Which one is better: Butterflylabs or BTCFGPA? Can we trust them?

[MaximousDarwin]

Hi everyone!

I'm new to Bitcoin mining, and I was checking how can we mine faster.
Discovered two main mining rig/ASIC manufacturers: Butterflylabs and BTCFGPA.

Which one is better? I mean, are their hardware reliable? Can they fry with the processing temperature, or so?
And the most important question of all: Can we trust them?

I'm asking this because I just saw a post claiming that Butterflylabs new 1,500 GH/s ASICs are a scam: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=114329.0
Are they?

What about the 30 and 60 GH/s ASICs? Do you think these are a scam too?

BTCFGPA also have some 27 GH and 54 GH/s ASICs, but are they worth it?

Also, the prices seem too high for a piece of machinery, and the profits of mining are always so low.
With the difficulty increasing all the time will an investment like this ever pay off?

Cheers!

[AmDD]

These are all great questions. No one can answer with 100% certainty yet, tho. Its a risk and with so many variables it hard guess what the future holds.

That being said, I have done business with BTCFPGA and am happy thus far. Not saying anything bad about BFL either tho. Do your homework and make your own decisions.

[Graet]

BTCFGPA BFL and Avalon companies have produced and supplied FPGA

you will see all sorts of opinion on this forum - from full time trolls to smart people that talk sense and everything in between - welcome to the forum

well when you compare 1 x 54Ghash asic device for $1069 to 2 ATI HD 7970 GFX cards for $4-500ea and 1.4Ghash output. It doesn't seem high for a piece of "machinery". In fact for that hashrate it is very cheap compared to anything anyone has mined on before

"ever" is a long time - I expect my bASIC to pay for itself before then I would be comfortable with 12 -18 month ROI.

like previous post, do your research , make your own decisions - in a lot of ways ASIC are a gamble - are you a gambling man?
i.e.: Block reward halves, difficulty skyrockets price of BTC does???
despite all the expert opinion no-one on this planet has been involved in a blockchain based cryptocurrency whose reward halves approximately every 4 years - it is all speculation and best guess on what will actually happen in the Bitcoin mining scene over the next 6 months

[gooffer]

buy a single BFL for 699... see if you get it... mine is getting about 826 M/hash.... then the upgrade to SC is only another $699 or there abouts and you pay half now and half later

[MaximousDarwin]

Graet, what do you mean about gambling?

like previous post, do your research , make your own decisions - in a lot of ways ASIC are a gamble - are you a gambling man?

Is there any difference about the hash calculation between using graphic cards, or ASICs?
Or just because they didn't started shipping them?

This brings me a question... 1500 GH/s is really a lot. And investing $30k seems too risky.

[MaximousDarwin]

gooffer,

buy a single BFL for 699... see if you get it... mine is getting about 826 M/hash.... then the upgrade to SC is only another $699 or there abouts and you pay half now and half later

That could be a great investment, but it's also risky.

I don't want to believe that BFL may be trying to set up a scam, and if they bring this huge GH/s concept up I guess they will lead the market in such technologies, leaving all others behind.
The difficulty would grow in a higher rate, and everyone mining with graphic cards would require some more powerful hardware.
That can be very bad for most miners, I guess, since their initial investment, buying graphic cards and good CPUs, would be affected for sure.

[gooffer]

@darwin yes I agree nobody should invest in 54 / 60 Ghash setups as if everyone had them the returns would be the same as with a previous level playing field. only the early adopters will be able to get their ROI, the late adopters won't and the more you convince not to join the band wagon the more btc's end up in you wallet. I the like ID created for talking town the new technology....

[Graet]

like previous post, do your research , make your own decisions - in a lot of ways ASIC are a gamble - are you a gambling man?
i.e.: Block reward halves, difficulty skyrockets price of BTC does???
despite all the expert opinion no-one on this planet has been involved in a blockchain based cryptocurrency whose reward halves approximately every 4 years - it is all speculation and best guess on what will actually happen in the Bitcoin mining scene over the next 6 months

I bolded the relevant parts from my last post as to why anything to do with Bitcoin mining is a gamble, ASIC is a subset or an extra gamble on top, depending who you talk to.

[MaximousDarwin]

@darwin yes I agree nobody should invest in 54 / 60 Ghash setups as if everyone had them the returns would be the same as with a previous level playing field. only the early adopters will be able to get their ROI, the late adopters won't and the more you convince not to join the band wagon the more btc's end up in you wallet. I the like ID created for talking town the new technology....

@gooffer,
Let's how it evolves, after these ASICs start to ship

like previous post, do your research , make your own decisions - in a lot of ways ASIC are a gamble - are you a gambling man?
i.e.: Block reward halves, difficulty skyrockets price of BTC does???
despite all the expert opinion no-one on this planet has been involved in a blockchain based cryptocurrency whose reward halves approximately every 4 years - it is all speculation and best guess on what will actually happen in the Bitcoin mining scene over the next 6 months

@Graet,
Got it now

Thank you for explaining your point of view.
Well, I'm not much a gambler... Everyone likes to play games, even betting games, but for now I need to be careful, and don't bet too high, or my investment would be in risk.

Anyway, I still prefer Buterflylabs' ASICs. They look powerful, and seems possible to build. Not sure about the prices. I guess the prices should be higher, comparing to the Mini Rig, which costs $15k and generates 25.5 GH.
Shouldn't 1500 GH be proportional? I mean, I still find $30,000 a very low price for such powerful machine.

Is it wonderland, or real life?

[gooffer]

like previous post, do your research , make your own decisions - in a lot of ways ASIC are a gamble - are you a gambling man?
i.e.: Block reward halves, difficulty skyrockets price of BTC does???
despite all the expert opinion no-one on this planet has been involved in a blockchain based cryptocurrency whose reward halves approximately every 4 years - it is all speculation and best guess on what will actually happen in the Bitcoin mining scene over the next 6 months

I bolded the relevant parts from my last post as to why anything to do with Bitcoin mining is a gamble, ASIC is a subset or an extra gamble on top, depending who you talk to.

well the ultimate test will be what happens to the BTC price.... normally a smaller supply @25 Btc's would dictate the price to go higher but markets tend to anticipate this so may be that's already build it. May be once the ASIC machines come online and only the 10% of gamblers have any BTC to sell everyone that isn't getting any decent returns anymore will have to buy them. And what happens when all coins are mined. ...... all mining rigs become instantly worthless. So with 500 BTC left to mine will we switch back to GPU's that are running anyway because who would want to spent $$$ to buy something that will get those last 5G's ?

[Stephen Gornick]

Discovered two main mining rig/ASIC manufacturers: Butterflylabs and BTCFGPA.

There are five so far:

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#ASICs

[BladE]

I've been closely monitoring both of them, but i tend to believe that BTCfpga will be faster regarding delivery.

The reason is sure to the fact they actually mention where they are in the process and are more open in their communications. You can even call them!

It could however, be very smart marketing - don't let others know you're progress in the hopes they will be later.

It all will be clear soon enough tho, just a matter of months

[farlack]

I doubt BFL is scam, according to records, they did 41mil in transactions? Unless they're in a country who doesn't give a crap, they will get away. I'm sure some people who dumped 30k on a rig didn't do it without asking some questions. If they're from the UK or states, and they run, 41 million in stolen goods will be tracked I'm sure.
And anyone whos smart enough to make that much cash knows it.

[noob_jul11]

Not trying to be Johnny Raincloud here ... but, as time goes by, the question that remains is what'll happen to these companies? When I first joined the btc community (July 2011); I remembered seeing alot of companies that will build mining rigs for newbies for profits. How many of those companies can you still find today? I'm willing to bet at least more than 75% are gone. And that's within the 15 months time period. Butterflylabs or BTCFGPA might be on that path ... create a market for their products, grab their profits and website gone, personnel gone; no one knows where or how to get support / warranty for those products.

That's the "beauty" of online pop ups. Awesome website one day; MIA the next.

[MaximousDarwin]

I agree with you guys.

Butterflylabs and BTCFGPA don't want to take advantage of their own hardware, because that could simply destroy Bitcoin.
They really want to allow it to continue, and feed up the competition, allowing everyone to buy their rigs and ASICs.
They build the resources that will raise the competition, and as long the competition exists Bitcoin will always survive.
And ASICs will continue to sell.

They have much more to win with a fair deal than with fraud. But this is just my opinion.
What do you think?

[Gleamwar]

They win as long as they are reputable and are really trying to help the community.
I'm more inclined to go with BTC as opposed to BFL.
BFL sounds like they had major problems with their last product release ( i.e. shipping delays).

[SLok]

The one that delivers sooner is the better one. We are close to block-reward halving, that's why imo. Got an order for a BFL single 60, but if BTCFPGA can deliver new orders sooner than BFL delivers the pre-30th September ones, I'll cancel and go BTCFPGA.

[RaTTuS]

I'm going for a  Reclaimer One
because I'm an Idiot 

[insanityflea]

I ordered in November 2012 from BTCFPGA. I'm still waiting. Order states "Ready to ship".

They said on the site shipping will be in January, now it states shipping March 2013 latest.

Sigh. What's going on?

[shadowhax]

I ordered in November 2012 from BTCFPGA. I'm still waiting. Order states "Ready to ship".

They said on the site shipping will be in January, now it states shipping March 2013 latest.

Sigh. What's going on?

Something bad. I know not the full story of this. I made a thread about this to ask of someone who know details.

According what I have about this already read I believe they shall not ever ship products and company is falling. They trys to refund people but sounds like mir all money is gone because they say do chargeback instead of ask for refund. All bad signs! I want this to know also!