Innosilicon's A4 Dominator, 1.2W/Mhs 14nm ASIC and miner, open for Partners

[excelerator]

in a2 units don't go for more than 200

A2s were still going for $650+ on Ebay earlier this month.. 
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=a2+terminator&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xa2+terminator+mine.TRS1&_nkw=a2+terminator+miner&_sacat=0

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[excelerator]

Well this makes older zeus and gridseed units obsolete.

What happened to A3? 

Good question! A3 is actually gonna be a replacement of A1, and will be rolled out at the same time with A4. So A3 and A4 share the same roll out time, and A3 will have sub 0.2w/gh btc mining performance.

Now that the A4 has been released, where do we learn about the A3 that was released with it?

[QuintLeo]

A3 has apparently been dropped. I remember one rumour (from a souce that had the money to be an Innosilicon partner) that it turned out to be BW 1401 level efficiency (or S7 level in BitMain terms).
Dunno if Innosilicon is working on a more efficient version behind the scenes, if that's the case.

Given the final results on the A4, I'm tending to believe that rumour.

[GenTarkin]

So if the efficiency is no better than a Titan -- then -- is this a SCAM?

Why would someone overpay to buy these units?  I'm lost here.

It seems that it is basically 2.5x as efficient as the 100Mh/s A2 units (which are selling for about $650 with PSU).

Sadly, no its not a scam. Miners will be flocking to these, just like every stupid hardware release ... no matter the price and no matter the efficiency. Its an addiction. Ill probably be the only one not purchasing any.

[AmDD]

So if the efficiency is no better than a Titan -- then -- is this a SCAM?

Why would someone overpay to buy these units?  I'm lost here.

It seems that it is basically 2.5x as efficient as the 100Mh/s A2 units (which are selling for about $650 with PSU).

Sadly, no its not a scam. Miners will be flocking to these, just like every stupid hardware release ... no matter the price and no matter the efficiency. Its an addiction. Ill probably be the only one not purchasing any.

Nope, not the only one... Unless the price drops. A lot.

[mjgraham]

Well I was hoping it would hold off as long as possible but I guess they are out there now, would like to see the insides of one, been looking for broken A2 boards on this end, been trying to keep my stuff running as long as I can.

[toptek]

So if the efficiency is no better than a Titan -- then -- is this a SCAM?

Why would someone overpay to buy these units?  I'm lost here.

It seems that it is basically 2.5x as efficient as the 100Mh/s A2 units (which are selling for about $650 with PSU).

Sadly, no its not a scam. Miners will be flocking to these, just like every stupid hardware release ... no matter the price and no matter the efficiency. Its an addiction. Ill probably be the only one not purchasing any.

Nope, not the only one... Unless the price drops. A lot.

same after reading everything here Id rather by a few A2's  and try to get a titan, the titan has more hash power if all the dies work ,what's the point .

other then

a fool and his money


no offense intended to anyone by that commit .

[QuintLeo]

I was ready to commit to a pre-order buy of 3 of these a couple months back.

 Sadly, the delays caused me to put most of that money in another direction as I couldn't afford to wait.


 Long-term I figure I'll end up buying some at some point.


 Anyone in Central Washington want to buy a couple A2 units, drop me a message. I won't ship them but I will deliver if it's reasonably close.

[Maxumark]

I currently have a few A2s for sale without PSUs, or can install New 1250 gold rated PSUs. if you prefer.
Even without the PSUs these are Tested and 100% working.

I will ship, but USA only.

PM me if interested.

[hdmediaservices]

LOL - I might as well add myself to the list -- have a handful of 88Mh/s A2s with PSUs built-in.  At this time will only consider local pickup in Portland, Oregon.

[mjgraham]

everyone lives so far away with their old A2s 

[Chris Sokolowski]

If anyone has their A4s and would like to try to earn more money than just mining Litecoins, try mining with us at https://prohashing.com.  We optimized the pool to give good hashrate for Titans, and now with the A4s coming online we're analyzing data and making changes to try to extract the most hashrate from them too.  If you have your A4 on our pool, give us some feedback in our forums where A4 owners are discussing their results at https://forums.prohashing.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=982.

[Longsnowsm]

If anyone has their A4s and would like to try to earn more money than just mining Litecoins, try mining with us at https://prohashing.com.  We optimized the pool to give good hashrate for Titans, and now with the A4s coming online we're analyzing data and making changes to try to extract the most hashrate from them too.  If you have your A4 on our pool, give us some feedback in our forums where A4 owners are discussing their results at https://forums.prohashing.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=982.

Thanks Chris,  As soon as I get my A4's up I will point them your way and will let you know how it looks.  I should have the A4's online this week if all goes smoothly.   

[mjgraham]

If anyone has their A4s and would like to try to earn more money than just mining Litecoins, try mining with us at https://prohashing.com.  We optimized the pool to give good hashrate for Titans, and now with the A4s coming online we're analyzing data and making changes to try to extract the most hashrate from them too.  If you have your A4 on our pool, give us some feedback in our forums where A4 owners are discussing their results at https://forums.prohashing.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=982.

I am just running a bunch of A2s but I have found Prohashing to work pretty well so far, now if I could just find parts for my A2s that seem to be dieing off slowly.

[QuintLeo]

LiteGuardian has always worked well for me.
As I recall, they were one of the few pools that never had issues with the Alcheminer....

[QuintLeo]

With the price of LTC where it is at none of these high priced miners are going to ROI (even the used ones), seems like a fools gamble.

LTC has been pretty stable around $4 (with a brief surge to $5ish) for a year now.

 I don't see ANY issue with an A4 achieving ROI - just won't be in 3-4 months like some miners managed in WAY BACK days.


 If you want high pricing, consider the original GridSeed 80 blade units at $3000 - those probably NEVER DID achieve ROI for anyone, and I suspect most of the ones that sold at $1600 a couple months later never achieved ROI either.

 I don't anticipate an A4 managing to ROI in the "current conditions 9 months or so with very very cheap electric" as the network hashrate and difficulty will climb once they start shipping in numbers, but I DO anticipate them achieving ROI in 12-18 months timeframe as long as LTC pricing doesn't collapse (and right now, it's CLIMBING to follow Bitcoin's recent rise, as usual).


 If you don't like the high A4 pricing though, and your electric is cheap enough, A2s will be profitable for quite a while longer (just not AS profitable as over the last yeah or so). For that matter, the Gridseeds are still marginally profitable if you have VERY VERY cheap enough electric, though I suspect not for a lot longer.

[vinylwasp]

With the price of LTC where it is at none of these high priced miners are going to ROI (even the used ones), seems like a fools gamble.

Do any experienced miners who are mining for profit still mine single currencies like LTC exclusively?

I'll be mining a multipool like Prohashing and with current payouts per Mhs at 0.000065 BTC or more (http://poolpicker.eu/table), a single A4 running at 270 Mhs returns approx $12.28 per day (BTC = $700). Subtract power costs (1.080Kwh x 0.11c x 24 = $2.85) and that leaves $9.43 per day profit.

In two years, I would imagine a fully working A4 will still be worth $750 (3 year old A2's are still selling for >$600 today(but not for much longer)), so my ROI target is actually only $1150.

$1150/$9.43 = 122 days ROI and then every day until the day I sell the A4 is pure profit after electricity costs.

Of course it's very likely that payments will drop as network hash rates increase but even a 25% payout decrease will still leave plenty of profit for an A4.The same can't be said for Gridseeds and A2's without cheap power however. Once the various scrypt network hash rates start to rise and payouts decrease, these less efficient miners will cease to be viable.

The same thing happened with A7s when A9's came out. It's not as immediate in the scrypt universe but the affect will be the same.  Of course Titan's will stay viable for much longer but lets keep in mind that these cost $9,995 new and were fraught with serious delivery and quality issues.

[Searing]

With the price of LTC where it is at none of these high priced miners are going to ROI (even the used ones), seems like a fools gamble.

Do any experienced miners who are mining for profit still mine single currencies like LTC exclusively?

I'll be mining a multipool like Prohashing and with current payouts per Mhs at 0.000065 BTC or more (http://poolpicker.eu/table), a single A4 running at 270 Mhs returns approx $12.28 per day (BTC = $700). Subtract power costs (1.080Kwh x 0.11c x 24 = $2.85) and that leaves $9.43 per day profit.

In two years, I would imagine a fully working A4 will still be worth $750 (3 year old A2's are still selling for >$600 today(but not for much longer)), so my ROI target is actually only $1150.

$1150/$9.43 = 122 days ROI and then every day until the day I sell the A4 is pure profit after electricity costs.

Of course it's very likely that payments will drop as network hash rates increase but even a 25% payout decrease will still leave plenty of profit for an A4.The same can't be said for Gridseeds and A2's without cheap power however. Once the various scrypt network hash rates start to rise and payouts decrease, these less efficient miners will cease to be viable.

The same thing happened with A7s when A9's came out. It's not as immediate in the scrypt universe but the affect will be the same.  Of course Titan's will stay viable for much longer but lets keep in mind that these cost $9,995 new and were fraught with serious delivery and quality issues.

I'm mining LTC and move it to BTC when the ratio gets at least 0.0006 LTC to BTC which would mean
$4.20 usd not the 3.94 it is now

I used to wait till 0.008 LTC to BTC but with all the new coins like ethereum etc out there ..that
speculative cash has gone elsewhere

I am within 1,000 bucks to the bank of paying off with BTC made so far about 2,750mh of my 3,050mh
with this years equip and some towards used.

using www.litecoinpool.org/calc

at current my winter electric of 11c kwh and 3050mh and say 13,000 watts on titans and 3.94 LTC price
I am getting below

24 hours   30.55957031 LTC   120.40 USD   34.32 USD   86.08 USD
7 days   213.91699219 LTC   842.83 USD   240.24 USD   602.59 USD
30 days   916.78710938 LTC   3612.14 USD   1029.60 USD   2582.54 USD

$2,583.54 after rent/expenses/electric per month

the above pool has NO fees and pays out 103%..thus I just wait and move coin (over expenses)
and thus the plan or way I've played it since Nov 8th 2014 Of course holding and moving it
at the right time to BTC also is a guess/hope etc for this to work.

IT all depends on what the price of LTC say is next year (or BTC that drives such) If we are looking
and/or what amount/price and such and of course WHEN you get the equipment. (dumb luck plays
a role)

at $5 LTC say.. well a lot of the A4 and other dubious purchases would be forgiven quickly

[excelerator]

.......
Of course Titan's will stay viable for much longer but lets keep in mind that these cost $9,995 new and were fraught with serious delivery and quality issues.

To make a fair comparison as of today, the price of a Titan now on Ebay is about $2800 and those outfitted with Gentarkin software are rocking along nicely.  Continuing to use your logic, the residual value would be~ $500 at the end of the same period due to the age of hardware.  That leaves $2300 to recapture.  Using LTC as a baseline, the increase in difficulty for all scrypt networks is going to decrease returns as the number of A4s come online.  Therefore the new ROI would approximate to September 2017 (worst case).  Bump that $4/LTC to $5 and it drops back to June 2017.
http://www.vnbitcoin.org/detailcalculationltc.php?name=LiteCoin_Mining_Rig&startdate=2016-10-31&costperunit=2300&wattperhour=1250&gigahazarate=270000&daytoincrease=3&testlopfirst=2&diffincrement=0.0268&bitcoinperdollar=4&electriccostinput=.11&begindifflevel=51699

[vinylwasp]

.......
Of course Titan's will stay viable for much longer but lets keep in mind that these cost $9,995 new and were fraught with serious delivery and quality issues.

To make a fair comparison as of today, the price of a Titan now on Ebay is about $2800 and those outfitted with Gentarkin software are rocking along nicely.  Continuing to use your logic, the residual value would be~ $500 at the end of the same period due to the age of hardware.  That leaves $2300 to recapture.  Using LTC as a baseline, the increase in difficulty for all scrypt networks is going to decrease returns as the number of A4s come online.  Therefore the new ROI would approximate to September 2017 (worst case).  Bump that $4/LTC to $5 and it drops back to June 2017.
http://www.vnbitcoin.org/detailcalculationltc.php?name=LiteCoin_Mining_Rig&startdate=2016-10-31&costperunit=2300&wattperhour=1250&gigahazarate=270000&daytoincrease=3&testlopfirst=2&diffincrement=0.0268&bitcoinperdollar=4&electriccostinput=.11&begindifflevel=51699

I think that's getting closer and really does show what a good buy the A4 is.  The completed auction you're referring to was for a batch 1 300 MHs Titan with no power supplies

Here's what the buyer said "This batch 1 miner runs a little above 300MH, but it does fall to 250-260MH after a few days, but a quick reboot puts it back up to 300MH. This miner has never once been overclocked, but it has that option for those who choose." 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Titan-Miner-KNC-Batch-1-300-MH-Scrypt-Litecoin-LTC-Bitcoin-BTC-Digibyte-/262627666129?hash=item3d25d428d1:g:ehYAAOSwvzRX0Emo

Given the track record of Titans and the stated instability, I'm amazed that he sold it for $2800, but lets look at this as more closely.

Titan: 300Mhs @ $2800 = $9.33 Mhs
A4: 280Mhs @ 1800 = $6.43 Mhs

Hmm, one is 3 years old, 40% more expensive and has a history of failing dies and burnt out PCIe connectors whereas the A4 is new, has a 45 day warranty and Innosilicon has a good track record with many very happy A2 owners who appreciate the reliability. I'm ignoring the cost of PSU's and freight because they kinda equal out.

Titan 300Mhs @ 1200W = 4w/Mhs (I've read they can actually use up to 1590W OC'ed to 325 Mhs)
A4: 280Mhs @ 1080w = 3.85w/Mhs

Not much difference there, Inno have not improved the efficiency much with their 14nm dies so it's a draw on electricity cost.

ROI: I used to use online calculators like the one above but then I worked out that mining a multipool that pays out in BTC is much more profitable. Zpool paid 0.00011381 BTC per scrypt-Mhs yesterday. Whatever hardware you buy, with BTC=$728 that's 0.08285368c per MHs less electricity.

An A4 @ 280Mhs would return $23.19 per day and a Titan @ 300Mhs would return $24.85 per day
Less power at $3.60 per day and lets call it $19.50 and $21.00 per day respectively so 1800/19.50 = 92 days to totally pay for the A4, whereas $2800/21.00 = 133 days.

Like I said, amazed anyone would buy a Titan for $2800 with no PSU's and known issues vs buying a a new A4. If you choose to stick with mining LTC exclusively your ROI will be longer, but given any consistent benchmark, the A4 is much better proposition IMO.