BFL or Avalon

[teknetz]

It seems these are the only two players in the ASIC market at the moment... That being said, which one do you think will ship new orders first?

I'm considering getting one of these, but not sure which might actually get here in a sane ammount of time.. BFL says new orders will ship in June, but with them missing so many self-imposed dealines already, I'm considering going with avalon...

Comments? Thoughts? Open to all input...

Thanks

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[Beta-coiner1]

Look for more competition.I believe there is a mention of other solutions coming out.

[BitcoinTate]

I canceled my BFL order and used my refund to buy BTC back when it was in the mid 20's... already doubled my money in a month and a half. Chances are if you used the funds that you would use to invest in ASIC hardware you could double your money by the time they ship.... that is of course if profit is your end goal. If you are just looking to help protect Bitcoin and its future I would buy one from each company. That's my plan down the road when they have a week turn around time on orders.

[Tamerz]

Nobody knows for sure. I would guess BFL. I think they will be able to pump out more devices just due to the size of the devices.

This of course depends on the chips not having problems and actually releasing sometime soon.

[Jorgeminator]

If you are just looking to help protect Bitcoin and its future I would buy one from each company. That's my plan down the road when they have a week turn around time on orders.

No offence, but why would any sane person order an Avalon by the time BFL has a turn around of one week? We're looking at a power consumption difference of almost 600 watts. You'd basically be throwing away ~430kWh of electricity each month by choosing to run an Avalon instead of a BFL Single SC...

[BitcoinTate]

Competition in the market place

[crazyates]

I canceled my BFL order and used my refund

Avalon has explicitly stated they will not be offering any refunds, whatsoever. BFL has been and still is honoring all refunds. +1 BFL

BFL has not shipped any products yet. Avalon has. +1 Avalon

Avalon uses ~600W. BFL is set to use 1/10th of that. +1 BFL

BFL requires a PC to plug them in and mine. Avalon is standalone. +1 Avalon

I have several orders with BFL, and plan on getting many more.

[Beta-coiner1]

Looking at this from a logical standpoint,BFL seems to currently have the edge if they can get their technical stuff going.However,I would caution anyone from buying vaporware.I think the business practice of how the current ASIC offerings are leaving little to be desired.

[peasant]

I would hold off if i were you. Let some units ship and hash to see if there are any serious flaws. It's too late in the game to try to get the early jump. Avalons are already shipping but have limited units, and BFL has an endless order que and nothing has been released yet. Oh how i miss the peaceful GPU days.

[cchan]

I'm waiting for the Avalon batch #3 open.
BFL must have lots of orders. I believe it'll be shipped in 2014 if I just order right now.

[crazyates]

I'm waiting for the Avalon batch #3 open.
BFL must have lots of orders. I believe it'll be shipped in 2014 if I just order right now.

BFL has batches 2 and 3 of their chips moving down the same process as batch 1, but now they know what timelines to expect. I'm expecting a good 4-5 months after they start shipping before they're all caught up.

You really think Avalon will ship batch 2, open batch 3, and ship batch 3 in the next 5 months?

[cchan]

I'm waiting for the Avalon batch #3 open.
BFL must have lots of orders. I believe it'll be shipped in 2014 if I just order right now.

BFL has batches 2 and 3 of their chips moving down the same process as batch 1, but now they know what timelines to expect. I'm expecting a good 4-5 months after they start shipping before they're all caught up.

You really think Avalon will ship batch 2, open batch 3, and ship batch 3 in the next 5 months?

For BFL, it will ship, but time relies on the order numbers and production capacity. So 4-5 months, I'm not so optimistic.
For Avalon, batch #1 seems successful, I know some guys have got it and start mining happily. I think Avalon will keep going.
The best thing is that more vendors can provide ASIC. 

[creativex]

BFL is already five months late and there's still no guarantee that they'll ship anything soon or that they'll meet their stated(estimated) specs if and when they do eventually ship. When they do begin shipping their backlog will ensure that an order placed now will not be delivered for many months. Meanwhile Avalon has made it abundantly clear that they're capable of designing and delivering a working product on schedule despite beginning long after BFL had already announced their products.

BFL is also in clear violation of FTC prompt delivery regulations, so the risk that they will be shut down at some point must be weighed with any decision.

http://business.ftc.gov/documents/alt051-selling-internet-prompt-delivery-rules

[Entropy-uc]

Go over the the 'BFL Fucks us Again' thread and read Josh's rant.

That should tell you all you need to know about the professionalism of BFL

[Frizz23]

Go over the the 'BFL Fucks us Again' thread and read Josh's rant.

That should tell you all you need to know about the professionalism of BFL

It seems Inaba (= Josh, the official BFL representative) deleted his posting. But it lives on in peoples quotes

Like in this post:

I love the armchair engineers that make strong technical pronouncements on the basis of fuzzy/blurry, pixelated images of an object that measures 11mm x 11mm taken with a camera phone.  Especially pronouncements made by engineers that can't tell a reflection from a piece of underfill or who define jpeg artifacting as chipped cores. Or ones who can't tell triangles from squares or circles!

Oh Burn!  You really got me there Josh!  I'm totally stung by you.

By the way, my armchair for 15 years has looked over a Ph.D. in Engineering, and that chair is situated at Intel's packaging and assembly development division.  I've worked a senior engineer on every aspect of those activities for 856 to 1274 today.

To explain what that means in terms you are bright enough to understand:

• I know about semiconductor manufacturing 100x what you do about making up imaginary schedules
• I know about semiconductor manufacturing nearly 10x what you know about being a douchebag on the internet

Wow, you must really be a good cock sucker then.  Any engineer that can't tell a reflection from underfill or underfill from epoxy isn't worth much more than a buck fifty blow job.  Congrats on your abilities.  I would say you are quite possibly the crappiest "engineer" on the planet, given those facts.  Did that PhD come out of a crack jack box?

Next time you're under that table, keeping your job, watch the teeth.

Stay classy Josh.

This is how BFL/Josh talks to customers and prospective clients.

[DobZombie]

By the way, my armchair for 15 years has looked over a Ph.D. in Engineering, and that chair is situated at Intel's packaging and assembly development division.

Just because I make wine, doesn't mean I'm an expert on Whiskey.  Especially whiskey that's still in it's bottle

[k9quaint]

To the OP:
Buy Avalon if you want an ASIC mining device.
Buy BFL if you want to want an ASIC mining device.

[teknetz]

Nice... yeah, Josh does seem kind of a dick...  Guess I'll be waiting for batch 3....

On another note, anyone know where to buy some descent FPGA boards at a good price?

I'm desperate to get any kind of mining rig up and running

[creativex]

Nice... yeah, Josh does seem kind of a dick...

To put it mildly.

On another note, anyone know where to buy some descent FPGA boards at a good price? I'm desperate to get any kind of mining rig up and running

If you're so desperate to get anything up and running, then why not a GPU rig that can be converted to mining altcoins if/when you choose to purchase an ASIC mining gizmo down the road?

[peasant]

The correct analogy is probably closer to Johnny Walker Blue Label compared to the basic Jack Daniels.