[Announcement] Avalon ASIC Batch #1 Ships

[dserrano5]

P.S. DISCLAIMER: I don't know anything more than you guys do, on this thread, with regards to shipping, customs and arrival.  All of this is speculation, even if it is a bit more informed speculation than most in this thread

Thank you for the update. I thought that you were already aware of the tracking number but were asked to tell nothing about it. Seems we'll have to wait blindly…

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[kano]

Hmm ... one little question ...

Has YiFu been in the USA this whole time or has he flown to China some time in the last few months and been there up to now?

[Korbman]

Why are all the ASIC vendors so shady? They're building BTC mining devices not thermonuclear warheads. Stop with the secrecy, excuses, and bs and tell people what is going on already.

This.

In part, I partially understand some secrecy...they're building devices for a niche market, and would preferably like to create a monopoly. If, for example, BFL went about parading their chip specs, processes, and every other little detail, companies like Avalon could come along, scoop up that info, piece it together and create a slightly better product.

I'm not saying I agree with all the secrecy behind this project, but I am saying that I can understand some of it.

[loshia]

This.

In part, I partially understand some secrecy...they're building devices for a niche market, and would preferably like to create a monopoly. If, for example, BFL went about parading their chip specs, processes, and every other little detail, companies like Avalon could come along, scoop up that info, piece it together and create a slightly better product.

I'm not saying I agree with all the secrecy behind this project, but I am saying that I can understand some of it.

I am sure that Avalon team is so damn stupid and their only and last hope is to "steal" BFL super secret technology

Which absolutely means that they will ship after BFL unless BFL get bankrupt in a first place

Just for the reference all post is a joke - irony

No Drama here. What we Avalon customers need is a little more patience.

[PuertoLibre]

This.

In part, I partially understand some secrecy...they're building devices for a niche market, and would preferably like to create a monopoly. If, for example, BFL went about parading their chip specs, processes, and every other little detail, companies like Avalon could come along, scoop up that info, piece it together and create a slightly better product.

I'm not saying I agree with all the secrecy behind this project, but I am saying that I can understand some of it.

I am sure that Avalon team is so damn stupid and their only and last hope is to "steal" BFL super secret technology

Which absolutely means that they will ship after BFL unless BFL get bankrupt in a first place

Just for the reference all post is a joke - irony

No Drama here. What we Avalon customers need is a little more patience.

I think Avalon is making BFL lose money every time they have to compete.

When BFL ships and the Avalons device is revealed, they (BFL) will likely have to waste even more money trying to change their features and designs.

Right now all BFL has is overclocking ability. That's about it. It is also unknown what kind of overclocking ability or support they (BFL) will give out to miners of their hardware.

It is an interesting situation. You could allow Single SC to overclock up to 80GH/s. But that would dilute the purchase of Mini-rigs owners who plunked 30k on the table if a 1.2k purchase comes out to 1/10th or 1/15th of the speed of a Mini-rig.

Keep in mind the power supply in a Mini-rig is already defined. So there isn't much hope in seriously overclocking a Mini-Rig. As 24 boards would quickly consume the extra headroom built into the power supply.

[Beepbop]

There are no weekends when it comes to small companies. Remember, they shipped on a Sunday, even posting on said day of them doing such.

Not so easy when it comes to things like government offices, banks, etc. Some thing you can get done on weekends, but the ASICs aren't live animals - they can just sit in a bonded storage area while the officials go home for the weekend and leave a few security guards behind. Of course, for a bitcoin miner the ASICs might as well be live animals, but the world doesn't stop for Bitcoin.  

I'm not sure, but Josh posts on Saturdays and Sundays, and he represents a much larger enterprise.

And a fine job he does representing them too.

[PuertoLibre]

@ Team Avalon

Why hasn't there been any news update?

We clearly see you logging in repeatedly.

Why not update us if there are any issues or problems that have cropped up?

[MrTeal]

@ Team Avalon

Why hasn't there been any news update?

We clearly see you logging in repeatedly.

Why not update us if there are any issues or problems that have cropped up?

It is getting comical. While there's no reason (yet) to think this is a scam or that they're run into significant issues or delays, they couldn't be handling this worse baring getting all drunk up and making bets.

What is it about the ASIC business that makes formerly open and approachable people become completely anti-social?

[jl2012]

This.

In part, I partially understand some secrecy...they're building devices for a niche market, and would preferably like to create a monopoly. If, for example, BFL went about parading their chip specs, processes, and every other little detail, companies like Avalon could come along, scoop up that info, piece it together and create a slightly better product.

I'm not saying I agree with all the secrecy behind this project, but I am saying that I can understand some of it.

I am sure that Avalon team is so damn stupid and their only and last hope is to "steal" BFL super secret technology

Which absolutely means that they will ship after BFL unless BFL get bankrupt in a first place

Just for the reference all post is a joke - irony

No Drama here. What we Avalon customers need is a little more patience.

I think Avalon is making BFL lose money every time they have to compete.

When BFL ships and the Avalons device is revealed, they (BFL) will likely have to waste even more money trying to change their features and designs.

Right now all BFL has is overclocking ability. That's about it. It is also unknown what kind of overclocking ability or support they (BFL) will give out to miners of their hardware.

It is an interesting situation. You could allow Single SC to overclock up to 80GH/s. But that would dilute the purchase of Mini-rigs owners who plunked 30k on the table if a 1.2k purchase comes out to 1/10th or 1/15th of the speed of a Mini-rig.

Keep in mind the power supply in a Mini-rig is already defined. So there isn't much hope in seriously overclocking a Mini-Rig. As 24 boards would quickly consume the extra headroom built into the power supply.

I think it is not guaranteed that a mini-rig is always more efficient than a Single SC

[jl2012]

we (my team and some other core people) consider BFL have not spend any money on ASIC development yet. BFL's business flow is: announce dreamlike specs -> taking pre-orders -> find people to development -> if succeed, release and shipment. if fail, run. BFL sell products at super low price because their customer take all risks.
so now BFL is just collecting money for their ASIC project and avoid current delivery pressure (means they are running out cheap FPGAs).
if this business model succeeded, i will classified this as a shame of human intelligence.

and let me explain what is the "now in final stage development" mean. in ASIC design flow, this means RTL design is nearly finish. as a SOC or some other complex ASIC, RTL design and testing will take most of the development time. but mining ASIC is not a RTL complex design, it is a high computing density chip. most of the work is physical design, packaging and thermal design. RTL is less than 10% of the entire work.

 

[PuertoLibre]

@ Team Avalon

Why hasn't there been any news update?

We clearly see you logging in repeatedly.

Why not update us if there are any issues or problems that have cropped up?

It is getting comical. While there's no reason (yet) to think this is a scam or that they're run into significant issues or delays, they couldn't be handling this worse baring getting all drunk up and making bets.

What is it about the ASIC business that makes formerly open and approachable people become completely anti-social?

Worse yet, their company forum is also down.

http://forum.bitsyn.com/viewforum.php

If there is a big issue they should at least tell us it is so. There is never any point in keeping it a secret. Worse yet, why bother logging in frequently and then ignore customer concerns?

Does that make sense? I understand they are hands off in terms of customer service, but at least saying something is better than just letting it be.

[crazyates]

Worse yet, their company forum is also down.

http://forum.bitsyn.com/viewforum.php

It's not just down. It's been replaced by some little squigly line html app or something. I have no idea.

[beekeeper]

... just letting it be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdopMqrftXs 

[MrTeal]

I think it is not guaranteed that a mini-rig is always more efficient than a Single SC

I would actually guess that the Minirig will be slightly less efficient than the Single, depending on the power supply used. The Supernova in the MR is Gold rated, if you use something similar the single might come in lower as I'm going to guess that the power density of the MR is going to mean more power will be required to cool it that the equivalent number of SCs would use.

[dree12]

Worse yet, their company forum is also down.

http://forum.bitsyn.com/viewforum.php

It's not just down. It's been replaced by some little squigly line html app or something. I have no idea.

Man, the plot is straight out of a mystery novel. It's almost as if they are trying to incite drama and mystery!

[jamesg]

I think it is not guaranteed that a mini-rig is always more efficient than a Single SC

I would actually guess that the Minirig will be slightly less efficient than the Single, depending on the power supply used. The Supernova in the MR is Gold rated, if you use something similar the single might come in lower as I'm going to guess that the power density of the MR is going to mean more power will be required to cool it that the equivalent number of SCs would use.

Per the picture linked below, the only PSU that is 1500w and has a handle on it like that is this -> http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=120-PG-1500-XR

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/attachments/announcements/395d1358119509-bfl-asic-status-2013-01-11_032.jpg

The PSU can even do 1650w at 208v and is rated for 90% efficiency. Running on higher voltages should make the PSU even more efficient.

As for cooling, my mini rigs have 9 fans on each wall in push pull configuration. If there are 24 PCBs per mini rig this would mean that there would be less fans than running 24 singles.

[PuertoLibre]

I think it is not guaranteed that a mini-rig is always more efficient than a Single SC

I would actually guess that the Minirig will be slightly less efficient than the Single, depending on the power supply used. The Supernova in the MR is Gold rated, if you use something similar the single might come in lower as I'm going to guess that the power density of the MR is going to mean more power will be required to cool it that the equivalent number of SCs would use.

Per the picture linked below, the only PSU that is 1500w and has a handle on it like that is this -> http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=120-PG-1500-XR

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/attachments/announcements/395d1358119509-bfl-asic-status-2013-01-11_032.jpg

The PSU can even do 1650w at 208v and is rated for 90% efficiency. Running on higher voltages should make the PSU even more efficient.

As for cooling, my mini rigs have 9 fans on each wall in push pull configuration. If there are 24 PCBs per mini rig this would mean that there would be less fans than running 24 singles.

Are they Deltas? If so then I think each one can take anywhere from 12watts up to 30watts for the high end (very high volume) Deltas.

The ones in Avalons look like (speculation of course) the cheap-o transparent types. I have no clue if they DC or AC.

[MrTeal]

I think it is not guaranteed that a mini-rig is always more efficient than a Single SC

I would actually guess that the Minirig will be slightly less efficient than the Single, depending on the power supply used. The Supernova in the MR is Gold rated, if you use something similar the single might come in lower as I'm going to guess that the power density of the MR is going to mean more power will be required to cool it that the equivalent number of SCs would use.

Per the picture linked below, the only PSU that is 1500w and has a handle on it like that is this -> http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=120-PG-1500-XR

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/attachments/announcements/395d1358119509-bfl-asic-status-2013-01-11_032.jpg

The PSU can even do 1650w at 208v and is rated for 90% efficiency. Running on higher voltages should make the PSU even more efficient.

As for cooling, my mini rigs have 9 fans on each wall in push pull configuration. If there are 24 PCBs per mini rig this would mean that there would be less fans than running 24 singles.

Yeah, that is the Supernova I referenced. It's an 80+ gold supply, and at 1500W@120V it had an efficiency of 86%. At 230V I've seen 88%, which is firmly in Gold territory.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story3&reid=311
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/SuperNOVA_NEX1500/6.html
I'm not saying it's a bad power supply, just that's if you're using a real ATX PSU to power the singles instead of the included power brick which may be fairly inefficient it is not difficult to match or exceed the efficiency of the PSU in the MR.

As for the fans, there may be 18 fans in the MR SC vs 24 in the Singles, but that doesn't mean a whole lot without actually knowing which fans are in each, and how fast they're being driven if they are speed controlled. I'd just say that as a general rule of thumb the greater the power density the more airflow you need to keep equal temperatures for equal power.

[mightycount]

Tick-tock, tick-tock... Can someone create a 2-week tick-down clock? That's how much time is left before the CNY.

The silence from Avalon is most intriguing...

http://mycountdown.org/fullpage.php?group=Holiday&countdown=Chinese%20New%20Year&cp3_Hex=FFB200&cp2_Hex=FF0000&cp1_Hex=FFFFFF&widget_number=3012&fwdt=150&img=3&lab=1

Yay!! Thanks, mate!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Worse yet, their company forum is also down.

http://forum.bitsyn.com/viewforum.php

It's not just down. It's been replaced by some little squigly line html app or something. I have no idea.

Same true for http://bitsyn.com/