AntMiner S9 rampant speculation thread, have to be quick though

[QuintLeo]

But all of you missed the IMPORTANT part of that post.

 Is that picture really Iz, or is it just a picture of some random pretty lady?

 9-)




 BitMain doesn't care about maxing efficiency on their chips - never has. They want to max their profits, so their recent batches with fewer chips per miner actually make THEM more money, as long as they can sell enough of them.
 
I was VERY suprised when the initial batches did NOT come out running the BM1385 at .8 volts per chip or close, they actually set them at the mid-point (more or less) of the specified operating range.
 Later batches corrected that "oversight", or they might have figured out that the chip actually does NOT work reliably at the lower voltage figures of it's specs in a real-world string situation....

[Gunthar]

Please read this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1472058.new#new

THere is no ETA on Ant S9 release to public!

[IanFoxley]

Please read this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1472058.new#new

THere is no ETA on Ant S9 release to public!

I still think it will be in the next week or so

[mavericklm]

summer to autumn is my opinion.
and not a huge improvement over s7

[ps_jb]

I still think it will be in the next week or so

End of May

[AriesIV10]

I still think it will be in the next week or so

End of May

I am with the both of you!  End of May.

[suchmoon]

I still think it will be in the next week or so

End of May

I am with the both of you!  End of May.

They are starting to ship the last batch of S7s on May 23. I would think it's unlikely to have S9 available at the same time (logistically) and probably they wouldn't want an announcement to affect S7 sales unless that last batch sells out sooner.

[philipma1957]

I still think it will be in the next week or so

End of May

I am with the both of you!  End of May.

They are starting to ship the last batch of S7s on May 23. I would think it's unlikely to have S9 available at the same time (logistically) and probably they wouldn't want an announcement to affect S7 sales unless that last batch sells out sooner.

well no one knows how many s-7s they have left

this is one of their big holding addresses

https://blockchain.info/address/1KwA4fS4uVuCNjCtMivE7m5ATbv93UZg8V

shows about 130 s-7's sold from 5-11 to now

[CarrollFilms]

I'm going to take a long shot of 8Th/s and a starting price of close to $2,000.

If not 8Th/s Then maybe something like 10Th/s and costing around BTC4.5-5 possibly 6 depending on the power efficiency

[QuintLeo]

They haven't even started to sell "used S7" units ouf of their own farm.

 Therefore, any expectation of a "May" avaibility date for anything other than a PREorder is insane, and June is much more likely to be the soonest they'd even start taking orders - with a July shipping date at the soonest I'd anticipate.


 The recent hashrate climb MIGHT possibly be Bitmain starting to add S9 units to their farm - but it could also be Bitfury-based gear getting built and installed by some of their partners, or Innosilicon partners on A3 based gear, or BW punching anouther round of B-Eleven units into their farm, or some combination of those, or even some factor nobody is considering right now (but I'd bet that factor is NOT Avalon getting 14/16nm chips yet, given their late start on even developing that generation per their announcements).

[philipma1957]

They haven't even started to sell "used S7" units ouf of their own farm.

 Therefore, any expectation of a "May" avaibility date for anything other than a PREorder is insane, and June is much more likely to be the soonest they'd even start taking orders - with a July shipping date at the soonest I'd anticipate.


 The recent hashrate climb MIGHT possibly be Bitmain starting to add S9 units to their farm - but it could also be Bitfury-based gear getting built and installed by some of their partners, or Innosilicon partners on A3 based gear, or BW punching anouther round of B-Eleven units into their farm, or some combination of those, or even some factor nobody is considering right now (but I'd bet that factor is NOT Avalon getting 14/16nm chips yet, given their late start on even developing that generation per their announcements).

It will be a preorder Late may. With it arriving in late june

[suchmoon]

It will be a preorder Late may. With it arriving in late june

Halving is currently predicted around July 10. Even if something catastrophic happens (three +20% diff jumps, or -20% decreases) the date won't change by more than ~10-12 days either way. If your prediction is true we would get between 0-20 days of mining under the current block reward. Basically the only way I see someone buying the S9 is if (a) the person is very bad at math or (b) the price/efficiency ratio is very good, e.g. within 150% of S7 price per TH/s at half the power draw or smth like that.

And yes, I am a Batch 1 S7 buyer so I know what it means to be (a) 

[d57heinz]

They haven't even started to sell "used S7" units ouf of their own farm.

 Therefore, any expectation of a "May" avaibility date for anything other than a PREorder is insane, and June is much more likely to be the soonest they'd even start taking orders - with a July shipping date at the soonest I'd anticipate.


 The recent hashrate climb MIGHT possibly be Bitmain starting to add S9 units to their farm - but it could also be Bitfury-based gear getting built and installed by some of their partners, or Innosilicon partners on A3 based gear, or BW punching anouther round of B-Eleven units into their farm, or some combination of those, or even some factor nobody is considering right now (but I'd bet that factor is NOT Avalon getting 14/16nm chips yet, given their late start on even developing that generation per their announcements).

It will be a preorder Late may. With it arriving in late in  june or july:)  with compensation after 10 days late from expected ship

did some edits that make it sound more like bitmain.
Best Regards
d57heinz

[philipma1957]

They haven't even started to sell "used S7" units ouf of their own farm.

 Therefore, any expectation of a "May" avaibility date for anything other than a PREorder is insane, and June is much more likely to be the soonest they'd even start taking orders - with a July shipping date at the soonest I'd anticipate.


 The recent hashrate climb MIGHT possibly be Bitmain starting to add S9 units to their farm - but it could also be Bitfury-based gear getting built and installed by some of their partners, or Innosilicon partners on A3 based gear, or BW punching anouther round of B-Eleven units into their farm, or some combination of those, or even some factor nobody is considering right now (but I'd bet that factor is NOT Avalon getting 14/16nm chips yet, given their late start on even developing that generation per their announcements).

It will be a preorder Late may. With it arriving in late in  june or july:)  with compensation after 10 days late from expected ship

did some edits that make it sound more like bitmain.
Best Regards
d57heinz

Most likely that is true.

But I have the agenda with the solar array.  So I need to get some of the newer gear as fast as I can.

[edonkey]

It will be a preorder Late may. With it arriving in late in  june or july:)  with compensation after 10 days late from expected ship

did some edits that make it sound more like bitmain.

LOL! You forgot that the compensation will be crappy, and also very late

I was bit by that stupid holiday week shipping delay of 2/3rds of my B1 S7 order. The question is whether I'll be stupid enough to order batch one again. Hopefully this time logic will win over irrationality.

[edonkey]

Here's my guess:

• 9.4 THs
• 1300 watts
• $1100
• Accepting orders on June 15th
• Shipping by June 30th

How did I come up with these wacky numbers? First, I figured they'll try to double the output of the S7, shooting for 10 THs but not making it (just like the S7 didn't make it to 5 THs). This assumes they've either got a 16 - 14 nm process chip, or can pull off some last ditch trick (like ASIC-boost) to squeeze more out of their current process.

The power consumption number is because I think they want to keep the per unit consumption similar to what they have now with the S7. Their goal would be to replace the S7 units in their farm with S9s by swapping boxes, rather than adding more power supplies, using more physical space, and increasing the power to their DC.

The price is based on the trend I've noticed from Bitmain where the ROI is generally in excess of 200 days. If I remember, the S7 was around 240 days at 3% difficulty (which was much lower than reality, as we all know). Anyway, for the S9 I projected out 250 days at 3%, then cut the earnings number in half since it's unlikely that any S9 will be in customers' hands and mining before the halving.

Of course, they could just as easily price batch 1 as double that amount hoping people won't factor in the halving. There will almost certainly be a large number of idiots willing to pay that. But if the initial price really ends up being $2200, I won't be one of those idiots this time.

Regarding my guess for availability, they will want to fully deploy S9s in their DC before the halving (or their mining revenue stream is cut in half) and with enough time to work out any kinks in the manufacturing process, and to physically move the S7s out as part of a "used" sale. So let's say they're shooting to be deployed by mid June at the latest. At that point they'd probably have enough confidence to offer them for sale, with a couple of weeks for delivery, because everyone knows that you can do anything in two weeks

Also, I checked for Chinese national holidays around this time. There's a three day holiday on June 9th for the Dragon Boat Festival. I doubt that three days will make much difference either way, especially if they don't start accepting orders until after the festival.

Maybe one way we can possibly verify the above predictions early will be to see if we can spot a sustained hash rate increase of roughly double Bitmain's estimated mining operation sometime in early to mid June. That should be noticeable enough to be visible, and not just variance.

Hopefully Bitfury and BW have already bulked up for the halving. Because if they haven't, then between them and Bitmain the difficulty might very well explode in June.

[OgNasty]

I wonder if the S9 was going to use ASICBOOST and if they would let people know that technology is included.  It could be important for manufacturers to let us know in order to guide the decision of which miner to buy next.

[alh]

I wonder if the S9 was going to use ASICBOOST and if they would let people know that technology is included.  It could be important for manufacturers to let us know in order to guide the decision of which miner to buy next.

Respectfully, I must disagree. There are really only 4 items that matter in terms of purchasing an ASIC based miner, and neither geometry size (aka nm) or AsicBoost matter at all. The items I see are:

1) What does it cost?
2) What is the hash rate?
3) What is the power consumption in Watts?
4) When can it be delivered?

I guess I would also have add are there any special cooling (does it need to be -100C), or electrical supply requirements (i.e. does it need 400Hz 37 VAC as a crazy example).

The internals of how they did it don't matter one whit to me.

Just my opinion, which I expect is fairly common.

[suchmoon]

I wonder if the S9 was going to use ASICBOOST and if they would let people know that technology is included.  It could be important for manufacturers to let us know in order to guide the decision of which miner to buy next.

Respectfully, I must disagree. There are really only 4 items that matter in terms of purchasing an ASIC based miner, and neither geometry size (aka nm) or AsicBoost matter at all. The items I see are:

1) What does it cost?
2) What is the hash rate?
3) What is the power consumption in Watts?
4) When can it be delivered?

I guess I would also have add are there any special cooling (does it need to be -100C), or electrical supply requirements (i.e. does it need 400Hz 37 VAC as a crazy example).

The internals of how they did it don't matter one whit to me.

Just my opinion, which I expect is fairly common.

But the potential threat of a fork would matter...

S9 is unlikely to have it though unless I misunderstand the timing of hardware development and when this ASICBOOST was invented.

[OgNasty]

I wonder if the S9 was going to use ASICBOOST and if they would let people know that technology is included.  It could be important for manufacturers to let us know in order to guide the decision of which miner to buy next.

Respectfully, I must disagree. There are really only 4 items that matter in terms of purchasing an ASIC based miner, and neither geometry size (aka nm) or AsicBoost matter at all. The items I see are:

1) What does it cost?
2) What is the hash rate?
3) What is the power consumption in Watts?
4) When can it be delivered?

I guess I would also have add are there any special cooling (does it need to be -100C), or electrical supply requirements (i.e. does it need 400Hz 37 VAC as a crazy example).

The internals of how they did it don't matter one whit to me.

Just my opinion, which I expect is fairly common.

But the potential threat of a fork would matter...

S9 is unlikely to have it though unless I misunderstand the timing of hardware development and when this ASICBOOST was invented.

I agree it is unlikely to have it.  I would like to start the conversation and start getting manufacturers to make this information known though.  Anyone who isn't paying attention to the ASICBOOST saga and doesn't think it is important could wind up being parted with their money in short order...