Bitmain's Released Antminer S9, World's First 16nm Miner Ready to Order

[sidehack]

I've got about 40 S7 from various batches in hosting, so if I end up with any of them would save shipping cost. I'm working on a trade for a bunch of S5 but if I come up short I'll let you know.

I also will never mine on Antpool.

[scyth3]

I personally could care less if it mines on -ck and/or Kano's software and pools or not.  Speaking of bastards, I think both of them are egotistical bastards.  I would rather mine on Antpool or any other pool than support the software of those 2 guys.  They are condescending and downright rude 98% of the time.

I am all over the new Antminer S9 and if it pisses -ck and Kano off then even better.

Meanwhile using CGMiner in your S9, lol.

[elokk]

I personally could care less if it mines on -ck and/or Kano's software and pools or not.  Speaking of bastards, I think both of them are egotistical bastards.  I would rather mine on Antpool or any other pool than support the software of those 2 guys.  They are condescending and downright rude 98% of the time.

I am all over the new Antminer S9 and if it pisses -ck and Kano off then even better.

They may be egotistical bastards but I will always support their work and will only mine on pools running ckpool. These guys an an asset to the community, we cannot say so much about antpool.

[philipma1957]

I personally could care less if it mines on -ck and/or Kano's software and pools or not.  Speaking of bastards, I think both of them are egotistical bastards.  I would rather mine on Antpool or any other pool than support the software of those 2 guys.  They are condescending and downright rude 98% of the time.

I am all over the new Antminer S9 and if it pisses -ck and Kano off then even better.

    
Based on the returns at the kano.is pool it looks to me like he practices honesty above manners.  I would like both  but in mining I prefer an honest impolite at times person over a dishonest polite person.

one thing is 100% sure about bitmaintech they do not practice honesty when it comes to software.

As they refuse to honor international laws about using software. BTW deep pockets and proper political connections may one they really hurt them on this.


They still sell good gear.  Which I purchased from them last week.

[sidehack]

Yep. Honest and polite is the best way to go, but if you have to pick one always pick honesty.

[chiguireitor]

CK - my question was mostly rhetorical. I know all the business reasons why people deal with China. I also know (and for the most part represent) all the reasons why some people refuse to deal with China.

That I understood, however that doesn't stop people asking the questions so every so often an old bastard like me has to spell it out as clearly as possible.

Nothing wrong with that. As old bastard in training, I respect the point.

[laughing]... so, where is the demarcation line between OB in training vs OB?
I am firmly in the OB category already, regardless.

The demarcation line is called male balding pattern: you have it? you're OB, you don't? trainee.

[philipma1957]

I personally could care less if it mines on -ck and/or Kano's software and pools or not.  Speaking of bastards, I think both of them are egotistical bastards.

For what it's worth, I've found ck to be a decent and helpful guy. Maybe a bit short sometimes, but not anywhere close to being a bellend like Kano.

And then there is Luke-Jr which is another level of crazy bastard altogether.

Yeah ck then Kano then Luke

Sort of 2  then 4 then 16

Shitty iPad does not do squared and cubed correctly .

I don't use Luke much at all.

I use ck and Kano quite a bit.


Also remember they are high quality programmers and every good programmer I have ever know was just a bit off center.  

Or maybe I am just a bit jelly of,the ability to be a high quality programmer as I do not have that skill set.

[kilo17]

I personally could care less if it mines on -ck and/or Kano's software and pools or not.  Speaking of bastards, I think both of them are egotistical bastards.

For what it's worth, I've found ck to be a decent and helpful guy. Maybe a bit short sometimes, but not anywhere close to being a bellend like Kano.

And then there is Luke-Jr which is another level of crazy bastard altogether.

Yeah ck then Kano then Luke

Sort of 2  then 4 then 16

Shitty iPad does not do squared and cubed correctly .

I don't use Luke much at all.

I use ck and Kano quite a bit.


Also remember they are high quality programmers and every good programmer I have ever know was just a bit off center.   

Or maybe I am just a bit jelly of,the ability to be a high quality programmer as I do. Or,have that skill set.

I would personally pick Luke Jr, as I have done in the past and will do so on future projects.  He is an honest and polite individual in my eyes.  I have mined on Kano.is since the beginning (when I am mining Bitcoin), and have respect for them, just not to the level I respect Luke Jr.

[Finksy]

Can someone opine whether two S9 would be able to run on one 2880w PSU?
Thanks

no  unless you downclock to 13th.


but this is a complete and absolute guess.

2x S9's @ 1375W DC each will draw 2750W, which would be 95.5% load on PSU.  They should hold up just fine at stock clock unless ambient temp is very high.

[QuintLeo]

CK - my question was mostly rhetorical. I know all the business reasons why people deal with China. I also know (and for the most part represent) all the reasons why some people refuse to deal with China.

That I understood, however that doesn't stop people asking the questions so every so often an old bastard like me has to spell it out as clearly as possible.

Nothing wrong with that. As old bastard in training, I respect the point.

[laughing]... so, where is the demarcation line between OB in training vs OB?
I am firmly in the OB category already, regardless.

The demarcation line is called male balding pattern: you have it? you're OB, you don't? trainee.

 My grandpa still had a full head of hair in his 90s. Some of us are lucky and don't GET "male balding pattern" to a significant degree if at all.

[philipma1957]

Also remember they are high quality programmers and every good programmer I have ever know was just a bit off center.  
Or maybe I am just a bit jelly of,the ability to be a high quality programmer as I do. Or,have that skill set.

There is a huge difference between being a massive bellend and a bit off center.

The bellends don't make it very far in the "real world" - You either learn to play nice with your team and co-workers, or your career is likely to be short at any publicly traded company.

Most, if not all of the brilliant engineers I know, do indeed have their own idiosyncrasies, but they aren't bellends. The people like Kano wouldn't last long on any team I've ever worked with, and people like Luke-Jr wouldn't make it to an interview stage after doing a background check on him. ck seems more like the people I've dealt with in my time - someone that may have a bad day here and there, but doesn't generally go around making life miserable for his team.

Sorry for the derail. Should probably get back on topic about how Bitmain likes to ignore the license and refuse to release cgminer updates, while exploiting the code for monetary gain.

Or is the topic how many of these will we buy?  I liquidated a lot of gear looking to order a third and or fourth.

[Longsnowsm]

After plugging in the numbers into a calculator, and trying to factor in halving I am having a hard time figuring out how to ROI with the S9.  Maybe I am over estimating the impact of halving into the equation.  I even adjusted the BTC valuations up to $1000 USD and then factored the halving into the picture and still no ROI in a year.  So maybe I am doing this wrong.  Thoughts on ROI on the S9 and the impacts of halving?

Correction to my estimate:  Looks like the calculator says that if BTC is $1000 that you could see ROI in 8 months based on the effective TH drop by half.

[alienesb]

After plugging in the numbers into a calculator, and trying to factor in halving I am having a hard time figuring out how to ROI with the S9.  Maybe I am over estimating the impact of halving into the equation.  I even adjusted the BTC valuations up to $1000 USD and then factored the halving into the picture and still no ROI in a year.  So maybe I am doing this wrong.  Thoughts on ROI on the S9 and the impacts of halving?

Correction to my estimate:  Looks like the calculator says that if BTC is $1000 that you could see ROI in 8 months based on the effective TH drop by half.

The potential to ROI is probably better than with the S7 because I doubt we're going to see better chips within the next year. That said, you still might be better off getting a later batch after the halving which is the big elephant in the room.

[sidehack]

Good point. ASIC efficiency is probably about to plateau for a while. One consideration to add to that is S2 vs S1 - a more chip-dense machine with the same ASIC about half the per-hash power (for the current generation, probably about 0.6J/GH machine-level) will have a higher initial cost but a substantially longer viability. In that way I guess Bitmain has done hackers a favor going with a bucked string topology on later S7 and S9. For a regular joe it's actually worse than unregulated string because you get worse efficiency but if it can be hacked to adjustable voltage that potentially doubles (or more) the miner's effective lifetime.

[citronick]

catching up some reading on S9.... Yes, I ordered a unit....

anyways, I never seen such a big congregation of "Legendary" and "Hero Member" all in one place....

I know several senior members from other threads but first time seeing other legends in the forum.....

it's like walking through the hall of fame of mining....

so much to learn from all of your guys.

[Finksy]

The way I see it, the price on these won't drop substantially until they have competition.  So the gamble is either to purchase now and reap the higher block reward for ~5 weeks to get a head start, or wait until the competition/halving comes for the price to drop.  I believe these will stay viable for a long time, longer than any generation prior, however the price is still too high. I don't expect more than 20-25% difficulty decrease in the periods following the halving, and still much of that will be eaten up by new hash rate.

Like many others, the B1 S7 left a very bad taste in my mouth, I'll pass and let those desperate enough to have the latest and greatest buy them up.

Being able to under-volt these and the S7's is going to be a lot more common/important than it was for past gens, only because there won't be a new higher-efficiency generation of miner to come out for quite a while.

[philipma1957]

Good point. ASIC efficiency is probably about to plateau for a while. One consideration to add to that is S2 vs S1 - a more chip-dense machine with the same ASIC about half the per-hash power (for the current generation, probably about 0.6J/GH machine-level) will have a higher initial cost but a substantially longer viability. In that way I guess Bitmain has done hackers a favor going with a bucked string topology on later S7 and S9. For a regular joe it's actually worse than unregulated string because you get worse efficiency but if it can be hacked to adjustable voltage that potentially doubles (or more) the miner's effective lifetime.

ahh an exotic pencil mod for the s-9

[elrippo]

Guys, don´t cut youreself regarding the efficiency of ASIC chips. Please remember were Bitfury and Spondoolies were in 10.2015....
I tend to say that manufacturers of ASIC chips leave the home miner always one GEN behind 

[sidehack]

Spondoolies had simulation results at 0.15J/GH and BitFury was ordering engineering samples for a 0.06-0.15J/GH chip. Given that the BM1384 could run 0.25J/GH but the S5 was clocked at 0.45J/GH and the BM1385 could do 0.18J/GH but the S7 was clocked at about 0.26J/GH; if the S9 chip is clocked at 0.09J/GH we can assume it's probably got about 30% more efficiency hiding in the basement for a bottom clock around 0.06J/GH.

I'd bet that Bitmain and BitFury used all the tricks they'd already learned optimizing designs for 28nm on this 16nm chip. Is there probably room for more improvement? Seems likely. But I doubt we'll see another 30-50% drop in power use like we had with optimizations in previous generations.

[Finksy]

Spondoolies had simulation results at 0.15J/GH and BitFury was ordering engineering samples for a 0.06-0.15J/GH chip. Given that the BM1384 could run 0.25J/GH but the S5 was clocked at 0.45J/GH and the BM1385 could do 0.18J/GH but the S7 was clocked at about 0.26J/GH; if the S9 chip is clocked at 0.09J/GH we can assume it's probably got about 30% more efficiency hiding in the basement for a bottom clock around 0.06J/GH.

I'd bet that Bitmain and BitFury used all the tricks they'd already learned optimizing designs for 28nm on this 16nm chip. Is there probably room for more improvement? Seems likely. But I doubt we'll see another 30-50% drop in power use like we had with optimizations in previous generations.

I would say the same in re: to optimizations at design-level. My formula says by next June we would see efficiency as low as 0.02W/GH, but I think this time it might be wrong. I'd say 0.05-0.07 in the next 12 months, based mostly on increased chip density but that's just a guess.