5 New X11 ASIC miners - Antminer, Innosilicon, IbeLink, Baikal, PinIdea

[ekrififi]

Since there are 5 new powerful X11 Asics coming to market, I thought I would start a central thread breaking down the pros and cons of each product

We'll consider the price, hashrate, delivery estimates, multi-algorithm capabilities (quark etc.) and company track records and (most importantly) where/when/how to buy them.

When they're delivered (hopefully) people can share their experiences with the different hardware.

QUICK RUN DOWN to get the ball rolling.

1) BITMAIN 15 GH D3 ANTMINER - Bitmain recently sold their first batch of their new D3s on their website, selling out in a few hours. Price was $2,700, with estimated delivery set for September 15th or later (since this is their first time making an x11 miner, they cautioned against possible delays). Their site claims a new batch will be "available soon"... but "soon" is a VERY subjective term. My guess is their new batch won't be available for pre-order until August, and it is possible / likely the ship date will be later as well. Even with the lack of availability, this is still probably the best buy out there (if you can actually manage to buy it).

2) Innosilicon A5 - Innosilicon came out of NOWHERE with their X11 30GH A5 to be shipped some time in October. If their price was a few thousand less, this would have easily been the top dog, BUT with a $10,000 price point ($9,285 - barely less through a group buy), it's a hard sell. They are claiming you can get to 38 gH by overclocking, but even so. Not to mention that Innosilicon has a track record of falling short of their promised specs and/or missing delivery dates. Even so, with the reduced electricity draw (compared to 2 D3s), it's still an interesting contender. If you're interested, check out the group buy thread below.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2034549.msg20324863#msg20324863

3) IbeLink 10.8 GH DM11G - this machine WAS all the rage... until it wasn't. Originally offered as a group buy through Bittawm (or a slightly more risky Russian retail buy through Bitbaza and 51asic.ru), Ibelink recently sold a few of these through their website just before the above hardware came to market. They were selling for 6k in Bitcoin and Dash, but are now sold out. One advantage of the Ibelink is that it ships in August, a month before most of the competition... but THAT advantage may be short lived. They WERE going to presell a second batch, but I imagine that'll need a serious upgrade if they want to stay competitive.

4) PinIdea Drx 1200 mh/s - they dropped the ball, pure and simple. PinIdea's new Asic does 1.2 Gh, basically the same as 4 last gen baikal cubes... which would've been great a few months ago... but not now. Their price (6-7 k) does not reflect their tall midget designation. One upside (i suppose) is that they could ship... but again, that's short lived.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20170704091749&SearchText=pinidea+drx


5) Baikal 2 GH Giant Plus - just an incremental upgrade of their a900... BUT Before you dismiss these (not so) Giants off hand for their (now puny) hash rate, consider this: Baikals produce the only ASICs capable of mining in different algorithms (x11, x13, x14, x15, quark, qubit). I know that Dash is the name of the game, but with so much new hardware hitting the market, it may make sense to diversify where you can. To be honest, I know NOTHING about these other algos, and the coins that could be mined with them... so PLEASE feel free to enlighten me and the thread.

I think you may be able to buy directly from them for something like $6k... or you can try Bittawm's group buy (below), which could be more in the 4k range if you act fast. I believe these are ready to ship

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2041159.0


If i've missed something or gotten something wrong, please feel free to set me straight...

[bclcjunkie]

Just want to add on point #5, there're couple of things:
1. The altcoin devs can always change their algos to thwart ASIC takeover just like vertcoin switched to GPU friendly algo
2. Other manufacturers can always adapt and release updated software to handle other algos. It's just a puny change and doesn't require major rewrite.

All in all Baikal is a huge risk at their current price. In my book Baikal Giant+ is worth USD 700 provided they ship now and product arrives before August.

5) Baikal 2 GH Giant Plus - just an incremental upgrade of their a900... BUT Before you dismiss these (not so) Giants off hand for their (now puny) hash rate, consider this: Baikals produce the only ASICs capable of mining in different algorithms (x11, x13, x14, x15, quark, qubit). I know that Dash is the name of the game, but with so much new hardware hitting the market, it may make sense to diversify where you can. To be honest, I know NOTHING about these other algos, and the coins that could be mined with them... so PLEASE feel free to enlighten me and the thread.

I think you may be able to buy directly from them for something like $6k... or you can try Bittawm's group buy (below), which could be more in the 4k range if you act fast. I believe these are ready to ship

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2041159.0


If i've missed something or gotten something wrong, please feel free to set me straight...

[ekrififi]

Just want to add on point #5, there're couple of things:
1. The altcoin devs can always change their algos to thwart ASIC takeover just like vertcoin switched to GPU friendly algo
2. Other manufacturers can always adapt and release updated software to handle other algos. It's just a puny change and doesn't require major rewrite.

All in all Baikal is a huge risk at their current price. In my book Baikal Giant+ is worth USD 700 provided they ship now and product arrives before August.

5) Baikal 2 GH Giant Plus - just an incremental upgrade of their a900... BUT Before you dismiss these (not so) Giants off hand for their (now puny) hash rate, consider this: Baikals produce the only ASICs capable of mining in different algorithms (x11, x13, x14, x15, quark, qubit). I know that Dash is the name of the game, but with so much new hardware hitting the market, it may make sense to diversify where you can. To be honest, I know NOTHING about these other algos, and the coins that could be mined with them... so PLEASE feel free to enlighten me and the thread.

I think you may be able to buy directly from them for something like $6k... or you can try Bittawm's group buy (below), which could be more in the 4k range if you act fast. I believe these are ready to ship

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2041159.0


If i've missed something or gotten something wrong, please feel free to set me straight...

Wow, that's really interesting, bclc. You're saying that any X11 asic COULD mine those other algos (x15, quark) with a simple software update (no change to the hardeare)?

Why do you think more of them aren't doing that? Does the same thing apply to Scrypt and Scrypt n? What about blake /blake2 /blake2b? I'm interested in the upcoming Siacoin Obelisk Sc1 asic (supposedly) coming out in 10-11 months, but as of now, it will only mine Blake (2b)...

Thanks for your help / insight...

[dadesu]

All of them have good roi, and always will be some good coin to mine with them, especialy baikal who can mine so many algoes.

[Vaccinus]

the best one is indeed the innosilicon, the other re behind, but it's not only a matter of speed but a matter of time, it's better to have a slower speed but get the miner early to start mining with low, diff because if the diff increase your faster miners it's like my slower miner

[pikachuy]

2. Other manufacturers can always adapt and release updated software to handle other algos. It's just a puny change and doesn't require major rewrite.

From my understanding, all those big hash rate miners are ASIC and Baikal is FPGA. With that in mind, ASIC can no longer be altered once made while an FPGA can be reprogrammed, which was why they were able to add other algorithms with a firmware update.

I could be wrong...

[ekrififi]

the best one is indeed the innosilicon, the other re behind, but it's not only a matter of speed but a matter of time, it's better to have a slower speed but get the miner early to start mining with low, diff because if the diff increase your faster miners it's like my slower miner

Well, the Innosillicon certainly is the most powerful / energy efficient IN THEORY, but there are other factors. Most obviously, it's price point is someehat prohibitive... for the same pice you could (theoretically) purchase 3 D3s...

The other factor is Innosillicon's track record of under delivering on hashpower and delivery date. I believe this happened with their Scrypt A4s...

But as the wise man said, "we'll see"...

[ekrififi]

2. Other manufacturers can always adapt and release updated software to handle other algos. It's just a puny change and doesn't require major rewrite.

From my understanding, all those big hash rate miners are ASIC and Baikal is FPGA. With that in mind, ASIC can no longer be altered once made while an FPGA can be reprogrammed, which was why they were able to add other algorithms with a firmware update.

I could be wrong...

I think you're right, but is it possible the Baikals are PARTIALLY FPGA? Found this in an interview with Baikal:

"X11 uses a chained eleven hash algorithms differently from Scrypt and SHA256 that cause more challenges for the optimization of eleven hash algorithms. While we optimized each hash algorithm, we focused much more on the entire interworking the eleven hash algorithms. We were sure about one shot success of X11 ASIC development through high fault coverage FPGA verification."

To be honest, I don't really know what FPGA is. Would you mind explaining it a little to the thread, and how it differs fron a straight up ASIC protocol?

[leowonderful]

2. Other manufacturers can always adapt and release updated software to handle other algos. It's just a puny change and doesn't require major rewrite.

From my understanding, all those big hash rate miners are ASIC and Baikal is FPGA. With that in mind, ASIC can no longer be altered once made while an FPGA can be reprogrammed, which was why they were able to add other algorithms with a firmware update.

I could be wrong...

I think you're right, but is it possible the Baikals are PARTIALLY FPGA? Found this in an interview with Baikal:

"X11 uses a chained eleven hash algorithms differently from Scrypt and SHA256 that cause more challenges for the optimization of eleven hash algorithms. While we optimized each hash algorithm, we focused much more on the entire interworking the eleven hash algorithms. We were sure about one shot success of X11 ASIC development through high fault coverage FPGA verification."

To be honest, I don't really know what FPGA is. Would you mind explaining it a little to the thread, and how it differs fron a straight up ASIC protocol?

FPGAs are one step below ASICs. Better than GPUs at tasks, and reprogrammable (hence field-programmable grid arrays), but they aren't built for one thing and one thing only, so they aren't as efficient most of the time. Most FPGAs can do these hashing algos but the ones Baikal used were probably optimized with software just for them and possibly custom manufactured. Just up to someone to configure the FPGAs to mine.

[QuintLeo]

The alleged Pinidea DRX 1150 seems to be a scam, as it's not listed on the actual Pinidea site AND the graphics are a direct ripoff of the Antminer L3.

 I seriously doubt that ANY X11 ASIC-based miner uses a FPGA as part of the actual mining part, the efficiencies are WAY too high


 Using a FPGA to verify the basic design of a circuit before you commit to making an ASIC version is common, but it doesn't make the resulting ASIC chip a FPGA.



 Oh, and for reference, FPGA stands for "Field Reprogrammable Gate Array" - it's basically an IC that's designed so you can route the inputs and the outputs of the various gates on it in different ways to implement different complex circuits.

[CryptoCrane]

I'm curious whether Bitmain's 2nd batch will be larger than their 1st batch. Even if it is twice the size, I suspect it will sell out just as fast now that everyone's waiting for them.

[bitcoinexplorer]

Just want to add on point #5, there're couple of things:
1. The altcoin devs can always change their algos to thwart ASIC takeover just like vertcoin switched to GPU friendly algo
2. Other manufacturers can always adapt and release updated software to handle other algos. It's just a puny change and doesn't require major rewrite.

All in all Baikal is a huge risk at their current price. In my book Baikal Giant+ is worth USD 700 provided they ship now and product arrives before August.

5) Baikal 2 GH Giant Plus - just an incremental upgrade of their a900... BUT Before you dismiss these (not so) Giants off hand for their (now puny) hash rate, consider this: Baikals produce the only ASICs capable of mining in different algorithms (x11, x13, x14, x15, quark, qubit). I know that Dash is the name of the game, but with so much new hardware hitting the market, it may make sense to diversify where you can. To be honest, I know NOTHING about these other algos, and the coins that could be mined with them... so PLEASE feel free to enlighten me and the thread.

I think you may be able to buy directly from them for something like $6k... or you can try Bittawm's group buy (below), which could be more in the 4k range if you act fast. I believe these are ready to ship

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2041159.0


If i've missed something or gotten something wrong, please feel free to set me straight...

Fully agreed

"All in all Baikal is a huge risk at their current price. In my book Baikal Giant+ is worth USD 700 provided they ship now and product arrives before August. "

[not.you]

4) PinIdea Drx 1200 mh/s - they dropped the ball, pure and simple. PinIdea's new Asic does 1.2 Gh, basically the same as 4 last gen baikal cubes... which would've been great a few months ago... but not now. Their price (6-7 k) does not reflect their tall midget designation. One upside (i suppose) is that they could ship... but again, that's short lived.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20170704091749&SearchText=pinidea+drx


5) Baikal 2 GH Giant Plus - just an incremental upgrade of their a900... BUT Before you dismiss these (not so) Giants off hand for their (now puny) hash rate, consider this: Baikals produce the only ASICs capable of mining in different algorithms (x11, x13, x14, x15, quark, qubit). I know that Dash is the name of the game, but with so much new hardware hitting the market, it may make sense to diversify where you can. To be honest, I know NOTHING about these other algos, and the coins that could be mined with them... so PLEASE feel free to enlighten me and the thread.

I think you may be able to buy directly from them for something like $6k... or you can try Bittawm's group buy (below), which could be more in the 4k range if you act fast. I believe these are ready to ship

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2041159.0


If i've missed something or gotten something wrong, please feel free to set me straight...

Technically both of those are using the exact same chips these manufacturers have been using in their previous models.  These are not really new asics, they are new models using asics that they have been selling for a while.  Which is why neither one can really compete.  Also I am saying asic in regards to baikal even though I see the discussion about them being fpga's.  I really don't know either way.  Technically iBelink had a previous generation x11 chip that was selling at the same time as the PinIdea ones but it looks as though iBelink had their eye on the future and PinIdea maybe didn't?

X11 algorithm as someone already stated in a previous post is technically 11 different algorithms chained so it may be theoretically possible to use firmware to designate the chips to do only one of those 11 exclusively.  The algorithms used in x11 are blake, bmw, groestl, jh, keccak, skein, luffa, cubehash, shavite, simd, and echo according to this site: http://cryptorials.io/glossary/x11/

I think it would be entirely dependent on the chip design though.  It seems perfectly possible that the chips could be designed in such a way that you couldn't get only one algorithm and it could only ever do the full x11 series.

I posted this in another thread a couple days ago but seems appropriate to go in this one.

Hard to find information on this but it looks like the design process of the various manufacturers chips looks something like:

PinIdea      64nm (about 1.5 Mh per Watt)
Baikal        40nm (about 4.6 Mh per Watt)
Bitmain        ?nm (about 12.5 Mh per Watt)  <-assuming it meets the specs at release
iBelink        28nm (about 13.3 Mh per Watt)  
Innosilicon    ?nm (about 40.3 Mh per Watt) <-assuming it meets the specs at release

I would guess that the Bitmain D3 is using a 28nm process and the Innosilicon is using something smaller.  The S9 is 16nm so there is certainly room for an improvement here in terms of efficiency and newer generation miners.  I doubt Innosilicon's chip is 16nm whatever it is.  PinIdea is probably out of this game for good at this point.  They have been releasing miners using the same chip for more than a year and only making minor efficiency gains by playing with chip frequencies.  I don't know if Baikal has anything in the works in terms of new chip designs but their current generation chip is also basically obsolete as soon as any of the other miners hit the market.  We know based on the network hashrate that some of these other miners are certainly real.  iBelink seems pretty well confirmed on all fronts including the specs at this point.  The Bitmain D3 could conceivably change specs prior to release but Bitmain usually comes pretty close on their stated specs vs what they release so I doubt it will move much.  The Innosilicon one is the real question, but if they are using something like 20nm or even 24nm they can make a huge impact in the market even if they don't release for 6 months.  The problem there is that Bitmain is likely to get a more efficient miner in that range inside of a year or so if dash prices justify making it so Innosilicon better drop something soon or Bitmain will just bury them in the longer term.

[ekrififi]

1stminingrig.com did a review of the Baikal Giant Plus, analyzing its profitability, etc. Thought you might be interested...

http://1stminingrig.com/baikal-miner-giant-a2000-worth-review/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+1stMiningRig+%281st+Mining+Rig%29

[bitcoinexplorer]

1stminingrig.com did a review of the Baikal Giant Plus, analyzing its profitability, etc. Thought you might be interested...

http://1stminingrig.com/baikal-miner-giant-a2000-worth-review/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+1stMiningRig+%281st+Mining+Rig%29

Thanks for sharing i read this review and don't agree to claim that D3 is also going to be a unit 'used for half a year'. The difference is this that bitmain is now building it and maximum testing/use period they will get would be 1 month.
So the so called revenue profitability shown is going to be significantly reduced by atleast 50% thus doubling the ROI period.

Baikal have below options now:-

1. Sell for $4000 get low # of sales and use the unsold units for mining themselves

2. Sell for $2000 to $2500 and get all units sold out and start working on a new model with hope that they get huge capacity and reasonable price.

[CryptoCrane]

Looks like Bitmain is getting ready for batch 2 real soon:
https://twitter.com/bitmaintech/status/889699156721258496

[bobo012]

All of them have good roi, and always will be some good coin to mine with them, especialy baikal who can mine so many algoes.

Yes, they have a good roi on paper. But it is getting highly competitive, meaning that a lot of people will buy and power them on.
By the time they arive to us who knows what the roi will look like.
Also they will produce more efficient x11 asics

[ekrififi]

The D3s just went back on sale and sold out within an hour... I know Bitmain generally sells out quickly, but this has gotta be record, no?

[QuintLeo]

The D3s just went back on sale and sold out within an hour... I know Bitmain generally sells out quickly, but this has gotta be record, no?

 They don't seem to be sold out, more that their website seems to be broken at the moment - or they're ALMOST ready with the new batch but haven't actually gotten all the "back end" updated for it yet.

[baskanx]

The alleged Pinidea DRX 1150 seems to be a scam, as it's not listed on the actual Pinidea site AND the graphics are a direct ripoff of the Antminer L3.

 I seriously doubt that ANY X11 ASIC-based miner uses a FPGA as part of the actual mining part, the efficiencies are WAY too high


 Using a FPGA to verify the basic design of a circuit before you commit to making an ASIC version is common, but it doesn't make the resulting ASIC chip a FPGA.



 Oh, and for reference, FPGA stands for "Field Reprogrammable Gate Array" - it's basically an IC that's designed so you can route the inputs and the outputs of the various gates on it in different ways to implement different complex circuits.

Baikalmini 150 mhs

cube 300 mhs