ASICs - which should you choose?

[ursa]

I think you should choose something tangible...not some pixels ( to be read as advertisements )

[organofcorti]

I think you should choose something tangible...not some pixels ( to be read as advertisements )

Could you explain your idea more clearly? I which part of the lined blog post was an advertisement and whom did it advertise? I'd like to know since I haven't been paid for any adverts.

[organofcorti]

A new update due to Avalon is shipping:

9.5 ASIC choices: Avalon ships, guerilla bitcoin mining and WWJE (what will Jeff earn?)

0. Introduction
Avalon confirmed they have started shipping the first ever ASICs designed to perform SHA256(SHA256()) hashes, and I congratulate the Avalon team on being the first. Since their shipping dates had always been later than BFL and the now sadly departed bASIC I didn't think they'd be shipping first, but they worked quietly toward their goal and only made changes to reduce the time to shipping or increase the devices output.

Once I have more information about the Avalon specs I'll post an update of the usual charts. For today, I'm going to post some lighthearted and probably not very accurate earnings estimates, jam packed with assumptions that may or may not be correct.

[organofcorti]

A new update due to being schooled by Mr. Teal with some new assumptions and hashrate arrival time modelling.

9.6 ASIC choices: WWJE update

Share and enjoy!

[organofcorti]

Another quick post before the reviews are published:

9.7 ASIC choices: What will the first batch of Avalon ASICs earn?

[bonker]

Personally, I think the ASIC race - first to deliver a working production model -will be won by Goblin Logic ASIC.

In case you haven't heard, Goblin Logic have been working on ASICs for over a year now, they claim to be capable of
100GH/s with a power consumption of 1 Watt (Diagrams to follow)

Not bad for a bunch of goblins that live behind my shed (between Martins newsagents and the council bins)

I'm handling pre-orders for them - $150  (£95 real money) - will secure a Goblin ASIC when delivery arrives on 31st March.

[niko]

I'm handling pre-orders for them - $150  (£95 real money) - will secure a Goblin ASIC when delivery arrives on 31st March.

I've heard through the grapevine that they are going to be delayed one day, making the date of arrival even more special.

Seriously, though, this thread should be renamed. I choose not to choose for now.

[organofcorti]

Update for optential Avalon owners who pay ~ US$0.25 per kWh: your earnings have been estimated.

http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2013/02/98-asic-choices-avalon-update.html

[stash]

I've just make an order for one unit BFL single SC 2 days ago, I love the size and how does it looks and i prefer quality and power saving consumption as per offered. I don't care for shipping schedule as long i could keep mining later and contribute on bitcoin project.

[MrTeal]

Rather than separate charts for each unit and electricity cost, why not just make a set with cost to run per day? The cost for running a BFL Single at $0.30/kWh should be roughly the same (depending on actual power numbers) to running an Avalon with $0.05/kWh electricity, so they could both be put under a $0.75/day chart.

[shmadz]

Rather than separate charts for each unit and electricity cost, why not just make a set with cost to run per day? The cost for running a BFL Single at $0.30/kWh should be roughly the same (depending on actual power numbers) to running an Avalon with $0.05/kWh electricity, so they could both be put under a $0.75/day chart.

^THIS^ is an awesome idea! let people do some of their own calculations/estimations on their daily costs. maybe make it a new blog post, so as not to clutter up the excellent one already made.

I envision multiple price points but stick with a static hashrate, it could even be $/day/GH/s though I imagine $/day/66GH/s would make more sense to everyone, since 66 seems to be the consensus entry point.

and please, PLEASE, PLEASE! (with a cherry on top! i.e. a 1 btc tip from me ) include $0.00/day

[organofcorti]

Rather than separate charts for each unit and electricity cost, why not just make a set with cost to run per day? The cost for running a BFL Single at $0.30/kWh should be roughly the same (depending on actual power numbers) to running an Avalon with $0.05/kWh electricity, so they could both be put under a $0.75/day chart.

^THIS^ is an awesome idea! let people do some of their own calculations/estimations on their daily costs. maybe make it a new blog post, so as not to clutter up the excellent one already made.

I envision multiple price points but stick with a static hashrate, it could even be $/day/GH/s though I imagine $/day/66GH/s would make more sense to everyone, since 66 seems to be the consensus entry point.

and please, PLEASE, PLEASE! (with a cherry on top! i.e. a 1 btc tip from me ) include $0.00/day

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, but I like MrTeal's idea (and by extension, yours) and I will be posting charts showing earnings for $0 running costs, and then a separate chart showing the cumulative running costs (for various scenarios).

ATM I'm working in a few posts about the "Weekend Dip" btc trading strategy; after I'm done with those (probably this weekend) I'll post upated charts for the ASIC choices series, so if you have other requests post them now and I'll consider them.

[organofcorti]

Updated:

http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2013/02/910-asic-choices-avalon-update-3.html

0. Introduction
Errata: In post 9.9 I made a late night error, incorrectly naming a variable. This lead to Difficulties being applied one retarget early, and thus underestimating earnings. This has been fixed for this post. All previous "ASIC choices" posts are not affected.

Bitcointalk.org forum members MrTeal and schmadz requested a slightly different data presentation, which I think will be more flexible than previous presentations. The changes are:

Daily and cumulative earnings are in BTC
Daily and cumulative earnings do not account for power costs.
Daily and cumulative power costs are shown in two other charts.
If you want to estimate costs, then convert to US$ using whatever rate you think will be appropriate (US$25 to US$30 / BTC are probably safe values) and then use charts three and four to caculate costs. (more details in charts sections).

This removes the necessity of using scenarios, and allows much greater flexibility.

[organofcorti]

Updated:

http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2013/03/911-asic-choices-avalon-and-bfl-earnings.html

0. Introduction
Bitcointalk.org forum member SolarSilver mentioned to me that Avalon had updated the shipping dates, and thought it be a good idea to update the earnings estimates, and I had to agree.

Since the simplified earnings charts from the last post seemed to most readers to be preferable to the previous charting methods, I've extended that idea somewhat. I decided to make the earnings estimates agnostic so they could be used for any mining device. To do this, the daily and cumulative BTC earnings charts are per Ghps.

To obtain the btc amount earned for your device, take the daily or cumulative BTC earned and multiply by the hashrate (in Ghps) of the device in which you are interested. The amount you'll need to subtract for electricity costs are given by the final two charts.

Another change I've made is to provide historical data as well, so the amounts earned by Jeff Garzik and Chinese Avalon miners can be estimated. Since I'm have trouble obtaining this data from blockchain.info, I've used the nethash data from http://blockexplorer.com/q/nethash. The disavantage of this is that data is only available for every 144 blocks, and the charts show this.

In order to estimate the network hashrate, I use a  Gamma family generalised smoothing spline. I obtain better results when using network hashrates with constant time intervals (rather than constant numbers of blocks) and Poisson family smoothing splines, but the results are sufficient for this analysis. The chart of the estimate and the actual per 144 block hashrates are shown below for the interested reader.

I've also provided a dataset of the earnings estimates if you have trouble reading values from the charts.

[organofcorti]

Another update:

http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2013/03/912-asic-choices-asic-earnings-update.html