" system.
That said, I'm holding off buying any more tech until the S7s come out. Given the way the development has trended, I expect them to be in the 2-3TH/s range and probably at the same price point as the S5s are selling for new (sub $400 range for Batch5).
Purely speculation of course, but it's the path I'm taking.
Denis
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