[ANN] Bitfury is looking for alpha-testers of first chips! FREE MONEY HERE!

[Gomeler]

I'm watching for updates on that too ... I hope they keep up that promise and do finally announce the pricing.
I really hope they won't ruin their so far pretty good reputation and take the Avalon/BFL route with everything happening "in two weeks"

I'm getting concerned about that... I've designed a product around prices that were announced months ago and then rescinded, and I've been waiting approaching two weeks for $800 worth of chips that are "sorry they're expensive but they ship immediately" to be shipped.   My whole model depends on chips being available early in October and near the price I expect.  Bitfury chips are great, and I'm thrilled with them so far from a technical standpoint, but there's not enough margin in them if anything goes pear shaped :/

Chips came today... they shipped when they said they would, it was just the radio silence that had me aflutter I guess...

"Do they have chips" was never the question. Dave mentioned that they have enough in stock that if I wanted a reel I could have it tomorrow.

The question is "price". October chips were initially announced and available at $20/chip. Then the bait was taken away. Now they're $108/chip. AND they keep promising to announce October pricing but so far such thing hasn't happened.

A classic "bait and switch". Very disappointing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch

Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts. First, customers are "baited" by merchants' advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the advertised goods are not available, or the customers are pressured by sales people to consider similar, but higher priced items ("switching").

I think it might be a bit early to consider it a bait and switch. They WERE offering October chips at acceptable prices. I suspect they either 1) sold out due to underestimating the demand or 2) chose to hold back sales to make sure they could satisfy their requirements for 100 TH Mine and other projects. Some information from Bitfury/Punin/Dave would go a long way towards easing fears of wasted effort.

[ssi]

"Do they have chips" was never the question. Dave mentioned that they have enough in stock that if I wanted a reel I could have it tomorrow.

No, that wasn't my concern... my concern was that I ordered these on 9/1, and part of the reasoning behind the absurd price of these chips was that you'd get them immediately.

[vs3]

"Do they have chips" was never the question. Dave mentioned that they have enough in stock that if I wanted a reel I could have it tomorrow.

No, that wasn't my concern... my concern was that I ordered these on 9/1, and part of the reasoning behind the absurd price of these chips was that you'd get them immediately.

Ah .. interesting ... so "immediately" turns out to be about 10 days?
On a second thought - that's probably normal and okay. There was a long weekend (9/2) in between, so there are 4-5 business days between then and today. Unless you ordered a "overnight" or "second day" shipping it would take on average 3-5 business days. If they shipped it on 9/3 and you received it yesterday - that's okay and perfectly within the expected time frame.

As for October availability Dave had mentioned earlier: "we'll have plenty of reels available starting early October". That's why I didn't consider "availability" as a concern.

[ssi]

"Do they have chips" was never the question. Dave mentioned that they have enough in stock that if I wanted a reel I could have it tomorrow.

No, that wasn't my concern... my concern was that I ordered these on 9/1, and part of the reasoning behind the absurd price of these chips was that you'd get them immediately.

Ah .. interesting ... so "immediately" turns out to be about 10 days?
On a second thought - that's probably normal and okay. There was a long weekend (9/2) in between, so there are 4-5 business days between then and today. Unless you ordered a "overnight" or "second day" shipping it would take on average 3-5 business days. If they shipped it on 9/3 and you received it yesterday - that's okay and perfectly within the expected time frame.

As for October availability Dave had mentioned earlier: "we'll have plenty of reels available starting early October". That's why I didn't consider "availability" as a concern.

They shipped it on 9/6.  five days is what it is, and I know they were busy over labor day weekend building and testing miners.

[vs3]

I'm watching for updates on that too ... I hope they keep up that promise and do finally announce the pricing.
I really hope they won't ruin their so far pretty good reputation and take the Avalon/BFL route with everything happening "in two weeks"

I'm getting concerned about that... I've designed a product around prices that were announced months ago and then rescinded, and I've been waiting approaching two weeks for $800 worth of chips that are "sorry they're expensive but they ship immediately" to be shipped.   My whole model depends on chips being available early in October and near the price I expect.  Bitfury chips are great, and I'm thrilled with them so far from a technical standpoint, but there's not enough margin in them if anything goes pear shaped :/

Chips came today... they shipped when they said they would, it was just the radio silence that had me aflutter I guess...

"Do they have chips" was never the question. Dave mentioned that they have enough in stock that if I wanted a reel I could have it tomorrow.

The question is "price". October chips were initially announced and available at $20/chip. Then the bait was taken away. Now they're $108/chip. AND they keep promising to announce October pricing but so far such thing hasn't happened.

A classic "bait and switch". Very disappointing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch

Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts. First, customers are "baited" by merchants' advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the advertised goods are not available, or the customers are pressured by sales people to consider similar, but higher priced items ("switching").

I think it might be a bit early to consider it a bait and switch. They WERE offering October chips at acceptable prices. I suspect they either 1) sold out due to underestimating the demand or 2) chose to hold back sales to make sure they could satisfy their requirements for 100 TH Mine and other projects. Some information from Bitfury/Punin/Dave would go a long way towards easing fears of wasted effort.

Well, to their credit I have to say that they've been pretty quick with answering questions so far and compared to Avalon/BFL nightmares are like a day and night. It is possible that there are frictions within their partnership (tytus/punin/buzzdave/bitfury) and/or conflicting interests and we're merely seeing the reflection of all that. I saw bitfury opening a dedicated thread asking for feedback on what would be a reasonable price for the chips. Zefir on the other hand is under the impression that official pricing won't be announced until the end of September.

So, there is a lot of conflicting information, and what the bitfury team is not doing right at the moment is to keep up the communication. It's been "only" two days after the weekend, but punin said they'll announce the pricing over the weekend and in terms of that promise - it failed. It didn't happen. And still hasn't happened.

My advice to the Bitfury team - When you set the expectations make sure that you meet them. You set them. You meet them. Setting our expectations is entirely within your hands. We will only expect what you promise.

I can still bear another week or so without chips pricing, but then I'm responsible to my customers for keeping up my promises.
And honestly - if you have bad news for us - then so be it. But at least please say so. I'd rather know the bad news right away than keep pulling my nerves in the dark. A bad news is not gonna get any less bad if delivered late too.

I really hope they resolve this issue rather sooner than later. I'd hate to see one of the better tems just turn into the next Avalon or BFL.

[Xian01]

So Bitfury, are you working on any new upcoming ASIC projects ? Curious about what you might be working on next.

Cheers.

[ssi]

Have a full 10 chip prototype board hashing now finally, plus five more on another board.  23.3GH on ten chips, 12.7GH on the other five.

[Bicknellski]

Have a full 10 chip prototype board hashing now finally, plus five more on another board.  23.3GH on ten chips, 12.7GH on the other five.

Gratz on the milestone!

[erk]

Have a full 10 chip prototype board hashing now finally, plus five more on another board.  23.3GH on ten chips, 12.7GH on the other five.

Whats the heat like?

[ssi]

Have a full 10 chip prototype board hashing now finally, plus five more on another board.  23.3GH on ten chips, 12.7GH on the other five.

Whats the heat like?

More than I'd like...  My proto boards are 20 square inch, and about 30W, and I'm seeing a 44C rise with a fan blowing on the bottom. 

The production boards are 35W, and only 8 square inches.   My biggest concern at this point is whether I'll get the heat out of them.

[RoadStress]

So Bitfury, are you working on any new upcoming ASIC projects ? Curious about what you might be working on next.

Cheers.

I would like to know that too, but i have a feeling that for now he will take a break and enjoy his ASIC chip. Remember that he put a lot of effort (~6 months) into developing this and he might take a well deserved vacation. I think it will take at least 1 year before he will start doing a 28nm chip.

[JLM]

Have a full 10 chip prototype board hashing now finally, plus five more on another board.  23.3GH on ten chips, 12.7GH on the other five.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRREAT!!!!!!!!!!

[Syke]

I would like to know that too, but i have a feeling that for now he will take a break and enjoy his ASIC chip. Remember that he put a lot of effort (~6 months) into developing this and he might take a well deserved vacation. I think it will take at least 1 year before he will start doing a 28nm chip.

I think the 55nm chip has a lot of life left in it. Network difficulty can go up 100x and power costs will still be acceptable. They just need to ramp up production to get costs down.

[punin]

Chips are up for sale in the shop. Delivery starts 20th of september.

[darkfriend77]

Chips are up for sale in the shop. Delivery starts 20th of september.

+ 1

... seems bitfurystrikesback is again on track ... for the comming big ben!!! ...

[itod]

Chips are up for sale in the shop. Delivery starts 20th of september.

Great! Anyone is organizing a decent group buy with 5-10% organizer fee and JohnK as escrow?

[ssi]

eep, $90k/reel is up 50% from the last reel pricing I knew of... that doesn't bode well for profitability.

[papamoi]

eep, $90k/reel is up 50% from the last reel pricing I knew of... that doesn't bode well for profitability.

just for your information,it s almost 30 times of the costs of one wafer a wafer could contain easily 3000/4000 chips

a very good profit margin i have to say

[giorgiomassa]

eep, $90k/reel is up 50% from the last reel pricing I knew of... that doesn't bode well for profitability.

just for your information,it s almost 30 times of the costs of one wafer a wafer could contain easily 3000/4000 chips

a very good profit margin i have to say

They aren't interested in selling chips at all, they've put a very high price (that changed at least 10 times as far as I know) and whatever doesn't get sold for that crazy price is assembled into units for their own mining farm.

[Dexter770221]

eep, $90k/reel is up 50% from the last reel pricing I knew of... that doesn't bode well for profitability.

just for your information,it s almost 30 times of the costs of one wafer a wafer could contain easily 3000/4000 chips

a very good profit margin i have to say

Few months ago Bitfury posted some numbers. I think it was 4400 chips from one wafer...