Butterfly Labs Announces Bulk Chip Sales

[k9quaint]

And the BFL chip performance is only marginally better hash/$ than Avalon's. Why would anyone take that risk?

Price/Performance
BFL: 2600 MH/s for $89 is 29.2 MH/s per $1
Avalon: 280 MH/s for $10 is 28 MH/s per $1

Power efficiency
Avalon: 66,000 MH/s @ 600W 110 MH/w 
BFL: 5200 MH/s @ 35W 148MH/w  (the ars technica box measured 5.2 @ 50W)

This advantage turns negative when taking into account that these chips theoretically arrive 4 to 5 weeks after avalon chips arrive when ordered at the same time. In this time the difficulty grow so much that there is no advantage anymore or even an disadvantage.

The pricing for BFL chips is extremely goofy. The better performing chips are actually cheaper per engine, so until BFL updates their prices there's no reason to purchase anything but Grade A chips.

As for why you would choose the BFL chips over the Avalon ones, I would say that BFL's present more interesting opportunities for board and cooling design. The BFL ASICs consume less power than their Avalon counterparts, and the lower device count per GH simplifies board design. If both were available immediately at the current prices I think it'd be a no-brainer.

The big question for BFL (and Avalon) is whether they can actually deliver on the timelines they've talked about. Both of them have had huge issues with getting production out the door for completed miners, but chips sales should be much simpler. It's been 7 weeks since people started paying for Avalon chip sales now. If Avalon does get their chips out in the next 3 weeks as promised, 3+ months for BFL chips will be hard to justify. If Avalon is late (and they're already 3 weeks late on providing samples), it might be closer.

There is certainly a lot more room for potential improvement with BFL. But there are too many unknowns until they are able to produce in bulk and ship to their customers. They say 100+ days, but we all know that could mean 100 days + while(1) { date = date + 2 weeks; }.  We don't even know what the size of the grades/bins are. If everyone orders Grade A and that ends up being 3% of the yield, there are going to be a [blot[/b] of unhappy customers.

Avalon has at least gotten over 100,000 of their chips onto boards and those boards into devices and shipped to customers. We have some performance history in the wild to go on with them. We shall see how late they are delivering their chip orders.

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[Syke]

The big question for BFL (and Avalon) is whether they can actually deliver on the timelines they've talked about. Both of them have had huge issues with getting production out the door for completed miners, but chips sales should be much simpler. It's been 7 weeks since people started paying for Avalon chip sales now. If Avalon does get their chips out in the next 3 weeks as promised, 3+ months for BFL chips will be hard to justify. If Avalon is late (and they're already 3 weeks late on providing samples), it might be closer.

Please, don't lump Avalon in with BFL. Avalon #1 was originally scheduled for a Feb shipment, and they shipped most in Feb and Mar. That's pretty close to on-time. Batch #2 is maybe 1 month late.

BFL originally scheduled for a Oct shipment, and 7 months later has hardly shipped squat. There's no comparison.

[bitcoinvest]

i am selling 32 chip credits !

pm me with offers

[dadj]

Also selling 48 chip credits.

[Syke]

Is the 100 days up? Who has received their bulk chips?

[SebastianJu]

Is the 100 days up? Who has received their bulk chips?

And are there miner designs at all?

[Paladin69]

I have 1152 chip credits.  $1 each.  Can use John K as escrow.

For $1152 that is a savings of roughly $29K off your order.

[dwdoc]

100 days are not quite up.  First orders were on 6/10/13.  100 calendar days after that is 9/18/13.  However if BFL does not start requesting balance of payments on those early chip orders soon we can probably start to worry.

[YipYip]

100 days are not quite up.  First orders were on 6/10/13.  100 calendar days after that is 9/18/13.  However if BFL does not start requesting balance of payments on those early chip orders soon we can probably start to worry.

Look pardon my ignorance but whats the point ?

~30 chips  @ $57 to get 60-70 Giga = $1900 just for the chips without any other components

It will never make ROI unless u get it online TODAY

Or are the chips now $20 each

[dwdoc]

100 days are not quite up.  First orders were on 6/10/13.  100 calendar days after that is 9/18/13.  However if BFL does not start requesting balance of payments on those early chip orders soon we can probably start to worry.

Look pardon my ignorance but whats the point ?

~30 chips  @ $57 to get 60-70 Giga = $1900 just for the chips without any other components

It will never make ROI unless u get it online TODAY

Or are the chips now $20 each

32 chips at 4GH/chip and $50/ chip + 600 per 16 chip pcb is $2800 for 128GH/s

which probably returns investment if delivered by 10/1/13.

[YipYip]

100 days are not quite up.  First orders were on 6/10/13.  100 calendar days after that is 9/18/13.  However if BFL does not start requesting balance of payments on those early chip orders soon we can probably start to worry.

Look pardon my ignorance but whats the point ?

~30 chips  @ $57 to get 60-70 Giga = $1900 just for the chips without any other components

It will never make ROI unless u get it online TODAY

Or are the chips now $20 each

32 chips at 4GH/chip and $50/ chip + 600 per 16 chip pcb is $2800 for 128GH/s

which probably returns investment if delivered by 10/1/13.

At least it is not at the point of no return YET..lolz

[kosmokramer]

I have 100 chips that should be shipping soon (paid final balance) and would entertain any reasonable offers sent via PM. My fall is going to be busier than expected and I'm not sure I want to invest the required time that remains on this project. May be a great deal for someone wanting to get into mining.

[Bogart]

I have 100 chips that should be shipping soon (paid final balance) and would entertain any reasonable offers sent via PM. My fall is going to be busier than expected and I'm not sure I want to invest the required time that remains on this project. May be a great deal for someone wanting to get into mining.

What was your order date, if I may ask?