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

[jstew]

How much were the 12.93's going for ?

the 12.93's were 200$ more then the 11.85's

[ATCkit]

I'm using a similar strategy. Diversifying helps to decrease risk.

ATM, I'm testing one of those new 150MHS X11 rigs that  can mine on 5 algos and uses very little electricity. A few the coins i'm able to mine have been around for a long time: ie Dash and Digibyte. I'm also researching a new/efficient  200MHS machine that can mine any GPU coin and uses only 800 watts.

My gut tells me that others are looking for more profitable/efficient alternatives to straight BTC mining.

So I hope BTC difficulty levels off. That way, I hope I'm able to keep existing last generation BTC gear (S7s and A6s) and the price of this generation's gear ( S9s and A7s) becomes a lot better. If not, there's always other mining gear opportunities to explore.

BTC mining gear manufacturers will not be the only "crypto mining gear makers" to make equipment in the crypto world....and some other coins will be around for the long run too. OFC, there is the same concern that happened to the Scrypt algo when Scrypt ASICs emerged.

TLDR:  As long as we can ROI under 8 months on any other equipment, my BTC mining gear purchases will take a back seat.

I do the same thing and run three or four PC and mine XMR it's holding but price is dropping , i just won't mine it , when it gets to low . saving for two x11 miners , dash is holding around 12.84 s a coin , xmr goes up and down a lot but holding at 10 dollars and eth is around 11 bucks . it all add up and not to bad to mine this way, i like Mining btc but the gear cost to much etc .I have some older btc gear I use from time to time and about 178 MH in script miners, i got a really good deal on a Alchemist 256 that had a bad controller which was no issue . it had one board also . the other seven boards work, i dropped one and messed it up beyond repair and donated one to some one to tech schools with. so i have five boards and one Gridseed 25 MH miner not the little two blade one .a Avalon 6, may try to buy another one,after i get one or two more amd 470 or 480 depends on cash when i buy them .a S1 S3  C1 and A4.1 that set all work the S3 has 2 bad chips . the other miners work like they should.

Yup- I'm testing an x11 rig  right now. Wayyyy more profitable than any sha256 rig.

For quick comparison: I run my Bitmains and Avalons at the lowest cost host site available world wide.....while I'm running my X11 on high cost power at home. The income per "unit of energy used" are much better on my x11 rig at home. Pretty much a "no brainer".
In fact the net profit per day on my X11 rig is very good compared to my S7s and A6s. So buying a an S9 is not on my radar ...unless the S9 is lower than $500 USD and I don't have to buy a PSU to run it.

So what will Bitmain do when the demand for its high cost rigs dried up? They will build other algo rigs. Remember they were going to build a Scrypt rig until it became unwise/unprofitable to do so. Why was it unprofitable to for them to build  Scrypt rig? Well, the earlier Scrypt rigs ( Titans, Alchemist etc.) drove up Scrypt difficulty and the demand for new scrypt rigs pertty much stopped.

So Bitmain has two options:

1. lower the price on their sha 256 rigs, or

2.  get in on other algo rigs asap before their competitors seize that market completely. Maybe its too late for them to do that late already?


BTW: Why do you think certain people that were key to BTC development moved over to other algos like ETH hash? For example: Gavin Anderson comes to mind. Ponder that for a bit.

[philipma1957]

I'm using a similar strategy. Diversifying helps to decrease risk.

ATM, I'm testing one of those new 150MHS X11 rigs that  can mine on 5 algos and uses very little electricity. A few the coins i'm able to mine have been around for a long time: ie Dash and Digibyte. I'm also researching a new/efficient  200MHS machine that can mine any GPU coin and uses only 800 watts.

My gut tells me that others are looking for more profitable/efficient alternatives to straight BTC mining.

So I hope BTC difficulty levels off. That way, I hope I'm able to keep existing last generation BTC gear (S7s and A6s) and the price of this generation's gear ( S9s and A7s) becomes a lot better. If not, there's always other mining gear opportunities to explore.

BTC mining gear manufacturers will not be the only "crypto mining gear makers" to make equipment in the crypto world....and some other coins will be around for the long run too. OFC, there is the same concern that happened to the Scrypt algo when Scrypt ASICs emerged.

TLDR:  As long as we can ROI under 8 months on any other equipment, my BTC mining gear purchases will take a back seat.

I do the same thing and run three or four PC and mine XMR it's holding but price is dropping , i just won't mine it , when it gets to low . saving for two x11 miners , dash is holding around 12.84 s a coin , xmr goes up and down a lot but holding at 10 dollars and eth is around 11 bucks . it all add up and not to bad to mine this way, i like Mining btc but the gear cost to much etc .I have some older btc gear I use from time to time and about 178 MH in script miners, i got a really good deal on a Alchemist 256 that had a bad controller which was no issue . it had one board also . the other seven boards work, i dropped one and messed it up beyond repair and donated one to some one to tech schools with. so i have five boards and one Gridseed 25 MH miner not the little two blade one .a Avalon 6, may try to buy another one,after i get one or two more amd 470 or 480 depends on cash when i buy them .a S1 S3  C1 and A4.1 that set all work the S3 has 2 bad chips . the other miners work like they should.

Yup- I'm testing an x11 rig  right now. Wayyyy more profitable than any sha256 rig.

For quick comparison: I run my Bitmains and Avalons at the lowest cost host site available world wide.....while I'm running my X11 on high cost power at home. The income per kwh cost are much better on my x11 rig at home. Pretty much a "no brainer".
In fact the net profit per day on my X11 rig is very good compared to my S7s and A6s. So buying a an S9 is not on my radar ...unless the S9 is lower than $500 USD and I don't have to buy a PSU to run it.

So what will Bitmain do when the demand for its high cost rigs dried up? They will build other algo rigs. Remember they were going to build a Scrypt rig until it became unwise/unprofitable to do so. Why was it unprofitable to for them to build  Scrypt rig? Well, the earlier Scrypt rigs ( Titans, Alchemist etc.) drove up Scrypt difficulty and the demand for new scrypt rigs pertty much stopped.

So Bitmain has two options:

1. lower the price on their sha 256 rigs, or

2.  get in on other algo rigs asap before their competitors seize that market completely. Maybe its too late for them to do that late already?

Not an option  it won't be good for them in the long run.

They need to raise the price on the s-9 and make the warranty a full year.

BTC is asic bound and low cost power makes you a winner.  that was true with the s-7

it is not true with the s-9  simply because the smaller size chip has a bigger fail rate.

I would max my low cost power solar array today with 4 more s-9's  if I got a 1 year warranty.


You are correct about alt coins.  My summer power rate is 18 cents  and I mine eth coins  I spent 585 for entire home power bill  in August

I earned 1000 in Eth.   About 385-415  of the power bill was my coins.  so I cleared 575-615 mining eth

[sidehack]

I'm all for extending the warranty, but raising the price is foolish. Their margins probably already allow them to replace every part of every sold miner and still draw a slight profit. With the prices they've got now, we're subsidizing the miners in their own megafarms - we're already paying them hand over fist to screw us in every way possible. The current price might be justifiable if it had a year warranty on it, assuming the warranty counted for anything and they didn't work so hard to deny every rational claim.

[HagssFIN]

ANTMINER S9-B14, 11.85TH/s is now sold out.
edit: now for sale again
edit2: now sold out again
edit3: now for sale again, it is going back and forth

[philipma1957]

I'm all for extending the warranty, but raising the price is foolish. Their margins probably already allow them to replace every part of every sold miner and still draw a slight profit. With the prices they've got now, we're subsidizing the miners in their own megafarms - we're already paying them hand over fist to screw us in every way possible. The current price might be justifiable if it had a year warranty on it, assuming the warranty counted for anything and they didn't work so hard to deny every rational claim.

The btc  game has become a game of what do you pay for power?

A new s9 at 1540 + 60 to ship is 1600 usd if you are blessed with 3 cent power

and you can get 12.93th using 1400 watts

you will earn 500 usd in 1 one year with the machine still in hand.

that is a good deal if you have a good warranty.

look at projections for 4% growth and 3% growth  in both cases if you have 3 cent power  you make good money in a year.

name me any investment that returns the numbers below.

so the current 12.93  machine is priced well if it has a 1 year warranty. it is underpriced if it has a 1 year warranty.

So back to my argument they should jack price by 100-200 bucks and give the one year warranty.

[jermwerty]

The btc  game has become a game of what do you pay for power?

A new s9 at 1540 + 60 to ship is 1600 usd if you are blessed with 3 cent power

and you can get 12.93th using 1400 watts

you will earn 500 usd in 1 one year with the machine still in hand.

that is a good deal if you have a good warranty.

look at projections for 4% growth and 3% growth  in both cases if you have 3 cent power  you make good money in a year.

phillip -

While I would normally agree with that assessment, the problem is Bitmain can drop the floor out of the market any time and sell the miners for $500 each, then the resulting flood of new hashpower and a few 12% jumps tend to kill that 3-4% average.

See:  Avalon Classic Batch 3, S7 Batch 1/2/3/4, etc

[Sierra8561]

3 cent power in my area is shady. included with my 3 cent power is a kw demand charge. In the summer it's $18.00 per kw and winter is $14.00. Long story short my 3 cent power is really closer to six and I'm not saving much money.

[Biffa]

What they should do is drop the price AND offer a 1 year warranty.

Somehow I think they have been caught short with the R4, I think it cost more to develop and they have made short runs of them and are surprised at the lack of interest, I think they are pulling them off the site and putting them back up as and when they think they might sell a few but its not been the hot seller they hoped.

Hopefully this is not wishful thinking on my part and they will wake up, smell the coffee and offer the R4 for below $800 and the S9 for below $1000

[gt_addict]

What they should do is drop the price AND offer a 1 year warranty.

Somehow I think they have been caught short with the R4, I think it cost more to develop and they have made short runs of them and are surprised at the lack of interest, I think they are pulling them off the site and putting them back up as and when they think they might sell a few but its not been the hot seller they hoped.

Hopefully this is not wishful thinking on my part and they will wake up, smell the coffee and offer the R4 for below $800 and the S9 for below $1000

That's exactly the point I made in the R4 thread. How can it be designed and aimed at the "home miner" when the price was near enough an S9. It would've made more sense to buy an S9 and underclock it but still have the option to run it higher if electricity costs allowed.

Anyway I digress from this thread. The new Batch 14 S9 is $7 cheaper than the R4 was on sale for.

[philipma1957]

The btc  game has become a game of what do you pay for power?

A new s9 at 1540 + 60 to ship is 1600 usd if you are blessed with 3 cent power

and you can get 12.93th using 1400 watts

you will earn 500 usd in 1 one year with the machine still in hand.

that is a good deal if you have a good warranty.

look at projections for 4% growth and 3% growth  in both cases if you have 3 cent power  you make good money in a year.

phillip -

While I would normally agree with that assessment, the problem is Bitmain can drop the floor out of the market any time and sell the miners for $500 each, then the resulting flood of new hashpower and a few 12% jumps tend to kill that 3-4% average.

See:  Avalon Classic Batch 3, S7 Batch 1/2/3/4, etc

 yes of course they can do that.

 It goes without saying they could  sell these s9's at 800 usd  and the diff can be made to jump from 225 to 250 to 300 to 400.

They have full and total control of the market  in terms of gear and they can dictate which way to play the game.
Slow supply high price is what I prefer them to do.
My cheap power has about 15kwatt cap. So high priced s9's work for me.
As an aside it also helps my in house gpu miners.

There is a downside to flooding market with cheap s9's  it drives up their cost of self mining.

Let pick a ph for bitmaintech self mining 120ph of s'9s at 3 cent power .

so look what happens if bitmaintech keeps growth at 8% and at 3%

on day 380 at 8% profit is    427,000
on day 380 at 3% profit is 1,255,000

they need new gear if growth is 8%  and power is 3 cents.

they need not switch out gear if growth is 3% and power is 3 cents.

they control diff growth  right now since they can sell cheaper.

but they have 0 need to sell cheap.

they are far far far far better off with high price.

and if they give the one year warranty they can sell at high price.

if you look you will see I used 500 as the price for an s9 since I think they can build one and install it in their mines for 500.

[not.you]

The biggest issue with the S9 and all of these projections is the possibility you could be running at 66% (or god forbid 33% or broken altogether) before that year is out which I know goes back to the whole warranty point.  I have more than enough BTC to buy more and I have an S7 that I could replace with an S9 but I am way too leery of a hardware failure.  I need 2.15 BTC still to break even on the first two S9's so buying another and hoping I don't see a board failure before I mine back that much BTC is just too big of a gamble.  If these things showed a higher degree of dependability I probably would have already bought a third one.

[philipma1957]

The biggest issue with the S9 and all of these projections is the possibility you could be running at 66% (or god forbid 33% or broken altogether) before that year is out which I know goes back to the whole warranty point.  I have more than enough BTC to buy more and I have an S7 that I could replace with an S9 but I am way too leery of a hardware failure.  I need 2.15 BTC still to break even on the first two S9's so buying another and hoping I don't see a board failure before I mine back that much BTC is just too big of a gamble.  If these things showed a higher degree of dependability I probably would have already bought a third one.

Yeah.  I can't buy more unless I get a better warranty.

I have been told this may happen.
 Pay a premium for six month warranty will be offered soon.

[ATCkit]

The biggest issue with the S9 and all of these projections is the possibility you could be running at 66% (or god forbid 33% or broken altogether) before that year is out which I know goes back to the whole warranty point.  I have more than enough BTC to buy more and I have an S7 that I could replace with an S9 but I am way too leery of a hardware failure.  I need 2.15 BTC still to break even on the first two S9's so buying another and hoping I don't see a board failure before I mine back that much BTC is just too big of a gamble.  If these things showed a higher degree of dependability I probably would have already bought a third one.

This is a huge concern. I had that happen to an S7 and it's the reason I held off buying an S9 to begin with. Next was the price. When all the reports of hash board failures began appearing, I was glad that I held off. 

Bitmain Warranty was good too me with my S7 issue...but eventually the warranty ran out and the rig became a permanent 2 blade S7. The rig will be a year old in a week. It has spent 50+% of the past year running on 2 blades.

[philipma1957]

The biggest issue with the S9 and all of these projections is the possibility you could be running at 66% (or god forbid 33% or broken altogether) before that year is out which I know goes back to the whole warranty point.  I have more than enough BTC to buy more and I have an S7 that I could replace with an S9 but I am way too leery of a hardware failure.  I need 2.15 BTC still to break even on the first two S9's so buying another and hoping I don't see a board failure before I mine back that much BTC is just too big of a gamble.  If these things showed a higher degree of dependability I probably would have already bought a third one.

This is a huge concern. I had that happen to an S7 and it's the reason I held off buying an S9 to begin with. Next was the price. When all the reports of hash board failures began appearing, I was glad that I held off. 

Bitmain Warranty was good too me with my S7 issue...but eventually the warranty ran out and the rig became a permanent 2 blade S7. The rig will be a year old in a week. It has spent 50+% of the past year running on 2 blades.

They now offer

3 day doa
90 day
180 day
1 year

All at bitmainwarranty plus PayPal is allowed.

[not.you]

Meh.  Glad to see the option but too expensive.  Three-hundred extra for a 180 day warranty is kind of obnoxious.  I hope that isn't an indication of what they think about the reliability of their own product.

[HagssFIN]

Has anybody had problems with low hash rate in one board with S9, batch 2?
That particular board hashes about 2.5-2.9Th/s.
I had this problem once before but it went away after few restarts.
Now I'm stuck with the one board performing at low level.

Ideas?

No x's are shown in ASIC status.
Firmware is original.
edit: I was able to fix this back to normal after all.
It required maybe like 30+ restarts.
What a strangely acting miner..

[not.you]

Has anybody had problems with low hash rate in one board with S9, batch 2?
That particular board hashes about 2.5-2.9Th/s.
I had this problem once before but it went away after few restarts.
Now I'm stuck with the one board performing at low level.

Ideas?

No x's are shown in ASIC status.
Firmware is original.
edit: I was able to fix this back to normal after all.
It required maybe like 30+ restarts.
What a strangely acting miner..

I have this exact problem with a batch 3.   I installed the low voltage firmware which seemed to help slightly (fewer restarts needed to get the 3rd board to hash normal speed) and I also downclocked which also helps in the same way.  But I still sometimes need 4 or 5 restarts to get it working right and even then that low hash board always hashes less than the other two.  This miner has been this way from the day I got it.  I have spent 20+ restarts trying to get it to hash normal at full freq before but I don't even try anymore.

[d57heinz]

S9 owners all need to ssh into your machines.  Load up ck pool/Kano in first pool   Nice hash as second and f2pool as third.  Think I found a way to replicate a bug every time you restart cg(BM)miner. With those pools on setup page It will set the network diff at first to 226g then it looks at second pool which is nice hash and it then sets the network diff to 54k. Then miner will get shitload of rejects because the POS thinks it's finding blocks one after another.  What I have found is I've waited up to fifteen min for it to self correct and it never does.  So for pools out their that have s9 pointed at them that's why they keep trying to submit false blocks.  Bitmain sure has their hands full with this one. So for those of you mining solo with these you need to verify that your cgminer is running correctly.

Putty into s9
Root admin
Type screen -r press enter. Now check the network diff is correct.  If you want to watch the initial sequence when it starts up then have the pools page open on s9 and ssh window open.  Have the screen -r command ready at the prompt. Press save on miner pool page and then immediately Goto putty and press enter if it says it can't find then press up arrow and enter again until it shows output of bmminer.

What I did to end my headaches was to only put a pool in first slot. Can't have any backup pools. 

BR
d57heinz

[HagssFIN]

Has anybody had problems with low hash rate in one board with S9, batch 2?
That particular board hashes about 2.5-2.9Th/s.
I had this problem once before but it went away after few restarts.
Now I'm stuck with the one board performing at low level.

Ideas?

No x's are shown in ASIC status.
Firmware is original.
edit: I was able to fix this back to normal after all.
It required maybe like 30+ restarts.
What a strangely acting miner..

I have this exact problem with a batch 3.   I installed the low voltage firmware which seemed to help slightly (fewer restarts needed to get the 3rd board to hash normal speed) and I also downclocked which also helps in the same way.  But I still sometimes need 4 or 5 restarts to get it working right and even then that low hash board always hashes less than the other two.  This miner has been this way from the day I got it.  I have spent 20+ restarts trying to get it to hash normal at full freq before but I don't even try anymore.

This happened to me as well and I almost gave up on restarting the miner.
When I now finally got it back to the normal hash rate, I'm avoiding any restarts etc. with it.

edit: This is how it looks like for me at the moment. The problem was with chain#4 board and it is still hashing with little lower hash rate than the other two boards. The total hash rate is little under what it suppose to be (12.93Th/s).
(click for bigger picture)